occupty conversations occupy conversations talking portraits cameron bishop video cameron bishop is an artist and academic at deakin university in melbourne. over the last 15 years he has exhibited artwork, collaboratively and individually, in australia and overseas. he has written a number of artist catalogue essays, book chapters and journal articles. in his art and writing he has explored notions of identity and its connection to place, including issues around exclusion. this has led to an interest in critical occupancies and the shifting role of the artist in rapidly changing cultural and technological circumstances. muchas personas muchas personas steven mcintyre video duration: 3m 28s format: hd, colour, sound steven mcintyre is an australian film-maker and academic. his work as director has been published by music labels mochilla, ninja tune, and stones throw, and exhibited at international film forums such as edinburgh film festival, thessalonika international, exploding cinema london, the tie international experimental cinema exposition, and the san francisco cinematheque. while resident in mexico, he contributed regularly to regional and national media art shows, and in 2010 a retrospective of his film, documentary, and music video work was presented at the bienal de video y cine contemporaneo, baja california. his most recent feature, a documentary on the life and career of dirk de bruyn, premiered at the 2014 melbourne international film festival. crying crying eugenia lim video duration: 10m54s format: hd, colour, sound eugenia lim is an australian artist who works across video, performance and installation to explore race, identity and representation with a critical but humourous eye. as an australian of chinese-singaporean heritage, lim is interested in cross-cultural mythologies how identity, nationalism and stereotypes are formed. often the central character in her videos and photographs, lim "performs identities". lim's work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the tate modern, goma, acmi, hun gallery ny, and fact liverpool. she has received a number of australia council for the arts grants and residencies, including a residency at the experimental television centre ny and exchange at the rhode island school of design (risd). in 2015, lim is working towards the publication of woman's work: a room of one's own, an artist book exploring contemporary feminism and architectures, and yellow peril, a new body of work exploring the impact of mining and immigration on the australian identity (bus projects, april 2015). in 2012-13, she co-directed the inaugural channels: the australian video art festival, and is also the founding editor of assemble papers, exploring small footprint living and creativity. persona poster5 (453x640) persona poster6 (606x640) persona poster 7 (490x640) i me mine i me mine: artistic self/artistic persona glenn d'cruz video duration: 1min 58sec format: hd, bw, sound glenn d'cruz is an academic, theatre maker and video artist. he teaches drama at deakin university, australia. he is the author of midnight's orphans: anglo-indians in post/colonial literature (peter lang, 2006) and the editor class act: melbourne workers theatre 1987-2007 (vulgar press, 2007). he has published widely in national and international journals in the areas of literary studies, performance studies and cultural studies. his recent creative work has been exhibited at the gertrude street gallery, melbourne, the walker street gallery, dandenong, and his work, the alterations of aj d'cruz: becoming a 'new australian' will be presented at the performing mobilities symposium as part of the performance studies international (psi) #21 fluid states series of global events. persona studies 2015, 1.1 thank you the launch of a journal is no small task, and this monumental effort was the work of many. we are very grateful for the support and assistance of the journal’s editorial board and international advisory board; the members of the persona cluster of the persona celebrity publics (pcp) research group; the national and international colleagues involved in the peerreview process, and the participants of the persona studies working papers syposium and exhibition hosted at deakin university in february 2015. it would also be amiss of us if we did not flag the particular contributions of pat scott and josipa crnic from the deakin university library, who worked closely with the editors to set up the online systems. their expertise in ojs, and their unflagging support and enthusiasm has been of tremendous value. we are grateful for the intellectual and financial support offered by pcp and thank the leadership team—sean redmond, toija cinque, glenn d’cruz, and kristen demitrious—for advocating on the project’s behalf. glenn d’cruz has been the linchpin to the creative portion of this issue: his efforts in curating the exhibition and co-ordinating the reproduction of that work here are very much appreciated. the business and busyness of hosting the symposium, setting up and managing this open-access journal, and editing this issue, has been, for us, deeply satisfying. thank you, all, for your help in making it so. we look forward to working with you again on the next issue. with gratitude, kim barbour, deakin university katja lee, simon fraser university p. david marshall, deakin university persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 i preface to issue 3 kim barb our m a n a g in g e d it o r , u n iv e r s i t y o f a d e l a id e in 2022, persona studies has shifted our publication strategy to allow for three issues per year, in consultation with our international advisory board and editorial board. issues 1 and 2 remain as they currently stand: themed issues published in the second and fourth quarters of each calendar year. in addition to these, and replacing the open submission section of the themed issue, we are adding issue 3. this issue will see articles and creative responses that are not aligned with a themed issue published on a rolling basis. the rolling issue will be led by a managing editor (in 2022, that is me), and the issue will grow across the year as more papers are added. we see several key benefits of this strategy: • authors will see their work published in a timely fashion, • focused editorial support for authors will be available to ensure the continued high standards of work published in the journal, • where disruption or necessary revisions mean that meeting the publication date of a themed issue is not possible, the work can be published as soon as completed, • there is reduced pressure to find large numbers of available peer reviewers at the same time, and • the journal can respond quickly to time sensitive issues. because papers are published across the calendar year, issue 3 is likely to be the first issue available each year. however, our boards agreed that using the ‘issue 3’ designation was the least problematic naming option. we look forward to seeing a diversity of scholarship published across the year in issue 3. kim barbour managing editor, university of adelaide persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 70 making room for post-authentic domesticity antonia her nánde z m c g i l l u n i v e r s i t y this creative response interrogates the persona that seems to inhabit sex webcam platforms, online services where people can stream and monetize amateur sexual performances (henry & farvid 2017; jones 2020). if the perception of authenticity has been a crucial feature of camming since its inception (senft 2008), this impression is no longer conveyed only through amateur signifiers (hernández 2019). domesticity on the sexcam platform oscillates between two poles. one of them is incarnated by the professional webcam studio, where uninhabited rooms are presented as private yet generic spaces (korody 2019). the other pole is the personal space, staged for its transmission through the platform. decorative trends and habits crossover between these extremes, creating a new type of domesticity with no other purpose than the sexual spectacle. the product of this mutual influence is referred to as ‘post-authentic domesticity’ in this article. drawing upon literary studies, post-authenticity implies a fiction that engages with an ‘authentic’ referent but does not aim to replicate it (gefter wondrich 2020). as such, domesticity in the sexcam platform is both a second-hand reference and a space where its online persona unfolds. the exploration of this post-authentic domesticity is conveyed by means of a website that replicates some of the graphic conventions of sexcam performers’ profiles. the website is divided into different pages that address distinct aspects in the form of short poems. the images accompanying the texts, created by the author, were made using ascii characters and they reference empty webcam rooms observed in the sexcam platform chaturbate during 2022. the abstract character of the images aims to emphasize the role of the audience in the construction of online intimacy and meaning. works cited gefter wondrich, r 2020, ‘biofictional author figures and post-authentic truths’, in ml kohlke and c gutleben (eds) neo-victorian biofiction: reimagining nineteenth-century historical subjects, brill, rodopi, pp. 103–133, <https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004434356.> henry, mv & farvid, p 2017, ‘“always hot, always live”: computer-mediated sex work in the era of’camming’, women’s studies journal, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 113-128. hernandez, a 2019, ‘“there’s something compelling about real life”: technologies of security and acceleration on chaturbate’, social media + society, vol. 5, no. 4, <https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119894000.> jones, a 2020, camming: money, power, and pleasure in the sex work industry. nyu press. korody, n 2019, intimate distance: the technosexual architecture of camming architecture, eflux, retrieved 9 february 2022, <https://www.eflux.com/architecture/positions/280819/intimate-distance-the-technosexualarchitecture-of-camming/> senft, tm 2008, camgirls: celebrity and community in the age of social networks, peter lang, new york. making room for post-authentic domesticity antonia hernández mcgill university works cited persona studies 2015, 1 (1) section introduction when are you most like your self? glen n d’cr uz what is the ‘self’? is it a category of identity, a state of being, an object of contemplation? is the self another name for soul, psyche, spirit, mind or body? and what gives us our ‘sense of self’? dna? ideology? god? these vexed questions continue to occupy the minds of scholars and artists in a variety of disciplines and creative practices, for the ‘self’ is a key term of distinction — one that confers us with a unique sense of identity. the terms ‘persona’ and ‘self’ are enmeshed; they are mutually constitutive since the presentation of a public self or persona necessarily implies a private self, or, at the very least, something that is concealed by the construction of a persona. if the term ‘persona’ refers to some kind of social mask or performance, what lies beneath the mask? what entity controls or directs the presentation of public personae? whether we accept or reject the existence of a core, or essential self, we are compelled to act as though we possess a sense of self even if this self is persistently under siege. today, more than ever, most people find themselves living part-time lives in part-time worlds, each with their own particular regulations and expectations. in other words, we perform multiple roles — parent, worker, lover, mentor, friend, hobbyist — and adopt a series of personae to cope with the varying demands of each social performance. but how do we prioritize different roles when they clash? does the role of parent trump the role of worker? is there some ‘core’ self that negotiates the demands of different roles and personae? can we accept our multiple identities or do we feel we can only be one identity at any one time? more importantly, is it possible to make a distinction between role identities, social personae and authentic self? this exhibition investigates whether there are places and activities that people consider more private, and more authentic than others. it also seeks to discover how people actually talk about their ‘authentic’ selves without recourse to academic theorization or speculation. the simple question, ‘when do you feel most like yourself?’ acted as a prompt for the artists appearing in this exhibition to produce works connected to the themes outlined above. the pieces on display cover as wide range of mediums, and explore a multiplicity of themes that are perhaps best captured in the compound words that contain the term ‘self’ self-worth, self-indulgence, self-esteem, self-hatred, self-accomplishment, selfdiscovery, self-obsession, self-pity, self-service, self-knowledge it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a meaningful distinction between private and public life. indeed, the blurring of this divide is a key feature of contemporary society, and one that produces profound political consequences. as preparation for my own contribution to this exhibition, i posed the question, ‘when do you feel most like yourself’ to my family and friends. while i received a wide range of responses to this question, i detected certain commonalities in the answers proffered by my subjects. first, very few people questioned the 1 d’cruz category of ‘the self’ — it is clear that most people felt ‘the self’ to be ‘self-evident’. second, they associated the self with authenticity and liberation, responding that they felt most like themselves when free from the constraints of public life. many people i spoke to claimed to be most like themselves at home in the company of trusted family and friends. it seems people are only too aware of the need to adopt some kind of public persona at work; however, some expressed a great deal of anxiety within the home because they feel compelled to adopt a persona in order to keep the peace with those closest to themselves. so, the people i spoke to generally experience the requirement to adopt different personae, in both private and public life, as a form of performance anxiety, and therefore take refuge in what the sociologist erving goffman called ‘back stage’ areas (goffman 126) — that is, those sites where we don’t feel the inquiring, critical gaze of an audience. one respondent, a close friend, said he felt most like himself when he was in my company because he didn’t have to perform a ‘politically correct’ version of himself to his wife and kids. i didn’t know whether to feel flattered or appalled. another friend, a confirmed contrarian, responded that he felt like a different person with each person he encounters since each person brings out different aspects of his personality. we hope that these works give you pause for thought, and generate debate and discussion about the relationships between selves and personae. 2 glenn d’cruz <a class="twitter-timeline" href="https://twitter.com/iknowthesewords" data-widget-id="729496134578634753">tweets by @iknowthesewords</a> <script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getelementsbytagname(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getelementbyid(id)){js=d.createelement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentnode.insertbefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");</script> creator’s discussion of the growing focus on, and potential of, storytelling in video game design youtube aboutpresscopyrightcontact uscreatorsadvertisedeveloperstermsprivacypolicy & safetyhow youtube workstest new features© 2022 google llc persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 1 mapping persona and games chr istopher moore u n iv e r s i t y o f w o l l o n g o n g introduction for those new to games studies, the most important primer is the recognition that, as a field of research, it is at its most revealing when in conversation with perspectives from other fields and domains of inquiry. espen aarseth (2001) announced that the first issue of game studies, the international journal of computer game research, marked the commencement of computer game studies. aarseth's editorial launched the trajectory for the following two decades of game research, obscuring much of the previous work examining digital and analogue games that had contributed to the tipping point at which the fields' coalescence could become a reality. emerging from media studies, sociology, and a particular tradition of textual analysis in cinema and literature studies, games studies has since had a reputation for being the latest kid on the block. like persona studies, game studies features key moments in which intersections between it and other fields and their theoretical and analytical perspectives prove enlightening, enriching, and even entertaining. a good example of game studies' lively intersections is the legendarily overinflated idea of the debate between two schools of thought regarding how game studies should advance. on the one hand, are the ludologists, who emphasise attention to the role of game mechanics and rules. on the other are the narratologists, who focus on the way games tell stories using narrative theory. gonzalo frasca (2003) rather famously both debunked and reinforced the idea of the schism in his conference presentation "ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place", helping to cement the idea that these two directions are somehow separate. similarly, another infamous intersection in games studies emerged from katie salen and eric zimmerman's (2004) almost offhand use of the term 'magic circle', which was taken from the often-quoted passage of dutch historian johan huizinga's homo ludens (playful human) (1970 [1938]), which explores the theory that play is a necessary condition of the generation of culture. the popularity of games as a 'magic circle' helped perpetuate the misconception that games are somehow magically apart from everyday life and reality (pargman and jakobsson 2008; moore 2011). perhaps most notoriously, is the intersection between game studies and psychology and the decades of research that have failed to show conclusive evidence about perceived links between video games and aggression in adolescents, despite some research purporting to reveal minor correlations between the two (shao and wang 2019). contemporary game studies is filled with a vibrant array of voices and contributions that intersect productively with progressive social justice concerns, including attention to race (ta 2014), gender (dahya et al. 2017), and sexuality (ruberg & shaw 2017), but the field has also gained much from its self-awareness and interrogation of its more problematic directions and its ongoing work in correcting commonly held misapprehensions about games and the ways they are produced and enjoyed. misconceptions also abound for those new to persona studies, which draws on diverse multidisciplinary contributions ranging from sociology and psychology to symbolic interactionism to performance studies and the broader traditions of cultural studies and media studies. more acutely, persona studies emerged from the theoretical and analytical research trajectories of celebrity studies (marshall and barbour 2015) and fan studies (moore moore 2 2020). the work published in this journal also features connections to legal studies, politics, and history, and in the future, seeks to make greater connections to the social sciences, linguistics and languages, science, engineering and technology studies, among many other disciplines, in order to expand its interdisciplinary goals. we continue to strive against the idea that a persona is equivalent to a brand and that persona is a function of being human. it remains our task to seek an understanding of the ways animals, machines, objects, locations, and other non-humans may be able to possess a degree of agency to which they can be said to enact a persona. the ‘diversifying persona studies’ online international conference to be held in july 2021 and the corresponding special issue of the journal will be an important time for the field and its contributors to explore these directions and possibilities further. at its most direct, a persona is a negotiation between the individual and the collective (marshal et al. 2020). this definition aims not to be vague but inclusive, as both the individual and the collective can include a range of performances, processes, platforms, and things. persona studies is certainly interested in various identity theories, but it is not limited by them. rather it seeks to examine the networks of relations involved in the presentation of the public self in the contemporary moment. however, the 'self' concept is usually restricted to individual personhood, which conflicts with the way contributors to this journal have explored what persona means and what its broader relevance is. this issue is a good example of how the intersection between two relatively new domains of inquiry helps to complicate the notions of persona and the 'self', as well as the collective, beyond simple anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism. this could be expanded in future with attention to the way game studies has considered the degree to which form inspires function, beginning with montford and bogost’s (2009) contribution to the platform studies series that examines the way computing systems enable and constrain creative expression. another untapped direction in games studies that has implications for persona studies, is the focus on embodiment, especially keogh’s (2018) approach that explores the connections between the hardware and software of both computers and human bodies. games studies’ previous proximity to persona studies is perhaps most closely reflected in work contributing to the analysis of avatars. the works of thomas apperley and justin clemens (2016, 2017) and their research with others (de wildt et al. 2019, albarrán-torres & apperley 2019) provides a foundation to understand the similarity and difference in the two approaches. where the avatar defines the players' experience of a game world (apperley & clemens 2016, p. 114), the player's persona exists as an expression of agency as to how the player (and game designer) uses avatars to represent themselves both in games and outside of them, whether through multiplayer games, role-playing games, or as a game fan via social media (see moore 2014). just as the avatar functions to shape and modify human behaviour inside the game world (apperley & clemens 2017, p. 52), the algorithmic and participatory nature of social media platforms similarly both afford and constrain the expression of persona online. furthermore, van ryn, apperley and clemens’ (2018) study of avatar economics highlights the cross over between attention to avatars and what is described as the 'affective turn' in the humanities, drawing on the work of scholars like deleuze and guatarri and brian massumi to explore the relations between game design and player investment and innervation (see also moore 2010; 2011; 2012). this issue brings together several key trajectories of games studies and persona studies by mapping some of the connections and distinctions these research fields offer. games provide a broad range of opportunities to examine how persona formations occur both within entertainment and leisure experiences and within the broader industry that produces and supports them. the study of games and persona is an opportunity to recognise and promote persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 3 interest in the wider 'play' of game-related personas performed by game designers, fans, and content creators, beyond simple stereotypes associated with player types and identity formations. in the following articles, we hope to stimulate conversations, challenge assumptions, and promote future research trajectories. role-playing games present an interesting challenge and opportunity to expand the understanding of persona, which is evident in burgess and jones's survey of fans of the ps4 exclusive, horizon zero dawn. developed by guerrilla games and published by sony for their console in 2017, the action-adventure rpg title is distinctive for its female protagonist. however, in examining player's responses to and investment in both player characters (pcs) and non-play characters (npcs), burgess and jones reveal previously unrecognised dynamics of character and story design that contribute significantly to overcoming industry misconceptions and concerns about the success of games that feature women as the protagonist. it is important to remember that while all brands are a type of persona, not all personas are brands. tomkinson and elliot complicate this in a critical examination of a brand that contributes to what they call the 'contemporary gamer persona'. the authors investigate the assemblage of the 'g fuel' energy drink brand and its associated persona that emerges from the complex arrangement of relations with high profile 'gamer' personas, including pewdiepie, the faze clan, keemstar, and noisybutters. the article opens up new questions about the relationships between the performativity, prestige, and values connected to the professional and creative lives of specific game-focused persona performances. in 'playable personas: using games and play to expand the repertoire of learner', cole, maragliano, and werning expand the range of persona studies with a set of three case studies that analyse connections between persona, pedagogy, and play. the article explores three examples of 'learner personas' across diverse and revealing situations in which games and the making of games connect learning outcomes to performance, a key dimension of persona, which the authors consider through the lens of embodiment. building on werning's previous contribution to understanding the developer persona in autobiographical games, this article is a new landmark for persona studies. it recognises several important challenges for thinking about play in learning within a persona-focussed paradigm to focus on the learner and what they gain from the play experience. francesco toniolo provides us with three new cartographic points to aid in mapping persona and games with a triptych of youtube persona formations emerging from content production connected to the indie survival horror games. toniolo explores the close and reciprocal relationship between prominent youtubers and their highly affective performances. the article examines the genre of games that rapidly evolved due to the attention that content creators helped generate. the article first considers the rise of 'let's play' content on the youtube platform before diving into the history of animated fanvids that remix characters from within the indie survival horror game genre and the related youtuber content. finally, toniolo connects the survival horror play experience to content provided by a more opaque youtuber persona who shares disturbing, off-putting, and 'creepy' contemporary folklore through text, images, audio and video formats known as 'creepypasta'. nathan jackson's 'understanding memetic media and collective identity through streamer persona on twitch.tv' contributes to mapping streamer personas as a form of contemporary content creator whose success is intimately tied to the degree to which their audience participates in the production of content. jackson builds on the definition of persona mentioned above with the concept of 'memesis' to understand the negotiation and agency exhibited between the streamer persona and their collective audiences. the article explores two moore 4 cases with attention to the way memes are created, deployed, emerge, and evolve during game streaming. the result is an important contribution in the way games and persona specifically reflect broader practices emerging within internet culture. as previously mentioned, werning's understanding of autobiographical games and their developers' persona contributed to foundational ideas in persona studies. building on werning's approach, thryn henderson provides a new theoretical framework for examining the player's relationship to the developer of an autobiographical game and the process of meaningmaking from the play experience. henderson proposes and tests three perspectives of an author-player persona which he describes as a shared presence in autobiographical game spaces. in a close reading of alex camilleri's game memoir en code: reissue, henderson reveals the difference in meaning-making between three' player positions' when viewed through the protagonist, protagonist-proxy, and the witness perspectives. in the final contribution to this edition, chris comerford presents new research into the ways games fill crucial voids in our everyday lives during times of crisis. comerford shares insights into the types of gaming personas that players reported performing through the initial covid-19 pandemic lockdown of 2020 by embracing the life-simulator game animal crossing: new horizons. comerford's survey results help us understand the modes in which players integrate game roles into the public presentation of themselves both in the game and via social media as game fans. this article serves as an important reminder of the benefits of routine gameplay experiences conducive to personal and social stability when otherwise ordinary life becomes disrupted. this issue represents a remarkable achievement for persona studies and its contributors, demonstrating its truly multiand inter-disciplinary potential and effectiveness. it offers a series of key innovations for game studies and clearly reveals the potential of the theory and methodological tools that persona studies offer as an intersectional research trajectory. the issue comes at an important stage for persona studies as we look to the future in 2021, both in the immediate but also longer-term direction that will be interrogated as part of the upcoming international persona studies conference. we invite you to review the cfp on the journal website and imagine how you might contribute to the field as we seek to ensure that persona studies is a space for new voices, especially emerging academics, and an area of study that promotes change, diversity, and inclusive scholarship. acknowledgments this issue of the journal would not be possible without the amazing work of my co-editor, katja lee, whose diligent professionalism and commitment to quality is as inspiring as it is inexhaustible. thank you for your time and hard work in bringing this ambitious issue in to being. works cited aarseth, a 2001, ‘computer game studies, year one’, games studies, vol.1, no.1, np. retrieved 3 march 2021, http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/editorial.html albarrán-torres, c & apperley, t 2019, ‘poker avatars: affective investment and everyday gambling platforms’, media international australia, vol.172, no.1, pp. 103–113, doi: 10.1177/1329878x18805088. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 5 apperley, t & clemens, j 2016, ‘the biopolitics of gaming: avatar-player self-reflexivity in assassin’s creed i, the play versus story divide in game studies: critical essays, m. w. kapell ed. mcfarland & copp. jefferson, pp. 110–124. —2017. ‘flipping out: avatars and identity’, boundaries of self and reality online: implications of digitally constructed realities (jake gackenback, and jonathan bown eds. academic press, london. de wildt, l apperley, t clemens, j fordyce, r & mukherjee, s 2019, ‘(re-)orienting the video game avatar’, games and culture, vol. 15, no. 8, pp. 1-19, doi: 10.1177/1555412019858890 dahya, n jenson, j & fong k 2017, “(en)gendering videogame development: a feminist approach to gender, education, and game studies”, review of education, pedagogy, and cultural studies, vol. 39 no. 4, pp. 367-390, doi: 10.1080/10714413.2017.1344508 frasca, g 2003, ‘ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place’, proceedings of the 2003 digra international conference: level up, retrieved 3 march 2021, http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/ludologists-love-stories-toonotes-from-a-debate-that-never-took-place/ huizinga, h 1970 [1938], homo ludens: a study of the play element in culture. temple smith, london. keogh, b 2018. a play of bodies how we perceive videogames, mit press. london. marshall, p. d, moore, c & barbour, k 2020, persona studies: an introduction. john wiley and sons, hoboken, nj. marshall, p. d & barbour k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective’, persona studies vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–12, https://doi.org/10.21153/ps2015vol1no1art464. montford, n & bogost, i 2009. racing the beam: the atari video computer system, mit press, london. moore, c 2010, ‘hats of affect: a study of affect, achievements and hats in team fortress 2’, game studies, vol. 11, no. 1. retrieved 3 march 2021 http://gamestudies.org/1101/articles/moore —2011, the magic circle and the mobility of play. convergence: the international journal of research into new media technologies 17(4) 373–387 doi: 10.1177/1354856511414350 —2012, ‘invigorating play: the role of affect in online multiplayer fps game’, in guns, grenades, and grunts first-person shooter games, edited by gerald a. voorhees, josh call, katie whitlock, continuum, london. —2014, ‘screenshots as virtual photography, digital media objects and the production of online persona’, repurposing the digital humanities: research, methods, theories, katherine bode and paul arthur eds., continuum: london —2020, ‘an approach to online fan persona’, transformative works and culture, vol 33. doi: https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2020.1703 moore 6 pargman d & jakobsson p 2008, ‘do you believe in magic? computer games in everyday life’, european journal of cultural studies, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 225–244. ruberg, b & shaw, a 2017, queer game studies, university of minnesota press: minnesota. van ryn, l, apperley, t & clemens, j 2018, ‘avatar economies: affective investment from game to platform’, new review of hypermedia and multimedia, vol. 24, no.4, pp. 291–306 doi: 10.1080/13614568.2019.1572790 salen k & zimmerman e 2004, rules of play game design fundamentals. mit press. london. shao, r & wang, y 2019, the relation of violent video games to adolescent aggression: an examination of moderated mediation effect.” frontiers in psychology, retrieved 3 march 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00384. ta, d 2014, cultivating virtual stereotypes?: the impact of video game play on racial/ethnic stereotypes, the howard journal of communications, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 1-15. christopher moore university of wollongong introduction acknowledgments works cited persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 1 2021 online conference: diversifying persona studies online international conference and special issue kim bar bour u n i v e r s i t y o f a d e l a i d e , kat ja lee u n i v e r s i t y o f w e s t e r n a u s t r a l i a and ch rist oph er moore u n i v e r s i t y o f w o l l o n g o n g introduction the online conference does not and cannot replicate the flow and feel of a face-to-face experience; instead, it offers something new. we saw the timing and the mode of the conference as a chance to ask hard questions about the ground that persona studies has carved as an emerging field of study. we wanted to ensure that persona studies is a space for new voices and new directions of inquiry, and to provide a conference space that is entirely built around inclusive scholarship. the purpose of framing the conference as diversifying persona studies was to expand the scope and reach of our ambition, invite new possibilities, to challenge the conceptualisations of the field, and to challenge ourselves to release a sense of ownership and control over what persona studies could be. we have always strived to make persona studies as a welcoming and inclusive scholarly exercise, but the risk of groupthink and boundary policing is ever-present, and the conference theme was intended to challenge this. to this end, we were pleased to get submissions both from new scholars, including postgraduate students and researchers who hadn’t engaged with the journal previously, and from researchers whose work had previously made substantial contributions to the journal as authors and peer reviewers. we were excited to see new methodological and theoretical approaches being explored, and to see questions being raised about the value and potential of existing work. it is through the inclusion of new ideas, new perspectives, and a diversity of both scholarship and scholars that persona studies will thrive. while the impact of the covid-19 pandemic drove our decision to run the conference as an online event, this format facilitated involvement from scholars in europe, the united kingdom, the middle east, south africa, and north and south america as well as in australia. the decision to run the papers as pre-recorded sessions complimented by longer-format joint discussions, we felt, was really successful. the hope going into the webinars was that we could have the opportunity to explore overlapping areas and facilitate a lively discussion of our field, and this was absolutely the case. the four panel discussions were rich, engaging, and inspiring, and we were so grateful for everyone making the effort to participate despite challenges due to time zones and pandemic-related restrictions. barbour, lee & moore 2 the conference keynote address it was exciting that the keynote lecture, presented by professor amanda du preez, university of pretoria, matched our ambitions, dramatically extending the boundaries of persona studies beyond the planetary with her engaging discussion of the astronaut’s persona. professor du preez’s exploration of ‘how to astronaut’ offers a range of definitions and conceptualisations of persona for our consideration. du preez’s work suggests that filmic representations of astronauts are a symptom of our relationship with earth, and argues that an astronaut is an agent that “performs or reveals perceptions about human mobility and displacement in the anthropocene” (2021). drawing on art history, cinema, and the history of space exploration, du preez considers the astronaut as the ultimate hero, displaced yet brave in the face of adversity. this presentation can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/a5xmiz0kyxu personas on social media the opening webinar discussion for the conference was personas on social media, hosted by kim barbour on 16 july 2021, featuring jessica hodgkiss, christopher moore, travis holland, michael humphrey, and saira ali discussing their research into persona performances in online spaces from youtube to instagram to the nasa website. the conversation ranged from the labour involved in persona performances to the impact of platforms affordances on our capacity to build interactions between people. the playlist is available here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgted0f-clcq-rxfkyb5p_xyft personas in embodied space the second webinar, also hosted by kim barbour, explored the theme of personas in embodied space, was held 23 july 2021. the participants were building from presentations exploring activists, pop stars, and aggregated data personas, and the discussion ranged from considering the role of harry styles’ clothes and miley cyrus’ album bangerz, to the impact of consumer data and bias in the production of design personas, and the memorialisation of murdered brazilian activist marielle franco. leonard cortana, janey umback, danielle feldman karr, lisa du bois low, steve holmes, adriana amaral, and tatyane larrubia explored ideas of race, gender, and representation in considering the intersections in their diverse engagements with persona studies. the presentations and webinar are available here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgtedtbggec4rmhsbn_m1y_91t personas on the page our third webinar, personas on the page, explored innovations in persona production and performance in written mediums and our conversation focused a great deal on the contexts of writing that inspire authors to devise alternative, multiple, or experimental approaches to their own identity performances. joining moderator, katja lee, on 30 july 2021, romy roomans, megan nolan, steffen moestrup, christine isager, and anya shchetvina unpacked the various ways that persona performances adjust or adapt to tension, conflict, or new contexts in order to, for journalists, ‘get the job done’; update an existing tradition to respond to new media environments; or articulate a space for queer, trans, and racialized experiences and intellectual traditions. a key concept that emerged from this discussion was the idea of a multiplicity of https://youtu.be/a5xmiz0kyxu https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgted0f-clcq-rxfkyb5p_xyft https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgtedtbggec4rmhsbn_m1y_91t persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 3 personas that can be accessed, like “flipping” through a “back catalogue” of previous persona performances1. the playlist that inspired this webinar discussion can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgtefwmaaseirgrzhnmsshwzns personas across media the fourth webinar, personas across media, featured bethany usher, marie bennett, tessa vannieuwenhuyze, aidan moir, and robert boucaut. this panel provided a clear response to the challenge of diversifying persona studies through an eclectic but connected set of ideas and two key themes. the first theme was a clear commitment to the embeddedness of persona research as a core methodological feature. embeddedness requires attention to the researchers’ personal cultural experience as well as the specificities of the broader culture and times of the people, objects, and places whose personas are under investigation. this theme overlapped with the second that drew a renewed attention to the collective dimension of persona. it is because of the various histories of identity theories, and approaches to celebrities and public figures that inform much of what has been achieved in persona studies, that the collective dimension of persona is often under-appreciated. of particular interest to us in that conversation was the notion that persona identities are neither individual nor collective, (nor purely human or nonhuman), but a complex and ongoing negotiation between these factors. the conversations in the webinar highlighted attention to both themes in ways that suggested a dynamic range of future trajectories for the field. the playlist for these papers can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgteekl2hi08ely_yd7ktlhwlv archive update in addition to the keynote and four panels, the persona studies youtube channel introduced one additional playlist: archive update. in archive update scholars who had previously published scholarly or creative work in the journal were invited to reflect upon their work and any developments in that research that may have since transpired. these brief presentations made salient connections between past work on gaming, politics, work, bio-metrics, and instagram and ongoing developments in the field, and showcased how persona research is changing, evolving, and always laying foundations for future work. we hope to make the archive update playlist an evolving space, as contributors reflect on the development of their work in the field. if you are interested in contributing to archive update, please contact the journal via our email address. you can access this playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgtee1tugfswwid8rtllpohxxp the future of persona studies inspired and guided by the lively conversations at the conference, the managing editors at persona studies identified several key thematic concepts to develop in future special issues. in 2022, katja lee will be leading life writing & persona, a special issue investigating the ways in which personas are produced, managed, used, and disseminated in the contexts of life writing. taking “life writing” here in the very broadest of senses to include a range of forms and genres of representation/self-(re)presentation, this issue will explore the productive sites of overlap in how life writing studies and persona studies theorize performativity, authenticity, strategy, https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgtefwmaaseirgrzhnmsshwzns https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgteekl2hi08ely_yd7ktlhwlv https://youtube.com/playlist?list=plyh6uksxgtee1tugfswwid8rtllpohxxp barbour, lee & moore 4 agency, and reputation, but also use this as an opportunity to stretch both fields in new directions. submissions for this issue are now closed. later in 2022, kim barbour and michael humphrey will be co-editing a special issue on persona & domesticity. this issue will explicitly shift focus from the public to the domestic sphere, and consider the role of persona performances in everyday life and interpersonal relationships. further details about this issue, including deadlines for abstracts and expressions of interest will be available on the journal website early in 2022. additional special issues on emotion, the face, journalism, and niche creators will be forthcoming in 2023 and 2024. individuals interested in partnering with our managing editors on these special issues, or developing and leading their own themed issue on a different topic are encouraged to inquire via the journal’s email address. abstracts, full manuscripts, and creative practice submissions on topics not related to these special issues are always welcome and continue to be accepted at the journal on a rolling basis as outlined on the journal’s website. in this issue in this issue we are delighted to present seven full-length versions of work presented at the diversifying persona studies conference. in “‘oscar’: an institutional and contested persona reading of the academy awards”, robert boucaut argues that the academy awards have, over the years, cultivated a contested, non-human, and institutional persona in the figure of ‘oscar’. a “composite” persona with distinctively human elements, oscar is a taste-maker, a community leader, and hollywood man yet the collective construction and expression of these performances challenges the notion that persona production and performance, particularly for institutions, requires a central authority. hannah arendt’s conceptualisations of the public/private divide have long informed persona studies theory but, as michael humphrey convincingly argues, how we use her work can have the effect of obscuring the fact that the affordances of persona are not evenly distributed. analysing how a black mother relaunches her youtube family vlog after divorce, “the social oikos: examining arendt’s concept of the public-private divide through the lens of a youtube vlog”, asks us to reconsider how personas are formed in unjust cultures and reflect upon the unequal burdens, limitations, and potentials of the masks of persona work. in “a commonwealth princess? the instrumentalisation of meghan markle’s race to construct her royal persona”, jessica carniel also reflects upon the persona work of racialised american women. arguing that meghan markle’s biracial identity was mobilised to create a royal persona that could serve the interests of the monarchy, this paper situates markle as both an insider and outsider of the royal family during her tenure as a working royal. as a biracial, american divorcee markle represented both an opportunity and a challenge to the royal brand, but the biracial “commonwealth princess” persona was fraught with problems and deeply embedded in maintaining the established british social order of monarchy and colonialism. joni salminen, soon-gyo jung, and bernard j. jansen also explore the potential harmful effects of persona but from the perspective of data-scientists creating and implementing datadriven personas. in “data-driven personas considered harmful? diversifying user understandings with more than algorithms”, the authors detail some of the significant problems with the production and application of data-driven personas as well as some of the unrealistic expectations they can engender. as organisations continue to betray a keen and ongoing interest in using data-driven personas, illuminating their many problems and flaws is a crucial and timely project. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 5 the poet persona, meghan p. nolan outlines in “the involuntary masks of the poet: examining the evolution of the poet persona through p. d. james’s adam dalgliesh” has a long and storied history. in the character of dalgliesh, nolan traces those aspects of the poet persona which have withstood the test of time but, it is through his roles as professional detective and celebrated poet, that he comes to exemplify the persona and condition of the modern poet. also keenly interested in the construction of poet personas, “portrayal by inappropriate interaction: persona meets persona in journalistic profiling” by christine isager and steffen moestrup, examines how journalists attempting to interview and profile danish-palestinain poet yahya hassan become engaged in a “mutual performative challenge”. the mutual constitution and reconstitution of personas that occurs during these “rhetorical maneuverings” can serve particularly useful, aesthetic, and even ethical functions and can provide journalists with a productive and disruptive means to pursue their craft. in the final article, we come full circle and return to the pressing question of how to make sense of non-human personas that are collectively constructed. in “‘my battery is low and it’s getting dark’: the opportunity rover’s collective persona”, travis holland explores the construction of a persona for opportunity, the nasa mars exploration rover, during the collective outpouring of grief by the general public when the rover was declared no longer operational or, it seemed, ‘dead’. looking at a sample of the 30,000+ digital postcards written to or in honour of ‘oppy,’ holland suggests that this persona-building may be messy, contested, and decentralised, but nevertheless represents a “collective achievement.” thank you to all conference participants and attendees who made this online event so rewarding, as well as to caitlin adams for her technical assistance during the webinars. kim, katja, and chris end notes 1 at the request of presenters, the ‘personas on the page’ webinar discussion is not available to view. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 1 domesticity and persona kim barb our u n iv e r s it y o f a d e l a id e a nd michae l humphrey c o l o r a d o s t a t e u n i v e r s i t y because personas are performances of identity, strategically enacted for an immediate or imagined audience, the study of personas to date has concentrated on the public realm of life. professional personas enacted in workplaces have taken up much attention, whether for artists, comedians, scientists, actors, musicians, or politicians. similarly (and often overlapping the professional persona), the performance of self online that is constituted in and through social media has proven a generative space for research. mediatised personas generally open up a space for understanding persona performances, while the non-human, the institutional, the collectively constituted persona come as a logical extension of the theorisation of persona as strategic identity display. the focus on the public and the professional, the online and the mediated, has become naturalised within the field. the five dimensions of persona (moore et al. 2017) provide scholars with a starting point to explore these ideas, but does point us away from the private realm. when we attended to ideas of domesticity in 2016, the emphasis was less on the domestic persona itself than on consideration of the ways that more public forums such as social media sites were being domesticated by the inclusion of the personal: “the messy bedroom via youtube, the untidy kitchen via instagram, the unkempt backyard via facebook, the uncleaned toilet via 4chan, the dirty laundry via wordpress” (moore & barbour 2016, pp 12). this raises some interesting questions. are we discomforted with the idea that the persona we enact in our homes could be analysed as strategic? are we unwilling to turn a critical eye onto our own and others interactions within close relationships with the aim of digging into the performance of self through those interactions? in shifting from the public to the private, from the professional to the domestic, what opportunities are available to us to consider the role of race, or gender, or class, or disability? finally, does engagement with the goffmanian backstage feel too much like psychology, psychiatry, or psychoanalysis for those who work in this space (many of whom have media, cultural studies, literature, or communications backgrounds) to explore? in constituting this issue of persona studies, we take a step towards the private persona by considering the role of the domestic. domesticity, argue heynen and baydar (2005, p. 7) “is a construction of the nineteenth century”, when dwellings became increasingly closed off and limited to family units, and the division between work and home lives was matched by a division between men and women. the masculine sphere of labour happened in public, while the feminine sphere of the domestic happened in private. if one extends this formulation into arendt’s concept of appearance, only on the opposite of the domestic space, the polis, is a human able to become the subject of recognition and remembrance, “wherever men are together in the manner of speech and action” (arendt 1958, pp. 198–9). the private sphere, the oikos, is a space for mere survival and personal proclivities, not a space to develop political agency. kennedy et al. (2020, p. 1) clarify that the domestic “is clearly concerned with ways of living, with dwellings, with families and housemates, and with how people live in their homes”, and that these concerns extend to include the accumulation of material possessions and devices that fill those dwellings. barbour and humphrey 2 domestic spaces the curation of home spaces provides an opportunity to write tastes, beliefs, and values onto the lived environment. the domestic environment can work as an extension of the self, collectively constituted in shared dwellings. for families, domestic spaces give a history of interpersonal relationships through objects and marks, colours and smells, presences and absences. domestic spaces can also be shared outside of family relationships, feeling eclectic or sterile, while similarly illustrating the hegemonic structure of the dwelling. a lack of space, of furnishings, of expression of individuality could indicate a choice to embrace minimalism or visibilise material insecurity – a tiny home and a caravan can function similarly from a practical perspective, but are worlds apart in what meanings they convey about their occupants. the where of the domestic space give us hints of who people are and what they value regardless of whether we ever see beyond the dwelling’s façade; the real estate agents invocation of ‘location, location, location’ rings true. but if the industrial revolution shifted ‘work’ out of the home and firmly into the public realm (while minimising, feminising, and ultimately disregarding the labour of maintaining the domestic realm), our present age has seen a return of the home as a hybrid place for both private life and work. part of this return is the result of shifting understandings of gender roles and the distribution of labour in families. as women entered the public realm via the workplace in roles and numbers too large to disregard, they have collectively continued bearing a disproportionate share of domestic labour (baxter 2015; ervin et al. 2022; raday 2019; sales et al. 2021). while this research indicates that the situation is not changing with any great speed, the discrepancy is at least being actively discussed and acknowledged as a problem. domestic work, including when it is unpaid, is now more frequently acknowledged as labour. after all, it contributes to our social functioning, to the economy through the purchase of goods and services, and to our health and wellbeing. the acknowledgement of domestic tasks as forms of labour has also been connected to discourses of austerity and thrift initiated by the sub-prime mortgage crisis and global financial crisis. in 2013, rebecca bramall argued that the relationship between a privileging of domestic austerity and the contrasting positions of conservative politics, neoliberalism, environmentalism and others “provide new ways of valuing domestic practices such as baking, jam making, knitting and other crafts” (p. 113). while the resurgent value of these predominantly feminine-coded domestic tasks has been argued to demonstrate a more positive understanding of domestic labour, others disagree. bramall (2013 p. 118) draws on natasha walter in arguing that “the fetishization of domesticity shores up an association between femininity and domestic tasks that feminists have long worked to break down”. a hallmark of modernity, argues arendt, is the collapse of the public and private sphere into a “social” sphere, a blurred space of private intimacy and public plurality, “because we see the body of peoples and political communities in the image of a family whose everyday affairs have to be taken care of by a gigantic, nation-wide administration of housekeeping” (1958, p. 28). in other words, human life is perpetual economic striving, what she considers a private concern, rather than negotiating the reality of all shared life. the public realm moved into our domestic spaces in a radically accelerated way in 2020 when around the world, many more homes became places where paid employment was also undertaken. of course, many jobs have always occurred in dwellings – whether our own or someone else’s. other jobs are unsuitable for workfrom-home arrangements, resulting in either retrenchment or the classification of people as an ‘essential worker’, those required to take additional risks by leaving the comparative safety of home. where possible, however, and with technological facilitation, the last few years have seen persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 3 homes become schools, offices, doctors’ offices, community centres, universities, investment banks, yoga studios, call centres and news rooms. they were often many of these things simultaneously. the labour of maintaining a domestic space expanded to include maintaining a space suitable to be seen (but preferably not heard) in the background of a video conference. professional personas were enacted in front of those who shared our domestic lives, in a collapse of context in physical space that mimicked the context collapse seen on social media platforms. the collapse was perhaps more marked because it was not simply the people who were brought together, replicating having one’s friends, colleagues, extended family and casual acquaintances all friends on facebook. a facebook profile could be constructed as a relatively neutral environment, after all. but in the widespread mediatization of working from home through video conferencing, both the audience and the setting of one’s performances collapsed. the idea of the domestic realm as backstage and separate from the public realm of persona performance was infringed upon. simultaneously (and somewhat contradictorily), “domestic spaces quite literally [provided] a shelter from the threat of virus”, while being “reconfigured as spaces in which multiple forms of waged and unwaged labour co-exist” (martin 2020, p. 2). the austerity discourses in the united kingdom have been amplified as a result of layered impact of brexit and the covid-19 pandemic, and the negative impact of the pandemic on gendered divisions of domestic labour has also been studied in australia, brazil, greece, india, the united states, south africa, indonesia, and elsewhere (alon et al. 2020; borah hazarika & das 2021; craig & churchill 2021; de oliveira & alloatti 2022; parry & gordon 2021). women continued to bear the brunt of child care and domestic work, regardless of whether they were in paid employment, working from home, or had partners who worked from home. in contrast to the negative impact of the pandemic on women, borah hazarika and das (2021) note that for men, while work related stress might have increased as a result of less stable domestic internet connections, they maintained their focus on their paid employment rather than juggling work and family life. indeed, the fathers found enjoyment in being able to spend more time with their children outside of work hours as they were not restricted by the requirements to travel to an office, while the mothers in the study were exhausted from juggling work and child care across a day. of course, domestic spaces are not all the same, and not everyone has access to secure dwellings in which to shelter and work. this, too, has drawn attention as a result of the pandemic. jilly boyce kay (2020) argues that the hypervisibility of private homes as a result of lockdowns provides us an opportunity to unpack discrepancies in what domestic spaces mean and how they are represented back to us through media. homes are exposed to (or obscured from) colleagues, clients, or students through video conferencing software as part of the work day. homes are photographed and shared online through social networking platforms to maintain social relationships, functioning as the obligatory backdrop to experiences during lockdown and isolation periods. the presence of “carefully curated images of domesticity” proliferates, shared by “celebrities, micro-celebrities and ordinary folk” (kay 2020, p. 884). but not all domestic spaces were and are visible. kay prompts us to consider “what might it mean to understand and promote the private home as ‘safe’? for whom is it so---and for whom is it not?” (2020, p. 886). she continues: “‘going home’ is dominantly associated with safety, security and love, but for millions of people, ‘home’ instead represents precarity, violence and terror, either because of the lack of a materially stable home, or because of the violence contained within it, or both” (p. 887). domesticity may be ideologically connected with safety and nurture, but for many it is structurally tied to risk and violence. barbour and humphrey 4 domestic personas how do these concerns speak to ideas of persona? how have the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic impacted on the ways that personas are enacted in the public-domestic domain? this issue considers these concerns through multiple lenses. devin proctor examines the convergence of technological modernism and hyper-traditional domestic persona-creation via the “tradwife,” a movement that reinforces long-held western gender roles, especially as they are expressed domestically. proctor explores both the use of feminist rhetoric as inoculation from contemporary critiques of embracing hegemonic power structures within domestic spaces, as well as the coupling of such traditionalism with white supremacist rhetoric. examining three profiles, proctor explores the very possibilities behind publicizing domestic life for political purposes. tori arthur also investigates the blurring of private life and public discourse through disability rights activist imani barbarin, whose tiktok account grew rapidly during the early stages of the pandemic. in an intriguing juxtaposition to proctor’s focus, arthur closely follows the ways barbarin uses domestic motifs and spaces to develop a persona that resists, critiques, and disrupts entrenched stereotypes of queerness, blackness, and disability using “digital alchemy” (bailey 2021), transforming light, funny, and even bawdy, social media entertainment into powerful social justice statements. michael humphrey, much like proctor, takes his cues from traditional domestic personacreation in digital spaces by examining shaytards, one of the original youtube family vlogs. but unlike tradwifes’ upward trajectory in digital influence, humphrey follows the collapse of shaytards’ father figure, shay butler, whose persona of a fun-loving, devoted mormon was harmed by a sexting scandal with video personality aria nina. humphrey traces the narratives of shay and his wife, collette, as they navigate the damage to both their offline and online families, as well as the negotiation of meaning taken on by their millions of followers. for ferg maxwell and victoria fleming, considerations of a domestic persona invites reflections on those who are excluded from their production. in their analysis of the persona that was built around khaleel seivwright through news media reporting on his ‘tiny shelters’ project— providing temporary shelter for toronto’s unhoused population during the pandemic—maxwell and fleming consider how the persona constructed for seivwright performed as a boundary subject between the news reading public, the city, and the unhoused. with public space reconfigured by encampments and temporary shelters due to risks of relying on the overcrowded city shelter system during the covid-19 pandemic, sievwright’s public persona stood in for residents in the encampments who were themselves largely denied the opportunity to enact a persona through media reporting. the final contribution to this issue comes from antonia hernández. combining ascii images prompted by stills from sex cam rooms and poetry, hernández explores the nature of spaces that are domestic and public, used for intimate acts shared on digital platforms. through this creative practice response to the issue theme, hernández posits the idea of post-authentic domesticity, where a facsimile of intimacy is for sale and home spaces are reconfigured into an appearance of domesticity that somehow belies their everyday reality: “shiny sheets / not used for sleeping, / multifunctional gaming chairs, / purple lamps that do not / illuminate.” as with so much of life over the past 3 years, this issue was disrupted and delayed due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic. we thank the authors of the submissions included in this persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 5 issue for their patience and their commitment, as well as the peer reviewers who gave their time to provide excellent feedback on the submissions. thank you on behalf of the persona studies editorial board and international advisory board, we extend our sincere gratitude to dr katja lee. dr lee has been integral to the development and running of the journal since it launched in 2015, and was a managing editor for 5 years. during that period, she has edited or co-edited five separate issues, most recently the excellent persona and life writing themed issue (2022, vol. 8, no. 1) and helped out on a number of others, before stepping down from her managing editor role in november 2022. katja, thank you for all your hard work and commitment to the journal and to persona studies more broadly. works cited alon, t, doepke, m, olmstead-rumsey, j & tertilt, m 2020, ‘this time it’s different: the role of women’s employment in a pandemic recession’, working paper. working paper series. national bureau of economic research. <https://doi.org/10.3386/w27660> arendt, h 1958, the human condition. university of chicago press, chicago. bailey, m 2021, misogynoir transformed: black women’s digital resistance. nyu press, new york. baxter, j 2015, ‘gender role attitudes within couples, and parents’ time in paid work, child care and housework’, the longitudinal study of australian children annual statistical report 2014, australian institute of family studies. 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<https://doi.org/10.1016/s24682667(22)00160-8> heynen, h & baydar, g 2005, negotiating domesticity: spatial productions of gender in modern architecture. taylor & francis group, florence, united states. kay, jb 2020, ‘“stay the fuck at home!”: feminism, family and the private home in a time of coronavirus’, feminist media studies, vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 883–88, <https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1765293> barbour and humphrey 6 kennedy, j, arnold, m, gibbs, m, nansen, b & wilken, r 2020, digital domesticity: media, materiality, and home life, oxford university press, oxford, new york. martin, j 2021, ‘keep crafting and carry on: nostalgia and domestic cultures in the crisis’, european journal of cultural studies, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 358–64, <https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420958718> moore, c & barbour, k 2016, ‘performing the networks of domestic and public persona’, persona studies, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–11, <https://doi.org/10.21153/ps2016vol2no1art592> moore, c, barbour, k & lee, k 2017, ‘five dimensions of online persona’, persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1–12, <https://doi.org/10.21153/ps2017vol3no1art658> oliveira, alm de & alloatti, mn 2022, ‘gendering the crisis: austerity and the covid-19 pandemic in brazil’, economia politica, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 203–24, <https://doi.org/10.1007/s40888-021-00243-7> parry, br & gordon, e 2021, ‘the shadow pandemic: inequitable gendered impacts of covid-19 in south africa’, gender, work & organization, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 795–806, <https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12565> raday, f 2019, ‘gender equality and women’s rights in the context of child custody and child maintenance: an international and comparative analysis’, un women discussion paper series no. 30. un, new york <https://doi.org/10.18356/02fdcba7-en> sales, l, francis, l & robb, k 2021, ‘women are still doing most of the housework’, abc news, august 30, 2021, <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-31/division-of-domesticlabour-continues-to-land-heavily-on-women/100418942> kim barbour university of adelaide and michael humphrey colorado state university domestic spaces domestic personas thank you works cited acosta 114 persona recovery through homage: poetic tributes to spain’s generation of 1927 ange la ac osta t he o h io s t a t e u n iv e r s i t y abstract tània balló’s las sinsombrero documentary series (2015-2021) about modern spanish women led to the creation of multimedia projects and online spaces for paying homage to forgotten women throughout history. however, such crowdsourced and scholarly recuperation efforts are at odds with the prevailing canonization of the spanish avant-garde artistic group known as the “generation of 1927”. a deliberately constructed practice of homage has historically excluded women’s legacies and granted nearly exclusive support for the ten male poets considered the originators of the generation of 1927. modern women writers like maría teresa león and concha méndez lacked such cultural support and thus constructed personas in their life writing by placing themselves outside the sphere of influence of the generation of 1927 despite their successful literary careers. this creative piece brings together persona studies and homage to study how performances of prestige by writers and literary historians reveal the gendered, classed, and sexualised ways that the literary history of the generation of 1927 has been constructed. my proposed theory of homage uncovers the closeted and undocumented sapphic and sororal relationships between women, and imagines queer feminist futures where women’s work is central to understanding the cultural milieux of the generation of 1927. these poetic tributes are what i call “life-making homages” that celebrate and grant prestige to recuperated knowledge of writers’ queer, undocumented lives. the paper and accompanying poems demonstrate how, through life-making homages, scholars can propose alternate paradigms for tracing the development of the generation of 1927 as part of spain’s cultural heritage. key words homage; poet persona; modernism; las modernas; life writing; generation of 1927 introduction my poems envision madrid’s gran vía, writers’ homes like velintonia, and other locations peopled by modern spanish women seeking liberation and creativity. among these poetic tributes, one will find victorina durán, an out gay actor and dramaturge, partners carmen conde and amanda junquera, and beloved children’s book writer, elena fortún. although their lives and works illuminate the vibrant cultural milieux of early twentieth-century spain, queer and female stories do not appear in canonical spanish literary history such that reintroducing them constitutes a political act. to write poetic tributes is to work against canonical exclusions to maintain their memory in the twenty-first century. at the turn of the twentieth century, to obtain public recognition as an established poet in spain, one had to be assigned male at birth. such men befriended other male writers during the late 1920s, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 115 published and promoted their poetry collections with the same editing houses, and ultimately formed part of the spanish literary canon still widely taught in the twenty-first century. according to official histories, spain’s “generation of 1927” was birthed through homage on december 17, 1927. a well-circulated photograph of this event depicts ten men in suits gathered at the atheneum of seville, spain on the three-hundredth anniversary of the death of baroque poet luis de góngora. these men were excited to bring góngora’s work back into the public spotlight and even more eager to make a name for themselves as poets (mainer 2020). the homage to góngora, the mythos of the generation of 1927, would become the moment that defined the artistic trajectories of these upper-class male poets whose work continues to garner more attention by scholars than their female counterparts.1 homages have codified the generation of 1927 as an object of study within the periodization of spanish literature. placing the study of homage, as presented through life writing and poetic tributes, within the field of persona studies offers a greater understanding of how the development of poetic and autobiographical subjects along gendered and sexualised lines of identity shapes how scholars maintain writers’ and artists’ legacies posthumously. homages consist of events, publications, and performances that uphold the personas of individuals. homages, “homenaje” in spanish, are easily recognizable insofar as writers and organizers label them as such, thus forming a poetic category yet to be interrogated within literary and cultural theory.2 such homages have inscribed men within the cultural heritage of the spanish avant-garde and, like literary canons, homages operate through cultural capital (gambarte 1996). consequently, male poets positioned themselves well for illustrious literary careers through documenting and organizing homages (alonso and guillén), founding the literary magazine litoral in 1926 (prados and altolaguirre), and developing and sharing avantgarde creative works at literary gatherings known as tertulias at cafés like the distinguished café gijón in madrid where women were barred entry. for nearly a century, women’s legacies have been excluded through a deliberately constructed practice of homage that has granted nearly exclusive cultural support to ten male poets considered the originators of the generation of 1927. homages to the generation of 1927 are comprised of fan-made content like poetry, performances, and caricatures of writers. as in fan studies, homages require a certain point of entry to participate, which (in this case) is often mediated through academic channels and requires a thorough knowledge of personal and cultural details about writers and their work. the public can now join organizations like the association of friends of vicente aleixandre (aava) to participate in homages organized by researchers and cultural activists. the mythos of the generation of 1927 operates through a particular construction of personas based on male literary success while obscuring networks of women and other writers who have been minoritized due to class, literary genre, national origin, and other factors that impede literary productivity and public recognition. “life-making homages” by feminist scholars and cultural practitioners make feminist and queer readings of writers’ personas visible, and by doing so they make alternative conceptualisations of the generation accessible to scholars, students, and the public. my poetic tributes are one such example of life-making homages that share lesserknown details about writers’ lives for a non-specialist readership. my poems and other lifemaking homages anticipate readers’ unfamiliarity with the subject matter, crafting a creative narrative to introduce readers to the cultural milieux of early twentieth-century spain. examples of life-making homages from other writers include alicia y las sinsombrero (balló & conde 2021), an illustrated children’s book in which the daughter of painter margarita manso finds her mother’s diary documenting the exciting world of “sinsombreristas” (“the hatless ones”) like rosa chacel, maría zambrano, and maruja mallo. hellekson and busse’s 2014 volume on fan fiction studies also emphasizes the life-making potential of fan communities that adapt texts and characters to suit the diverse needs of fans, albeit with fewer gatekeeping mechanisms than literary traditions that require participants pay a much steeper charge of cultural capital. acosta 116 since the inception of the generation of 1927, women writers and feminists alike have worked against the exclusion of women from records documenting early twentieth-century spanish literature. in 1927, men at the atheneum of seville dared to ask whether the four women who attended the homage were in the right room. by the 1990s, ernestina de champourcín, an accomplished female spanish poet, was surprised to have even been invited to an homage to the few surviving poets at the generation of 1927 cultural centre in málaga. recent feminist scholarship by eva moreno lago (durán 2019) and capdevila-argüelles (2018) argues that modern women, las modernas, were systematically excluded from the androcentric literary canon through anthologisation and research practices that discredit their work under the guise of its not meeting rigid standards for canonization. balló’s las sinsombrero documentary series (balló 2015, 2019, 2019) about modern spanish women who dared to take their hats off in public led to the creation of multimedia projects and online spaces for paying homage to forgotten women throughout history. the crowdsourced and scholarly recuperation efforts are at odds with the prevailing canonization of spanish literature precisely because they recover the personas of women writers through surviving documentation of life writing and personal ephemera. as an undergraduate in the united states, my first glimpse of the silver age of spanish literature (1898-1939) came through reading literary anthologies and texts written and compiled by generation of 1927 writers (alonso and guillén) and their close friends from subsequent generations (carlos bousoño). it wasn’t until i decided to pursue doctoral research in iberian studies that i finally encountered novels and life writing by women writers thanks to the exciting work being done by fran garcerá, cari fernández, nuria capdevila-argüelles, and many others affiliated with archives and the torremozas and renacimiento editing houses. these new editions of works by modern women (las modernas) foreground writers’ activism and their reactions to women’s suffrage and the right to divorce granted by the 1931 constitution of the short-lived second spanish republic (capdevila-argüelles 2017; 2018). given the pervading misogyny and homophobia of spanish society during the first half of the twentieth-century, women could not easily claim an artistic identity (i.e., persona). spanish women often collaborated on writing projects with their husbands without receiving written acknowledgment, as was the case for zenobia camprubí, wife of nobel laureate poet juan ramón jiménez, and concha méndez, wife of altolaguirre. additionally, amanda junquera published all her short stories and translations under the pseudonym isabel de ambía. for as much as homages are imbued in subjective cultural practices maintained by androcentric and heteronormative canon formations, they also provide a way forward for scholars and the public to better include remarkable modern women as part of the cultural imaginary of early twentieth-century spain. homages are both celebratory and political, and i challenge the hegemonic discourse surrounding cultural heritage in spain by referencing lesserknown details about writers’ lives (i.e., queer relationships, nicknames, and informal gatherings) in my poetic tributes. my creative and academic work builds upon ongoing studies of the periodization and classification of the generation of 1927 to propose a more inclusive approach to canon formation (anderson 2005; mainer 2020). this approach not only benefits women writers but also allows for an emergence of persona based on artistic collaborations and friendships instead of prestige and cultural capital. my poetic tributes and scholarly apparatus bring together persona studies and homage to study how performances of prestige by writers and literary historians bring forth the gendered, classed, and sexualised ways that the literary history of the generation of 1927 has been constructed. the generation of 1927 represents a period of cultural effervescence, yet minoritized writers were denied entry into literary establishments like atheneums and the residencia de estudiantes (students’ residence) due to gender, class, and a lack of formal education.3 furthermore, male homosexuality was criminalized during much of the twentieth century and made more visible than female homosexuality (mira nouselles, 2014), resulting in strategic omissions in (auto)biographical details by and about queer writers. emilio calderón’s 2016 biography of vicente aleixandre was persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 117 the first to confirm aleixandre’s relationships with men and women, and josé luis ferris’s 2007 biography of carmen conde makes a similar claim regarding conde’s nearly half-century relationship and cohabitation with fellow writer, amanda junquera. working with persona in early twentieth-century spain means grappling with how writers constructed their personas in response to sociohistorical limitations and power structures. these dynamics come into play when referring to queer identities as well as how modern women used life writing to convey their messages for posterity. as a participant in and creator of homages to the generation of 1927, i take advantage of the dual purpose of literary tributes: to maintain the mythos of the generation and to recover the lives and stories of those overshadowed by the dominant narrative of spanish literary history. i negotiate the ways spanish creatives constructed their public personas during their lifetimes and how present-day tributes represent writers’ multifaceted identities. homages emerge from literary canon formations deeply rooted in the power structures prevalent since their inception, yet the medium is also full of liberatory potential for minoritized writers. through such tributes, scholars and the literary public can celebrate the complicated and interweaving lives and artistic worlds of modern spanish creatives across gender, sexuality, ability, and social class for the benefit of the ten male writers and countless understudied writers alike. present day homages acknowledge poetic and literary persona while operating under a more inclusive framework vis-à-vis the possibilities of digital archives and social media. my poems demonstrate alternate paradigms for telling the narrative of the generation of 1927 by imagining the private lives of fortún, conde, and junquera. in an interdisciplinary and public-facing context, homages are important pedagogical tools for making persona visible and accessible by filling in gaps in life stories not otherwise mentioned in canonical texts. homages in their various forms (written, performed, multimedia, etc.) present many possibilities for establishing and maintaining persona, but their most important work lies in the queer potential of recovering testimonies of what people could not say or do because of the pervading social constraints of their time. my proposed theory of homage uncovers the closeted and undocumented sapphic and sororal relationships between women, and imagines queer feminist futures where women’s work is central to understanding the cultural milieux of women and men of the generation of 1927. the poetic tributes included in this piece are examples of what i call “life-making homages” that celebrate and grant prestige to recuperated knowledge of writers’ queer, undocumented lives. my life-making homages to women writers are intimately tied to my cultural activism. as it stands, the spaces women inhabited like the “academy of witches” at velintonia in madrid are in danger of destruction (diario sur 2021).4 likewise, archival preservation practices favour conserving works by and about male writers and prioritize male autobiographies over women’s diaries, travelogues, and other forms of life writing.5 tània balló (2018) writes about the lengthy fieldwork she conducted for her las sinsombrero documentaries, the modern women pioneers who dared to remove their hats in public, emphasising how she needed to visit small towns in spain and make many phone calls with descendants in order to obtain the information needed to construct female personas in her books and documentaries. life-making homages validate writers’ agency by pairing known details about them with an intimate understanding of the social constraints they encountered. while homages to prominent writers seek to reverently elevate their verses, paying homage to non-canonical writers requires significant archival research and preparation before celebrations can begin. it is through studies of life writing and personal ephemera that twenty-first century scholars and the public can begin to piece together intimate details about writers’ lives. when contemporary audiences learn (auto)biographical details about writers from life-making homages, they can better conceptualize the personas writers established for themselves during their lifetimes. by reading the poetic homages conde made to junquera compiled in poemas a amanda (poems to amanda) and their epistolary correspondence (fernández and garcerá 2021; conde and junquera 2021), i was able to look beyond their public-facing personas to envision their lives acosta 118 together in their madrid home, velintonia 5. since these poems and letters mostly show conde’s perspective, her diligent daily diaries inevitably shaped what we know of junquera’s less public persona. these life-writing documents remain incomplete as conde does not code herself as queer in her 1986 autobiography por el camino, viendo sus orillas (along the path, seeing its shores) despite her private, affectionate messages to junquera found elsewhere in her personal archive. when faced with archives that do not yield sought-after information, scholars should centre practices of life-making homages around humanizing their honourees. little is known about the “academy of witches” that convened in velintonia 5, above the historic site of meetings between aleixandre, lorca, and alonso in velintonia 3. i can only imagine concha zardoya leading the inaugural reading of her play la novia del espejo (the bride of the mirror) on february 8, 1946 while attendees listened with bated breath (calderón 2016, p. 179). it may seem counterintuitive, but i appreciate learning about the less appealing details about writers’ personalities that also must be negotiated when depicting their personas in homage. conde’s writing reveals her dual responsibilities to her husband, antonio oliver, and to junquera, who at times appeared needy or insufferable. when scholars and event organisers include these details in carefully mediated written and performed tributes to women writers, audiences gain a more nuanced appreciation of the writers’ personas. by including these details in my poetic homages, my persona work focuses on writers’ lived experiences instead of the ways they accrued social prestige to enter the literary canon. 6 the difficulties women writers faced in their lives and careers over the course of the twentieth century affect the production of homages in the present. the year 2022 marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of josefina de la torre (1907-2002), a multitalented poet and actress of the stage and screen born in the canary islands, and the beginning of a new era of homages organized by loved ones, scholars, and other custodians of writers’ memories. she has been immortalized in a 1997 episode of “rincón literario”, a show featuring notable spanish writers. nevertheless, she feared that her life’s work would soon be forgotten and proclaimed: “voy a ser olvidada” (“i am going to be forgotten”) (medel 2017). homages are essential memory devices for safeguarding the legacies of artists like josefina de la torre when their life writing alone cannot escape oblivion. cultural preservation of literary history tends to rely on maintaining and mediating the personas of male writers who accrued significant prestige and cultural capital during their lifetimes. i move my own work away from focusing on writers’ accomplishments and accolades to celebrating their daily acts of creativity and resilience. for as ground-breaking as carmen conde’s induction to the royal spanish academy in 1979 was, it was only possible through the connections she formed with other writers and her partnership with junquera. queer feminist tributes push back against the homages to the “generation of 1927” that traditionally commemorate the promising poetic careers of the ten male poets. i watched one such tribute at the atheneum of madrid in july of 2019 in honour of avant-garde female creatives now known as “las sinsombrero”.7 unlike tributes to their male counterparts, the audience likely had little familiarity with these women, despite how well the atheneum affiliates re-enacted their larger-than-life personalities. in one comical interlude, “maría zambrano” acted amazed as she peered upwards at the air conditioning unit, a far superior technological substitute to her hand fan that was making too much noise in the microphone. overall, the women playing philosopher maría zambrano and painter maruja mallo successfully conveyed the optimism and resilience of modern women who lived their lives to the fullest and deserve the dignity of being remembered. at the end of the event, the organisers encouraged the attendees to read the life writing of “las sinsombrero”, promising a rewarding reading experience. modern spanish women were prolific writers of life writing and many such memoirs, autobiographies, and travelogues continue to be well read and circulated. these works include persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 119 maría teresa león’s memoria de la melancolía (memory of melancholy), concha mendez’s memorias habladas, memorias armadas (spoken memories, assembled memories), and elena fortún’s oculto sendero (hidden path). these texts offer glimpses into upper-class female life during the twentieth century, from fortún’s depiction of how her protagonist maría luisa grows into her sexuality as a gay woman, to méndez’s transcribed recordings about life in exile in the americas. despite having participated in social and artistic experiences tantamount to admission into the canonical generation, these writers do not claim a space for themselves within the generation of 1927 due to the discrimination they experienced in their daily lives. women were the protagonists of their own life writing, yet they minimised their cultural and political contributions in these texts. they were reluctant to construct personas for themselves like those of male writers, and opted to call themselves collaborators instead of foundational canonical figures. while female autobiographical subjects tackle questions of gender, sexuality, politics, and exile, women like méndez and león avoided claiming involvement in the core group of the generation of 1927. méndez remained steadfastly unapologetic about her identity as a writer and what she called her “cáracter aventurero” (“adventurous character”) (méndez & altolaguirre 2018, p. 25), however she feared that she became too masculine when writing about social issues. in this sense, women negotiate being othered by their sexuality and/or gender by refusing to claim the sociocultural influence of being writers in their life writing, thus constructing autobiographical personas from the periphery. female life writing and biographies tell the story of the fraught relationships women had with developing their own persona and authorial voice. during the 1920s and 1930s, young women in search of literary pursuits banned together at the “residencia de señoritas” (“ladies residence”) and “lyceum club femenino” (“female lyceum club”) in the face of the inaccessibility of male-dominated institutions. they wrote against the backdrop of a gruesome spanish civil war (1936-1939) and francisco franco’s authoritarian dictatorship (1939-1975) that kept countless writers in exile and in the closet for the remainder of their lives. these “sinsombreristas” never stopped writing with the fervent hope that a future generation would answer their call. fortún dedicates oculto sendero “to all who missed their path…and still have time to change their course”, imagining the possibilities for people brave enough to challenge gender roles and heteronormativity when she herself could not do so openly (fortún 2021, p. v). while fortún created a persona for herself as the author of the acclaimed “celia y su mundo” (“celia and her world”) children’s book series, the manuscript of oculto sendero lay dormant from its completion circa 1945 until its recovery in the 1980s and subsequent 2016 spanish publication and 2021 english translation. i dedicate “my dear encarna” to fortún’s courage and foresight in opening a queer path for all those who refuse to conform. león’s 1970 autobiography shows her true mettle as a staunch antifascist even when her own words betray her. she frequently refers to herself as the “cola de la cometa”, the “tail of the comet” of her husband rafael alberti, even when nothing about her story renders her secondary (2020, p. 172). women like león and fortún exemplify the disjunction between their active role as creators of art and knowledge and documented reluctance to edify their personas as male writers did. marshall, moore and barbour (2020, p. 29) discuss the construction of persona in literature as the creation of a poetic, fictional, or autobiographical “i” through which many male poets claim expertise over their reality. in the case of spain, aleixandre and salinas established male poetic personas as lovers and creators of universes in metaphysical poetry while women who wrote outside of surrealism and ultraism did not construct these same types of poetic subjects in their work. homages thus serve as the vehicle for performing prestige and persona to exalt creative lives. creators of homages provide a bridge between the documented ways writers constructed persona and the initiatives to engage new publics with writers’ literary and cultural contributions. while this piece does not address the proliferation of online homages (digital humanities projects, social media, etc.) or news stories about writers’ lives and places of habitation, future work on persona in spanish literary history should address the influence of acosta 120 the internet and media in writers’ status as both celebrities (i.e. nobel laureates) and noncelebrities (i.e. marginalised writers).8 i wrote these poems with the hope that, through life writing and archival materials, we can keep these writers’ personas and the spaces they inhabited with us a little longer. some writers like aleixandre require little work to maintain their legacies while others must be nurtured through ongoing recovery efforts that depict their lives in vibrant colour. homages have become commonplace across literary traditions and popular culture such that it is necessary to examine the imperatives for their creation and how personas are created and expressed through the mediums of homage and life writing. doing so will allow for a fuller understanding of the individuals under question and yield fruitful collaborations between academic research and public activism. academy of witches velintonia 5, the upstairs neighbour, away from the rarefied air of aleixandre’s tertulias and famous men. steps above from sites of memory lies another gathering place, a veritable academy of witches, breathing life into the spanish avant-garde. already the witching hour, the pair sets up lamps with calming tones of yellow and perhaps a few cups of tea and prepares the stage for their latest collaboration. we know not how it started, only that it was so luminous it cannot be experienced second hand. the histories say it was nothing, they say it was just women talking, but witches don’t need an audience to leave a little magic for the next generation. we only know their names: hostesses carmen conde and amanda junquera, the many illustrious learned women, wives of writers, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 121 concha zardoya, matilde marquina, carmen iglesias, consuelo berges, eulalia galvarriato, and anonymous others. translators, poets, dramaturges, they were the pioneers who didn’t need men to send them an invitation. ambitious and determined, they weathered history to birth their work, writing modernity into their lives, and rebellion into their secretive existence. we continue their legacy by forming our own covens for the bravest among us. carmen and amanda love at first sight in 1936, her future waited patiently across the room on the arm of the man she married. tenderly carmen wrote to her with tales of reading virginia woolf, all the while wondering if british sapphic codes would be enough for spending a summer holiday in cartagena. linked to her husband, even in death, through the hyphen in her namesake patronage,9 we nudge carmen conde and amanda junquera closer, no longer just lifelong friends, acosta 122 by examining the photographs of the rock of ifach, each smiling wide knowing her companion was behind the camera. the pictures speak volumes, of the dreams they deferred and the memories they made together. slowly, careful penmanship reveals nicknames, amanda as “nenita” and her beloved carmen as “nis”. we find the plays they wrote together, the letters regaling amanda with stories from abroad. they suffered greatly, from the burden of francoism, the duty to their husbands and to each other, the anonymity of their art and existence in velintonia 5. amanda could be insufferable at times, but they needed each other, needed queer joy and contemplative walks at the escorial. theirs is a story not soon forgotten, brought into being through carmen’s biography, recovered letters, and the fervent hope for liveable queer futures just beyond the horizon. my dear encarna querida encarna, my dearest, how are you? when your parents named you encarnación did they know you’d embody resistance, willing into being a queer gender defying writer, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 123 an elder who died too young? have tea with me for i know your alias (elena fortún) and name by heart, but most adore the work you sent upstream to the twenty-first century, the sapphic hidden path to your soul. encarna, if i may, let us go on a walk, a short jaunt through your madrid, and may i show you the iridescent glow of your rainbow kin who stare without shame, love without limits and follow the paths you knew were always there. recovered voices i search for voices recorded later in life when bright memories of transatlantic adventures assemble the melancholy of maría teresa león’s exile. i can still hear the melody of concha méndez’s voice assuredly ringing through old cassette tapes, for her granddaughter and all those who claim her as our collective heritage.10 faded diaries, letters, and solemn admissions of antifascism, literary magazines, and depression do not lead me to spanish archives but to the hidden firmament of your own testament, the life writing where you almost dared acosta 124 to write yourself out of your own story, never just the “wife of”, but a woman with a life. your youthful poetic voices tell stories of modernity, of bright lights, ocean bathers, and airplanes, that in adulthood became the bombs and censor of a dictatorship, revoked rights, and lives in the closet as ocean liners reached a new horizon, a new start in the caribbean, new england colleges, or the theatres of buenos aires. to keep a record is to know the value of personal experience and female wisdom passed down in pseudonyms and letters, yet i continue seeking the moments and monikers between the diary dates and photographs, for i know those meant the most for all you who sought remembrance beyond life’s adiós. dreaming of the gran vía all lights in madrid lining the gran vía lead to recoletos street, to tertulias at the café gijón, to new metro lines and street cars, to literary madrid and all her possibility. little girls in catalonia and galicia would soon realize their dreams, reaching their port of call, a literary city and a safe harbor for a residence of señoritas. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 125 ángeles santos, a young prodigy painted a whole world by age eighteen, chaperoned by her father to the royal academy. ernestina de champourcín, barred entry to the domain of male poets sought sororal company in letters to new pen pals. maruja mallo, the first to dare to remove her hat in the puerta del sol plaza, for it stifled her ideas and virtues. victorina durán, consummate actor and daring socialite, her life story mi vida a testament to lesbian survival. excluded for too long, we now dedicate spaces to the ones kept out of the residencia de estudiantes, provide safe passage to homages at the atheneum, and elevate their names in the vaulted spanish academy, for this bustling city was always their madrid. velintonia 3 the house of poetry remains empty with a “for sale” sign placed in the upstairs window: velintonia 3 on vicente aleixandre street in madrid. i yearn to ascend the short staircase and knock on the door, waiting for the friendly poet to greet me, but here i am on the other side of the street envisioning an imaginary alexandrian encounter as if i were carlos bousoño, luis cernuda, or a young poet acosta 126 like jaime siles showing him my humble verses. just think, if i were there in the 1930s, i would cross through the threshold of the front door, summoning the generations gathered in this house of poetry and i would take a seat and smile with my newfound friends, but now i fall to the ground, only hearing the sound of my own echo because neither furniture nor gatherings appear in this house. i wish i could enter the garden behind the house to witness the shady magnificence of the cedar tree that aleixandre himself planted and continues growing on this summer day in which i visit his house – sirio’s barks float through the air tertulias and memories etched into the rings of the tree. when i leave this house devoid of residents, i realize that this abandoned house and overgrown garden are sometimes full of the association of friends of vicente aleixandre striving to save this house of poetry, velintonia 3. homage to paradise from the depths of war and personal strife, south into homelands glistening along the shores of valencia, murcia and andalucía emerge the poets’ paradise. the sea didn’t take your people, the fascists did. la desbandada, the massacre on the way to almería, a forced evacuation from málaga, the city of paradise, thrown out of eden into a lost paradise over two hundred kilometres of road long until they could return to the sea’s embrace in almería once more. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 127 málaga, an ethereal city between mountains and ocean, capped by a bright andalusian sky still shining over the waves that broke like a storm surge over vicente aleixandre’s small feet as he played in the sand with his sister conchita. i stand on the castle of gibralfaro, wishing these happy marine days could last forever, in this moment of eternity facing the postcard view of a bullfighting ring, apartments, and the old city. the resplendent rocks covered in seafoam, malagueños bustling through the streets, mounds of sand where an etched footprint became a sign of man’s ephemeral trace in the cosmos, a sea of paradise revealing ships and adventures in the distance for málaga’s daring daughter, isabel oyarzábal. the peñón de ifach rock greeted carmen and amanda as they sought a summertime refuge, lining photo albums with geology and their own odyssey for entwining their lives and prosody. like you, i feel as though i have lived there, the places where even after the spanish civil war the sun coats the backs of tourists and dazzling laughter dances off the rocks, a reverberation from your earliest memories of childhood innocence that comforted you into the murky waters of old age. acosta 128 acknowledgements this project has been funded with a coca-cola critical difference for women grant for research on women, gender, and gender equity through the women’s place at the ohio state university in the united states of america. the poem “my dear encarna” first appeared in the autumn 2021 issue of the stratford quarterly. end notes 1. andrew anderson (2005) provides documentation of how the list of ten male poets has not changed since its inception. scholars continue to cite rafael alberti, vicente aleixandre, dámaso alonso, manuel altolaguirre, luis cernuda, gerardo diego, federico garcía lorca, jorge guillén, emilio prados, and pedro salinas as the originators of the generation of 1927 with an occasional nod to other male artists like josé bergamín, who is considered an honorary eleventh member (anderson 2005, p. 130). 2. a similar phenomenon occurs within the english tradition of odes wherein page headings, rather than consistent stylistic conventions, denoted poetic categories for eighteenth-century poems like odes, elegies, and epitaphs (teich 1985). ultimately, the word “homenaje” itself delineates the poetic category of homages within spanish literature. wealthy educated women organized their own intellectual and artistic spheres for modern women (las modernas) like the residencia de señoritas (the ladies’ residence) and lyceum club femenino (female lyceum club) in madrid (capdevila-argüelles 2017; 2018). 3. a 2021 article in diario sur documents ongoing government initiatives to recognize velintonia as a “house of poetry” to save it from being sold and potentially destroyed to make room for new residential properties. 4. compared to archival materials about the ten male poets, i have not located as much documentation about modern spanish women writers while visiting the national spanish library (bne), the residencia de estudiantes library and archives, and the library of the generation of 1927 at the cultural centre in málaga, spain. even among collections of female epistolary correspondence and life writing at the residencia de señoritas archive at the fundación ortega y gasset-gregorio marañón, there is a marked tendency to emphasize women’s relationships with famous male mentors like juan ramón jiménez. 5. goode’s (1978) analysis of formal rewards (i.e., literary prizes) and social control serves as a precursor to persona studies and brings attention to how patriarchal and heteronormative social systems operate through prestige. 6. the “las sinsombrero” label proposed by balló (2015) has provided an effective means for making the lives of women writers and artists visible, however it has also been commercialized in a way that leaves out women with more marginalised creative trajectories due to class, genre, and political affiliation. 7. see marshall (2015) for an overview of celebrity persona amidst changing social networks and technologies. 8. the carmen conde-antonio oliver patronage was founded in cartagena, spain in 1994 after conde gave her personal archive and that of her late husband to the city of her birth. 9. see concha méndez’s autobiography concha méndez: memorias habladas, memorias armadas (spoken memories, assembled memories) edited by her granddaughter paloma ulacia altolaguirre (2018). persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 129 works cited anderson, a 2005, el veintisiete en tela de juicio: examen de la historiografía generacional y replanteamiento de la vanguardia histórica española (the generation of 1927 under question: study of the generational historiography and reformulation of the historic spanish avant-garde), gredos, madrid. balló, t 2018. las sinsombrero 2: ocultas e impecables (the ‘sinsombrero’ 2: hidden and impeccable), espasa. balló, t & conde, e 2021. alicia y las sinsombrero (alicia and the ‘sinsombrero’), muevetulengua, madrid. calderón, e 2016, la memoria de un hombre está en sus besos (the memory of a man is in his kisses), editorial stella maris, barcelona. capdevila-argüelles, n 2017, autoras inciertas: voces olvidadas de nuestro feminismo (uncertain authors: forgotten voices of our feminism), sílez, madrid. capdevila-argüelles, n 2018, el regreso de las modernas (the return of the modern women), la caja books, valencia. conde, c 1986, por el camino, viendo sus orillas (along the path, seeing its shores), vols. 1-3, plaza & janés, barcelona. conde, c & junquera a 2021, epistolario, 1936-1978 (correspondence, 1936-1978), f garcerá & c fernández (eds), ediciones torremozas, madrid. diario sur 2021, ‘cultura pide ayuda a la comunidad de madrid para hacer de la casa de vicente ‘la casa de la poesía’ (the ministry of culture asks the community of madrid for help to turn vicente’s house into ‘the house of poetry’)’, diario sur, 5 february, viewed 12 march 2022, < https://www.diariosur.es/culturas/cultura-casa-vicente-aleixandre20210205190900-nt.html> durán, v 2019, a teatro descubierto (uncovered theater), e moreno lago (ed), torremozas, madrid. fernández, c & garcerá, f 2021, poemas a amanda (poems to amanda), ediciones torremozas, madrid. ferris, jl 2007, carmen conde: vida, pasión y verso de una escritora olvidada (carmen conde: life, passion, and verse of a forgotten writer), ediciones martínez roca, madrid. fortún, e 2016, oculto sendero (hidden path), n capdevila-argüelles & mj fraga, editorial renacimiento. —2021, hidden path, trans. j zamostny, swan isle press, chicago. gambarte, em 1996. el concepto de generación literaria (the concept of literary generation), editorial síntesis, madrid. goode, wj 1978. the celebration of heroes: prestige as a social control system, university of california press, berkeley. hellekson, k & busse, k 2014, the fan fiction studies reader, university of iowa press, iowa city. las sinsombrero: sin ellas la historia no está completa (the ‘sinsombrero’: without them history is not complete) 2015, video recording, intropía media, yolaperdono, and rtve, spain. directed by tània balló. las sinsombrero 2: ocultas e impecables (the ‘sinsombrero’ 2: hidden and impeccable), 2019, video recording, intropía media, yolaperdono, and rtve, spain. directed by tània balló. las sinsombrero 3: las exiliadas (the ‘sinsombrero’ 3: the exiled), 2021, video recording, intropía media, yolaperdono, and rtve, spain. directed by tània balló. león, mt 2020, memoria de la melancolía (memory of melancholy), editorial renacimiento, sevilla. mainer, jc 2020, 17 de diciembre de 1927: el día en que nació una generación literaria (december 17, 1927: the day a literary generation was born), taurus, barcelona. marshall, pd, moore, cl & barbour, k 2020, persona studies: an introduction, wiley blackwell, hoboken, nj. acosta 130 marshall, pd 2014 ‘persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self’, journalism, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 153-170. medel, e 2017, ‘voy a ser olvidada’, el país, 8 september, viewed 12 january 2022, <https://elpais.com/cultura/2017/09/08/babelia/1504881714_237120.html>. méndez, c & altolaguirre, pu 2018, memorias habladas, memorias armadas (spoken memories, assembled memories), biblioteca del exilio, sevilla. mira nouselles, a 2014, de sodoma a chueca (from sodoma to chueca), editorial egales, barcelona. rincón literario: homenaje a las mujeres de la generación del 27: josefina de la torre (literary corner: homage to the women of the generation of 1927: josefina de la torre) 1997, television program, radio nacional de españa, madrid, 31 january. teich, n 1985 ‘the ode in english literary history: transformations from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century’, papers on language & literature, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 88108. ulacia altolaguirre, p 2018 concha méndez: memorias habladas, memorias armadas (spoken memories, assembled memories), editorial renacimiento, seville. angela acosta the ohio state university abstract key words introduction academy of witches carmen and amanda my dear encarna recovered voices dreaming of the gran vía velintonia 3 homage to paradise acknowledgements end notes works cited persona studies 2015, 1.1 13 louie, louis: the fictional, stage, and auteur personas of louis c.k. in louie mel anie pipe r abstract this paper examines stand-up comedy in light of the persona studies idea of the proliferation of the public self to consider the ways comedians are represented and self-presented. stand-up comedy as a performance mode deploys a literal version of goffman’s front-stage and back-stage personas, raising questions about who comedians “really” are. where the simultaneous observation of the onand off-stage personas of comedy performers was previously only afforded in representational fiction, the diversification of what constitutes on-stage space for comedians has provided opportunities for comedians to perform versions of their back-stage selves in a broader variety of public, front-stage spaces. in the case of american comedian louis c.k., his television series, louie, has proven to be a liminal entity that operates in the spirit of presentational media, while produced, constructed, and distributed as representational media. this paper uses louie to examine the front-stage and back-stage personas of personal, confessional comedians like c.k. who present aspects of their private lives in their public work. in addition, i look at how c.k. asserts his public persona as a self-presentational meta-presence within the representational depiction of his fictionalised self on television. the result is a step toward understanding the nature of self-performance in the frontand back-stage personas of stand-up comedians and how representational media with a distinct authorial voice can act in the spirit of presentational media. key words persona; stand-up comedy; self-performance; louis c.k.; louie introduction presenting yourself authentically will only grant you successful navigation of the world if you choose the right stage and frame for the performance. that is often the overarching idea about persona that comedian louis c.k. offers in playing a fictionalised version of himself in the critically acclaimed series louie (fx 2010 – ). renowned for c.k.’s almost singular authorship of the series as writer, director, star, executive producer, and, oftentimes, editor, louie “makes stand-up comedy cinematic” (zoller seitz, “why”). the series’ stand-up aesthetic is a direct translation of the singularly authored, personal point of view expressed in c.k.’s stage work to a piper 14 visual, narrative form. the program’s character louie, like louis c.k., is a divorced father in his forties living in new york city and working as a stand-up comedian with an everyman stage persona that situates social commentary within the often crudely honest details of his personal experience. louie has proven to be a breakthrough for c.k.’s career and has brought increasing critical and popular attention to his work on stage and television. this has, in turn, drawn further attention to the similarities between c.k.’s life and its fictionalised representation. as stand-up comedians, c.k. and his character louie can be thought of as structuring their professional and personal lives in terms of erving goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor of self-presentation. front-stage is the stand-up performance persona, shared by c.k. outside the series and his character within it, operating in a comedic frame that permits him to say the unsayable and to make confessions about his private self that would not otherwise be appropriate to air in public. back-stage is the social life of the louie character, c.k.’s semiautobiographical stand-in and we, as an audience, are granted far more access to this world than the off-stage persona of louis c.k. himself. nevertheless, louie is a persona that viewers are encouraged to accept as authentic, as a self-presentationlal version of c.k. that operates in a narrative world not so far removed from our own. it is a world where louie is a little less famous, a little less wealthy, than his real-world creator, but a world that is permeated with the same kinds of absurdities that c.k. critiques in his stand-up comedy. in louie’s back-stage life, however, the frame is wrong, and he is unable to fight against the world’s absurdities as he would on stage. this paper, following p. david marshall’s proposal that persona studies can “look at how the constitution of our fictional narratives is shifting in an era of presentational media and persona” (“persona studies”, 15), considers how contemporary representational narratives about comedy performers are shaped by notions of self-presentation. like fiction films about stand up comedians, such as punchline (seltzer 1988) and funny people (apatow 2008), louie represents the frontand back-stage life of the stand-up within the same textual frame. in the televisual tradition of sitcoms based on stand-up comedians’ material, like roseanne (abc 19881997), and seinfeld (nbc 1989-1998), there is an element of self-presentation in the narrativisation of a stand-up’s act. in louie, there is a clearly defined presentational framework around the representational form that situates the series in the contemporary climate of standup comedians performing their back-stage selves in diversified front-stage contexts. however, by looking at louis c.k. and louie as personas through goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor, we can investigate how the frontand back-stage personas of stand-up comedians are understood as cultural objects and how comedians with a personal, confessional style, like c.k., make the argument for their front-stage persona as being their authentic selves. by reading louie through persona studies, this essay argues that the “proliferation of the public self” (marshall, “persona studies”) can imbue traditionally representational media with the spirit of presentational media, illustrated by c.k.’s attempts to assert his extra-textual public persona as the auteur of louie. forming a persona studies approach to louie goffman’s dramaturgical metaphor of self-presentation can be readily applied to standup comedy. with the clear demarcation of literal frontand back-stage spaces in stand-up comedy performance, the stage personas of comedians will be, according to goffman’s theories, in some way different from the person they are in their off-stage “real life.” while this degree of difference in persona is expected, the stage performance of a comedian like louis c.k. who claims to perform as himself, who claims his material originates from lived experience, and who serves his personal life up to his audience for the purposes of humour, problematises these persona studies 2015, 1.1 15 different personas in ways that stage and screen performances based on a clearly demarcated on-stage character do not. the curtain between the frontand back-stage space of the comedy club becomes a porous boundary and the continuity of self-presentation creates a persona that is often still “on,” even in what are ostensibly back-stage spaces. confessional comedians of c.k.’s ilk exist in a perpetual state of what could be authentic self-performance or a performance of the authentic. comedians can remove themselves from the frame usually occupied by their persona – the stand-up comedy performance – and continue to present the comedic persona, which is purported to be an authentic representation of self. the result is comedians who seem to be performing as themselves, exposing details of their personal life in the on-stage comedic frame, but, despite their claims to authenticity, are presumed to have an off-stage persona that is kept largely hidden. the performance of self in comedy is, as brett mills argues, a constant state of “acting” as and “being” the self, both in and out of fictional realms, which can work to obscure any sense of who the comedian “really” is (200). hence, it is not surprising that modern standup comedians, whose back-stage selves are presented in an increasing variety of public, frontstage venues (onand off-screen, onand off-line) and are moving between states of acting and being as themselves without clear boundaries, emerge in this climate of proliferating public selves (marshall, “persona studies”). how comedians obscure their “real” selves through constant states of self-performance is a type of narrative trope found in what marshall calls “representational” media forms such as stage and screen fiction. these representational fictions have set the tone for cultural narratives about the onand off-stage selves of comedians, despite the trend toward autobiographical comedy developed in the “alternative” comedy movement of the 1970s and 1980s (moon 202). in terms of screen fiction, tony moon cites mr. saturday night (crystal 1992) and the king of comedy (scorsese 1982) as examples of works that “have alighted upon the complexities and dichotomies of the comedy performer, seeing it as ripe territory for original drama” (202). fictional representations of comedians allow audiences to witness comedy performers in both “performative and social context[s], where their offstage lives inform their onstage personas and vice versa” (moon 202). with fictional stories about comedy performers offering this unique view of both the frontand back-stage personas, moon argues that particular cultural narratives and questions about the authenticity of comedian emerge from these representations. to the stage and screen works that are the basis of moon’s case study, i would add that authentic self-representation in comedian stage persona has been addressed in other works of film fiction, such as punchline, funny people, sleepwalk with me (birbiglia 2012), and top five (rock 2014). further to film fiction, i suggest that what constitutes on-stage space for a comedy performer has diversified beyond the comedy club or theatre stage; there are now a variety of publicly visible, on-stage venues where comedians are able to perform versions of their onand off-stage personas, in fictional and non-fictional, representational and presentational forms. these diversified front-stage venues permit comedy performers to represent themselves as individuals, showcasing back-stage personas in looser front-stage contexts. documentaries and tour films such as comedian (charles 2002), the comedians of comedy (blieden 2005), and the greatest movie ever rolled (polito 2012) present the performative and social personas of comedy performers side by side in a manner that purports to be non-fictive. comedian podcasts such as wtf with marc maron, you made it weird, and walking the room provide a venue for comedians, as hosts and/or interview subjects, to perform their off-stage selves and engage in “back region” talk about their private lives as people and as comedians in what will eventually become a front stage venue before an audience once the podcast is released online. social media piper 16 platforms such as twitter, facebook, and blogs constitute the online performance of the onand off-stage selves, as well as presenting the persona of the comedian as, simultaneously, promoter and product. television opportunities for comedians have also diversified beyond hosting or stand-up spots on late night variety shows (such as the various incarnations of the tonight show or late night franchises) or sitcoms that create a fictional world based on stage material and persona, such as roseanne, seinfeld, or home improvement (abc 1991-1999). television series like louie, maron (ifc 2013 ), and legit (fx 2013-2014) are built around comedians playing fictionalised versions of themselves that depict both the frontand back-stage personas of actual comedians. unlike the sitcoms prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s based on the material and persona of a comedian prevalent, these more recent series feature comedians playing fictionalised versions of themselves as comedians, rather than fictional characters drawn from their stage material. while past comedian-driven sitcoms tended to adhere to the standards of traditional sitcom style, with multiple cameras, proscenium staging, and recording with a live audience, the contemporary comedian series utilises the single camera comedy style which lends a sense of televisual realism to the depiction of the comedian’s life. for example, although both seinfeld and louie depict comedians playing versions of themselves as working comedians, the singular focus on louie as the series protagonist, single camera shooting style, naturalistic performances, absence of laugh track, and the more personal nature of c.k.’s comedy in the latter work to give the impression of c.k. playing a fictionalised version of himself, in contrast to the sense that seinfeld is playing a fictional character who also happens to be a stand-up comedian named jerry seinfeld. like the fiction films moon discusses, the contemporary comedian series explores the figure of the comedian by showing them in frontand back-stage contexts, but, because the comedians at the centre of these series are playing themselves, it allows comedians to speak for themselves through the prism of fiction. unlike moon’s strictly fictional case studies, though, the comedian self-performance television series carries with it the comedian’s extratextual public persona. this public persona, composed of various iterations of the comedian’s performance of self onand off-stage, in fiction and non-fiction, is a meta-presence that operates in ways akin to presentational media. the presentational public persona feeds into the representational text, with the two conflated in ways that make the contemporary comedian television series a kind of self-(re)presentational media. although these series are mediated, fictionalised forms distributed on the traditional media platform of basic cable television networks, there is an authorial presence of self-performance that is in the spirit of presentational media “performed, produced and exhibited by the individual” (marshall, “persona studies” 8). representing louie and presenting c.k. through the development of his 2007 hbo special shameless, c.k.’s stand-up comedy underwent a stylistic shift from absurdist non-sequiturs to an inwardly-focused examination of his life. his observational humour became grounded in the reality of his everyday experiences and personal point of view. this change in material began a career transition that brought c.k. wider success and more recognition as a stand-up comedian. the thematic switch in c.k.’s stage work that turned his comedic focus inward was concurrently replicated in screen fiction on the hbo sitcom lucky louie (2006). although filmed in traditional sitcom style with multi-camera, proscenium staging, and a live audience, the tone of the series aimed for a kind of realism not usually found in the traditional family sitcom. in the series, c.k. does not play himself-ascomedian as he does in louie, but, like other comedian sitcoms that build fictional worlds from stand-up acts, lucky louie remains a direct translation of the blunt, honest, and somewhat bleak persona studies 2015, 1.1 17 sensibility of his stage persona. c.k.’s comedic persona is now described as “a unique mixture of abject self-loathing, crushing pessimism, wide-eyed curiosity and, here and there, glimmers of hard-won sweetness” (weiner), qualities that are seen in both the on-stage and off-stage personas of louie. there is a congruity between louie and c.k., and the onand off-stage versions of each, that strongly suggests louie is an authentic self-performance of c.k.. the authenticity of c.k.’s performance of various personas is often emphasised when critics and commentators attempt to examine the cultural significance of his comedy and its current value in american popular culture. a 2014 gq cover profile describes the ways that c.k. attempts to defy the boundaries between the frontand back-stage spaces of performance and artifice, citing the direct-toaudience distribution of his comedy specials for five dollar downloads on his website, the fact that many of the actors on louie (including c.k.) wear their own clothes on screen or perform without makeup, and his entrance to the stage in his live at the beacon theatre special: “no musical or lighting cues, just louis c.k. walking onstage, grabbing the mike, saying, ‘go ahead, sit down, we’re just starting,’ catching the audience before they were ‘set’, [erasing] any distinction between performance and reality, him and us” (corsello 2). the fictionalised louie displays a similar defiance of frontand back-region boundaries, keeping his appearance the same onand off-stage, largely attempting to live his off-stage life by the sensibility he advocates in his comedy, and using the topics of his off-stage life as depicted in narrative segments of the series as the fodder for his stage material. topics from his private life, such as his children, his selfimage, and his sex life are given equal and congruent attention in the depiction of both louie’s onand off-stage personas. the continuity of authenticity in c.k.’s self-performance exists despite narrative discontinuity in the series. the first three seasons of louie establish a narratively elastic style that has been described as a televisual adaptation of a stand-up aesthetic (zoller seitz). the stand-up aesthetic of the series presents c.k.’s fictionalised self in both frontand back-stage contexts through stand-up segments and narrative vignettes that show snapshots of louie’s life. vignettes within the same episode, or from episode to episode, generally do not depict a continuous narrative, and often the continuity of character details about louie are broken to serve the story. for example, his siblings have changed over the course of the series. throughout the first season, louie’s brother robbie is a recurring character, with the suggestion that the two brothers are the only children in the family. in later seasons, three different women are introduced as being louie’s sister, with contradictory references made to the circumstances of louie’s childhood: his father absent in some, present in others, his relationship with his mother good in some, terrible in others. as in stand-up comedy, the finer details of a story may be embellished or fabricated in order to serve the particular joke or point of each chunk of narrative material in the series. like c.k.’s stage material based on the examination of his own life, the series is largely grounded in a proposed reality, achieved through the visual style of the single hand-held camera, practical locations, and naturalistic performance style. however, the series also deviates into moments of absurdity or surrealism, such as when a woman escapes from a bad date with louie by jumping into a waiting helicopter or when we see inside louie’s dreams or drug hallucinations. by witnessing the off-stage life of louie, the audience sees where and how the stage material originates, and the way c.k. televisually represents his fictional self’s perspective of his world. the stand-up aesthetic of the series comes from these disconnected ideas, the frontand back-stage, the realistic and surrealistic, presented together in a continuous flow that is united by the presence of c.k. as the person communicating the ideas, whether through his on-stage persona, the persona of his fictionalised self, or as the auteur responsible piper 18 for creating his material and its televisual representation. while there is not a strict degree of narrative seriality in louie, there is the seriality of persona that evolves through repetition and consistency of the persona’s performance (marshall, “seriality”). louie frontand back-stage while on stage, the stand-up comedian persuades you they are performing themselves. their jokes and anecdotes are delivered in first person and they try to make you believe that what they are telling you stems from personal experiences or observations and is funny because of their own unique take on the world. they are looking to entertain and to get laughs. when they are on stage, they are “on,” and when comedians present their stage personas as versions of themselves it can create certain expectations about who they are off-stage as well. judy carter writes that a common misconception about comedians is that they may be “funny, happy, outgoing, laugh-getting clowns” off-stage, when the reality is their off-stage selves may be overanalytical, depressive, or more interested in discussing creative ways to commit suicide than getting laughs (35). narrativising this misconception forms the basis of the fictional trope of the comedy performer as sad clown that moon observes in creative works about comedians. both louis c.k. and his fictionalised self, louie, share the same stage persona, which exists within the text of the series, and extra-textually in c.k.’s stage work and recorded specials. the comedic stage persona is a critical element of what defines stand-up comedy. oliver double defines stand-up as a performance that puts a personality on display before an audience, either as a purposefully constructed comedic character or a version of the stand-up’s own self (19). the personality of the stand-up is the defining element of their individual act as it “provides context for the material, it gives the audience something to identify with, and [it is] what distinguishes one comic from the next” (double 59). louie/c.k.’s on-stage persona constructs him as an everyman who is critically and honestly observant about himself and his perspective of the world. the confessional and self-deprecating nature of much of his material, such as using his middle-aged body as a target of humour and talking about his masturbation habits, sex life, and self-loathing, works as a rhetorical device that debases his stage persona and does not elevate him above his audience as non-comedic public figures might seek to do. to break down the louie/c.k. stage persona in goffman’s terms, the performance of the front-stage comedic persona is set as “an effort to give the appearance that his activity in the region maintains and embodies certain standards” (110). the standards of activity in the region of on-stage stand-up comedy performance are those set by what constitutes a performance of stand-up comedy: the intention of humour, the focus on personality, and the first-person, live communication from performer to audience (double 19). on-stage, comedians are expected to be charismatic in order to persuade the audience that what they have to say is worth listening to and that they are delivering comedic premises built on an authentic foundation of selfperformance. in grounding their comedy in their own persona, often in ways that can make their persona and what it represents the butt of the joke (as when louis c.k. targets himself, or targets his privileged social standing as a wealthy white american heterosexual male), comedians can endear themselves to the audience. the self-reflexive observation in this kind of humour also lends authority to the jokes that make targets of others: the ability to be accurately self-critical reinforces the ability to be accurately critical of the culture they represent more generally. the juxtaposition of what is appropriate speech or action for the stage and what is not appropriate for the back-stage space generates much of the comedy in the series. c.k.’s stage persona is an embodiment of the transgressive, saying the unsayable function of comedy persona studies 2015, 1.1 19 (purdie 3); that is, the states he performs on stage, such as irrational anger and self-revelation, are socially inappropriate outside of the frame of the comedy stage. if c.k. were not engaged in a one-way performative conversation with the audience on stage, but rather in an everyday social dialogue with his audience, his topics of conversation, his delivery, and his emotion would be out of place. in the frame of stand-up comedy performance, taboos are free to be broken, and c.k. can say terrible things that audiences accept, such as when he expresses moments of hatred toward his own children. the louie we see on stage is blunt, honest, and seeks to dismantle the inherent absurdity of everyday american culture, while back-stage, louie is often framed as being the only sane man in the asylum, a straight man foil for the world at large. in louie’s world, he is more often than not the only person who sees these absurdities, yet faces resistance (resulting in varying degrees of humiliation) when he attempts to call out any injustice or bad behaviour off-stage in the same manner as he would on-stage. back-stage, louie generally attempts to live by the same ethical code and sensibility that his on-stage persona advocates. the resistance he faces off-stage when highlighting the farces of everyday life that others take for granted positions the stage as the space where he can exist most successfully as the best, most true, version of his authentic self. on-stage, there is no resistance as the audience laughs and applauds. off-stage, the same point of view gets louie into trouble. the similarities between the fictionalised back-stage louie and the front-stage performance persona of louie/c.k. suggests that the stage persona is an authentic representation of self. the stage persona is heightened due to its performative context and the lines and beats of louie’s/c.k.’s stage material are memorized, having been performed numerous times before, but the sentiment appears to come from the authentic sensibility of the off-stage self and is given the illusion of in-the-moment thought by the casual delivery of confessional material. as richard dyer reminds us, our cultural assumptions situate the locus of the “authentic” and “true [self]” in the realm of the private and intimate, appearing “when people ‘let themselves go,’ pour forth their thoughts and feelings in an untrammelled flow” (122). while the comedy stage is not physically in the realm of the private and intimate, much of what is considered the locus of the private self is nevertheless on stage, contained within louie/c.k.’s stage persona. the topics c.k. broaches in his material and the way he performs it give the impression of c.k. “letting himself go” in the public safe space of the frame of comedy. the stage persona, built on a public performance of private, seemingly spontaneous, emotions, is therefore coded as the authentic self, but performed in a way that louie/c.k. has the most control over the perception of this persona. the front-stage space of stand-up performance is intended to be a controlled one-way communication where the performer speaks and the audience listens and responds with laughter and applause. when the fictionalised louie is depicted on screen as losing control of his stage persona, the back-stage persona appears as an indication of the negation of his status: it is shown to be a weakness, and the status shift of the broken performative context is played for comedy. in the season four episode, “pamela part 1,” the proposed authenticity of the stage persona’s rhetoric is undermined by the actions of the back-stage self in ways that provoked a controversial reception. the schism between the frontand back-stage selves of the character in this moment creates a space for c.k. to assert his extra-textual persona of the auteur at the expense of the louie character. piper 20 c.k.’s auteur persona: louie’s critical god c.k.’s status as the author of louie is clearly apparent both in the text of the series itself, and in para-texts of publicity and the textual body of c.k.’s celebrity persona. the opening credits announce c.k.’s multiple roles in the production of each episode, indicating the series’ almost singular authorship. most episodes include segments of c.k.’s stand-up in the same form as it exists in the world outside of the series, and a link is drawn between c.k.’s work on stage and in the production of the series: louis c.k. is the sole creative voice producing the material. critical reception and reviews of the series write about c.k. in the role of the author of the text, and interviews with c.k. about the series focus on his role as author. for example, andrew corsello describes c.k. on the set as seeking specific, predetermined line readings from his actors—he “composes his dialogue as much as he writes it,” and does not want his actors to improvise (2)—creating an image of c.k. as having a specific artistic vision for his series and as not particularly open to collaborative input that could change the intention of his work. in much of the reception of the fourth season, c.k.’s role as auteur was foregrounded by critics attempting to interpret the intent behind some of the season’s more difficult and controversial elements. this departs from the established narrative style and structure of the past three seasons and is largely comprised of multi-part episodes that continue a single narrative, which is referenced in later episodes outside of the multipart arc. rather than lacking in strict continuity, almost the entire season takes place in a clear timeline within the same narrative world. the result is a more cohesive sense of the louie character living a continuous life, with actions generally having consequences throughout the narrative. the role of c.k. as auteur is made particularly apparent both in the text and in para-texts of reception in the tenth episode of this season, “pamela part 1,” where a segment of louie’s stand-up ridiculing cultural apathy towards violence against women is juxtaposed with a scene of louie attempting to overpower his friend pamela when she rejects a romantic advance. a significant amount of this episode is devoted to a segment of stand-up comedy where louie’s on-stage persona—the socially conscious, self-examining, self-deprecating, vulgar, and brutally honest cultural commentator—talks about the inequality of women in american culture. on stage, louie expresses indignant bewilderment at the fact that women were unable to vote in the united states until 1920. he talks about the absurdity of the way women were traditionally referred to by their husband’s name, making their identity based around being the property of a man. he breaks down the cultural apathy towards violence against women, describing how it was once the norm but is only now merely “frowned upon,” and cites the example of the casual use of the term “wife-beater” as an affectionate name for a type of shirt. the following scene shows louie on the subway. in the crowded car, he sits across from a man talking to a woman who, while expressionless and not engaging the man in conversation, appears to be with him by the familiar way the man addresses her. as the train stops, the woman abruptly stands and exits, her actions so sudden that it appears to communicate that this is not her stop; she simply wants to get away from the man invading her space and forcing his voice upon her, and is willing to wait for the next train in order to do it. the man continues to talk to the empty seat for a few moments without acknowledging that the woman has left or breaking his flow of talking to the unresponsive, nonspecific audience of the train. louie eventually gets up and fills the vacant seat next to the man, who continues without acknowledging louie. louie makes eye contact with the man and nods along, pretending to be interested. persona studies 2015, 1.1 21 in past seasons of louie, given the disconnected and discontinuous narrative structure of the series, a scene like this might be taken as a brief interstitial between segments without greater consequence to the narrative. from the pattern of continuity that c.k. as author establishes throughout season four, however, this scene becomes a bridge between the thematic disparity of louie’s words on-stage and actions off-stage. in light of louie’s failures with women throughout the season (including the extended serial narrative of “elevator” parts 1-6, where louie falls in love with his hungarian neighbour who eventually leaves him to return home) and yet another rejection from his friend, pamela, at the beginning of the episode, louie’s actions on the train could be read as louie empathising with the man for being ignored by the woman who exited the train to get away from him. by empathising with the man and pretending to pay attention to him where the woman wouldn’t, louie is aligned with the man in a way that suggests both of them speak empty words to nonspecific audiences with varying degrees of response. like the man on the train, the stand-up segment we’ve just seen features louie talking at a collective audience, rather than engaging with specific individuals. it is the role that louie’s stage persona is built for: the words he speaks at people from the stage are invested with a degree of importance regardless of the audience’s response to them or regardless of the lack of meaning they might have for either louie as the speaker, or the faceless collective of his nonspecific audience. in the next scene, louie arrives home, where pamela has fallen asleep on the couch after watching his daughters. when pamela gets up to leave, the physical differences between the large, imposing c.k. and the petite actress, pamela adlon, are emphasized through their blocking on the set, with c.k. pulling himself up to his full height and leaning forward over adlon as she ducks and cowers away. louie invades pamela’s personal space and eventually grabs her arm while she tries to duck away as he attempts once again to bring up the subject of a relationship with him. in direct contradiction to the sentiments of the previous stand-up segment regarding the absurdity of the inequality of women and the lackadaisical cultural attitude of violence against women, louie pursues pamela around his apartment, using his substantially larger physical presence to dominate her. pamela attempts to escape, repeatedly telling him that, no, she does not want this. finally backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively, pamela concedes to allowing louie to kiss her. much like the woman on the train who ignores and tolerates the man beside her talking at her, pamela makes this reluctant concession in order not to escalate the situation: her lips remained pursed, mouth closed, face in a grimace, and she ducks further back into the corner turning her face away from louie’s. making the concession permits her to leave, while louie, oblivious to the hypocritical violence of his actions, leans back against the door and fist pumps a whispered “yes!” of victory. as the author of the work, c.k.-as-auteur is present in the episode by deliberately depicting louie’s total lack of self-awareness in the disparity between his words on stage and his actions off stage. c.k. undermines the established parallels between his public persona and the off-stage persona of his fictionalised self, deliberately illustrating his own self-awareness as an auteur by criticising the actions of his self-proxy character. while louie’s off-stage actions are criticised by the observations of his on-stage self (the same stage persona that exists outside of the text as c.k.’s stage persona), pamela also criticises the violent and ineffective nature of louie’s actions with the comment, “this would be rape if you weren’t so stupid.” in his role as auteur, c.k. has written the scene, including pamela’s dialogue and has directed the performance of the scene to deliberately emphasise his character’s physical dominance over pamela. it is c.k.-the-auteur who has arranged this sequence of scenes: the stand-up segment, the bridging scene on the subway, and the undermining off-stage scene in the apartment. the construction of the episode makes a deliberate point about the empty politics of louie’s standpiper 22 up and his apparent blind spot when it comes to the rigorous self-examination that usually characterises his onand off-stage personas. the way c.k.’s auteur persona manifests in the fourth season of louie is a continuation of c.k.’s public persona as “famous for constant self-reflection, self-loathing, and social observation” (ryan). para-texts of c.k.’s celebrity outside the series can aid in reading this auteur persona in louie and clarify c.k.’s presentational declaration as a more “highly evolved” version of his fictionalised self. for example, after a 2012 incident in which stand-up comedian and tosh.0 host, daniel tosh, was criticised for making light of rape in response to a heckler, c.k. voiced his support for tosh on twitter. as a result, c.k. was now included in criticisms directed at tosh. shortly after the controversy, c.k. appeared on the daily show with jon stewart and explained that he had been on vacation, off the internet, and unaware of the tosh incident when he posted the tweet. after subsequently becoming involved in the controversy he saw it as a learning experience, and talked about having become aware of the way women’s lives are policed by the threat of rape, something that he had never thought about previously (“louis c.k.”). whether this performance of c.k.’s auteur persona is actually all that enlightened is ambiguous and up for debate. much of the immediate reaction to “pamela part 1” saw critics disturbed by the scene and confused over c.k.’s intention, but ultimately attempting to withhold fully analysing the scene until the airing of “pamela part 2 & 3,” scheduled for two weeks later (see, for example, molloy; lobenfeld; robinson; sepinwall; zoller seitz, “wrestling”). in the concluding parts of the “pamela” narrative, however, louie does not face any consequences for his treatment of pamela and the two end up in a relationship which closes out the season. if this series of events, where louie’s treatment of pamela offers no obstacle to their relationship, is a blind spot of c.k. the auteur’s or part of a broader point about louie, whose unenlightened everyman character gets away with his ignorance because of white heterosexual male privilege, is difficult to determine given the unfinished and ongoing nature of the continuing television series. whether the relatively new state of narrative continuity in the fourth season continues through the show’s fifth season, and whether louie and pamela’s relationship carries over to the fifth season, remains to be seen at this time. the ambiguity and divided reactions to the kissing scene may stem from c.k.’s use of persona in the series. throughout louie, c.k. has made a consistent argument that his and his character’s front-stage persona is an authentic representation of self. the negation of that argument in this episode is jarring, and it can be difficult for audiences to tell which louie or louis is in charge here and what point he may be trying to make. however, understanding the various louie/louis/c.k. personas at work in the series can offer a clearer reading of how c.k. places his auteur persona within the text. this case study demonstrates that there is an opportunity for comedians whose public personas are tied in with a fictionalised representation of self to step outside the fiction and assert their role as auteur in order to reveal something of their own self-perception and reflexively comment on gaffes they have made in the past. conclusion representations of stand-up comedians in fiction work through questions about the frontand back-stage selves of comedians, demonstrating how each persona shapes the other and offering ideas about whether we as an audience can know who comedy performers “really” are. in the case of louis c.k. and his forum for self-presentation through fictionalised selfrepresentation in louie, c.k. has developed an argument for both himself and his fictionalised self as presenting an authentic stage persona. in a departure from this proposition in the fourth persona studies 2015, 1.1 23 season of his series, c.k. undermines his fictionalised self’s authenticity in order to assert his authorial voice in the text of his television series. examining the multiple versions of c.k. present in louie through the lens of persona studies reveals that the change in the character works to reinforce c.k.’s public persona as the self-examining and self-critical observer. in this example, c.k. sacrifices his fictionalised self’s on-stage authenticity and self-awareness in order to demonstrate his own, prioritising the integrity of one persona over another. by examining louie, we can see how a traditionally representational form of media can potentially act in the spirit of presentational media, supplemented by the meta-text of a celebrity public persona with a distinct author function. the proliferation of public selves shapes the nature of comedians’ self-performance and, in the increasingly porous boundaries of frontand back-stage spaces, the study of contemporary comedian persona reveals a shift away from cultural narratives about comedians that have been gleaned from representational works of fiction. as louis c.k. and louie c.k. show in this case study, an authentic presentation of self in such a liminal media space can become difficult to interpret when it may not be clear exactly which persona is taking centre stage. works cited carter, judy. the comedy bible: from stand-up to sitcom – the comedy writer’s ultimate how-to guide. sydney: currency, 2005. print. corsello, andrew. “louis c.k. is america’s undisputed king of comedy.” gq. conde nast, may 2014. web. 6 feb. 2015. double, oliver. getting the joke: the inner workings of stand-up comedy. london: methuen, 2005. print. dyer, richard. heavenly bodies: film stars and society. houndmills: macmillan, 1987. print. goffman, erving. the presentation of self in everyday life. london: penguin, 1990. print. lobenfeld, claire. “when louie stopped being funny.” gawker. gawker media, 17 june 2014. web. 18 mar. 2015. “louis c.k.”. the daily show with jon stewart. comedy central. 16 july 2012. television. marshall, p. david. “persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self.” journalism 15.2 (2013): 153-170. sage. web. 6 feb. 2015. ---. “seriality and persona.” m/c 17.3 (2014): np. web. 6 feb. 2015. mills, brett. “being rob brydon: performing the self in comedy.” celebrity studies 1.2 (2010): 189-201. web. taylor and francis. 30 sept. 2012. molloy, tim. “louie enters tv’s rape debate, and things get personal.” the wrap. the wrap news, 4 june 2014. web. 18 march 2015. moon, tony. “spotlight kids: the depiction of stand-up comedians in fictional drama: film, television and theatre.” comedy studies 1.2 (2010): 201-08. web. intellect. 13 sept. 2012. “pamela: part 1.” louie. writ. and dir. louis c.k. fx, 2 june 2014. television. purdie, susan. comedy: the mastery of discourse. toronto: u of toronto p, 1993. print. robinson, joanna. “what on earth is louis c.k. trying to say about rape?” vanity fair. conde nast, 3 june 2014. web. 18 mar. 2015. ryan, erin gloria. “louis c.k. wasn’t defending daniel tosh, restores faith in humanity.” jezebel. gawker media group, 17 july 2012. web. 21 jan. 2015. sepinwall, alan. “review: louie – ‘elevator part 6/pamela part 1’.” hitfix. hitfix inc., 4 june 2014. web. 18 mar. 2015. piper 24 weiner, jonah. “how louis c.k. became the darkest, funniest comedian in america.” rolling stone. rolling stone, 22 dec. 2011. web. 6 feb. 2015. zoller seitz, matt. “why is louie such a remarkable tv show?” vulture. new york media, 23 aug. 2012. web. 6 feb. 2015. ---. “wrestling with louie, part 1: is louis c.k. trolling the internet?” vulture. 4 june 2014. web. 18 mar. 2015. melanie piper is a phd candidate at the university of queensland, australia. her research focuses on adaptations of celebrity persona to fictionalised forms in film, television, and fandom. persona studies 2015, 1.2 99 image of the absent ayell et be n ne r tra nslat e d by el la le ve nb ach intr oduc ti on image on the absent, which might be described as a fictional life writing, seeks after the right assemblage of visual qualities that can depict a persona. this project exists in its hebrew version in the tel aviv museum of art library and was exhibited in sifria balayla (night library) (jerusalem 2014) and in the artport artists book fair (tel aviv 2014). the project is inspired by notorious adolf eichmann, here a protagonist exploring his own image through self-revelatory confessions. these confessions are received and reproduced by a female sex worker. the english translation of the project was made by ella levenbach. thanks are due to yad vashem, world center for holocaust research, for permission to reproduce many of the images used in this piece. edi t or’s n ote : some images from “image of the absent” have been removed pending copyright permission for this online english edition. this work will be updated as permissions are obtained. ben ner 100 fig 1 [approval to use image pending] image of the absent a prologue / an elegy persona studies 2015, 1.2 101 a slight floating sensation, which seemed to affect the actual presence of objects, people and even the air around me, accompanied me for days after i first met with e. it probably had to do with a strange feeling, which crystallized at some point between the middle of our encounter to its end, that i knew him. it made no sense of course – he came from a different country, his mother tongue was a language i spoke no word of, and the culture he grew up in was foreign to me – at least that’s what i thought at first, when i took a glance at the book shelves in the guest room of his home, at the ornaments, at his meticulously tailor-made clothes. on second thought, that first glance may have been the moment of déjà vu, a sense of imaginary familiarity from the past. but as time passed this feeling became so strong and so real that i could complete his sentences, furthermore, i knew, even after a long silence, what he would say when he began talking again, without asking anything or interfering with his stream of thought in any way. at this point it felt like watching a movie based on a beloved book – one becomes so excited by seeing the details, words, and sentences, as they create a familiar meaning in a new and surprising way; slight disappointment from the reduction of grand ideas and vague abstract feelings into concrete details; and an anticipation for it to go on and on. i didn’t know which one of us held the wondrous ability to create this dialogue between us, in which every word pronounced into the room was nothing but an echo of a previous thought that seemed to be echoing another thought, and another one, into itself. was he endowed with a rare talent to make the person opposite him feel as they have known each other for years, or had i entered a state of mind that enabled me to read the person opposite me? but as time went by things became clearer. i am presenting his story as he told it to me – in fragments, not chronologically. the general continuity is occasionally disrupted by my reflections. ben ner 102 persona studies 2015, 1.2 103 the child is father of the man ben ner 104 persona studies 2015, 1.2 105 fig 2: author’s private collection until the age of 56, the thought of settling down in a place like israel didn’t even cross my mind. i had visited the area, but it was on a business trip, even though i had some personal interest in the residents of what then used to be palestine and their way of life. i remember that when the ship sailed from the haifa harbor and someone beside me said “it’s good to be going home,” i nodded in consent to myself and didn’t pay any attention to the notion of what might happen if one day i’d have to live here. so when, on a flaming august day in ’87, i found myself in the blazing hot, unair-conditioned office of a nazareth garage waiting for one of the boys to finish working on my car – which turned out to have a worn out axle seal– i asked myself what the hell i was doing here and how i got here. for a moment it seemed to me that the time since i had last seen the waters surrounding the western beaches of israel, at the age of fifty six, had gone by while i was asleep. it wasn’t just the heat that led me to these thoughts, which would seem illogical to me at any other time; and it wasn’t only the fact that the office i was waiting in had no air conditioning, just a ventilator that was merely pushing the soot of the cars back outside and not cooling the air at all, it was also a phrase from a wordsworth poem i had stumbled upon when paging through a pile of newspapers on the small table that separated me and the other waiting men: ben ner 106 the child is father of the man on my way home, i almost crashed into a white car driven by a young woman. when she looked at me, overwhelmed with shock, after i had brought my newly repaired car to a screeching halt, it looked like she recognized me – or maybe it was the mutual proximity to the moment of a crash that awoke a sense of identification between us. at the end of the side-road that led to the moshav 1 i was living in at the time, just a few minutes away from my home, next to the secretariat and the post boxes, i decided to park the car and walk home. i remember how completely foreign i felt during this walk. i imagined myself as a prisoner whose cell borders are defined by the walls of the houses protruding among the well-groomed gardens around him, and all he can do is imagine the freedom hiding behind those walls: the small objects decorating the kitchen and living-room shelves, the rows of books standing on the bookshelves, the pattern of the material covering the chair seats, the pillows resting in a pleasant and orderly fashion on the couch and the silent figure sitting on it, in a room that is always dark. fig 3: author’s private collection 1 a cooperative agricultural settlement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/agricultural persona studies 2015, 1.2 107 later that day, at home, as the last residues of yellow-gray sun rays came through the window and the thick heat began sinking into the asphalt, i went through my belongings hoping to understand the essence of the strange events that had been happening since that morning, or to find a memory that seemed to be lost. i came across a triple photograph of harold lloyd with a double caption from a book about the history of the silent movie. lloyd’s arms look like stumps. somewhere i read or heard that the voice was taken from the silent movie stars and so they are doubly doomed to suffer from the photographic “unconscious”: the phenomenal ability to separate identity from image, to plant a type of split personality in the person who is being filmed from the moment the shutter closes and his image is imprinted on the film. it’s double because every person has flipped through a year book and looked at graduation photos: even (and maybe especially) when you yourself are photographed in them, a foreign feeling accompanied by wonder arises in you the more you look at the photo, until your body seems to detach from the gazing eyes and is absorbed into the infinite void of time that slowly grips you from within. fig 4 [approval to use image pending] ben ner 108 “harold lloyd when his face was covered with almost as many freckles as there are grains of sand on the shore; and they didn’t wash off with the tide, either.” “harold lloyd as he is not. he’s not the ‘pretty pretty’ fellow the photographic ‘art’ retoucher has made him, but a wholesome, big boy, in a rough tweed suit and a radiant smile”. this void had begun covering my consciousness like termites feeding on a tree, when the sentence re appeared in my mind: des mannes vater ist das kind and with it the understanding – or the feeling – that took hold of me that morning, and seemed like a passing circumstantial issue at the time, only strengthened and intensified until the piles of books surrounding me came to resemble a tombstone, prematurely carved just for me. persona studies 2015, 1.2 109 you are born every day but your legs are as heavy as your father's and your father’s father who was murdered just outside the woods zrubavel gilad ben ner 110 persona studies 2015, 1.2 111 the similarity between us grew and expanded and as e delved deeper into his stories i found myself discovering and rediscovering this amazing ability to instantly connect with no common history, biographic details (of which i knew very little), origins or anything else that could separate two people or bring them together. it may have been infatuation – his character caught me by surprise, when i wasn’t ready, and revealed itself to me in various places and in unexpected contexts. it suddenly emerged on the tv screen, when i was watching a program on the dada movement; it appeared in my mind’s eye while i was busy separating the white laundry from the coloured, although at that threatening moment, his face was blurred and looked like the face of a different man who i probably remembered from my past, without knowing his name or even remembering where we met. fig 5 [approval to use image pending] fig 6: courtesy of yad vashem ben ner 112 he also emerged, suddenly, out of a page from a book written by sebald who describes an adolescent dream he had about the “americanization of his personality” which was soon replaced with an “aversion to almost anything american” – and while i looked at the accompanying picture, which was used to support the incompetent words, i suddenly noticed the faces of the two women, as if they were not there before. they were sitting on both sides of the spectacled man who awakened the image of e in me – both facing him, and at the same time ignoring his existence and passing an imaginary object between them, as though he isn’t present between them at all. fig 7: author’s private collection persona studies 2015, 1.2 113 in any case, the conversations and meetings continued, not always of my own accord – he would call and ask me to come over, and i would come. every time he called i thought i could hear the hesitation in his voice, it may have been fatigue or fear of rejection. these voice signals, the possible feelings that broke through the formality of the actual words and became a visible conflict, led me to think or believe that he knew, better than me, what has to be done, what the right agenda for the day was and how things should take place but that something prevented him from expressing himself confidently and with resolution – and i was to understand the intent behind the words and bridge the gap. after my arrival, during the long conversations that preceded the sexual encounter, he tended to jump from one topic to another. only a slight associative link connected between the subjects (this led me to momentarily suspect that some hidden disease may be wreaking havoc in his brain). he wondered melancholically about the meaning of his life and life in general. ben ner 114 where am i present? where have my shoes made their mark, where have my fingers left their prints? i am like those ghosts that emerge from the photograph of a disaster or fatal accident: after it’s developed one can identify a human shape in the corner: he is walking towards the photographer, as though his feet are stepping on a plain different to the one the photographer and those photographed are standing on, almost as if he is floating but at the same time determinately advancing towards a clear goal or driven by an inherent power of movement he cannot stop. fig 8: author’s private collection persona studies 2015, 1.2 115 during one of our meetings, he showed me four photographs he held before going to sleep: three of them were from books and newspapers and the fourth was a photo of him. they caught his eye, so he claimed, absent mindedly – but he found the similarity between them in full awareness: figures 9 & 10 [approval to use images pending] fig 11: fig 12: courtesy of yad vashem [approval to use image pending] although each one was taken in a different location and probably at a different time, in all of them the eyes are startled, exposed and looking at the camera, so he said; the hand is holding a pen or carelessly resting on a typewriter as if we were all caught in flagrante delicto. after some reflection, during which we were both silent, ben ner 116 he took out the whole photo album--an act that usually suggests romantic intentions but not with him. it seems that the soul to soul connection was the drive behind his actions and introspection. paradoxically, as the introspection revealed itself to me, he became more distant from himself, as if he was examining himself, trying to discover the objective truth, not a subjective proximity that can fake itself. when he paged through the album, he made a kind of general comment that could equally have been made in an introductory class to visual culture. he said the person photographed is characterized by the context of all elements – the light, the age of the picture, the quality of the photo, its surroundings, the different events the picture exposes, including the random ones. my identity may derive from the way i look at things, he offered suddenly and raised his eyes to me, but then he returned them to the picture that was lying in front of us at the time, said something and continued paging, every picture received its own explanation and interpretation. persona studies 2015, 1.2 117 fig 12: courtesy of yad vashem the film is scratched; the double square of light is the complete opposite of my spine. ben ner 118 fig 13: courtesy of yad vashem black thursday – cleaning day. from the ceiling, from the same dark grid that encloses the photograph and blurs its borders, grows a strange black upside-down flower and the line of colour on the small cell, which for some reason looks like a bathroom to me, challenges all rules of logic. it reminds me of an illustration from the little prince – he is wearing green, digging in an enclosed volcano, his figure is disproportionately large and around him slanted flowers grow from the ground like the pine and maple trees that grow in japan. persona studies 2015, 1.2 119 fig 14: author’s private collection ben ner 120 fig 15: courtesy of yad vashem this photo was most probably taken in a library. it must have been the early ‘60’s, in jerusalem, adjacent to that significant and transformative event – it looks like a depiction of the moment of revelation, like the one saint hieronymus had. the pages project a sacred aura that is about to reach the person looking at them (or clinging to them) and will inhabit him for eternity. in caravaggio’s painting it is already a permanent inhabitant above jerome’s head, who continues clinging just for the sake of the action in itself. persona studies 2015, 1.2 121 we are so immersed in the text that is lying in front of us that we forget the close presence of death. he who is adhered to the aura is not part of the chronological time continuum and has no influence on what is part of that continuum, e argued. if he did so in order to justify an existential fallacy or for some other reason, i could not understand. it’s a nice way to avoid the question of whether the scriptures are testimony or myth, but every text that projects an aura on its reader becomes holy and every act of reading during which direct contact between the text and its reader takes place, becomes a transformative one. thus the acts of reading and writing become timeless opportunities, instead of taking on their regular role – creation or confirmation of testimony or myth. when describing a timeless occasion of this sort, the face is not revealed in order to neutralize the chronological time continuum set by a subjective approach. events that involve hiding or revealing of the face always carry within them a defining moment that deviates from the time continuum and stays hanging in space forever. he also said: memory is a phenomenological structure, he said; it builds itself. so said e. ben ner 122 persona studies 2015, 1.2 123 this photo, which he gave me as a memento and didn’t say much about, also lay in the suitcase under his bed, in the same pile of papers, photos, and other personal documents he showed me, a little at a time. i was born on the 19 th of march 1906, he said again and again, in solingen, north rhine-westphalia, and came to israel at the age of 56. if i were forced to guess the circumstances in which this photo, which he didn’t expand on, was taken, fig 17: courtesy of yad vashem ben ner 124 i would say it seemed as though he was visiting friends he hadn’t seen for a long time and they were pleading with him (it is evident in his expression) to be photographed in their garden as a memento. on the right, his left, i guess, stands their twostory home with a basement where they keep and age wines made from grapes picked in the vineyards surrounding the house – it looks like there’s a wide territory behind the house and the photo is too blurred and old to show the actual vines. their image isn’t present in the photo and, i am not confident it was a couple and not, say, an acquaintance or a distant relative who invited him to spend a weekend in the country. i imagine that not only grape vines grow there, but also herbs, tomatoes, garden plants like tagetes and bougainvillea and even some well-fed animals that grow to impressive sizes, like the rabbit he is holding and seems to be asleep. but the circumstances of the photo don’t explain the fact that the horizon on the right is higher than it is on the left; that the shadow, which also falls only on the left piece of land, indicates that there is some kind of structure on the photographer’s left and e’s right; and that the slanted object that seems to be coming out of his neck and looks like a bone of a human or animal bone, cannot be satisfactorily explained as a branch or awning and is situated in a way that defies gravity. a more profound and longer look brings to mind that the figure itself splits the photo into two. if i shut one eye, just as he is doing in the photo, and hide the floodlit plain on the left with my index finger, i see before me a figure fit to be in a conference hall, as one of the highly influential participants, or in a concert hall, as the orchestra conductor. and when the shaded part on the right is covered, the character revealed reminds me of the children who can be found in any photo album – their discontent silenced by a pet or some game they are forced to present to the camera and they obey in horror of the moment, out of the sheer loneliness forced upon them when the face of the adult opposite them disappears and is replaced by the camera, which warps the moment in order to document it. according to all calculations, he is no more than 50 years old here. he holds the sleeping rabbit, which is completely unaware of what is happening, as a shield that separates him from the camera, the photographer, and the future viewer of the photo. he has not even the slightest suspicion that one day the eyes falling upon the photo will be his or mine. persona studies 2015, 1.2 125 the last time we met – it was may of 2001 if i am not mistaken, when saturn, the great mentor, entered my star sign – he said he thinks that radical changes are about to take place in his life and he prefers not to be caught unprepared, and so, he is leaving. then, i believed that a transformation had occurred in him, something i had missed and maybe could not be fully explained between two people, but things he had said to me in the past suddenly took on a deeper meaning, as if the separation suddenly revealed a whole new part of him that i hadn’t noticed until then. when i thought about the things he had said about transformation and the endless split between the external and the internal, it looked more and more like he had foreseen what i could not predict: the moment of departure. whether he knew what was about to happen – that he would have to leave (he said nothing to me) and was afraid to tell me, and whether he hid it from himself as well or not, he left hints of the fact that his presence here is only temporary and that his future image was destined to collect more and more meanings in my memory until at some point, some arbitrary moment in time, when enough blocked and unsolved memories will be assembled, we will become the same person. so departure is necessary in order for transformation to occur and it marks the end of fragmentation. later, when i departed, and left images and stories behind, i also avoided the same occurrence which could catch me ill prepared. and as i write, the assemblage of meanings grows, the memories pile up, and the arbitrary testimonies of my existence receive a life of their own. ben ner 126 persona studies 2015, 1.2 127 has anyone noticed the difference between the young adolf eichmann and the person presented as adolf eichmann at his show-trial? the original adolf eichmann: figures 18-20: courtesy of yad vashem and fig 21: courtesy of yad vashem ben ner 128 the “eichmann” on trial… figures 22-28: courtesy of yad vashem persona studies 2015, 1.2 129 clearly there are some differences in appearance. the younger eichmann (who is younger than 40 in all these pictures) clearly has light-coloured eyes (blue, grey, or perhaps green). the older “eichmann’s” eyes are not visible, due to the thick lensed glasses he is wearing. there are some superficial similarities (both are slender men with prominent noses), but they don’t strike me as the same person; the older eichmann has quite a ‘jewish look’, a bit like a refined version of woody allen. did they use an actor for the trial? hence my question: would the real eichmann please stand up? ben ner 130 persona studies 2015, 1.2 131 while writing this text, at the end of january 2011, and running between my partner, whom i was taking care of since he suffers from a chronic lung disease, and the wording of my yiddish & avant-garde class final assignment, which will probably be about s. anskyshloyme zanvl rappoport’s pen name, and will mostly focus on the fact that while he was touring the small jewish towns of east europe as part of his ethnographic delegation project, he returned to his original name in order to blur his identity as a writer and publicist, i received an email from a man who called himself e. it is presumably the emotional stress that made me wonder, even before opening the email, about something that would seem irrational in any other circumstance; maybe that e stands for eichmann, or ansky, or maybe it stands for me, ayellet. 2 in any case, this was its content: 2 unlike the english spelling of the names, in hebrew all three names begin with the same letter – aleph א ben ner 132 persona studies 2015, 1.2 133 the relationship between the two worlds i belong to can be described as a section of an architectural plan, like the one i saw in my dream – i gazed from eternity at a piece of land that was spread out as if it were a cake; and heavy stairs, taller than man and hollow, crossed it diagonally. little people clustered as if hiding in their own shadow, even though there was no light there, and nothing else except for dirt. the people themselves may have been made of dirt as well. i looked at these stairs from eternity wondering what they meant, when the memory of life above ground began to seep into me. i didn’t feel suffocation, or helplessness, when the words slowly took shape and meaning until they crystalized into two whole sentences: fig 29: author’s private collection ben ner 134 fig 30: courtesy of yad vashem die treppe unter der erde ermöglict die sachen daruber die treppe unter der erde erlauben die ruckkehr ins leben 3 3 the stairs under ground confirm the life above it. the stairs underground allow the return to life. persona studies 2015, 1.2 135 . ayellet ben ner is a graduate student in the cultural studies program at the hebrew university in jerusalem. her research on the israeli sex industry has informed both her creative and academic work. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 1 performing lives, producing life: why persona studies and life writing studies need each other katja lee u n i v e r s i t y o f w e s t e r n a u s t r a l i a introduction this special issue on life writing and persona marks the 15th issue of persona studies and the culmination and end point of my eight years working as one of four managing editors of the journal. it is both fitting and very exciting then, to be able to wrap up this journey with an exploration of two fields that have long fascinated me: life writing studies and persona studies. indeed, life writing seems both an obvious and natural home for studying persona. the study of life writing has always involved the analysis of identities put into play and, it has become increasingly clear to me over the years, scholars of persona are equally fascinated by the kinds of persona work that life writing can do. over the past fourteen issues, every single issue has had at least one contribution (often several) that used or drew upon life-writing texts. over the years, a fairly substantial body of work has been published in this journal that not only showcases how the study of personas often depends upon or involves life writing, but also suggests that persona studies actually needs life writing studies. it needs the vast and rich body of knowledge that this field has generated over the years to help persona scholars make sense of how life-writing texts work, how they can be used, and how there are multiple personas being articulated at any given moment. rather than treating a life-writing text as a resource to be mined in order to prove an assertion about persona, life writing studies helps us recognise that these texts are performances in their own right. they do not just “contain” evidence of persona work nor offer an expression of a self, but are constructions that are producing a life, self, or identity. they are, as life-writing scholars like sidonie smith and julia watson (2001) have long argued, performative. in this issue, we thus have an opportunity to explore how life-writing scholarship not only has much to add to our discussions about persona, but also has, like persona studies, been irrevocably shaped by performance theory. indeed, both fields have grappled with many of the same questions about the truth and authenticity of these performances, and have been working through different ways to account for collaborative, collective, and co-created identity work. in that latter discussion, persona studies has had something of an advantage as a field that has long recognised the social conditions that shape and compel the persona performance, and has not had to overcome a century-long obsession with autonomous selves, romantic notions of authorship, and whose hand held the pen. life writing studies needs persona studies to help it make sense of these conditions that shape the “performative utterance” (poletti 2016, p.364), and not just its form and content but its circulation as well. regardless of content, life-writing texts circulate and do persona work, making the text an instrument of the life, a performance within and with a life. in the following three sections, i will further stake my claim that these two fields need each other, first, by exploring the kinds of persona work that life writing can do. drawing upon the three “i”s of auto/biographical life writing – the “i” who is narrated, the “i” who narrates, lee 2 and the “i” of the extratextual author—we will be able to trace distinct spaces and forms of persona work in life writing that are often conflated in persona-focused approaches. in exploring how these texts are capable of doing persona work regardless of content (or even text!), we can model life writing studies approaches that are less dependent upon content and close reading strategies. to demonstrate how the two fields are, in fact, more siblings than cousins, the second section examines some of their shared theoretical roots, the common questions about truth and authenticity that both have managed to face down, and how each field, in their own particular ways, is making sense of the potential for collective and/or collaborative performance. in the final section, i turn to the eight contributors whose scholarly and creative works put into practice how the two fields compliment and challenge each other to stretch in new directions. it is in their work we can see the rich possibilities for future work in these fields. what kinds of persona work does life writing do? in these pages i use the term “life writing” in the broadest sense to refer to, as smith and watson wrote, “a variety of nonfictional modes of writing that claim to engage the shaping of someone’s life” (2001, p. 197). this includes writing about someone else’s life—what is often referred to as various forms of biographical practice—or one’s own life—autobiographical practice—and even one’s own life in relation to others—sometimes called relational life writing or signalled through a slash in auto/biography. but the production of a text about life, subjectivity, people, or experiences has long involved other media forms besides the written text and, in the face of the “increasingly mediated nature of social life” (poletti 2016, p. 360), there has been a concerted effort to adopt new terminology such as “life narrative” to capture a broader range of written and non-written cultural forms, or to stretch the established terminology of “life writing” to include those forms. of particular importance has been the ongoing conversation to theoretically reframe the field as one concerned not with genres, but discourses and discursive acts (see, for example, laura marcus’s auto/biographical discourses [1994] and smith and watson’s 2010 edition of reading autobiography]. there is merit in all of these approaches, and the usage of “life writing” here falls into the category of “stretched” terminology, that is, accounting for more than written texts (even if all of the contributors here are, indeed, dealing with writing in some form or another). it is an approach that quite consciously does not wish to be constrained to narrative (as not all life writing is narrative-driven), but also acknowledges that what makes these texts life writing is our ability to recognise in them discursive acts of life/subjectivity representation. marking “life writing” then as an expansive category of texts, one might argue that almost all life writing does persona work and all of it has the potential to do persona work. i say “almost” in order to raise the question of whether private life writing—that is, those texts that do not circulate in public—do persona work. this question seeks to tease out the conditions and limits of ‘private’ in private life writing when persona is recognised as a public interface, a “production of self through identity play and performance by the individual in social settings” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2). certainly, private texts have the potential to do persona work should they be discovered, found, published, and/or read. but does the private journal, written for one’s self and secreted away in a bedside table, or the video, captured at a family event and stored away on an old betamax tape in the attic, fulfill the criteria of acting as a public interface and/or negotiating identity in social settings? i would argue yes (after all, the tree that falls in the forest with no one there to see it, still fell). what life writing offers us that not all persona performances offer us is a text. life writing is always mediated in some form. in the case of selflife writing, it is not so much a mediation of self (as we shall explore further in next section) persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 3 because this presumes a self that exists prior to its expression, but a mediated self. that text is performing a life, producing a life even if the intended audience for that text was yourself and you successfully managed to keep it from the gaze of any other human creature. moreover, that text still has the potential to do further persona work even after you keep it from the gaze of others and destroy it. even if you never actually produced a text, the idea of a life-writing text can be enough to do persona work. think, for example, of the impact that a rumour about a secret diary or a secret destroyed diary can work upon one’s public persona particularly if the individual is well known. in august this year the tabloids had a field day with the idea that meghan markle may have recently found her daily journal of her time as a working royal. the anticipation that this rumoured text might contain tantalizing insights into the royal circus and that she might air such dirty laundry in public continues to feed into toxic perceptions and representations of markle as a publicity-seeking threat to the crown. late last year, former german chancellor angela merkel announced she would be writing a political memoir with her long-time aide, beate baumann (‘angela merkel’ 2021). this memoir, even if it had no material reality at that stage and was only an idea, was (and still is) doing persona work for merkel: the conditions of its production—"the two women planned to pen the book themselves with no outside help”; the anticipation of what it may or may not include; the very fact that producing such a text seems to run contrary to merkel’s usual approach to public life are all impacting how merkel is perceived and how she is playing and performing her identity (‘angela merkel’ 2021). even those of us not cursed/blessed with such profoundly public profiles can effect persona work in declaring “i am writing my memoirs”. we may intend it to lend credibility or gravitas to our image, or leverage it as a threat to family and colleagues, and it may do that work for our personas or, perhaps, simply confirm established perceptions of us as self-important or overly ambitious. we know as well, thanks to previous work done in the pages of this journal, that our digital life-writing activities are also doing persona work. these articles have often looked to digital practices of self-representation in fields like academia (mcdonald 2015; see also ortizvilarelle in this issue) or politics (usher 2016; kannasto 2020) or particular media like games (haggis 2016; werning 2017) and blogging and vlogs (mcrae 2017; humphrey 2021; also hall in this issue) where the texts under discussion were, indeed, public. but even in the absence of a publicly circulated text, i would argue, the traces of private, unpublished and even unfinished life writing we perform in digital spaces are relevant to this discussion. our private, un-updated facebook pages; our abandoned, half-completed linked in profiles; that unfinished biographical sketch that languishes on our desktop; and even the ways in which we like, share, or linger on an ad in our feed, are all contributing to a digital footprint that may never be more than a datadriven persona but are, nevertheless, forms of life writing capable of doing persona work. in the life-writing text, then, we have an instrument capable of doing persona work for ourselves (or others) regardless of what the text actually offers by way of content. whether material reality, rumour, or anticipated project, life writing can be a means to negotiate social settings and/or put identities into play. recognising this kind of identity work done by life writing invites us to step back from textual analysis and close reading techniques, and to appreciate the text as a discrete cultural object or artifact that has a life of its own. one might even go so far as to argue that, in addition to doing persona work for their authors and/or objects of study, such texts may have personas of their own. in a 2019 issue of persona studies, kirsty sedgman made a compelling argument that the bristol old vic theatre had a persona (sedgman 2019). in 2021, travis holland looked to the persona of the mars exploration rover opportunity, a robot/machine celebrated and mourned when it ceased to function (holland lee 4 2021). if an old theatre and space garbage can have personas, it is not a far stretch to suggest that a persona could be cultivated for or perceived through a textual object like a book. the book of kells, for instance, has a kind of aura that would suggest there is a persona at work there. or, more pertinent to our discussions of life writing, would not the reverence with which the original life writings of benjamin franklin are treated, be akin to a social situation? certainly, there is a play of identities at work here that issues from how a broader society and cultural context interact with the object in question. if persona studies might remind life writing scholars to linger a little longer on the life and identity work of a text as a text, persona studies scholars might be also be persuaded to linger a little longer on the content. for what life-writing scholarship has long acknowledged is that there are multiple “i”s at work in the life-writing text and to conflate them or to ignore one for the other is to miss a crucial site of persona work. in an autobiographical text, for example, there is the narrating “i” and the narrated “i”. that which is narrated—whether the past self or, in the case of biographical approaches, the subject of representation—is an identity put into play, a construct of the author who wishes to convey a particular impression of that person, life, experience, or subject. this narrated “i”, particularly when constructed through the past tense, does persona work on multiple levels: it offers up a persona of that past self but, also, importantly, it does persona work for the present self. for example, contemporary women’s celebrity autobiographies often invoke a representation of the past self as ‘just a girl’ from humble, country, or ‘ordinary’ origins, what i have called elsewhere, in canadian contexts, “a hometown girl” trope (lee 2020, pp. 246-9). this trope carves out a particular kind of persona for the famed woman’s past self, but also does critical persona work for the present self because it functions as a yardstick to measure her present success (gauged by distance from those humble conditions) and her authenticity (gauged by proximity to the values and identity forged under those conditions). the persona of the narrating “i” is additionally crafted through tone and style. the bemused adult, for example, narrating the puckish behaviour of their youthful self or, in biographical contexts, that same tone for someone else’s exploits still does persona work for the narrator whether they assert an “i” or more omniscient gaze. life-writing texts that depend more upon images than writing, such as instagram posts, function similarly: an analysis of what has been selected, cropped, filtered, tagged and even hashtagged reveals something of the persona of the posting “i”, and this might be distinct from the persona work of what is posted, the posted “i”. all these, in turn, do persona work for the extra-textual authorial “i”. in short, there is much to be gained in persona studies from a more careful analysis of the various identities in play and from using life writing theory to understand their relationships to each other. ties that bind: shared theoretical roots, conundrums, and horizons to speak of the shared theoretical roots of persona studies and life writing studies is, perhaps, more accurately a matter of finding common ground and shared influences as both fields have their own internal conflicts, contradictions, and diverse theoretical trajectories. nevertheless, certain arenas in both fields have been irrevocably shaped by performance theory, and in particular by judith butler and (more so in the study of persona) erving goffman. it was goffman who, in 1959, explained performance as the activities that exert influence (1959, p.15) which butler later articulated in terms of actions that consolidate an impression (1990). butler in particular sought to contest this notion of a core, inherent, or essential self that was given expression to; rather, they argued that the impression arose from the performance. in persona studies this approach has generated a particular interest in the social contexts of these persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 5 performances and their effects. in life writing this theoretical approach to self and identity has shaped an approach to life storying wherein selves are not expressed but performed through texts: they do not pre-exist their articulation. as poletti has explained, “life narrative is performative in the sense that it is though the utterance of narration that the subjectivity, and the life, are brought into being” (2016, p 364). one of the dangers both fields have thus had to navigate is the concern about the truthfulness of such performances (a concern, no doubt, exacerbated by goffman’s use of theatrical metaphors and jungian approaches to persona masks). a self strategically produced for a particular situation—whether a glowing representation of one’s self in a memoir or a performance adapted to suit a specific social situation as in a job interview—has raised the spectre of false fronts, strategic masks, and untruthful representations in both fields. in the study of persona, however, the persona and its constituent performances are framed as quite real: they are not false or fictious (leppanen 2016, p. 101) and can be strategic, legitimate, and authentic. a preoccupation with representation or referentiality, to some degree, does not make sense because the performance is real and, in a performative theory approach, makes no claim to represent an internal reality. life writing, on the other hand, makes truth claims and claims to represent reality in some form. (autofiction and autobiographical novels have long offered playful challenges to the limits of referentiality, the non-fiction/fiction divide, and ongoing discussions about the nonfiction pacts that life writing invokes [schmitt 2011]). a post-structuralist approach to truth as constructed, relative, and a function of power and knowledge proved useful in destabilizing an approach to life writing that sought out universal truths and verifiable realities but scholarship in trauma and life writing rightly critiqued the impact this has on those who write about genocide, rape, and other atrocities. seen through the lens of performance theory wherein impressions are created and consolidated, the sincerity of such impressions, goffman has noted, is fragile and needs to conform to audience expectations (1959, p. 56, 71). in the contexts of autobiography, leigh gilmore has also flagged how crucially tied truth-telling practices are to the contexts and discourses in which they are deployed (1994, p. 14). in short, persona studies and life writing studies are offering us similar ways to perceive the truth claims of the persona performances of non-fiction texts by focusing on the conditions of impression production and reception, an approach that does not necessarily need to discount the verifiable reality of traumatic experience. because both life writing and persona performances more broadly are contextually determined (or, at the very least, influenced and shaped by the social situations they anticipate), both fields have explored, in different ways, how this renders the performance/persona/text the work of more than just a singular or autonomous self. as the pages of this journal have modeled over the years, persona studies is keenly invested in notions of collective, collaborative, or co-produced personas. a similar conversation has taken place in life writing studies albeit under different terminology and approaches, and having undertaken a more circuitous route that included overcoming romantic constructions of autonomous authorship and implied presumptions that more than one ‘author’ was not the norm and, perhaps, not even legitimate (ie. the ‘ghosted’ text). one such approach has been to acknowledge a slash in auto/biography in order to recognise that the narrative of one life invariably involves narrating other lives. relational life writing recognises that life writing can assert shared identities through familial, gendered, or other bonds which challenge the notion of fixed boundaries between self and other (eakin 2004, pp. 8-9). we know as well that life stories respond to and are produced in order to navigate particular contextual demands whether this means such storying has been coaxed or compelled such as in a legal framework (smith and watson 2001, lee 6 pp. 50-3), has been shaped and formatted according to occupational demands (see ortizvilarelle in this issue) or digital templates (mcneil 2012), or simply to negotiate a social setting that has particular expectations of a public person (see lee 2020). and while we are not short on frameworks for thinking through the collaborative and contextual conditions of life writing, these are rarely addressed in persona approaches to life writing. likewise, life writing studies has a tendency to overlook the developments emerging out of persona studies in collective and co-produced personas. this issue thus seeks to open up a conversation that recognises shared theoretical roots and common influences and conundrums, but also the opportunities on the horizon to stretch both fields in new directions. in this issue opening this issue and touching on a topic that is, no doubt, pressing and pertinent to many academics’ lives, lisa ortiz-vilarelle explores the impact and effects of digital automedia in the construction of professional academic identities. the constraints of these platforms, programs, and forms through which academics must negotiate their presence in and promotion through the academic institution creates a portrait of academic subjectivity that has been, to a degree, compelled, automated, and collaboratively produced. the effect, however, transforms meaningful lived experience into data in a way that reduces and circumscribes academic personhood. also concerned with the ways in which digital media affect professional personas, sini kaipainen and kimberly hall explore how authenticity in different professions is negotiated and, potentially threatened, by different life-writing forms. in “‘it’s what i do’: a close reading of lynsey addario’s instagram profile as digital memoir”, kaipainen investigates how war photojournalist lynsey addario uses her instagram account as a space to perform both her professional persona and more private moments. the juxtaposition of these posts and even, on occasion, within a post could threaten to compromise her professionalism. kaipainen suggests, however, that they do not: instead, these intimate and personal performances authenticate addario as a compassionate journalist and work to affirm her brand. in “empire of self: life writing and the professional person of the lifestyle blogger”, hall unpacks how crucial and, at times, precarious the production of authenticity can be for lifestyle bloggers. the diaristic structure of blogging, on the one hand, lends itself to the kinds of self-reflexive, revelatory discourses that can affirm a blogger’s authenticity. on the other hand, it also inspires the kinds of structures and narratives that are expected by readers and easily produced and consumed, but can also feel formulaic and inauthentic. the first of two creative contributions to this issue, jane burn’s lyric essay “how diary/memoir/artist/poet jane compares with social media jane: an experiment in person/persona via lyric essay fragments” offers us a gorgeously illustrated and poignant exploration/performance of self as experienced across poetry, social media, art, and academia. self-identifying as an autistic woman, she explores which forms, media, and social settings offer her safety, comfort, and a sense of genuine self-representation. the fragments of self, her work reminds us, need not be pressed into some kind of narrative or cohesive persona to be meaningful or true; rather, fragments enable us to showcase the extraordinary complexity and diversity of our persona performances. h.g. wells also recognised the plurality and flexibility of persona and the richness of experimenting with autobiographical life writing as aaron greenberg argues in his analysis of wells’ experiment in autobiography (1934). wells cared deeply and wrote extensively about the persona, greenberg explains, and saw in the concept of the persona the means by which persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 7 humanity could transcend the limitations of every day, personal lives. in that project, life writing is framed as an essential human right wherein we should not only have the right to tell our stories, but to represent the personas we elect, especially as they change and evolve. the second creative contribution in this issue, angela acosta’s “persona recovery through homage: poetic tributes to spain’s generation of 1927”, examines homage as a form that once excluded modern spanish women writers but has rich potential to recuperate their lives and work. the homage can be, acosta shows us through her research and her poetry, “lifemaking” and enables both scholars and creative practitioners to imagine and celebrate the sapphic and sororal relationships of these women. also looking to recuperate and celebrate under-appreciated artists, marc röntsch offers us some insights into his biographical work on zimbabwean-born composer, orchestrator, and pianist, christopher langford james. when artists struggle with their mental health, röntsch explains, it can readily become the dominant frame for life writing about them and how we read life writing by them. mental illness thus does particular kinds of persona work, forming a central construction of “artistness” and the artist persona. in the final contribution to this issue, james barker’s “dolly parton’s mythologised persona, collective life writing, and building a home for lgbtq+ listeners in country music”, we come full circle back to questions about how life writing and personas can be co-produced and collectively constituted. here, barker sees in parton’s persona and her music the opportunity for lgbtqa+ audiences to resonate with the life storying in parton’s songs. it is not parton’s persona that occupies centre stage here, but the collective persona of her diverse audiences who can enact queer readings of life-writing texts and, therein, find a “home” in a genre of music that has historically marginalised and erased queer affect and queer experiences. thank yous to lisa, kimberly, sini, jane, aaron, angela, marc, and james thank you for being a part of this exciting special issue. it has been a tremendous pleasure and honour to work alongside you all and to see how your work changed and developed over the course of the year. i have learned much from your work and i am much inspired by your enthusiasm and keenness to take life writing into new directions. thank you as well for your patience with all the last minute copyediting details and for the unforeseen hiccups (damn covid) that put us behind schedule. thank you, jane, for providing the cover image for this issue. it was difficult to choose just one image from the many gorgeous works in your creative piece! to the many scholars and creative practitioners who provided peer reviews, thank you for your time and for sharing your knowledge and insights. the careful and thoughtful feedback reviewers provide is the lifeblood of a good issue and i hope you can see in these pages the effects of your recommendations, influence, and enthusiasm. we are much indebted to all of our reviewers at persona studies who continue to provide timely, rigorous, and supportive feedback, and keep this journal at the cutting edge of new developments in the field. and last, but certainly not least, a very heartfelt thank you to my co-editors here at the journal, kim barbour, chris moore, and david marshall. this journal began through the combined efforts of kim and david, who, with the (ongoing) help of a technical support team at deakin university were able to realise this ambitious project of designing and launching a new journal. eight years later, persona studies remains the journal for the study of persona and we are very proud of what this journal has come to mean to the field and the scholars who work in it. working with kim, chris, and david in the production of our special issues, our guest-edited lee 8 issues, our regular issues (now redesigned as a “rolling issue” to facilitate speedy publication!), our conferences and conferences issues, and our newest feature, the video abstracts, we have been able to create a rich and diverse home for scholars and creative practitioners whether specialists in persona or arriving here by way of other fields. because the field is, by nature, interdisciplinary we have had extraordinary opportunities to work with scholars in a broad range of fields and this continues to inspire us to push our work and this journal in new, exciting directions. works cited ‘angela merkel to pen political memoir’ 2021, dw.com, december 10th. https://p.dw.com/p/446hj butler, j 1990, ‘performative acts and gender constitutions: an essay in phenomenology and feminist theory,’ in performing feminisms: feminist critical theory and theatre. john hopkins, pp. 270-82. eakin, p 2004, the ethics of life writing, cornell university press. gilmore, l 1994, autobiographics: a feminist theory of women’s self-representation. cornell university press. goffman, e 1959, the presentation of self in everyday life. doubleday. haggis, m 2016, ‘creator’s discussion of the growing focus on, and potential of storytelling in video game design,’ persona studies, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 20-25. holland, t 2021, ‘“my battery is low and it’s getting dark”: the opportunity rover’s collective persona,’ persona studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 90-100. humphrey, m 2021 ‘the social oikos: examining arendt’s concept of a public-private divide through the lens of a youtube vlog,’ persona studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 20-32. kannasto, e 2020, ‘personal brand of a politician in an election campaign – political personas on facebook,’ persona studies, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 12-4. lee, k 2020. limelight: canadian women and the rise of celebrity autobiography. wlup. leppanen, k 2016. ‘the politics of hella wuolijoki’s autobiography,’ scandinavian journal of history, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 91-109. marcus, l 1994, auto/biographical discourses: theory, criticism, practice, manchester up. marshall, pd & barbour k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective,’ persona studies, vol. 1, no .1, pp.1-12. mcdonald, s 2015, ‘responsible management of online academic reputations’, persona studies, vol. 1, no. 2, pp.54-63. mcneil, l 2012, ‘there is no “i” in network: social networking sites and posthuman auto/biography,’ biography, vol. 35, no. 1, pp.65-82. mcrae, s 2017, ‘”get off my internets”: how anti-fans deconstruct lifestyle bloggers’ authenticity work,’ persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 13-27. poletti, a 2016, ‘periperformative life narratives: queer collages,’ glq: a journal of lesbian and gay studies, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 359-379. schmitt, a 2011, ‘making the case for self-narration against autofiction,’ a/b: auto/biography studies, vol. 25, no. 1, pp 122-37. sedgman, k 2019, ‘the institutional persona: when theatres become personas and the case of bristol old vic,’ persona studies, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 98-110. smith, s & wilson, j 2001, reading autobiography: a guide for interpreting life narratives, university of minnesota press. —2010, reading autobiography: a guide for interpreting life narratives. second edition, university of minnesota press. usher, b 2016, ‘me, you, and us: constructing political persona on social networks during the 2015 uk general election,’ persona studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 19-41. werning, s 2017, ‘the persona in autobiographical game-making as a playful performance of the self,’ persona studies, vol. 3, no.1, pp. 28-42. katja lee university of western australia introduction what kinds of persona work does life writing do? ties that bind: shared theoretical roots, conundrums, and horizons in this issue thank yous works cited forsberg 88 working through hunter s. thompson’s strange and terrible saga jennif er ha ge n fors be rg abstract the subjective and participatory method of new journalism provides practitioner hunter s. thompson access to the kinds of creative, cultural entrepreneurship seen in postwar american narratives. in his reported and written “work,” thompson not only self-consciously performs class personas, but markets those identities as a model of enterprise through creative economy. thompson’s critical perspective and status position approximates what sociologists call a “cultural omnivore,” someone who consumes all forms of culture, but who reproduces a position of privilege in doing so. in hell’s angels (1966), thompson uses the privilege granted by omnivoracity to transform the limitations of the worker-writer into a commodifiable and safe identity that can access and reign over other social groups. by prioritizing his status as “pro,” thompson manipulates the symbolic and cultural capital of class identity, providing himself an opportunity to feature individual over collective politics. yet to accomplish this, thompson relies on representing—and exploiting—the working class. thompson exemplifies the class performative aspect of a working persona that is able to attain cultural domination through the manipulation of working-class identities in literary markets. key words hunter s. thompson, cultural omnivore, celebrity, working-class identity, representation hunter s. thompson made a career out of cultivating a notorious outsider position and outlaw writing style. yet, his professional association with new journalism was more than a method for expressing countercultural attitudes and political critique in the sixties and seventies: thompson’s aesthetic choices and compositional styles questioned the very status of the professional in journalism. these inquiries became a motivating factor in the eccentric and creative ventures thompson undertook, and still allowed him to claim the status and persona of that generates esteem in literary markets—the working professional. in his rolling stone article “fear and loathing at the super bowl” (1974), thompson famously claimed, "[w]hen the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" (49). now a heavily circulated, but decontextualized motto emblazoned on the tee shirts of a new generation singing thompson's praise for being “weird,” thompson’s original sentiment indicates a larger twentieth-century concern with creative labour’s ability to market itself. thompson’s work not only questions what it means to go “pro,” but explores the performative roles required of a professional journalist and writer. that 1974 article stages the creative process of developing status in the field, the literary market, and in american culture, something thompson felt correlated to competitive sports and the spectacle persona studies 2015, 1.2 89 of the super bowl. whether on the field or in the field, thompson’s interest in turning “pro” becomes a challenge to journalism and an assertion of individuality. thompson’s working persona was over-determined by a personalised sense of “journalistic responsibility” (“bowl” 48). his troubled relationship with “professional” journalism indicates he felt a kind of responsibility to himself as a creative labourer, and he often expressed an explicit criticism of the low-earning freelance jobs that defined his status in the literary market. even from within the progressive and subjective declarations of new journalism, thompson challenged the limitations of the profession through his performance of work. these working performances ventured into uncharted creative territory, turning the challenges of genre and discipline into a profession, as thompson harnessed the “weird” as a method of self-assertion. in promoting himself as a self-made professional, thompson declared a level of status that marked him both outside and above the traditional techniques or practices of the field. but to perform his working persona, thompson had to actively subordinate and objectify parts of society to sell readers his own insubordinate and subjective role. this method is clear nearly a decade earlier in thompson’s first major book hell's angels: the strange and terrible saga of the outlaw motorcycle gangs (1966), where his nascent working persona enlists a “pro” status through the active manipulation of working-class identity. hell’s angels and the work of representation american journalism has demonstrated long-standing interest in the underor working class. as critic thomas newhouse points out, many of the predecessors of new journalism can be traced to respected turn-of-the-century progressive texts, which emphasised the practice of “slumming” in the literary modes of realism and naturalism in order to stimulate social change (121). these episodes often featured upper-to-middle class characters that visited or lived in lower-class locations in order to gather knowledge and provide authentic representations of marginal worlds. the productiveness of class-crossing literary performances such as slumming becomes foundational in tom wolfe’s call for new journalists to disrupt the literary class hierarchy that ranks journalists as hardly noticeable members of the lower class, only above the “so-called free-lance writers,” or “lumpenproles” (“american novel” 153). unwilling to be subordinate to novelists, wolfe calls on new journalists to “tak[e] on all of these [class] roles at the same time […] ignoring literary class lines that have been almost a century in the making” (“american novel” 153). through slumming and crossing literary class lines, these interpretations of american journalism indicate that class identity can be a creative resource and a method for making content valuable and marketable. the fluid positionality of writers who engage with slumming and class crossing suggests a privileged position within the culture industry. an examination of these privileged positions benefits from richard a. peterson and roger m. kern’s formulation of the “cultural omnivore,” a postmodern figure who does not consume “everything indiscriminately” in culture, but “[r]ather … signifies an openness to appreciating everything” (904). a cultural omnivore is able to accumulate the kind of cultural capital that pierre bourdieu establishes in distinction (1986): to identify and participate in cultural practices that have value. thompson’s work shows the ability to appreciate and participate in a variety of cultural institutions. however, this access requires him to construct an effective working persona dependent on a multitude of marketable narratives, especially those that elicit tension between middle-class and working-class identities. this paper traces this phenomenon in hell’s angels, where thompson’s working persona consistently markets itself by transgressing literary and social class lines. hell’s angels is the text that secures thompson’s writing career and his working persona as cultural critic. first published in 1965 as “the motorcycle gangs: losers and outsiders” for carey mcwilliams at the nation, the commissioned project documents thompson’s year-long association with the northern california motorcycle gang in photographs and writing.i forsberg 90 thompson emphasises the working-class nature of the gang in order to capture the angels’ menacing reputation and to mobilise the cultural value of that reputation by marketing it to the mainstream. he fully inhabits his role as a cultural omnivore able to turn fraught debates of representation into self-serving capital. by transforming cultural capital into symbolic capital in legitimised, highly circulated books and articles, thompson and other new journalists provide evidence that omnivoracity is, as beverly skeggs suggests, not only a “privilege restricted to the middle-classes” (class & gender 125), but a method for the middle classes to “re-fashion and retool themselves" (class & gender 144). although he is perceived as a low-level practitioner of non-fiction and a creative transgressor of the class hierarchy, thompson’s narrative production and public performance as a new journalist establishes a work persona that uses class identity to “re-tool” his status, and while his cultural omnivoracity may fashion a sense of control as a professional, it also reveals him to be "an asset-acquiring self, obsessed with increasing the volume of [his] cultural capital" (skeggs self 75). the politics of representation and reputation are a central focus in the critical treatment of thompson’s early work. best encapsulated by the international journal of motorcycle studies’ commemoration of the 40th anniversary of hell’s angels in 2005, the issue includes essays that overwhelmingly claim that thompson lacked the authority to represent the bike gang and to influence cultural opinion. ultimately concerned with an accurate representation of motorcycle culture and with the laws that stemmed from field reports about the motorcycle clubs, the ijms critics find thompson an ill-equipped sensationalist more interested in promoting his writing than providing a truthful impression of the club. for instance, gary l. kieffner’s “myth, reality, and revenge in hunter s. thompson’s hell’s angels” concerns itself not only with thompson’s skewed, outsider representations of the angels, but also with his clear bias against them. similarly, barbara joans’ “glib with guts and gore: i come to bury ht, not praise him: the legend of hunter thompson,” details the masculine command thompson enacts in his depiction of the motorcycle club, which results in the development of cultural currency and celebrity despite his inadequate methods and perspectives. both kieffner and jones suggest that thompson’s relationship to the hell’s angels was troubled but productive, and that this tenuous connection “made” him as a writing professional and public persona. thompson is emblematic of the powerful command of class performance that new journalists needed to enact to strengthen their own worker-writer personas. by staging social transgressions, thompson is able to secure productive countercultural access through associations with the hell’s angels. as a working-class community, the hell’s angels provide thompson the content that asserts his position as a “pro.” the angels also provide thompson cultural material that secures his culturally omnivorous position. in order to turn these elements into creative new journalism, thompson strategically stresses three things: the gang’s working-class history and frontier connections, his outsider status and non-membership to the gang, and the capriciousness of celebrity. as a cultural omnivore, thompson is able to connect the working-class identity of the angels with a frontier mythos of mobile communities (e.g. hobos, gypsies). this pairing provides thompson with a grand historical trajectory that corroborates the authority of his chosen profession, and the command of his cultural position. since mobility is significant both to the hell’s angels and to thompson’s ability to capture the story, his description of the angels’ “gypsy style of life” (angels 150) suggests the cultural value of a mobile, outlaw community. thompson stresses the group mythos more than the individual members of the gang in order to connect disenfranchised working-class men to a collective reassertion of turn-of-the-century masculinity rooted in railroads and the frontier.ii in doing so, thompson controls a familiar cultural narrative, providing validation and legitimacy to his choice of subject matter. for thompson, this pairing ultimately demonstrates that despite the hell’s angels low social standing, they possess a highly mobile mystique that he can put in service of his own career. persona studies 2015, 1.2 91 to make this mystique appeal to his readers, thompson connects the angels to the visible iconography of the westward promise of expansion, and to populist-era settlements in california. he explains: “it is easy enough to trace the hell’s angel’s mystique—and even their name and their emblems—back to world war ii and hollywood. but their genes and real history go back a lot further” (153). thompson provides a historical evolution of working-class identity throughout the twentieth century, but one that stresses a nostalgic fascination with familiar and marketable emblems and names, rather than the material reality of nineteenth century frontier-era settlements in california. thompson connects the angels to the “rebirth” of california—strategically drawing on the iconic and popularised image of the dust bowl and its dispossessed populations—in order to stress the almost-mythical (re)settlement of nomadic labourers. connecting the working-class past to the conditions of labour reform heroes and railriding troubadours like woody guthrie, who, in “1937 […] expressed the frustrated sentiments of more than a million okies, arkies and hillbillies who made a long trek to the golden state” (153), thompson links the angels to an idealized working-class sentimentality in order to assert his command over certain cultural and political aspects of the historical american landscape. by approaching the angels as “a kind of half-breed anachronism, a human hangover from the era of the wild west” but “in other ways […] as new as television,” (angels 66-7) thompson establishes the gang as a group of exploited american workers displaced by history. this allows thompson to use his working persona to appeal to his audience, but also redistribute the cultural currency and productivity of historically outsider and underdog positions. these roots allow thompson to connect the angels to a mobile group of working men in the west called the linkhorns, whose interactions with mainstream society compromised their masculine character and become symbolic of the decline of the west. as a group made notable in the novels of nelson algren, thompson defines linkhorns as men who made “[d]rifting […] a habit […]. they kept driving west, chasing jobs, rumors, homestead grabs or the luck of some front-running kin” (angels 154). importantly, linkhorns were buying into the american dream by the middle of the twentieth century: “participating in the money economy; they owned decent car, and even houses” (angels 154-5). but thompson points out that other linkhorns expressed discomfort with middle-class ideologies of upward mobility, and “broke down under the strain of respectability and answered the call of their genes” (angels 154-5), to remain mobile and outside the status quo. this abbreviated twentieth-century genealogy marks a developing class divide spanning from the depression to postwar prosperity, especially in california. in this context, thompson selects a variety of working-class positions in history and acts as a bricoleur to establish a central thread of dispossession and rebellion against the emasculating and exploitative effects of middle-class or bourgeois life. these associations emphasise the mythos of the angels as quintessential outsiders who attempt to assert, maintain, and stabilise their masculinity under capitalist domination, an appeal that struck close to home for thompson and other new journalists. despite staging a sense of the angels’ commonality with the working-class’s historically outsider position, thompson also shows the angels in contrast to these nostalgic and romantic versions of americana in order to offer the angels as a perversion of western idealism. in doing so, thompson distinguishes himself from the working-class history he describes, and from the angels, allowing him to assert a dominant position for his bourgeois individuality and his working persona. although thompson stresses his concern at “being slowly absorbed” by the hell’s angels, his treatment of them as those working-class men, as we shall see, indicates a strict division between his investments and theirs (angels 46). the success of this separation is indebted to thompson’s ability to construe the members of the angels as working-class others who are an unsophisticated group in need a mediating force like thompson to achieve meaning. thompson’s boundary-crossing authorial position allows him to occupy a precarious, but productive position as both a part of and apart from the group. forsberg 92 thompson often explores the nuances of the angels community by translating their wild actions and behaviours for his readers. taking on the mediating role of a subculture-translator, thompson establishes symbolic control over working-class culture in order to make visible his own authoritative status. for instance, he explains that the angels’ “swastika fetish is no more than an antisocial joke, a guaranteed gimmick to bug the squares, the taxpayers—all those they spitefully refer to as ‘citizens’” (245). thompson stresses both the naivety of the viewpoint and the difference between the angels and citizens as a method of distinction. this distinction continues when thompson explains that by citizen, “[w]hat they really mean is the middle class, the bourgeoisie, the burghers—but the angels don’t know these terms and they’re suspicious of anyone who tries to explain them” (245). thompson’s translation of “citizen” to the political discourse of “the middle class, the bourgeoisie, the burghers” announces his own intellectualism and his position as a privileged insider to his audience. by focusing on the angels’ limited vocabulary and hostility toward nuanced meaning, thompson asserts his control as writer and master of language. these translations point to the angels’ lack of cultural capital and allow thompson to place himself in an esteemed position as cultural arbiter. in this way, thompson stresses his middle-class or bourgeois privilege to control not only the meaning of language, but also to legitimate working-class representations of the angels. thompson’s description of the angels’ initiation rites corroborates his privilege to translate the nuanced meaning of the gang to an audience. offering depictions of the angels’ abjectness, thompson offers hygiene as evidence of their otherness: every angel recruit comes to his initiation wearing a new pair of levis and a matching jacket with the sleeves cut off and a spotless emblem on the back. the ceremony varies from one chapter to another but the main feature is always the defiling of the initiate’s new uniform. a bucket of dung and urine will be collected during the meeting, then poured on the newcomer’s head in a solemn baptismal. […] these are his “originals,” to be worn every day until they rot. (45) stressing their filth and depravity, thompson uses the angels’ working-class bodies as ceremonial sites of a limited and ritualistic culture. gesturing toward both sacrilege and the angels as the unwashed masses, thompson’s othering invokes his audience’s fear of workingclass “contamination”.iii thompson’s translation of the subculture, however, provides a mediating force that evades contamination despite his proximity to report it. for thompson, contamination would result in a subordinated status that would inhibit his ability to recognise and distribute cultural capital, therefore, strictly distinguishing working-class bodies from his own becomes an important focus in his writing. thompson’s fear of contamination also motivates his physical interactions with the angels and his desire to emphasize his own individuality. this is particularly apparent in the second half of his text which focuses on the angel’s independence day ride to bass lake, just south of yosemite national park. beginning his journey at the bay bridge, thompson emphasizes that he drives to the lake in a car instead of riding his own motorcycle with the angels. expressing himself through this iconic symbol of middle-class american life, thompson’s observation of the gang from his isolated and self-contained car at the toll plaza is indicative of the physical separation required to maintain a cultural and class distinction from the angels: [w]hen i got to the toll plaza at the oakland end of the bridge i asked the gatekeeper if any hell’s angels had passed through before me. ‘the dirty sonsabitches are right over there,’ he said with a wave of his hand. i didn’t know what he was talking about until some two hundred yards past the gate, when i suddenly passed a large cluster of people and motorcycles grouped around a gray pickup truck with a swastika painted on the side. they seemed to materialize out persona studies 2015, 1.2 93 of the fog, and the sight was having a bad effect on traffic. […] this stretch is hazardous on a clear afternoon, but in the fog of a holiday morning and with a dread spectacle suddenly looming beside the road the scramble was worse than usual. (111) aligning himself with the perspective of other drivers and the gatekeeper, thompson becomes a middle-class “citizen” with a wary critical view of the angels and their “dread spectacle.” thompson connects his working persona to a concerned and affected driving public who have been alerted and warned of the angels’ ride by radio bulletins, further stressing the angel’s menacing impact on the social and cultural geography of california. this scene, in turn, establishes thompson as an important mediating force between the “looming” danger of the angels and the orderly plaza and technological advancement of the bridge. thompson’s vehicular position en route to bass lake similarly reiterates his separation from the “human zoo on wheels” (angels 113). the car provides not only a degree of security, but additional mobility for thompson because he can more easily take alternative routes to avoid the roadblocks put up by law enforcement to control the angels’ access to small towns. thompson flaunts his all-terrain and omnivorous access as a car-going member of the middleclass: “according to the map, the last twenty miles appeared to be a gravel goat track […] i swung left at merced and floored it for a long roller-coaster-run throughout the foothills. only two of the outlaws, both strays, made the mistake of taking the same route” (121). thompson’s leisurely “roller-coaster-run” on the “goat track” becomes a dangerous route for the “stray” motorcyclists, who are dehumanized in the face of thompson’s middle-class privilege. moments like these emphasise thompson’s ongoing negotiation of a work persona that allows him to be close enough to capitalise on cultural events, but also distant enough so as not to lose the privilege of a cultural omnivore’s accumulative potential. thompson’s arrival at bass lake is integral to the success of the angel’s weekend event. as the driver of the car, thompson’s middle-class privilege becomes the angels’ lifeline against the police-dictated recreation area designated for them. this rural campsite has no supplies and, most importantly, no beer. as a car-going non-angel, thompson stresses his mediating capability and civic duty, able to code-switch between the angel’s camp, and the fearful but curious townspeople. outside of the gaze of the law by disaffiliation, thompson is permitted to head into town twice for beer runs. thompson is secured and celebrated by his choice to drive to bass lake and is, simultaneously, able to assert and perform his separate status. thompson’s car reinforces the superiority of middle-class americana, serving as both a symbolic “peace offering” purchasing his entry into the camp, and a secure sleeping place and ground-level observation deck for ensuing late-night rough-and-tumble behaviour. thompson’s reports of parties like those at bass lake become part of the angels’ reputation in popular culture. thompson is comfortable with the developing celebrity status of the angels when it is credited to his new journalistic work, but when other magazines and newspapers begin to take interest in the angels—and more importantly, when the angels themselves begin to see the potential of being paid for their appearances—thompson is quick to discredit the gang. speaking of this shift, thompson describes the angels at first as “something original,” only to become a “mystique [… ] stretched so thin that it finally became transparent” (254). no longer an original story, thompson has to put a new spin on the working-class roughness he had been reporting. thompson self-servingly begins to discuss how the angels’ celebrity—in part created by thompson himself—has made the angels mediahungry and attention-starved individuals who now had confirmation that “they were rare, fascinating creatures” (angels 57). as the angels “become a factor to be reckoned with in the social, intellectual and political life of northern california,” their independent visibility and popularity at “half-bohemian parties” and within the media triggers thompson’s need to shift focus to maintain his own credibility (angels 226). thompson claims, “the angels were far more impressed with the quantity of such coverage than the quality. its total effect on them was forsberg 94 considerable […]. they were bona-fide celebrities, with no worlds left to conquer. their only gripe was that they weren’t getting rich” (angels 42). for thompson, like most cultural omnivores, celebrity is a by-product of bourgeois individuality, and is as such sanctioned only for those who have accumulated multiple avenues of cultural access and acclaim. pitching the media-hungry acts of the angels and their “giant masquerade” for attention, thompson begins to depict the angels as a spectacle, as dark outlines in the fog of the bay bridge, never fully detailed or truly valuable without his keen perspective (114). a conversation at bass lake exemplifies the tensions over representation, when oakland chapter founder, sonny barger, inquires about thompson’s work. suddenly held accountable for his previous article about the angels in the nation, thompson claims: “i had written the piece with the idea that i would never again have any contact with the motorcycle outlaws, whom i’d referred to as ‘losers,’ ‘ignorant thugs’ and ‘mean hoodlums’” (angels 139). growing selfconscious in his precarious status as cultural arbiter, thompson calls attention to the dread and volatility of having to “explain[ …himself] while surrounded by a remote sierra campsite by two hundred boozing outlaws (angels 139). forced to account for his past representations of the angels and his current book project on them, thompson’s interaction with barger focuses on the gang’s sensationalist treatment by the press. barger tells thompson, “well, we don’t ask for nothin but the truth. like i said, there’s not much good you can write about us, but i don’t see where that gives people the right to just make up stuff…all this bullshit, hell, ain’t the truth bad enough for em?” (angels 139). this exchange indicates not only the angels’ growing dissatisfaction with journalists like thompson, but also the inherent danger for thompson to be held accountable for his representations. rather than serve as a reminder of his ethical obligations as a journalist, barger’s mild-mannered conversation is depicted as a moment for thompson to consider his safety. thompson uses this conversation with barger to set up the scene of his infamous stomping by the angels.iv in a footnote, thompson addresses his conversation with barger, interjecting that the angels later “decided that truth was not enough. there would have to be money too. this created tension, which blossomed into resentment and finally violence” (angels 139). to prove this development, thompson ends his book with a postscript that details how he was beaten within an inch of his life: “on labor day 1966, i pushed my luck a little too far and got badly stomped by four or five angels who seemed to feel i was taking advantage of them. a minor disagreement suddenly became very serious” (angels 272). thompson acknowledges his advantageous position as one of “luck,” best defined by his ability to access the gang’s inner circle despite his outsider status. with the violent “truth” of the hell’s angels imprinted upon his body, thompson is able to offer himself as evidence in conjunction with the report. this stomping not only authenticates his insider-outsider work persona, but also garners interest and sympathy for the man who lived to tell the tale.v thompson establishes himself not only as rogue journalist and professional writer, but also as celebrity in the literary marketplace and a cultural figure of notoriety and acclaim. when thompson tells the tale of his stomping, he draws on the new journalist’s—and the cultural omnivore’s—ability to transgress class-based space and power relations, advancing the self even against brute bodily force: it had been a bad trip […] fast and wild in some moments, slow and dirty in others, but on balance it looked like a bummer. on my way back to san francisco, i tried to compose a fitting epitaph. i wanted something original, but there was no escaping the echo of mistah kurtz’ final words from the heart of darkness: ‘the horror! the horror! […] exterminate all the brutes!’ (angels 273) thompson calls attention to his position as cultural arbiter, invoking not only a marlow-like ability to avoid “going native,” but also the acclaim of narrating a tale of survival.vi despite his desire for “something original” to say, thompson’s cultural expertise invites alternative forms of persona studies 2015, 1.2 95 representation in the conradian allusion, and offers it as an emblematic, complex cultural “echo” that secures the position of cultural omnivore. in this final moment, thompson uses both highbrow literature and brute violence to productively and profitably resource the underclass and to assert his bourgeois individuality in new journalistic work. loathing the profession thompson’s working performances of intellectual grit and survival in hell’s angels also inform his best-selling novel, fear and loathing in las vegas (1971), which caricatures thompson and his profession of journalistic cultural critique.vii narrator raoul duke’s version of a professional working persona is one that expresses a conscious awareness of the romance of the american landscape and its public appeal to the cultural marketplace of literary fiction. depicting their version of professional journalism as a creative opportunity rather than a deadend job, thompson and duke celebrate the ability to ramble like a hobo and yet maintain gainful employment as a freelance journalist covering “the story.” “but,” as duke asks, “what was the story? nobody had bothered to say. so we would have to drum it up on our own. free enterprise. the american dream. horatio alger gone mad on drugs in las vegas” (fear 12). for duke, covering the story is less important than participating in it; the story is an objective thing compared to the subjective experience of being a working american writer on the road. duke is thus a paragon of the entrepreneurial work thompson performs and professionalises, and duke’s journey and free-enterprising genre-blending offers an ethos for new journalism that specifically defends thompson’s controversial work in hell’s angels as a professional and profitable opportunity to tell a story. as tom wolfe has noted, american literature has a tendency to invoke working-class associations in “terrific” biographical notes: the author, you would be assured, was previously employed as a hod carrier (steinbeck), a truck dispatcher (cain), a bellboy (wright), a western union boy (saroyan), a dishwasher in a greek restaurant in new york (faulkner), a truck driver, logger, berry picker, spindle cleaner, crop duster, pilot […]. there was no end to it […]. some novelists had whole strings of these credentials […]. that way you knew you were getting the real goods […]. (“birth” 4-5) in a cultural climate where working-class credentials make art “the real goods,” it is no surprise that figures like hunter s. thompson work to maintain associations with working-class identities. in challenging the profession of journalism by crossing literary class boundaries, thompson’s professional personas are omnivorous and aim to exist at all levels at once. yet, to cross class boundaries, thompson’s work must use practices that garner working-class sympathies and turn them into the “real goods” for the literary marketplace. these practices suggest that the subversive creative vision of new journalism is rooted in the mobilisation of class, which allows figures like thompson to enact a working persona that professionally markets the class positions of others as an advantage for the construction of his own access and creative output. by actively commodifying the working class—whether the hell’s angels, low-level journalists, or hobo figures—thompson’s work relies on the reproduction of a social hierarchy to secure his own professional status and working persona. thompson does not use representations of the working class to create strategic alliances that represent the material conditions for working class exploitation, dispossessed populations, or labour disputes. instead, he uses these representations to perpetuate the cultural material of self-made, frontier-laden, autobiographical narratives that have been central to american literature and its marketplace since its inception.viii incorporating journalism into a higher-status level literary market, and distinguishing himself against the working class, hunter s. thompson’s work suggests a predilection for american literature to capitalise on underclass positions through culturally forsberg 96 omnivorous practices. this professional status allows for the construction of strategic personas that engage in creative and intellectual work, but requires an association with those that physically labour to do it. end notes i the nation is an american magazine known for its liberal-minded politics and critique. during his time as editor, mcwilliams is credited with bringing the countercultural politics of the mid-twentieth century to a mainstream audience. ii for a more comprehensive discussion of the frontier, see richard slotkin’s influential gunfighter nation, which suggests that the frontier myths and myths of masculinity are concomitant in american cultural development. iii beverly skeggs’s class, self, culture offers a provocative discussion of how workingclass bodies become part of a symbolic economy. she argues specifically “[d]irt and waste, sexuality and contagion, danger and disorder, degeneracy and pathology, became the moral evaluations by which the working-class were coded and became known and are still reproduced today" (4). iv william mckeen’s outlaw journalist: the life and times of hunter s. thompson provides a comprehensive series of events regarding thompson’s violent attack by the hell’s angels. in his chapter “among the angels,” mckeen stresses how thompson’s postscript describing the bay area stomping on labour day in 1966 becomes an immediate marketing technique for both thompson’s reputation and professional writing. mckeen highlights how interviewers and book reviewers clamored over the stomping, generating excitement that made hell’s angels a best seller in 1967. this turned thompson into a well-known name featured on news shows, game shows, and in large-circulation periodicals. v in 1967, a canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc) talk show set thompson up to be confronted by hell’s angel, skip workman, who participated in the stomping. workman rides his motorcycle into the studio and confronts thompson in front of an audience. thompson is visibly fearful as the workman retells what really happened when thompson got stomped, indicating he was “mouthing off” and inserting himself unnecessarily into a situation of domestic violence. workman points out: “he’s sitting here and making a million dollars and he made it off of us” (cbc archive). in terms of spectacle, this scene promotes a multitude of readings, both of thompson as victim and of the angels as brutes, although it is important to acknowledge that both parties are socially recognisable, treated as celebrities, and, at least in thompson’s case, continuing to profit from working-class representations. vi in many ways, thompson exemplifies the kind of strategic victimization sally robinson maps in marked men. robinson argues that “middle american” white men in the midcentury must respond to a social lack of control due to the multiple liberationist projects which side-line their identity. white masculinity, in turn, learns to mark itself as victim in order to reassert and realign patriarchal practices that reward male domination. interestingly, the hell’s angels can be seen as participating in this practice, too, in the above claim of thompson’s exploitation. persona studies 2015, 1.2 97 vii the november 11, 1971 rolling stone cover for the publication of part one depicts narrator duke on a red, white, and blue motorcycle wearing a gas mask. ralph steadman’s depiction gestures toward thompson’s reputation with the hell’s angels and hollywood’s fascination with male countercultural rebellion in films like the wild one (1953) and easy rider (1969). steadman’s second cover and the story’s conclusion were released on november 25, 1971. this image includes a more grotesque caricature of duke injecting drugs in painful agony, and a samoan lawyer consuming a woman in the throes of passion and hunger. the dualities of the cover show the ongoing split in readership to date, some seeing thompson as the documentarian of a crumbling american dream on the road, and others emphasising the drugriddled freedoms of the sixties. overall, the novel argues that both attempts to explain the midcentury are lost by the fast-changes in politics and economy by the start of the seventies. viii the autobiography of benjamin franklin (1791) is one such prototypical example. franklin relies on working-class figures to stress the integrity of his character and his ability to avoid doing physical labour. works cited bourdieu, pierre. distinction: a social critique on the judgment of taste (1984). trans. richard nice. cambridge, ma: harvard up, 1996. print. cbc archives. “hunter s. thompson meets a hell's angel, 1967.” youtube. 7 july 2010. web. 9 july 2015. easy rider. 1969. dir. dennis hopper. perf. dennis hopper, peter fonda, jack nicholson. columbia pictures, 1999, dvd. franklin, benjamin. the autobiography of benjamin franklin. 1889. classic american autobiographies, ed. william andrews. new york: signet classics, 2003. 70-228. print. joans, barbara. "glib with guts and gore: i come to bury ht, not to praise him: the legend of hunter thompson" international journal of motorcycle studies 1:2 (july 2005). web. 31 august 2015. kieffner, gary l. “myth, reality, and revenge in hunter s. thompson’s hell’s angels.” international journal of motorcycle studies 1:2 (july 2005). web. 31 august 2015. newhouse, thomas. the beat generation and the popular novel in the united states 1945-1970. jefferson, nc: mcfarland & company, 2000. print mckeen, william. outlaw journalist: the life and times of hunter s. thompson. new york: w.w. norton & company, 2008. print. peterson, richard a. and roger m. kern. “changing highbrow taste: from snob to omnivore.” american sociological review 61.5 (oct. 1996): 900-7. web. 9 july 2014. robinson, sally. marked men: white masculinity in crisis. new york: columbia up, 2000. print. skeggs, beverly. class, self, culture. new york: routledge, 2004. print. ---. formations of class & gender: becoming respectable. london: sage, 1997. print. slotkin, richard. gunfighter nation: the myth of the frontier in twentieth-century america. norman, ok: u of oklahoma p, 1998. print. thompson, hunter s. as raoul duke. “fear and loathing in las vegas: a savage journey into the heart of the american dream.” rolling stone 95 (november 11, 1971): 36-48. print. ---. “conclusion: fear and loathing in las vegas: a savage journey into the heart of the american dream.” rolling stone 96 (november 25, 1971): 38-50. print. thompson, hunter s. fear and loathing in las vegas (1971). new york: vintage, 1998. print. ---.“fear and loathing at the super bowl” (1974). the great shark hunt: strange tales from a strange time. new york: summit books, 1979. 46-96. print. forsberg 98 ---. hell’s angels. 1966. new york: ballantine, 1994. print. ---. “the motorcycle gangs: losers and outsiders.” the nation 200.20 (1965): 522-26. the nation archive. web. 11 june 2015. the wild one. 1953. dir. lászló benedek. perf. marlon brando, mary murphy. mill creek entertainment, 2015, dvd. wolfe, tom. “the birth of ‘the new journalism’; eyewitness report by tom wolfe.” new york magazine. 14 february 1972. web. 14 july 2014. ---. “why they aren’t writing the great american novel anymore.” esquire (december 1972): 152-272. print. jennifer hagen forsberg is a phd candidate at the university of nevada reno where she specializes in american literature and american studies. her dissertation “rags, riches and rye: hobohemian narratives in twentieth century american literature” examines the strategic use of class identification in popular culture, especially in iterations of the hobo narrative. nolan 64 the involuntary masks of the poet: examining the evolution of the poet persona through p.d. james’s adam dalgliesh me gh an p. nol a n s t a t e u n i v e r s i t y o f n e w y o r k , r o c k l a n d abstract this essay examines historical perspectives of the poet persona (traditionally defined and articulated by poets themselves) alongside a contemporary depiction of the poet in the novel-sphere. more specifically, it considers the protagonist from p.d. james’s adam dalgliesh mysteries (14 novels spanning from 1962 – 2008), as dalgliesh is the perfect character to analyse in this respect. james’s character reflects a notable shift of the persona in the contemporary through a construction that relies upon both personally and publicly constructed features. dalgliesh exists at the nexus of detective and poet, a contradiction embodied through the dual personas of a professional and celebrity, each of which takes on a life of its own. because his fame is not of his own making, this raises questions about how this publicly constructed aspect of the poet persona manifests itself as what portuguese poet, fernando pessoa (2006, p. 273) refers to as the “involuntary masks” of the poet. these “masks” are cultivated beyond dalgliesh’s control and combine with his own strategic maneuvering to illustrate the dual nature of a persona reliant upon constructions of the self that atypically balance both self-defined and publicly constructed features. this essay argues that dalgliesh thus not only serves as an exemplification of the modern poet but also reveals those aspects of the poet persona which have withstood the perceived distortions of time. key words poet persona; contemporary poets; celebrity; detective fiction; adam dalgliesh introduction the poet persona (hereafter referred to as the poet with a capital p) has long been a subject of fascination and debate. from english poet, sir philip sidney’s defense of poesy (1595) to modernist fragmentation and the confessional conflation of narrator and poet-self, poets of every era have used a combination of the splintering of language and identity in order to consciously problematize our notions of native language and the unified self (crawford 2008, p. 64). interestingly though, the poet’s identity is most commonly conflated with the collective consciousness of a given timeframe or a defined movement during which they lived, whether it be modern, harlem renaissance, new york school, confessional, the beats, language, etc. even though the persona itself endures long past these respective years and often exists as something separate and/ or beyond a poet’s written works. this kind of identification is inherently problematic primarily because, as philosopher, jacques derrida (1980, p. 61) declares: persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 65 such a ‘moment’ is no longer a simple moment in the history and theory of literary genres. to treat it thus would in effect implicate one as tributary— whence the strange logic— of something that has in itself constituted a certain [era-specific …] motif, namely, the teleological ordering of history. and, although as academics we do this kind of historical ordering all the time for the sake of analysing and communicating the complexities of concurrent thought processes in and through various modes of literature, it is difficult to capture identities in this vein, particularly that of the poet because of some of the readily identifiable features which have withstood the perceived distortions of time to persist for centuries. that is to say, over the years, poets themselves have referred to the poet persona by some pretty lofty monikers: the archaeologist who unearths human history, as seamus haney tells us (stallworthy 1982, p. 174); the prophet who, as william norman guthrie explains, “works for the increase of beauty and good” which ultimately leads to joy (1898, p. 403); the historian who “records what’s gone” as w.b. yeats reminds us in his poem “fallen majesty” (1916, line 4); the fool and the priest, sigurd burkhardt claims because of his1 futile insistence upon absolving words of their bondage to meaning (1956, p. 280); the inventor and the teacher, as percy bysshe shelley proclaims in his own defence of poetry (1909-14, par. 4), who must use language in order to construct new realities and approximate “the agencies of the invisible world.” and, at best the poet is all of these things combined. unfortunately, however, these designations (either on their own or as grouped traits) may not have any significance in contemporary societies which value fleeting celebrity over the poet’s identity which, t.s. eliot (2009, p. 9) tells us, is innately tied to his ability to preserve, extend, and improve language itself while raising an awareness of feeling. despite poetry’s prevalence in centuries past, the poet has not held a prominent purpose in society for quite some time, and so there has been little exploration of what the persona has become in the hypermodern. for instance, it is impossible to limit the discussion of the poet persona to the aforementioned self-designations because conceptions of the poet as a public figure have shifted over time along with the growing import of celebrity in media-saturated cultures. and, as p. david marshall et al. (2020, p.31) explain in relation to erving goffman’s theories on self-presentation: the desired responses of others are influenced by the expressions of individuals and the definition of the situation which others formulate enables the individual to influence others to act voluntarily and in accordance with their own plan without conveying impressions of invested interest. poets are overtly aware of this sphere of influence in relation to the construction of the poet persona and intentionally use it to create a uniquely bifurcated identity expressed through various modes of poetic similitude that in turn reflects the very modes of self-presentation that everyone experiences and exhibits. but, what differentiates the poet persona from the average person is that the modern poet relies upon the forced façade of celebrity as well in order to convey these complexities. in “supernovas: a dialectic of celebrity in society”, lenn e. goodman (2010, p. 515) tells us that “a celebrity’s life is molded— if it is not destroyed— by an ongoing give and take between free actions, unruly passions, and the needs and aspirations, hopes and fears of a public that is itself self-governed or ill-governed, a mob, a market, a voter base, a fan base— the people”, especially in the arts. the poet, as with any artist so intent on crafting specified outputs including self-images, must depend upon the more uncontrollable images constructed by the broader public as a means of garnering audience connection. and so, in order to paint an earnest and full portrait of the poet persona, we must examine not only what nolan 66 poets are attempting to convey through the persona, but we must also consider the reception and perception of such performances to see which of those intentions remain true for nonpoets. in other words, we can, perhaps, gain a better understanding of the poet persona in the contemporary by examining the intended traits which have remained over an extended period of time in conjunction with those more involuntary traits that have been applied to the persona by those outside of the realm of poetry. therefore, this essay examines historical perspectives of the poet alongside a contemporary depiction of the poet persona in the novel-sphere. more specifically, it considers the protagonist from p.d. james’s adam dalgliesh mysteries (14 novels spanning from 1962 – 2008), as dalgliesh is the perfect character to analyse in this respect because james’s depiction of the poet persona is remarkable for several reasons. not only does she pick up on the unique nature of the strange balancing act of this persona, but she deftly employs this duality in the construction of her character by making it one of the more valuable aspects of his identity, and thus (wittingly or unwittingly) reflects a notable shift of the persona in the contemporary. as such, dalgliesh illustrates the dichotomous nature of the poet persona through a combination of personal and public constructions of the self— inhabiting a unique identity that is both carefully controlled in some respects, yet reliant upon the unpredictable perceptions of others for success. he exists at the nexus of detective and poet— a contradiction embodied through the aforementioned double persona as both professional and celebrity— each taking on a life of its own. “interestingly, in a time when poets are no longer household names, dalgliesh’s own poetry is somehow widely read and understood. he frequently finds his own books on the shelves of victims and suspects alike, and because of this literary notoriety, others sensationalize his abilities as inspector” as well (nolan 2018, p. 50). and, like with all poets, while certain facets of dalgliesh’s professional persona are indeed carefully chosen, his fame itself is not of his own making, and this raises questions about how this publicly constructed aspect of the poet persona manifests itself as what portuguese poet, fernando pessoa (2006, p. 273) refers to as the involuntary masks of the poet, which are cultivated beyond dalgliesh’s control “as an articulation of the private self that is expressed through a public individual” (marshall, et al. 2020, p. 48). and, although james’s character serves as an exemplification of the delicacy of such performances, as they hinge on promotion through what marshall, et.al. (2020) refer to as ‘mediatization’ in order to exist and persist, ultimately, the traits dalgleish exhibits are commensurate with what poets over time have defined as the poet’s purpose which is inherently steeped in the duality of a composition of individual and social, atypically balancing carefully self-manufactured features along with the uncontrollable prospects of celebrity at various levels. historical perspectives of the poet2 in order to fully understand the nature of the poet persona’s duality, it becomes necessary to first look to poets themselves to see which facets they have intentionally crafted and promoted in relation to the functionality of the role over an extended period of time. and, perhaps it is no surprise that one of the largest continuous debates surrounding poetry, both within and outside the poetic community, has been (and maybe always will be) about the purported purpose of the poet himself. although this dispute is fundamentally steeped in the rules of socio-hierarchy, the popular view maintains that poetry serves primarily a social function, in where the poet becomes a harbinger of political truths and/ or a sage of life’s fundamental wisdoms. but, it has forever been poets themselves (as opposed to society at large) who espouse such designations, and often, through impossibly elevated standards. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 67 as far back as the sixteenth century, we find in the work of english poet, sir philip sidney (1554 1586), documented evidence of the writer himself weighing in on the pure righteousness of that role he must fulfil. (righteous because the word “poet” literally means “prophet” or “seer” in latin, and “maker” or “creator” in greek.) in the proper spirit of didactic poetry, sidney proclaims in the defense of poesy, otherwise known as an apology for poetry (1595), that the poet is an ordained instructional leader of ethics both religious and natural, and he further remarks that the poet has immense potential when this role is properly executed: therefore compare we the poet with the historian and with the moral philosopher; and if he go beyond them both, no other human skill can match him. for as for the divine, with all reverence it is ever to be excepted, not only for having his scope as far beyond any of these as eternity exceedeth a moment, but even for passing each of these in themselves. (sidney 1595, p.14) and so, sidney proclaims that the poet can and does surpass both the historian and the moral philosopher in aim if he is indeed connected to his rightful spiritual purpose and truth— a concept, it is worth noting, that is consistent with celtic bards of the time and their upper-class counterparts, the filí (also meaning “seer”) who were known for using verse as a means of conveying history, genealogy, and sagacity. however, sidney further breaks down his distinction into three subsets of poets: those who teach predominantly through the translating of god’s will, e.g. “david in his psalms; solomon in his song of songs,” etc. (sidney 1595, p. 9); the moral poets who impart their knowledge through philosophical matters, e.g. tyrtæus or virgil (sidney 1595, p. 9 – 10); and, those who instruct via the purpose of their verse, e.g. “heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and certain others” (sidney 1595, p. 11). by all accounts, the poet is viewed as an instructor of ethical standards in his chosen mode. because religious and moral decrees are inextricably intertwined at the time, sidney proclaims that the poet’s purpose is to affirm such ethical edicts through his works. and, more importantly, it is the way in which the poet does this (through his verse) that makes him unique: now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth. for, as i take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is false; so as the other artists, and especially the historian, affirming many things, can, in the cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many lies. but the poet, as i said before, never affirmeth. the poet never maketh any circles about your imagination, to conjure you to believe for true what he writeth. he citeth not authorities of other histories, but even for his entry calleth the sweet muses to inspire into him a good invention; in troth, not laboring to tell you what is or is not, but what should or should not be. and therefore though he recount things not true, yet because he telleth them not for true he lieth not. (sidney 1595, p. 35 36) according to sidney, the poet does not lie because he has no need to: the poet simply reports that which is true. sidney also conveys that poetry itself (and therefore the poet) holds the purest intentions of humans, because it/ he acts as an ethical mirror. as t.s. eliot points out in his 1945 lecture, “the social function of poetry” (2009, p. 4), “giving moral instruction” is, in fact, the main aim of didactic poetry. part of morality is also an assumed honesty and integrity of the actual words that the writer produces, and the poet should be a sort of over-reliable narrator of all that is and not just one who simply reports ethically. it is in this vein that in the order of things (1970), theorist michel foucault advances eliot’s notions by declaring that the poet’s fundamental function is principally to use language in order to find and define similarities between subjects: nolan 68 at the fringes of a knowledge that separates beings, signs, and similitudes, and as though to limit its power, the madman fulfills the resemblance that never ceases to proliferate. the poet fulfills the opposite function: his is the allegorical role; beneath the language of signs and beneath the interplay of their precisely delineated distinctions, he strains his ears to catch that ‘other language’, the language, without words or discourse, of resemblance. (foucault 1994, p. 50) foucault asserts that the poet’s primary role is to identify and communicate through complex resemblances, and that this is a skill that reaches beyond the confines of those in normal language usage. this concept of similitudes, he later explains, is rooted in the sixteenth-century conventions of discourse more specifically enumerated as convenientia (convenience), aemulatio (emulation), analogy, and sympathy— all of which must rely on personal experience in order to work (foucault 1994, p. 25). interestingly, however, it is not until the romantic period, perhaps because of the onset of overt self-reflection and emphasis on the self as subject in one’s own writing, that similar sentiments begin to be expressed autobiographically, as is the case in william wordsworth’s life-long work-in-progress, the prelude (1850). and so, what was previously an attention to social order continues, not strictly in the form of religious edicts, but as manifestations of the ethereal as a function of material nature. it is hence revealed to be the poet’s duty to convey the trappings of this complex relationship. in accordance, percy bysshe shelley (1792 – 1822) expresses the superiority of the poet over all artists when he declares that poets, are the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world. (1840, par. 4). he sees the poet as the connective tissue between the natural and immaterial worlds. as shelley goes on to intimate, through his mastery of language, the poet must also teach man of his rightful place within these realms and establish the required social order. transcendentalist counterparts echo these sentiments as well, as ralph waldo emerson (1803 – 1882), too, hails the poet as the preeminent expert of language itself: the sign and credentials of the poet are, that he announces that which no man foretold. he is the true and only doctor; he knows and tells; he is the only teller of news, for he was present and privy to the appearance which he describes. he is a beholder of ideas, and an utterer of the necessary and causal. (emerson 1844, par. 7) while many may debate emerson’s claim that the poet is the only messenger of intrinsic veracity, few (then or now) would take issue with his argument that the poet is a legitimate practitioner of language itself. emerson goes on to proclaim that the poet “is apprised of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the word is a temple” (1844, p. 5). in other words, he acts as a direct conduit for the divine (presumably through inspiration), and therefore knows truth instantaneously, thus making the poet’s primary job to convey that fidelity to the world at large. in this light, emerson specifically points to the importance of the decisionmaking process of poetic writing as an indicator of heavenly connection, as he explains that poets (more than anyone else) must regularly make clear distinctions on the presentation of those utterances put forth because of their weighty import (emerson 1844, p. 5). persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 69 this emphasis on lingual intent as a deific communiqué quickly begins to fade as the imaginative qualities of the self in nature are replaced by victorian concerns of the “middling condition,” which, according to george levine (1983, p. 6), “always impl[y] an attempt to use language to get beyond language, to discover some nonverbal truth out there.” surely though, levine is not referring to truth in the esoteric sense, but the kind grounded in quantifiable matters invariably steeped in the follies of social systems of all kinds, including those of language as an institution. consequently, the poets who emerge on the heels of victorian realism begin to take issue with the earlier inclinations of the romantic autobiographical “i” and endeavour to break apart those individualistic tendencies that have hitherto been considered naturalistic and/ or inherent; reflection on one’s personal experiences in their terms is no longer enough to achieve poetic paradigms. it remains true, however, that the focus of verse does not immediately shift away from the ‘self’ as a subject. rather, it skews toward principals of linguistic intent that problematize the identified-self. it is in this lingual transference that we must concern ourselves with current conceptions of the poet as persona, because language usage is not the only process that complicates the identification. what has not been broached up until this point is that the poet must also consciously rectify public and private selves in order to effectively employ his methods of similitude, and poets of various eras have approached this separation of selves in different ways. as noted in “learning to circumvent the limitations of the written-self” (nolan 2015, p. 57), “early on the humanists used imitatio [loosely described as imitation today] as a way to break away from medieval perceptions of the fixed-self,” and romantics like wordsworth (1770 – 1850), “explored written identification through the liminal often intertwining autobiography and mysticism in order to interrogate the relationship of man with the natural and spiritual worlds.” but it was modernist poets who “mastered the process of poetic fragmentation, or what maud ellmann refers to as the poetics of ‘impersonality,’ through their extensive depersonalization of the self [ellmann 1988, p.4 – 7]” (nolan 2015, p. 57). in a letter dated 20 january, 1935, fernando pessoa (1888 – 1935) explains the art of modernist poetic fragmentation in the following way: what i am essentially— behind the involuntary masks of the poet, logical reasoner and so forth— is a dramatist. my spontaneous tendency to depersonalization … naturally leads to the definition. and so i do not evolve, i simply journey. (…) i continuously change personality, i keep enlarging (and here there is a kind of evolution) my capacity to create new characters, new forms of pretending that i understand the world or, more accurately that the world can be understood. (2006, p. 273) while pessoa is directly referring to his specific brand of heteronymism here, which represents the greatest extreme of modern fragmentation through 136 personas (or, to use the terminology favoured by pessoa scholars “fictitious authors”), his radical depersonalization is a perfect example of what every poet must regularly do (although to a lesser extent), as the poet must create and inhabit various façades in order to convey the many complex ever-changing ways of being we each undergo from moment-to-moment thus definitively making the poet a dramatist as well. interestingly though, despite agreement among poets about the pervasiveness of such acts it is not clear if these performances or any of the other aforementioned traits is communicable beyond the poet’s domain. and so, before we can examine those performances that the poet crafts and/ or enacts, we must see which of these self-defined characteristics (if any) is recognized by those outside of the realm of poetry and poets. nolan 70 the poet as detective even though poets have regularly utilized fictionalized masks as a means of individuation and connectivity for years, the poet as a fully fictional character is an oddly contemporary conception. as previously mentioned, poetry is experiential— the poet can only convey the complex modes of being inhabited by humanity through the use of similitudes which hinge on personal observation. and so, beyond the strictly autobiographical verse of aforementioned works like wordsworth’s the prelude (finished 1850) and its successor, walt whitman’s leaves of grass (finished 1892)— each consisting of multiple editions over time, (re)written as the poets themselves aged— there is a long history of the poet inserting himself into verse as a character, e.g. william blake in milton (1804). and, whereas contemporary poets like audre lorde (1934 – 1992) regularly blur the lines between reality and fiction in novel-like texts, they too rely heavily upon the autobiographical. (lorde even refers to her work, zami: a new spelling of my name (1982) as “biomythography” because of its intentional genre melding.) and so, in order to get a general perspective of the poet persona, it seems necessary to look to a writer of fiction who does not consider themselves to be a poet. novelist and non-fiction writer, p.d. james (1920 ) is not a poet— at no point does she claim to cross that line. therefore, we should be able to get a more objective viewpoint of the dichotomy of the poet persona through the portrayals of her primary protagonist, detective chief-inspector adam dalgliesh. as a character, dalgliesh is predominantly classified as a gentleman detective: he has great “appreciation for high art, literature, architecture, religious texts, classical music, and good wine, a trait shared with fictional detectives such as dorothy l. sayers’s lord peter wimsey and colin dexter’s inspector morse” (nolan 2018, p.49). but, as with all good gentlemen detectives, dalgliesh possesses a quirky ‘hobby’ and his happens to be writing verse. he distinctly embodies those aforementioned traits of the poet as well and in archetypal fashion is described as having a “stern withdrawn self-absorption as if he were stoically enduring a private pain” (james 1994, p. 352). at first glance, this image, commensurate with common perceptions of sensitivity and the ‘tortured artist’, may seem to be at odds with the more callous depictions we have come to expect of the literary detective. however, the combination of poet and policeman is not as dichotomous as it may seem, especially when we consider how well the pairing expresses the unique duality of the poet persona itself. writing poetry is not a sustainable living, and so poets have long needed to support themselves by other means. thankfully, some of the aforementioned skills the poet possesses naturally translate to certain professions, i.e. working on more lucrative forms of writing and/or in education. but, even if as robert crawford states (2008, p.200), “today’s poet is more often than not both inside and outside the institutional, academic literary machine, aware … that frequently the most useful weapons are ones which bear the imprint of the system itself,” those modes of similitude that the poet uses (convenience, emulation, analogy, and sympathy) happen to be extremely useful tools in various legal professions as well. as previously explained, the poet has always been linked to the communication of ethical standards. and so, while most poets these days may not choose to work directly in law as did american poets edgar lee masters (1868 – 1950) and wallace stevens (1879 – 1955), detection is not such a stretch for a paid profession when considering the usefulness of lingual semblance as a skill. in r. reid’s guidebook on detection, every man his own detective (1887, p.23), he states, “if there is any art that will aid the detective in his profession more than another, it is, par excellence, the art of observing,” and james clearly sees the connection between this aptitude and the primary job of the poet as language expert. for this reason, in the first book of the persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 71 series, it is established that “dalgliesh [is] morbidly sensitive to every word” (james 1962, p. 249), and it this attention to detail which makes him an excellent detective throughout the series. dalgliesh is careful and precise with the selection of his own words, never allowing them to reveal his personal emotions. even when he is impatient to move on during an investigation, “neither his words nor his tone” betray him (james 1977, p. 137). and, because every good poet possesses strong recitation skills as well, dalgliesh naturally boasts total recall of what others say, making it virtually unnecessary for officers attending his preliminary and formal interviews to take notes (james 1977, p. 142). but, as a reminder, eliot and others tell us the poet’s purpose is to utilize his mastery of language in order to uncover truths. dalgliesh frequently assesses the language usage of suspects in this vein and this “[e]vidence so carefully elicited, [is often] vital” to solving a case (james 1977, p. 190). this is particularly evident when he notices the turns of phrase of others and he gets what is referred to as “the frisson of excitement along the blood at the first realization that something important has been said” (james 1975, p. 74). this happens in death of an expert witness (1977, p. 225), when after speaking with suspect, mrs. schofield, dalgliesh declares, “‘i got the impression that there was a small, almost undetectable moment of confusion when she realized that she’d stumbled into saying something indiscreet, or at least something she wished unsaid.’” and, these moments, so clearly predicated on his mastery of language, are a part of the controlled mechanism of his persona and also precisely what lead to his professional success. dalgliesh’s work with poetics further translates into extraordinary detection, as his lingual abilities also seem to work in the reverse. as with many poets who excel at filling in the blanks when crafting verse, dalgliesh has an uncanny ability to read between the lines which manifests in several ways and can alter the course of an investigation, because for a literary detective of dalgliesh’s calibre, it is not “the last piece of the jigsaw, the easiest of all, that [is] most important. no, it is the neglected, uninteresting small segment which, slotted into place, suddenly [makes] sense of so many other discarded pieces” (james 1975, p. 311). and so, when speaking with suspects, dalgliesh takes just as much notice of the things left unsaid as he does of those which are spoken, because he knows that an un/intentional omission of words can shed light on a given situation or the suspects themselves. there are several examples of this in the black tower (1975, p. 29, 68) alone, as he is able to ascertain the perceived criminal’s lack of knowledge on a subject because of the omission of a name and date in a poison pen letter, and during a discussion among suspects, he also keenly observes the lack of remarks regarding a victim and his diary. beyond dalgliesh’s lingual dexterities, however, james additionally develops links to those other characteristics which have been attributed to the poet. dalgliesh may not be prophetic— a fact made clear when it is stated that “he [is] a professional policeman, not a clairvoyant” (james 1975, p. 250)— but, he easily fulfils the role as teacher; he not only consistently instructs on morals (as is expected from one who upholds the law), but dalgliesh also imparts wisdom on writing as a craft as well. his advice to a fledgling writer in shroud for a nightingale (1971, p.276) is as follows: “‘if you believe that the young and innocent need comfort and protection you’re thinking in clichés. and if you begin by thinking in clichés you end by writing in them.’” moreover, the detective is naturally an archaeologist and historian, because like the poet who often exhumes “heroic figures’ and/ or ‘equate[s] his subject with some larger figure from antiquity, so that the lustre of the old is transmitted to the new” (stallworthy 1982, p. 172), the detective must resurrect the experiences of the dead and reconstruct events of the past by piecing together seemingly disparate clues in the present. in fact, james writes, “it [is] the strangest part of a detective’s job, this building up of a relationship with the dead, seen only as a crumpled corpse at the scene of crime or naked on the mortuary table” (1977, p. 92). yet, dalgliesh excels at it, primarily because he always has one foot in the nolan 72 past himself, and even then, he unmistakably exemplifies the contemporary shift of the poet persona. this can be seen in the black tower (1975, p.27) when dalgliesh reflects on a subject he has long struggled with as a result of his father’s position as a rector in a norfolk county parish: “the spiritual life. it was a phrase he had often heard on the lips of his father’s more ultra mundane parishioners although never on the canon’s own. he had occasionally tried to visualize this mysterious other existence.” but the deeper meaning ultimately evades him, as dalgliesh is thoroughly modern and thus lacks a basic understanding of the spiritual despite his role as poet and/ or his own father’s position within the church. that is to say, he may use religious knowledge in order to inform his writing or policework, but he does not rely upon such strictures for intent or inspiration, thus replicating a pattern among real-life poets working within the post-romantic rebuff of previously assumed conceptions of divine intervention. and so, dalgliesh’s character is reminiscent of poets like william blake (1757 – 1827) who parodied the constructs of poetic proselytization in order to express romantic ideals through his work the marriage of heaven and hell (1790 – 1793), or more so, w.b. yeats (1865 – 1939) who grappled with spirituality through his poetry as a result of his own father’s position in the church. with that said, even those traits of the poet which we can see have remained relevant through dalgliesh as a character (language expert, archaeologist/ historian, and teacher) have possibly become under-appreciated by society at large. therefore, we must also examine how the masks of celebrity relate to dalgliesh, because it is only through the lens of dramatic performance that we can begin to understand the contemporary elements of fame and the implications of celebrity that are infused in the poet persona on which he is based. the poet as performer as previously mentioned, the poet’s persona relies on two distinct presentations (formed personally and through societal judgements), and those attributes which have been publicly constructed are, in many ways, directly related to the role of the poet as a performer. as t.s. eliot explains in his essay, “the three voices of poetry” (1953), the poet is most certainly a dramatist, and this is particularly evident when evaluating how poets regularly shift between three voices: the first voice is the voice of the poet talking to himself— or to nobody. the second is the voice of the poet addressing an audience, whether large or small. the third is the voice of the poet when he attempts to create a dramatic character speaking in verse; when he is saying, not what he would say in his own person, but only what he can say within the limits of one imaginary character addressing another imaginary character. (2009, p.96) eliot’s explanation of poetic exposition through several distinct voices demonstrates the extent to which all poets, and not just those who attacked poetic duality with an unmatched ferocity as did the modernists, are dramatic players applying various masks without much conscious effort, and it is this very combination that underpins pessoa’s use of the term “involuntary masks”’. we could also add a fourth voice to eliot’s definition, as we must consider the oral recitation of poetic works regardless of which written method is employed, especially because there is such an extended tradition of spoken verse. poets since the first century, like roman poet marcus annaeus lucanus (a.k.a. lucan, 39 – 65 ce), were considered prominent public figures because they used recitations and dramatic performances not only to entertain but to share the state of the republic and its people. likewise, the appeal of the aforementioned sixteenth-century bards was rooted in their persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 73 entertainment value. however, because of a post-poundian insistence upon viewing poetry as elitist and/ or antiquated that has been compounded by existing norms of lingual designation and the ways in which people (particularly westerners) have come to value identities, the poet no longer holds privileged status among the masses. still, as crawford (2008, p. 67) explains, the poet attempts “to address or gesture towards a cultural wholeness whose loss the poet fears. the fragment [or performative mask] as a remnant of the earlier civilization is an emblem both of destruction and continuity.” so, while for centuries the mechanisms by which the poet operates have not changed, there has been a definitive reconstruction of the persona in relation to what marshall et al. (2020, p. 2) tell us is “the formation of the contemporary self [which] is now constructed and displayed through technologies and forms of expression that express media forms.” subsequently, the poet as public performer has become hopelessly intertwined with contemporary conceptions of celebrity. it is overtly telling, for instance, that in the united states the general population appears to be interested in the fact that amanda gorman, the first national youth poet laureate, received a modelling contract after her reading at the 46th president’s inauguration than in her written identity— a fascination evinced by gorman’s recent appearance in the fashion magazine, vogue (st. felix 2021). the role of the poet too has become unrealistically romanticized in ways that unjustly harken back to those times when it was more performance based, and this has been noted for quite some time. for instance, w.h. auden (1962, p. 451 – 452) comically notes the number of young people who regularly claim interest in writing solely because “they are under the illusion that in that profession they will be able to create; even if their genuine desire is to make money” and “[w]hat is surprising is that such a high percentage of those without any marked talent for any profession should think of writing as a solution.” the attraction of the poet then, as with the musician, actor, socialite, influencer, and the like, is rooted in the belief that he has somehow managed to side-step the necessity of “a lifetime of meaningless labor” (auden 1962, p. 452). but, as previously stated, contemporary poets do, in fact, work, and so it becomes necessary to evaluate the public perception of the poet’s performance instead. thus, when examining dalgliesh as an exemplification of the poet, we must also consider the more public presentations of his identity. it is made clear throughout the series that dalgliesh is well-known as a writer and that his poetry is widely read. and, although it is never fully explained how this strange phenomenon has occurred in an age when poets are not generally known to the public, we are led to believe that as an intensely private individual, dalgliesh would have had to rely upon the marketing savvy of an agent and/or publisher in order to build an audience that seems to span class, age, gender, and other demographic divides that most living poets would struggle to capture. that is to say, while dalgliesh represents a celebrity status that most poets never achieve— he is undoubtedly akin to iconic poets like allen ginsberg (1926 – 1997) in this respect— james’s decision to write this level of prestige into her character highlights the very necessity of community buy-in for the poet persona even though, in reality, the level of success is relative and varies by individual. as a character continuously developed between 1962 – 2008, dalgliesh also reflects a media influence on the persona that has only existed for the post-nineteenth century poet. with that said, james’s lack of explanation for his popularity may make his reach as poet seem unbelievable to a general readership, especially as it relates to the integrity of his production. as t.s. eliot asserts in his essay, “the social function of poetry” (1957): [i]f a poet gets a large audience very quickly, that is a rather suspicious circumstance: for it leads us to fear that he is not really doing anything new, that nolan 74 he is only giving people what they are already used to, and, therefore what they have already had from the poets of the previous generation … for the greatest poets have aspects which do not come to light at once; and by exercising a direct influence on other poets centuries later, they continue to affect the living language. (eliot 2009 11) eliot would say that for a modern poet, james’s protagonist has a suspiciously large following indeed, and as the poetic equivalent of a pop star on the verge of the digital age3, he is probably not good enough to have any lasting effect on other writers thereafter. however, james’s choice to give dalgliesh icon status twice over— not only is he well-known for his writing, but he is also referred to as scotland yard’s ‘wonder boy’ because of his exemplary “record of solving high profile cases” (nolan 2018, p.49)— seems to further cement the importance of fame in modern cultures while simultaneously epitomizing the belief that true success can only come with a certain level of notoriety. interestingly though, dalgliesh is not necessarily surprised nor is he overly pleased when someone recognizes him or when he finds his own works on random bookshelves during an investigation. nevertheless, this celebrity often affords him the connections needed to employ poetic similitude as a detective, and perhaps this is why dalgliesh acknowledges the symbiotic nature of this pairing in shroud for a nightingale (1971, pp. 202) when he declares, “‘i’ve never thought of poetry and police work as needing to be reconciled in that ecumenical way.’” as with poetic similitude, the performative mask comes in handy in detection, as it takes a good persona to know one. dalgliesh immediately recognizes a well-rehearsed bit and this is demonstrated throughout the series. in the black tower (1975, p. 35), for instance, dalgliesh notes that a suspect’s “outburst had been less than spontaneous, the protest had been made before. it sounded like a ritual justification and he suspected that someone had helped her with the script.” he similarly identifies another suspect’s ploy in shroud for a nightingale: dalgliesh wondered whether [miss martha collins’s] acidulated tone and perversely unattractive appearance were part of a calculated persona. perhaps some forty years earlier she has decided to become a hospital character, the beloved tyrant of fiction, treating everyone from the matron to the junior maid with equal irreverence, and had found the characterization so successful and satisfying that she had never managed to drop it. (james 1971, p. 150) this observation of dalgliesh’s that a person might adopt the performative mask permanently if/ when it is met with success is completely ironic considering the same could be said of the poet. in other words, dalgliesh is himself a direct example of the primary issue that poets face as a result of adopting a celebrity persona, as the involuntary masks are in fact a double-edged sword— they may allow dalgliesh/ the poet to be seen by a wider audience as “expert” and therefore help him to achieve a certain level of success (while still living), but as eliot tells us, such public personas, so clearly cultivated beyond his control also limit his ability to disseminate deeper truths and/ or make a lasting effect on those thereafter because of their tenuousness. conclusion while the poet persona has been well documented for centuries, it is evident that not all of the characteristics which have traditionally been defined, articulated, and valued by poets themselves have endured in modern societies. for instance, through p.d. james’s detective chief-inspector adam dalgliesh, we can see that while (for the time being) the poet has moved away from the previously assumed religious tenets of divine intervention and deific prophecy, persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 75 the persona is still clearly synonymous with the archaeologist/ historian, teacher, dramatist, performer, and most importantly, language expert, as each of these designations ultimately shares the same function— to dispense truths of the human condition. that is to say, the poet’s role is and always has been to espouse the fact that beyond the copious façades we strive to construct, there are inalienable experiences we share as humans. this is one of the reasons why the poet persona must be dual in its construction, accounting for and relying upon both personally and publicly constructed features. and, while language may be an insufficient means of expressing these likenesses, it is the best method we have for communicating the many complex modes of being we inhabit. the poet is responsible for reminding us of this through his use of similitude, but unfortunately, the very constructions of celebrity which enable some poets to reach a greater audience, particularly in today’s media saturated cultures, often obscure that objective because such notoriety feeds off of the focus on the façade itself. perhaps that is why eliot tells us that any poet worth his salt should not be a celebrity in modern terms, at least not unless widespread recognition comes posthumously (eliot 2009, p. 11). but, in these terms, if the poet’s purpose is best fulfilled among the people— out on the street or on the café stage, working as a teacher, lawyer, or even, like dalgliesh, as a detective— the reality is that the persona may be best expressed digitally these days, because increasingly people connect using online platforms. and so, eliot’s statement itself is a relic of time— instapoets, or those poets who present their works via instagram and/ or other social media are here to stay, and their highly controlled virtual presentations of the self are involuntary in other ways, as they rely upon a more specified community buy-in than poets of the past through features such as likes, comments, subscriptions, and shares. through these social media platforms, it is not unusual for “a shared image [or poem to be] hashtagged with multiple and not-always-relevant hashtags in order to attract more views and likes and thereby give an impression to a social circle of being more popular and successful” (p. david marshall, et al. 2020, p.32). thus, it would seem that the poet persona, as an ever-evolving identity steeped in a distinctive duality that hinges on public conceptions just as much as it does on personal intentionality must adapt along with technologies and conceptions of celebrity in order to persist whether or not it remains relevant at large. end notes 1. i am using primarily masculine pronouns for the poet throughout only because the majority of the poets i discuss herein are male. there is no intended connotation for this choice. 2. the analysis in this section is by no means exhaustive in nature, as it is primarily meant as a general survey of poets’ views on the role of the poet over an extended period of time. those looking for a more comprehensive information on the subject may look to either t.s. eliot’s on poetry and poets (2009) and/ or john carey’s a little history of poetry (2020). 3. this is not to be confused with those poets who were pop star equivalents in pre-digital eras, as the celebrity of poets like lord byron (1788 – 1824), oscar wilde (1854 – 1900), and the like differs greatly from those who exist in modern media-saturated societies where presentations of the self are inherently intertwined with digital presentation and promotion. nolan 76 works cited r auden, wh 1962, ‘the poet & the city’, the massachusetts review, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 449-474, 12 may 2021, jstor. bakhtin, mm 1981, ‘epic and the novel’, in m. holquist (ed.), the dialogic imagination, university of texas press, austin, tx, pp. 3-40. carey, j 2020, a little history of poetry, yale university press, new haven and london. crawford, r 2008, the modern poet: poetry, academia, and knowledge since the 1750s, oxford university press, oxford. derrida, j and avital ronell 1980, ‘the law of genre’, critical inquiry, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 55– 81. jstor, www.jstor.org/stable/1343176. accessed 6 july 2021. eliot, ts 2009, ‘the social function of poetry’ and ‘the three voices of poetry’, in t.s. eliot, on poetry and poets, farrar, straus and giroux, new york, pp. 3-16, 96-112. ellmann, m 1988, the poetics of impersonality: t. s. eliot and ezra pound, new edition, harvard university press, cambridge. emerson, rw 1844, “the poet” in essays: second series, web second edition. foucault, m 1994, the order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences, vintage, new york. goodman, lenn 2010, ‘supernovas: the dialectic of celebrity in society’, society, vol. 47, no. 6, nov. 2010, pp. 510–515. ebscohost, doi:10.1007/s12115-010-9370-y. accessed 29 november 2021. guthrie, wn 1898, ‘the poet as prophet’, the sewanee review, vol. 6, no. 4 (oct., 1898), the johns hopkins university press, pp. 402-412. holmes, s and sean redmond 2006, framing celebrity: new directions in celebrity culture, routledge (taylor and francis group), london. james, pd 1962, cover her face, touchstone (a division of simon and schuster), new york. --1977, death of an expert witness, touchstone (a division of simon and schuster), new york. --1971, shroud for a nightingale, touchstone (a division of simon and schuster), new york. --1975, the black tower, touchstone (a division of simon and schuster), new york. levine, g 1983 the realistic imagination: english fiction from frankenstein to lady chatterly, university of chicago press, chicago. lorde, a 1982, zami: a new spelling of my name, crossing press (random house), new york. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2020, persona studies: an introduction, john wiley & sons, hoboken, nj. nolan, mp 2018, ‘commander adam dalgliesh’, in e. sandberg (ed.), 100 greatest literary detectives, rowman & littlefield, lanham, md, pp. 49-50. --2015, ‘learning to circumvent the limitations of the written-self: the rhetorical benefits of poetic fragmentation and internet “catfishing”’, persona studies vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 53-64. pessoa, f 2006, a little larger than the entire universe, r. zenith (ed. and translator), penguin, new york. reid, r 1887, every man his own detective, w. newman and co. limited, calcutta sidney, p 1595, the defense of poesy otherwise known as an apology for poetry, university of michigan library, ann arbor, mi. shelley, pb 1909-14, ‘a defence of poetry’ in english essays: sydney to macaulay, the harvard classics, harvard university press, cambridge, mass. st. felix, d 2021, ‘the rise and rise of amanda gorman’, vogue, 7 april. stallworthy, j 1982, ‘the poet as archaeologist: w.b. yeats and seamus heaney’ in the review of english studies, oxford university press, pp. 158-174. whitman, w 2004, leaves of grass, random house publishing group, new york. yeats, wb 1916, ‘fallen majesty’ in responsibilities and other poems, the macmillan company, new york, pp. 68. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 1 “dog boy, media whore. it’s who the hell you take me for”: brian molko’s curated music magazine persona in the fan archive tessa va nnie uwe nhuyze g he n t u n iv e r s i t y abstract this article investigates how the persona enacted at the end of the 1990s by brian molko british band placebo’s lead singer and guitarist resonates with contemporary approaches of persona performance. amplified by presentational media along the lines of instagram, youtube, and twitter, persona increasingly proliferates as enmeshed in everyday practices and identities. this is no different in the domain of (popular) music. yet, contemporary music personas whose image approximates ordinariness rather than extravaganza do sometimes reject the connotation of artificiality attached to the term persona, resulting in a type of ‘reluctant persona’. practicing a form of anecdotal theory (gallop 2002), i tap into how i experienced molko’s persona through fan archives, and link his historical negotiation of an ‘ordinary extraordinariness’ with this present-day reluctant persona. a close rereading of a selection of 1997-1999 music magazine articles in the placebo russia archive not only shows how molko’s music magazine persona curates identity markers of extraordinariness as ordinary, but also demonstrates how the media texts that go into a persona continually perform these anew. through the lens of performance studies, online fan archives shed light on the intensified correlation between (new) media and music artists’ engagement with performing the ordinary, subsequently entangling the discourses of theatricality and performativity. key words musical persona; (extra)ordinary identity performance; brian molko; fan archive, presentational media introduction may 1997, london. in a concert review of a brixton academy show by the (at the time) booming british band placebo, newspaper the independent notes about lead singer and guitarist brian molko: when he appears in a fetching black cocktail dress, smeary black eyeliner and louise brooks black bob, he is androgyny writ large. david bowie circa 1974 is vannieuwenhuyze 2 in the foyer phoning his copyright lawyer. is brian a boy or girl? perhaps more pertinently, is he real or is he fake? (thornton 1997) the preoccupation with molko’s realness or fakeness as a music performer is not only typical for this specific artist’s identity performance, but characterizes the larger discourse surrounding the concept of persona in music. regardless of the live concert setting—an environment that per definition prompts a certain degree of staging—the aura of authenticity remains the ultimate holy grail against which pop artists continue to be evaluated. the belief that a musician draws from a lived reality is deeply ingrained in our experience of popular music. performance theorist philip auslander, who coined the theoretical notion of “musical persona” (auslander 2006), formulated his theory of performing a musical identity by building on music sociologist simon frith’s observation that popular music artists are believed to be “personally expressive” (frith 1996, p.186), and more so than performers in other realms. this theory underscores the special position that the context of popular music provides for the broader field of persona studies, with charles fairchild and p. david marshall suggesting that the persona concept’s “mutability is no more prominently displayed than in its intersection and integration into music and musical culture” (fairchild & marshall 2019, p.1). scholarship on music and persona in recent years undeniably reflects the intensification and proliferation of what persona studies identifies as its impetus, “the highly mediatized and screen-oriented contemporary and pervasive public persona” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 7). inherently interdisciplinary studies of music artists’ performances on and off live stages have delivered a plenitude of critical research into what musicians perform besides music. nonetheless, they often selectively focus on one aspect of performance, rather than establish the broader encompassing theoretical framework required for making sense of contemporary musical persona. this gap in the study of musicians’ personas encouraged musicologist kai arne hansen to develop a more systematic, transmedial approach to the pop persona (2019), transposing auslander’s fundamental ideas about the musical persona into our lived realities dominated by new media screens. these screens also allowed me in 2009, long before i became familiar with the flourishing field of persona studies, to familiarize myself with what i would later define in academic terms as the “musical persona” of placebo front man brian molko. when i was fourteen (more than a decade after the aforementioned concert review appeared in the independent), i downloaded footage of placebo’s unreleased song “kitsch object” from that 1997 concert onto my little magenta ipod. night after night, way past my bedtime, i revelled in the mystery that molko oozed, replaying how the silhouette of a short man in a tight black dress introduced the angry yet melancholic opening riff of a ‘brand spanking new’ song (figure 1). even though i was fully aware of the fact that molko’s gender nonconforming appearance showcased an act set within the confines of the music scene, i was also convinced that the manner in which he presented himself was deeply rooted in a daily lived reality. the identity he conveyed as a musician seemed to grant me a glimpse of an alternative london way of life that i thought was interesting to model my own aspirations after, rather than just an identity apt for performance occasions such as concerts. understanding my teenage involvement with molko and his band placebo as an early encounter with the intersection between persona, music, and performance theory, this paper explores the theoretical insights my anecdotal engagement with molko affords in terms of the light that his specific antecedent casts upon the role of contemporary musical persona in an altering mediascape. in what follows, i first elaborate on the expansion of everyday musical personas within a presentational media regime, and briefly sketch the similarities between present-day and preinternet popular music performers and their varying stances towards persona performance. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 3 this introductory section sets the scene for my subsequent reading of molko’s ‘nancy boy’ era music magazine persona through the lens of the online fan archive; this reading is the result of figure 1. screenshot from youtube video placebo kitsch object (1997 brixton academy), <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br7ttba8bfq> having spent—as a fan myself—an enormous amount of time digging through online fan fora and archives. i approach placebo’s music magazine features as scraps through which i could participate in a past identity performance, reinitiating an ephemeral moment. this investigation into the online fan archive elucidates the musical persona as an ongoing collection of media texts, which in return informs the aesthetic of the ordinary for persona performance. in combination with my implied position as a former fan girl of the band, molko’s alignment of gender nonconformity with dimensions of the ordinary serves a unique perspective onto the curatorial tendencies of contemporary personas in popular music. the reluctant persona persona studies founders david marshall, kim barbour, and christopher moore have pointed out how continued research into ordinary or everyday personas is required (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 213). such a demand for continued investigation into the everydayness of persona performance ties in with sociologist joshua gamson’s observation in the field of celebrity studies that the “ordinary” has been elevated to the core business of celebrity, likewise linking it with the emergence of the internet (2011, p. 1062). the importance of the ordinary or everyday persona, including through celebrity as a subset of persona, is evidently closely intertwined with the omnipresent demand to manage a strategic identity that social media have imposed, opening up to a wider audience the mechanisms of fame and self-performance previously reserved for extraordinary public figures. ordinary-looking identities play an equally important role for personas in popular music, yet it is hard to deny that scholarly research displays a tendency to focus on popular music artists’ grand gestures (see auslander’s 2006 book linking glam rock with theatricality, stan hawkins’ collection on british dandies in music, the 2014 routledge collection on lady gaga, crosby & lynn’s 2017 chapter on dolly parton’s authentic artifice, or popular music and society’s special issue on beyoncé in 2019). while the vannieuwenhuyze 4 distinction between extraordinary and ordinary is fraught with subjectivity, research into music and persona remains for the largest part in favour of extraordinary and/or extravagant acts of identity performance. aside from musicologist jon mikkel broch ålvik’s work on the ordinariness in norwegian singer-songwriter marit larsen’s persona (2017), i am not aware of any recent research on musical personas that explicitly gauges the meaning of the many identity performances in popular music that claim an aesthetic of ordinariness. in conjunction with personas approximating ordinary day-to-day appearances, one can also make note of a certain ‘persona reluctance’. against the general proliferation of persona performance, there are also artists who react reluctantly towards being identified as ‘having a persona’. one particularly striking example is pop star lana del rey. del rey has expressed significant resistance towards being said to have a persona (kornhaber 2019), even though music artists always, to some extent, carefully shape the way they present themselves; this is especially so in the case of the highly stylized del rey who recently exchanged her earlier old hollywood glamour for an ordinary ‘american mom in the mall’ look. she sits in stark contrast to the wide-ranging and extravagant identity manifestations of one of her contemporaries, lady gaga, who has distinguished her “true self” from her public persona (begley 2016). what primarily seems to complicate the notion of persona for popular music is the strategy of calculated self-presentation that at times seems to attest of an insincerity that clashes with common conceptions about authenticity in popular music. however, as argued by musicologist allan moore, the vexed notion of authenticity in music discourse, is equally constructed since it is a quality ascribed to a performance, rather than inscribed in it (2002, p. 210). moore conceptualizes authenticity in (pop) music as authentication, either of a performer’s unmediated inner expression (first person authenticity), the space for identification that it produces (second person authenticity), or the representation of an original tradition (third person authenticity) (2002, p. 211-220). personas in music that maintain an ordinary appearance mainly deal with a combination of firstand second-person authenticity, which informs pop culture’s fixation on ‘realness’ and artists’ reluctance to equate a carefully shaped presentation of the self with a persona. an extravagant identity performance, contradictorily, appears to be easier to comprehend as an authentic artistic expression of the self, than a stylized appearance that is essentially indistinguishable from an ordinary everyday look. while social media have undeniably augmented the ambiguous conceptualization of persona, the complexities at stake are as relevant for pre-internet musical personas. let’s take the ultimate musical persona reference, david bowie, whom both gaga and molko cite as an inspiration. even though bowie’s persona gradually inclined towards a more ordinary appearance at the end of his career, devoid of previous layers of spectacle (usher 2015; culbert 2020), the common thread that runs through considerations of bowie in terms of persona is that they tend to revolve around his theatrical manifestations as ziggy stardust, aladdin sane, or the thin white duke. these figures that bowie introduced to the world were not entirely separate from david robert jones’ lived reality: think, for example, of the genderplay that kickstarted the discussion around his bisexuality. however, i would rather identify these ‘personas’ that followed up on each other as characters, because they signal “a departure from the conventional” (blair 2015, p. 167). the characters bowie performed are more radically set apart from ordinary life than the way in which molko—mentored by bowie—appeared in front of an audience all those years later. i therefore focus in this text on molko’s provocative effeminate ‘nancy boy’ appearance, which roughly coincided with the first two placebo albums. since this debut period is characterized by the bowie-esque practice of androgynous looks mixed with provocative media statements, first impressions of molko might appear counterintuitive to arguing that his self-presentation differs from bowie’s. however, close persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 5 readings of molko’s music media discourse from that same timeframe reveal a clear distinction with bowie. one of the most concrete examples of the difference between bowie’s characters and molko’s persona is found in molko’s responses during a 1998 interview for interview magazine, where the interviewer queries both the singer’s background in drama, as well as the resemblance with bowie. molko answer says that “it is not an act, (…), it’s real” and different from bowie’s approach as “it is not some sort of ziggy-like attempt to create a character” (stratton 1998). in other interview fragments, he expresses very similar sentiments: “but for me it's not a sort of ziggy stardust, aladdin sane, different character-per-concept album kind of vibe, it's very much who i am. i'm not about to cut all my hair off” (morton 1997). further illustrations can be found in what molko had to say about the minor roles he and his bandmates play in todd haynes’ thinly veiled bowie/iggy pop glam rock biopic velvet goldmine from 1998. molko separates the glam rock tradition that the movie emulates from his own identity performance within the band: “(…) there is a big difference between glamorous and glam. to me, glam is lager lads in make-up. we enjoy being glamorous, we enjoy dressing-up, and wearing make-up, but we're not any way in that glam tradition, on a musical or physical level really" (melody maker 24 october 1998, p.23). molko’s claims remind us of del rey’s reluctant persona, which poses the question: what does it mean when del rey and molko qualify as much as gaga and bowie as a ‘musical persona’: “a performed presence that is neither a fictional character nor equivalent to the performer’s real identity” (auslander 2006, p. 102)? molko and del rey similarly clarify, each within their own context, the complications caused by integrating markers of ‘ordinariness’ into their musical persona. our understanding of persona in the realm of popular music would therefore benefit from a recalibration of its relation to the ordinary, with social media having ordinariness located at the centre of our daily experiences of persona. the (former) fangirl as a researcher? the gradual transition to social media as the main locus for persona performance is where the commingling of traditional representational and online presentational media in my fan experience of molko proves exceptionally insightful. revisiting the musical persona of my former teenage idol was inspired by his appearance in fashion designer marc jacobs’ 2021 heaven collection. in the campaign, he was seen alongside another 1990s icon, kate moss, sporting a recreation of the ac acoustics stunt girl tee-shirt that he regularly wore around 1997 (figure 2 & 3). i found it curious that a rather banal piece of clothing that i assumed would solely resonate with a select club of (ex)fans, already familiar with specific 1997 imagery of molko, was now charged with cult appeal. compared to the dresses and make-up that made the singer stand out against the hypermasculine britpop-crazed music scene at the time (and which eventually granted him the status of queer icon), the band tee-shirt itself passed as a quite conventional, even ordinary garment. the heyday of molko’s music magazine presence around the end of the nineties additionally coincides with the earliest social network sites (boyd and ellison 2008, p. 214), which made me probe molko as a precursor of persona in the social media era, where everyday style elements are becoming entrenched in persona practices. my anecdotal involvement with the object of study requires some further methodological explanation. although i have not conducted self-observation over a set amount of time as an auto-ethnographic approach would require, my theorizing demands a similar degree of recognition of how my analysis of molko’s persona folds in with the subjective experience of being a former fangirl of his band. feminist literature scholar and theorist jane gallop’s project of anecdotalizing theory proposes an entry point to draw from this kind of vannieuwenhuyze 6 figure 2. brian molko by harley weir for marc jacob’s heaven collection, 2021. figure 3. brian molko by pat pope, 1997. placebo russia archive. anecdotal material. instead of theorizing anecdotes, she deliberately theorizes “via relatively rare and marginal cases” (2002, p. 6) to overcome the hierarchy that situates abstract thought in a higher realm of theory and anecdotes as futile illustrations. the reversal of the marginalisation of the anecdote aligns with what has always been my main interest regarding performance, music, and persona: the excess of artistic practice, the non-essential ornamental details. following how gallop “recounts an anecdote in an attempt to ‘read’ that account for the theoretical insights it affords” (gallop 2002, p. 2), i use the stunt girl shirt as a point of departure, holding a meaning beyond fan spheres, tying together the role of online fan archiving and dimensions of ordinariness within musical personas. the cult appeal with which the stunt girl shirt seems to be charged, indicates how molko’s edgy, feminine dresses that confused placebo’s audiences exist on the same plane as some of his more ordinary appearances. common-looking garments can contribute to persona building in a similar way as extravagant costumes (e.g. the ziggy stardust catsuit) or trademark hair and make-up (e.g. robert smith of the cure’s panda eyes) in the production of a persona universe. the musician identity of molko thus arises out of a stylization of the day-to-day identity he continuously expressed and drew from, rather than from an alternate reality carefully crafted for performance occasions. his incorporation of what he claims to be more of an ordinary than extraordinary identity into an aestheticized performance persona echoes the role of persona in an era where digital tools for self-presentation are omnipresent. with their ubiquity in everyday activities, social media personas do not function as blank canvases onto which any imaginable identity can be projected, but usually stay closer to what is perceived as an ordinary identity expression. nevertheless, the inherently highly stylized act of performing an (online) persona always concerns an ambivalent interplay of both the artificial and the authentic. molko’s persona as produced in music magazines similarly reflects the ambivalence of anchoring self-presentation in an everyday identity instead of the mediatized context that it inevitably stems from. music media’s framing of molko and his band as out of the ordinary, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 7 reflected in the 1998 nme cover headline “the wicked, wicked ways of placebo” (see figure 4), is often incongruent with what they then actually get to report on. another early career interview from february 1997 with molko and stefan olsdal (the swedish bassist and other core band member of placebo) for the british music magazine q, for example, does not really reflect the promise of the title “out come the freaks”. content-wise, it mainly reports on the musician’s upbringing and his quotidian life after sudden success, while an accompanying portrait of molko and olsdal gives the reader a glimpse of an unremarkable queen’s park west london flat. whilst the interviewer initiates several detailed descriptions of molko’s characteristic gender-defying appearance, he simultaneously describes how molko counters the fabricated nature of his appearance: he wears his hair in a louise brooks bob and likes a little make-up. playing with gender has often been a bankable pop option. but molko reckons it’s just the way he likes to look. [emphasis added] (…) likewise, he is canny enough to recognize that fashion will always play a part in pop success. if there's a gap, molko will fill it. so, if the people are missing a band offering lyrical angst and barbed guitars he's not going to turn them away, but he would hate listeners to think there's something fabricated [emphasis added] about placebo, some whiff of a marketing opportunity. oddly, for somebody who enjoys role-playing, molko emphasises how natural everything is [emphasis added]: the sound placebo makes; the way they look; how they perform (yates 1997). molko’s concern with communicating that he is his everyday self and not simply a product of the music industry can be read in tandem with the specific timeframe in which his early persona is situated. drawing on his previous research into celebrity culture, p. david marshall demonstrated that representational media regime’s merging with a new presentational media environment lies at the heart of the proliferation of persona (marshall, moore & barbour 2020). even though the peculiar persona of molko chiefly predates social media, the end of the 1990s was definitely characterized by a gradually altering constellation of media regimes. the vague contours of presentational media already start to shimmer through the still predominantly representational media paradigm to which print media, such as music magazine q, belonged. media theorist roy shuker has usefully critiqued music magazines for catering to niche interests, stimulating an individualized consumption pattern, and functioning as purveyors of styles (shuker 1994, p. 86). compared to the traditional media of television and radio, music magazines, in his view, functioned more as a repertory from which one could learn and absorb lifestyles in their broadest sense. although still far removed from the ways in which social media is “performed and produced by the individual” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 49), shuker’s depiction of music magazines invokes certain sensibilities of the presentational mode. curiously, all of the characteristics that shuker attributes to music magazines, are even more accurate for the fan archive of placebo russia which provided 14-year-old me (who did not consume new musical express, q, or even placebo’s fanclub magazine silver rocket (figure 5) at the time of their original publication) with fan material to grasp molko’s persona. vannieuwenhuyze 8 figure 4. cover of new musical express 8 august 1998. figure 5. cover of silver rocket fan magazine august – november 1998. placebo russia archive persona as a complex amalgam of archived media texts to further unlock what molko’s figure suggests for the ordinary in music persona, i turn towards online fan archives that stored placebo’s music media artefacts. these fan archives were crucial to how the teenage version of myself pieced together the identity that early molko carried out. one of the online spaces i visited to learn about molko was the placebo russia archive (figure 6). i carefully collected every scanned or typed up article, quote or photo, and basked in the delight of scraping up the most banal elements that could add to the impression i was assembling of molko. even today, the placebo russia archive conserves the band’s media output that, in placebo’s early years, mainly consisted of print interviews and photoshoots. by bringing legacy media texts into the digital world, this type of online archive evinces an intermediate stage of “traditional media images, advertising, photographs, or quotes, that are now blended with (…) the panoply of digital objects” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 49). my familiarization with early molko through the fan archive does not match the original appearance through legacy media formats, but neither does it entirely correspond to the present-day content of social media. the hybridity of what fan archives disseminate assists in breaking down musical personas’ interactions with the ordinary. online archives are most often associated with the specific practice of fanfiction, which is also what performance and new media theorist abigail de kosnik takes as the focal point for her evaluation of digital archiving practices in media fandoms. drawing on marshall mcluhan’s concept of the global theatre (de kosnik 2016, p. 609), de kosnik first and foremost invites us to conceive of online content as performance. she foregrounds the notion of repertoire as embodied repetition, emphasizing how online archives rely more on human performance in relation to the archive material than is conventionally understood (de kosnik 2016, p. 30). digital archival platforms are a matter of continued maintenance, to the same extent as actual physical archives, requiring repeated human actions in order to keep from stagnating or ceasing to exist. if no one paid for the domain of placeborussia.ru, i would no longer be able to revisit persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 9 figure 6. screenshot of the placebo russia archive, june 2021, <http://www.placeborussia.ru/press> the catalogue of music magazine excerpts and photographs whose communal fan processing i participated in twelve years before writing this article. de kosnik’s interests are mainly pointed at the persistence of those embodied minor practices of online archive-keeping, rather than the actual material that is being collected in online archives. this is also how i approach the press photographs, music magazine articles, and video recordings kept in online spaces such as the placebo russia archive. through these artefacts, i could re-activate the media texts that shaped molko and his band’s image in a place and time i had not directly witnessed. my fan experience resonates with de kosnik’s subsequent claim that “the action of treating media texts as archives has always been implicit or ignored in print culture but explicit and universally acknowledged in performance cultures” (de kosnik 2016, p. 31). popular music cultures have long established the idea of media texts as archives, for example when they allude to different periods in an artist’s career as eras (which are often directly related to periods of self-stylization). labelling earlier manifestations of an artist’s identity performance cultivates the layering and organization of a variety of media texts into the overarching musical persona. for molko, this happened with the ‘nancy boy’ trope, typified by the 1996-1999 bob hairstyle that fans continuously tried to identify a revival of, even decades after its original appearance. even though molko has consistently continued to wear eyeliner as a music artist, his style became noticeably less feminine and provocative over the span of years. the relatively brief nancy boy period that initiated his persona has, nevertheless, remained fundamentally anchored into the perception of his (evolving) musical persona. paired with italian popular culture researcher rachel haworth’s recent conceptualization of the relation between star images and personas, de kosnik’s performance studies lens engenders a particularly productive outlook on the persona phenomenon. haworth refers to the concept of star image, as per cultural theorist richard dyer, as made out of a variety of media texts (1998, p. 60 cited by haworth 2021). although star image and persona may seem interchangeable in denoting an artist’s self-presentation in a performance context, haworth identifies star image as the depiction of a star (or artist) set in a specific moment that captures the result of an interaction with a particular medium. persona, in contrast, is the vannieuwenhuyze 10 totality into which these different and evolving ‘images’ accrue over time (haworth 2021). star image is thus best understood as a composition of various media texts clustered around a certain time and/or space (similar to the abovementioned ‘era’), while persona is what arises out of the compilation of images over time, an accumulation that is never final. haworth’s distinction demands we treat persona performance as an ongoing dialogical collection of media texts. fan archives accumulate media texts for the re-enactment of the abovementioned moments in time that substantiate an ever-growing overarching persona, albeit in collective memory or the individual minds of viewers. this delivers viable insights into the contemporary musical persona and the curation of identity performance. when we think of social media accounts as online repositories, we enable a comparable re-activation of (new) media texts that gather into a persona, where “the digital era calls for heightened emphasis on curation” (burdick et al., cited in de kosnik 2016, p. 34) in the domain of persona. although de kosnik stresses that corporate-owned social media platforms, unlike classic fan-maintained archives, don’t commit to the long-term preservation of material, they are similarly susceptible to the curation of seemingly ordinary aspects of identity performance cached in media texts. social media run parallel to the logic of the fan archive, carefully convening even the most banal media texts that adhere to a certain appearance and meaning that an artist has conveyed at a particular moment in time. although molko himself does not establish a current-day image by posting pictures (i.e. media texts) on personal social media accounts, fan accounts such as @brianmolkoworld on instagram (figure 7) and the placebo anyway facebook page (figure 8) continue to post the same quotes and images that have been distributed through the placebo russia archive alongside more recent press material of the band. the ongoing sharing of (older) media texts remind us that the cultural relevance of ‘nancy boy’, as proven by the rehash of the stunt girl shirt, as well as other persona enactments, depends on those media texts being constantly performed anew over time. in handing over the performative potential of the online archive to individual social media users, social media take the basic infrastructure behind the fan archive to the next level. the instagram handle of the @brianmolkoworld account additionally invokes the concept of “worlding” that screen studies scholar phoebe macrossan borrowed from film theory in her discussion of pop artists’ episodic manifestations across media (macrossan 2018). an instagram account dedicated to molko’s ‘world’ explicitly aligns the fundamentally nonlinear and fragmented nature of persona with the equally non-linear and fragmented script of social media. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 11 figure 7. @brianmolkoworld on instagram figure 8. placebo anyway on facebook. the same content is also shared on instagram (@placeboanyway) and twitter (@placeboanyway). vannieuwenhuyze 12 the theatrical everydayness of nancy boy the interplay between trivial details cached in media texts, which in turn feed into an overarching persona, is bound up with the increasingly entangled discourses of performativity and theatricality for persona. earlier on, i identified the implicit focus on theatricality within the existing scope of musical persona research. in contrast to the performative, the theatrical brackets the exceptionality of an act(ion) as the departure from the conventional. theatricality explicitly generates an alternative space of appearance where another script applies. a music persona that rearranges an ordinary appearance into a performance persona, equivalent to a significant segment of contemporary online persona activity, oftentimes creates a contradictory totality where the theatrical and the performative entwine. this is because the core business of enacting these forms of self-presentation still needs to be situated within the confines of everyday life, rather than outside of it (féral in reinelt 2002). what makes this fluctuation very apparent for molko’s nancy boy, is the personal narrative that he entrusted to music magazines. next to his visual identity flaunted in elaborate photoshoots, textual discourse is mainly concerned with his everyday identity prior to the band’s existence and pins down the musician’s displaced background as an “american-born son of a luxembourg banker, raised in a culturally tepid eurotown, and relapsed on a london goldsmiths drama course” (morton 1997). in response to questions about his teenage years spent in luxembourg, molko consistently opens up about the resistance he exercised towards the identity script that his family handed him: “there was a lot of loneliness involved and a lot of alienation, and i was surrounded by a lot of people who were trying to make me into themselves, and what it ended up doing was making me go: fuck you, i'm going to forge my own identity at a very early age“ (morton 1997). accordingly, molko models his artist identity onto an already existent everyday identity. his persona performance engulfs every element that relates to that self-proclaimed status as an outsider. molko moulds and amplifies the identity marker of ‘not fitting in’ into an aestheticized form. in an interview with melody maker (16 august 1997), he even expresses this take on his musical persona: “bowie has said he was interested in taking on different characters. i'm interested in exploring facets of myself and making them extreme”. molko’s identity performance installs an ‘ordinary extraordinariness’: the facets he mentions do not need to be extreme in themselves, but the way he crafts a performance of the self out of an extremization of certain aspects of his everyday identity, is exactly what constitutes the identity he presents as a musician. in another melody maker interview from the same year, he restates the motivation behind his strategy of self-presentation: look, i don't want you to think that what i do onstage is like a ziggy kind of character. when i step onstage, it gives me the freedom to be the person i've always wanted to be (…) it's not a character, it's a part of me which i can't bring out all the time. (melody maker 15 february 1997) music media at the time did make note of the in-betweenness that such self-presentation invoked. the french music magazine, les inrockuptibles, opened a lengthy interview by calling molko more disturbing than theatrical shock rocker marilyn manson (“le théâtreux marilyn manson”) and fraud brett anderson from british band suede (“le falsificateur brett anderson”) (beauvallet 1998). whereas manson was easily identifiable as an outspoken act, anderson’s tempered androgynous appearance —which bore no roots in his daily-lived life— apparently equally came across as a form of theatrical performance. the use of the word ‘disturbing’ for molko (the french “dérangeant”) indirectly opens up the realm of the performative. similar to how judith butler understands the performative process behind the social construct of gender, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 13 molko’s blurry identity performance that lingers in between extraordinary and ordinary disturbs everyday gender conventions, more so than an outrageously extravagant identity performance. the centrality of sexuality to molko’s identity performance is also reinforced in an nme interview about their first major american tour. in the interview, he expresses how he hopes that not playing in certain conservative cities might attract “(…) the right kind of audience. the ones for who marilyn manson is a fake and not sexual and more image-based” (morton 1999). what he seems to hint at here, is how the shock value and provocative behaviour of manson’s identity performance passes in these conservative places, precisely because it is neatly demarcated as outside day-to-day reality. molko’s bisexuality, which in itself can hardly be regarded as radical, is from this perspective more transgressive because it does not operate in an alternate reality. what sets molko apart is that he effectively manages to express the messiness of what he puts forward as part of his ordinary self. performance philosopher teemu paavolainen regards performativity as “bringing forth some change in the world or, conversely, maintaining the status quo by means of reiterated naturalized practices” (2018, p. 2). the contestation of norms is often thought in unison with butlerian performativity, but as paavolainen highlights, it is important to be aware of how performative actions also reinstate existing scripts. he goes on that the usage of theatricality likewise wavers between being the innovative force of a historically avant-garde art form and belonging to the “derived realm of mere appearance, denying access to some allegedly prior, authentic, or essential domain of reality” (paavolainen 2018, p. 1). oscillating interpretations suggest that both theatricality and performativity “seem to fluctuate between conflicting values of novelty and normativity themselves” (paavolainen 2018, p. 2), a trait visible in how both concepts prove relevant for molko’s persona. next to the performative qualities of his (sexual) identity, press materials contain equal amounts of allusions to theatricality. located on the normative side of the continuum, these are often concerned with molko’s self-appointed “predilections for excess” (morton 1999). when molko is asked whether the band is “following some script for excess in their heads” (segal 1998) in an interview for nme, the article directly addresses his excessiveness as theatrical. during the first few years of the band, the front man gained placebo a reputation of being excessive and over the top, with lyrics that discussed a wide range of drugs and so-called sexual perversities on top of an (at times) confusingly feminine wardrobe. the combination of contentious statements in interviews along the lines of “having left a trail of blood and spunk all over the country” (oldham 1998), and lyrics such as “slackerbitch, fag hag, whore” (slackerbitch 1996) even momentarily granted the musician an accusation of misogyny, which is definitely at odds with the status of queer icon that he enjoys 20 years later (jones 2017). this reception of his transgressions accentuates the flip side of theatrical excess leaning into bleakness, the cliché reinforcing how theatricality seems to be defined by both its “excess and its emptiness, its surplus as well as its lack” (davis & postlewait in paavolainen 2018, p. 48). what the doublesidedness of the media texts involved in molko’s persona illustrates is how the use of performative elements of a precarious identity, a term i use cautiously but is most prominently gender related for molko, does not exclude the simultaneous presence of theatricality altogether. precisely the dispositive of persona in a music context allows the staging performative elements in a theatrical way, and vice versa, introducing an ordinary extraordinariness. vannieuwenhuyze 14 the tailored randomness of the media whore “dog boy, media whore, it’s who the hell you take me for”, read the lyrics on the fourth track of the without you i’m nothing album, ask for answers (1998). the ‘media whore’ reference in the song taps into the duality of mediatized culture: even though it progressively naturalizes media performance as part of music artists’ identity, being overtly and overly present in media devalues that same identity performance. precisely this tension informs the ordinariness of the extraordinary identity that molko claimed and developed into a unique aesthetic as vital for his artistic practice as placebo’s music. his televisual and print magazine performances often explicitly demonstrate an aversion to his representation in british tabloid culture. he has regularly pointed out how music media imposed a sensationalist lens, for instance by calling them “(…) irritating fuckers who want you to be glamorous, over the top rock stars and then when you are they hold it against you” (cornwell 1999). simultaneously, he carries on using these exact platforms to air his dirty laundry and amplify the quotidian grit of his selfproclaimed outsider status. he draws the mediatized gaze exerted upon him into the identity that he curates. by playing into the hands of the media in a confessional mode, he embodies a convergence of a spectacle-oriented structure and his everyday identity, where the novelty of performative actions goes hand in hand with a perpetuation of the normativity of a dominant medium script. persona, in this constellation, is therefore more accurately thought of as ‘curated’ than ‘created’. to adorn oneself with theatrical props and strategies makes way for more subtle yet crucial selection mechanisms of what to share, emphasize, highlight, and stylize. a professedly meaningless detail that perpetually reaffirmed molko’s curated paradigm at the time of his nancy boy period is the special significance held by london’s south kensington station. this underground station was where molko and olsdal met again by chance after vaguely knowing each other at high school in luxembourg, and became a standard recapitulative of the band placebo’s formation in early interviews with the band (e.g. yates 1997, fortnam 1997). within molko’s persona narrative, the random location and accidental meeting have become a site of memory that forms another thread of his former luxembourg loser identity woven into a particular episode of his persona that is still being celebrated. what i have tried to unfold through my idiosyncratic account of molko’s persona in the fan archive, is how personas’ advanced interactions with the ordinary act upon and amplify the curatorial approach of molko’s early identity performance. by turning a performance studies lens on online fan archives, i concurrently understand persona as an ongoing gamut of media texts. the way in which the ‘media whore’ molko tailors what is to hand, in retrospect, draws in questions about the status of musical persona when it tunes in to the strategic identity performances propelled by the early stages of a presentational media regime. his musical persona reflects upon representational media’s demand to perform, parallel to how social media’s continuous stimulation of self-performance assimilates into new everyday identities. precisely in its negotiation of an ordinary extraordinariness resides the exceptionality of molko’s identity performance for a wider-ranging understanding of persona’s recent developments. his figure oscillates between the extraordinary rock star construct on the one hand, and on the other the innovative performance of a new identity, equally accrued and curated, that claims to be ordinary. this movement sees the frameworks of performativity and theatricality collapse into each other and foreshadows the crafted yet naturalized selfpresentation of the “socially mediated musician” (baym 2016, p. 47). through his interlacement of onstage acts and traditional media representation with a budding presentational mode, molko enacts a persona that is far more complex than the persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 15 straightforward reading of gender-bending icon that he is usually given. hovering over the unstable categories of ordinary, extraordinary, and extravagant, molko’s case reinforces the insightful context that pop music—and its obsession with authenticity in an increasingly staged environment—provides for unpacking the mutability of the persona concept. yates (1997), the author of the out come the freaks article, writes “molko is as his lyrics suggest, an elusive fella. perhaps he is as interested in building a character, ziggy stardust-style, as he is in revealing himself”. this sharp observation not only identifies the cultural significance of a seminal musician in british rock at the dawn of a new millennium. it also captures how presentational persona practices, preoccupied with the everyday in their naturalization of a strategically designed identity, possess the potential to transform the ordinary into a lifestyle. acknowledgements my research 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16 frith, s 1996. performing rites: on the value of popular music, harvard university press: cambridge, massachusetts. gallop, j 2002, anecdotal theory, duke university press, durham, n.c. gamson, j 2011, ‘the unwatched life is not worth living: the elevation of the ordinary in celebrity culture’, pmla, vol. 126, no. 4, pp.1061-1069. hansen, ka 2019, ‘(re)reading pop personae: a transmedial approach to studying the multiple construction of artist identities’ twentieth-century music, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 501-529. hawkins, s 2009, the british pop dandy. masculinity, popular music and culture, routledge, london and new york. haworth, r 2021, “stars as intermedium?”, rahresearch [blog], february 22 2021, retrieved june 2021, <https://rahresearch.wordpress.com/2021/02/22/stars-asintermediums/> iddon m, & marshall m (eds.), 2017, lady gaga and popular music, routledge, new york. jones, d 2017, ‘20 years after “nancy boy”: how brian molko queered up the 90s’ vice, 7 april, retrieved october 2021, <https://www.vice.com/en/article/538xpq/brian-molkoplacebo-queerness-90s-nancy-boy-20-years>. kornhaber, s 2019, ‘the plot against persona’ the atlantic, 19 september, retrieved august 2021, < https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/09/lana-del-reysays-she-never-had-persona-really/597883/>. macrossan, p 2018, ‘intimacy, authenticity and ‘worlding’ in beyoncé’s star project’ in s loy, j rickwood, & s bennett (eds.), popular music, stars and stardom, canberra, anu press, pp. 137-152. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2020, persona studies: an introduction, hoboken, nj: wileyblackwell. moore, a 2002, ‘authenticity as authentication.’ popular music, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 209-223. morton, r 1997, ‘it’s only rock ‘n roll in reversal’, vox, june, placebo russia archive, retrieved july 2021, < http://www.placeborussia.ru/press/press-1995-1997/voxjun97> morton, r 1999, ‘rocky mountain horror show’, nme, january 19, placebo russia archive, retrieved july 2021, <http://www.placeborussia.ru/press/press-19981999/nmejan99> oldham, j 1998, ‘we left a trail of blood and spunk all over the country’, nme, june 27, placebo russia archive, retrieved july 2021, <http://www.placeborussia.ru/press/press-1998-1999/nmejun98> paavolainen, t 2018, theatricality and performativity, palgrave macmillan, cham. reinelt, j 2002, ‘the politics of discourse: performativity meets theatricality’, substance, vol. 31, no. 2/3, pp. 201-215. segal, v 1998, ‘no more charlie’s angels’, nme, august 8, placebo russia archive, retrieved july 2021, <http://www.placeborussia.ru/press/press-1998-1999/nmeaug98> shuker, r 1994, understanding popular music, routledge, london. stratton, s 1998, ‘placebo in conversation with sally stratton’, interview, august, placebo russia archive, retrieved july 2021, <http://www.placeborussia.ru/press/press-19981999/interviewaug98> thornton, a 1997, ‘placebo brixton academy, london’, the independent, may 29, retrieved july 2021, <https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/placebo-brixton-academylondon-1264149.html> usher, b, fremaux, s 2015. ‘turn myself to face me: david bowie in the 1990s and discovery of authentic self’ in e devereux, a dillane & m power (eds), david bowie: critical perspectives, routledge, new york, pp. 56-81. yates, r 1997, ‘out come the freaks’, q, february, placebo russia archive, retrieved july 2021, < http://www.placeborussia.ru/press/press-1995-1997/qfeb97> “dog boy, media whore. it’s who the hell you take me for”: brian molko’s curated music magazine persona in the fan archive tessa vannieuwenhuyze ghent university abstract key words introduction the reluctant persona the (former) fangirl as a researcher? persona as a complex amalgam of archived media texts the theatrical everydayness of nancy boy the tailored randomness of the media whore acknowledgements works cited persona studies 2015, 1.2 31 crafting a work persona in 1970s petroleum geology brian beaton abstract taking inspiration from a 1972 study by allan sekula that concerned everyday shifts in subjectivity among a set of industrial and technical workers, this paper looks at work persona production in petroleum geology, a profession at the centre of the global oil industries and oil capitalism. persona production is part of how petroleum geologists explain themselves and their controversial work to one another, and how they manage individual celebrity within their expert community. taking as its data source obituaries and death notices that circulated inside the profession over the course of the 1970s, the paper concentrates on a specific persona created by petroleum geologists as part of their ritualized mourning practices. findings presented within the paper show that obituaries and death notices were used to collaboratively craft a work persona that is thoroughly disconnected from energy politics and controversy: the imagined figure of the petroleum geologist that emerges is someone who is rugged, righteous, loving, fraternal, and deeply connected to nature. the stakes of this research concern not only work personas and their histories, but also the material underpinnings of contemporary cultural production and ongoing debates over energy forms and futures. key words occupational culture, oil, work persona, scientific communication, energy politics introduction in the early 1970s, before he was a renowned documentary photographer, filmmaker, and essayist, and before he had a long and storied career associated with the california institute of the arts (valencia, calif.), allan sekula (1951-2013) self-identified as a young performance or “action” artist. in his artistic practice, sekula combined creative expression with site and process-specific activities—a technique that would never entirely leave his work despite its many changes over time. in the winter of 1972, sekula made a black-and-white photographic study of a large aerospace facility in san diego, california. never formally titled, the study came to be known as untitled slide sequence. according to sekula, this particular project drew its intellectual inspiration from three sources: the concern with the relationship between work and everyday life among sociologists and social theorists (e.g., erving goffman, emile durkheim, max weber); the “social documentary” tradition within american photography and its major practitioners (e.g., walker evans, dorthea lange); and from radical theater and its provocateurs (e.g., bertolt brecht, jean genet) (sekula and risberg 236-51). sekula’s study involved the following: one late afternoon, the young artist crossed onto the grounds of a private aerospace beaton 32 facility called general dynamics convair division. sticking close to the perimeter of the facility, sekula positioned himself with a hand-held camera on the concrete pedestrian walkway that connected general dynamics to the employee parking lot and the street. every employee who worked at general dynamics had to make use of that walkway to leave the company’s property at the end of the workday. it was the only way of departing from the facility to the various beach and hillside neighborhoods that make up the san diego area. sekula photographed the workers as they streamed out of work en route to their cars. in choosing that particular spot and time, sekula ultimately produced a study of the facility’s workers at the exact moment when they crossed over from being machinists, typists, clerks, secretaries, managers, and aerospace engineers to being something else: neighbors, family members, friends, strangers, and other types of quotidian social actors. unlike sekula’s next project, aerospace folktales (1973), which had a much stronger narrative component (sekula followed engineers from lockheed martin back to their homes and recorded them in their kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms as a means to make sense of them as social creatures), this first project at general dynamics involved the young artist acting like a security camera—documenting the various aerospace workers from a fixed position. but after a short period of photographing the workers, sekula was stopped by the facility’s actual security system—human guards—and forced to leave the property (sekula and risberg 241). sekula had never asked for permission to be there; he was engaged in unauthorized research or what might be called tresspassitory ethnography. this technique, however, allowed sekula to capture an exceptionally intimate, unusual, and complex portrait of 1970s aerospace workers, and to capture some of the tensions between individuality and social standardization that so often mark cultures of work. unlike the “lab studies” of scientists, technologists, and allied experts that came to be popularized that same decade, also by way of southern california, sekula’s idiosyncratic approach allowed him to capture some of the relationships between the workers and their work without reducing his subjects to stock, one-dimensional figures that exist only in what might be called “9-to-5 time.” inspired by sekula’s untitled slide sequence, this paper focuses on a different set of 1970s workers and on a different kind of crossing over or transitional moment. it specifically looks at petroleum geologists—the people who work inside the oil industries and help sustain, though the extraction of materials internal to our planet, contemporary societies scattered across the surface of our world. through a string of scientific, technical, and industrial processes, petroleum geologists search for and retrieve what eventually becomes the endless array of materials (e.g., plastics, gasoline, etc.) without which present-day life as currently constituted would instantly collapse in many places. general histories of petroleum geology have shown how petroleum geologists convinced oil companies of the potential for science to create wealth and value, as well as traced how work practices inside petroleum geology shifted from relatively crude forms of surface analysis to data-driven techniques of deep exploration and discovery (owen). this paper focuses on the petroleum geologist as a scientist-subject. specifically, it examines how petroleum geologists working in the 1970s crafted a collective work persona to make sense of their group self, to explain their controversial work to one another, and to manage individual celebrity within their community of scientific experts. methods, sources, scope to produce this study of persona production in 1970s petroleum geology, i took as my data source obituaries and death notices, a form of cultural record that other historians have used effectively to learn about the values and sensibilities of specific categories of actors or the “zeitgeist” of pre-selected periods of time (see hume; fowler) but not, to my knowledge, to study occupational self-presentation and display. although customarily written as singular remembrances of individual lives, obituaries and death notices can also function as something like a biographical “snapshot” or “portrait” of whole communities at exact chronological persona studies 2015, 1.2 33 moments when looked at in the aggregate. i focused on the obituaries and death notices (n=297) published in one of the leading english-language petroleum geology journals between 1970 and 1979: the american association of petroleum geology’s aapg bulletin, a peerreviewed u.s. publication that adheres to the formal codes of a normative geoscience journal with proprietary industry investments (i.e., a journal that supplies knowledge to industry). the obituaries and death notices within the aapg bulletin are biographical works that are written by petroleum geologists about other petroleum geologists; they circulate inside the petroleum geology community as an event-specific practice of self-authoring and as a form of ritualized remembrance. what i discovered in carrying out this research is that the sources in question yield a trove of “open data,” including data about intimate health issues, occupational risks, personal habits and interests outside of working life, character traits, and social relationships. despite this diversity and range of data in the obituaries and death notices, the imagined figure of the scientist-subject that emerges from 1970s petroleum geology is heavily organized into a discernible persona: a romanticized, blameless, faith-driven man (over 99% of the memorials published in the 1970s profiled a male scientist) who works until the bitter end in what can be a dangerous field— a rugged man driven by a love of natural environments and by a strong sense of homosocial kinship. as a public self that circulated semi-privately only within the profession, the image of 1970s petroleum geologists that emerged from the pages of the aapg bulletin was one of a hardy, grounded, and companionable man who combined the morality of an altar boy with the muscular know-how of a boy scout. the question of whether this particular persona actually animated or currently animates scientific practices within petroleum geology exceeds the scope of the research and analysis presented here, as does the question of whether this persona actually affected or currently affects the material availability of energy resources. instead, this paper first outlines the petroleum geologist persona as it came to be crafted throughout the 1970s within this specific set of records and then discusses what cultural work this persona performed within this particular scientific community. collaboratively crafting a work persona micropublicly in the 1970s, the aapg bulletin ceremonially placed what the journal calls its “memorials” in the space following the original research papers and just before the "reviews" section that detailed recent publications in the geosciences. this positioning suggests that the memorials had a liminal or in-between status— they were personal, but at the same time still tied to professional practices. but each memorial was shorter than a formal research paper, making them closer in length (and appearance) to the journal’s book reviews. and much like book reviews, the memorials were commonly organized around a stock formula, which was comprised of five general parts. the typical memorial began by announcing the death of the scientist in question, usually with a short opening paragraph that summarized the manner of dying. the various deaths recounted largely stemmed from illness and disease intermixed with some unexpected deaths by accident. something else frequently included within this opening section was a longer physiological history of the scientist, providing intimate details about the subject’s prior bouts with illness and injury. in the 1970s, heart attacks were reported as the dominant cause of unexpected death (e.g. newcombe; vogel; blair et al.; feruson; carpenter and patton; crunk; slocum; caylor; gow). in terms of accidental deaths, various helicopter crashes and plane crashes are mentioned, as well as car crashes and falls. interestingly, a number of accidental deaths described within the memorials appear to have been work related. for instance, more than one helicopter or plane crash involved small aircraft traveling for the purposes of geological surveying or fieldwork (e.g., reeves; palmer; nanz). according to one such memorial, "the cause remains speculative, but from analysis of crash-site debris, it appears that the helicopter hit a large boulder on the ridge, then tumbled hundreds of feet down a steep slope" (mann et al. 1903). the inclusion of these kinds of details, however, does not appear to have been a micropublic critique of the risky conditions within the profession of petroleum geology. the beaton 34 profession’s methods and practices are not explicitly criticized within the memorials that specifically document work-related accidents. instead, such details are part of a larger “diedwhile-working” trope undergirding the memorials more generally, regardless of how the scientist in question actually died. beyond work-related accidents, other examples of this trope include a geologist who "died with his lecture notes in his hand" (lintz 1416); another one who "died with his boots on...still working on drilling deals in utah and wyoming" (curry 2234); one who “saw the exciting results from the first line of data just before he was stricken” by "a massive cerebral hemorrhage" (worzel 2192-94); and another who "suffered a severe heart attack" while "presenting a paper on his favorite topic" (link et al. 1953). more than one geologist died at the field's major annual meeting or in close proximity to that meeting (e.g., wissler; mason et al.). in addition, more than one geologist is said to have died just before, or immediately following, the publication of new research (e.g., houston and boyd; braunstein). these commemorations, as rituals operating just inside the personal lives of scientists but just outside their professional lives, were insistent on the centrality of professional identity even in this intensely vulnerable and intimate moment of death and dying. not only did these memorials bring intimate and personal details into the profession within the pages of the journal, they also extended and embedded professional identities into the embodied lives of the scientists. after announcing the death, the typical memorial then offered a short account of the individual’s upbringing. a major theme that emerges across the memorials from the 1970s is religion. examples include a geologist described as having been raised by “a school teacher turned pastor” (armstrong 1573); one described as “the son of a baptist minister” (keller 1576); and another as “the son of a methodist clergyman” (conselman, “heroy” 2537). along these same lines, many of the dead petroleum geologists are said to have maintained a close relationship with a denomination of the christian church over the course of their lifetimes and scientific careers. examples include a geologist described as having lived dutifully by “christian principles” that “endeared him to all” (rouse 601); one described as having been “first and foremost…truly a christian” (dickey 1543); and another remembered for his “christian virtues,” which were “evident in his decisions and actions” (mackey 2165). one geologist was a “regular attendant at [church] services when not in the field” (kirk 170). another geologist is described as having used a “‘country preacher’ style” when giving talks at “local, regional, and national geologic societies” (braunstein 2301). thus, in this liminal space just inside the personal and just outside the professional, petroleum geologists imbued themselves with a sense of godly purpose and piety. the scientists represented themselves as having lived mission-driven lives in the service of something larger than oil companies, something divine and otherworldly. what petroleum geologists do for a living is not only rooted in morality, but also perhaps directed and sanctioned by incontrovertible forces, according to the representational logic of these tributes. the third part of a typical memorial was directly informed by instructions that were given by the aapg bulletin, which expressly asked authors to emphasize the subject’s contributions to the field of petroleum geology. the bulletin provided the following guidelines: memorials fittingly record the loss of an association member by death and should include a good glossy photograph of the deceased, with a short caption generally limited to the name. the high cost of printing and an increasing number of memorials have made it necessary to restrict the length to 500 words. a memorial should stress particularly the member's professional contribution to geology. (wengerd 1856) these instructions were typically enacted by listing what oil companies, universities, and consultancies had employed the scientist in question; by noting any major oil discoveries; and by identifying people’s major research areas. here, the petroleum geologist’s life was squarely reckoned as a professional life. in no way were the memorials devoid of occupational content. persona studies 2015, 1.2 35 instead, occupational content was sandwiched inside a larger rendering that situated workplace identity as a central component of a broader selfhood. following the public re-telling of the deceased’s employment history, the fourth component of the typical memorial described the person’s temperament, character, and personality. in doing so, the memorials reveal what traits were valued, at least micropublicly, within this particular scientific community. scientists who were generous, curious, sympathetic to others, and quiet were particularly well regarded. the resulting effect is that the petroleum geologists are made to appear as not only helpful, but also as non-intrusive. the extractive, nature-altering character of their everyday scientific work is submerged into an image of affability, benignity, and nurturing. in addition to discussing the person's character and temperament, this section of the typical memorial catalogued the person's hobbies and interests outside of work. the bulk of the hobbies mentioned in the 1970s pertain to the outdoors. highly cited activities include fishing, hunting, nature photography, camping, backpacking, hiking, and bicycling. put simply: there was a collective attraction to and valuation of “outdoors” that bridged the professional and personal practices of self within this particular community of scientific workers. the scientists are presented as land protectors, stewards, and shepherds in a manner that ultimately obfuscates just how much of their professional work is tied to probing, removing, wresting, drilling, and draining. the profusion of details describing the salutary and reciprocal ties between the scientist and his natural environment verge on cliché: one geologist is described as having “loved the outdoors” and to have “regularly supplied visiting friends with oranges and grapefruits from his yard” (borden 1793), while another is remembered for having had his own private property “dedicated and posted as an official tree farm” due to his “passion for the outdoors” and to “preserve the beauty of his mountain environment” (verville 1225). in a similar manner, another geologist is described as having had “an intense interest in the outdoors and wildlife, and in the ranch which he loved. he was a member of the audubon society, a proponent of strict land management, and a self-taught expert on feed grasses” (begeman 128). another geologist is remembered for having taught others about “the pleasures of nature’s gifts—and of the importance of treating those gifts with reverence and responsibility” (mcculloh 119). according to their memorials, petroleum geologists do not work in a controversial extractive industry lurking deep within oil capitalism and within larger debates and contestations over how people and the planet should and can interact but, instead, work in and through an embodied sense of love, closeness, and connectedness with nature. the typical memorial then closed with a short list of the person's surviving family members, and with a direct expression of feeling on the part of the individual author(s) who researched, composed, and published the account. these expressions of feeling are often quite simple and straightforward. as expected, highly cited feelings include "a sense of deep personal loss" and "sadness" as well as "gratitude" and "regret." other times, however, the feelings expressed appear more complicated and even awkward—due in part, perhaps, to the micropublic form of feeling in which the person writing the memorial was engaged. these expressions of feeling were constrained by the particular modes of masculinity that were privileged within the profession. such expressions were also constrained by the fact of their appearance within one of the field’s major scientific and technical journals. it also seems reasonable to presume that some of the dead scientists might have had contested legacies or might have been part of on-going controversies within the profession. questions of who to remember and how to remember them were likely connected to occupational politics within the field. another complicating factor was the demographics of the profession. with the exception of just one instance— a memorial published for micropaleontologist esther richards applin (maher 596-7)— every memorial published in the aapg bulletin during the 1970s involved a man writing about another man. this homogeneity within the profession seems to have produced specific effects on the field’s grieving practices and collective self-authorings, exacerbating what was perhaps an already uncomfortable exercise. one scientist writes: “it is difficult to write objectively…because to know erich well was to find oneself personally beaton 36 intrigued by his character and personality” (taylor 2141). speaking of a different petroleum geologist in strikingly similar terms, another scientist writes: “it is hard to write objectively…for one inevitably becomes emotionally involved with the man’s character and personality” (penn 2470). according to yet another memorial: "men don't usually think or speak of 'loving' other men, but in [this] case the word comes very close— certainly we were awfully, awfully fond of him" (conselman, “tompkins” 1511). discussion in the provocative photographic study that allan sekula produced of 1970s aerospace workers leaving their worksite (and shedding their work personas) at the end of an ordinary workday, sekula reminds us that cultures of expert work fundamentally hinge on larger circulations of people moving into and out of their workplace selves. sekula’s larger argument was that making critical sense of work and labour formations requires starting with the knowledge that workplace cultures are sites where professional and extra-professional identities collide and intermix, even in scientific, technical, and industrial fields that frequently have a pretext of depersonalization. the nearly 300 memorials published by the aapg bulletin in the 1970s offer a collective portrait of petroleum geologists in their own words, selfauthorings, created in the aftermath of a specific category of event (death) and during a moment of tremendous significance for petroleum geology as a field. oil had seeped deeply into american life by the 1970s. looking for oil was a major industry unto itself. oil also figured heavily in other industries and within everyday culture. by 1970, a list of the ten largest u.s. corporations included three oil companies; it also included three automobile manufacturers (pursell 106) whose technological makings were entirely reliant on petroleum and encouraged further petroleum usage. oil was also important to what were, at the time, still new and emerging ideas and industries. for example, one of the key actors within the early history of biotechnology was a lab-made microorganism that could break down oil spills. efforts in the 1970s to gain patent rights to that specific, oil-related organism (i.e. to make it a marketable commodity) played a significant role in establishing the legal framework for what would become, in the 1980s and 1990s, the biotechnology sector (rajan 6). in this regard, oil figured heavily within efforts to make and commodify new kinds of life. it was also crucial to the advent of personal computers and network technologies. one of the earliest u.s. microchip manufacturers, the firm texas instruments (ti), began as a maker of geodetic instruments used for the exploration of oil (chandler 30). likewise, some the earliest efforts to make computers interlink and network involved experts who had previously worked on the layout of oil pipelines (abbate 59). amid these developments, the worldwide environmental movement and the 1973-74 oil crisis spurred widespread critique of oil companies (merrill). it also led to the cultural revival of a “running out of oil” discourse that had first surfaced in the early twentieth century (olien and olien 119-140). by the 1970s, americans had come to perceive themselves as confronting new types of material limits (bailey and farber 4). oil was at the centre of many such discussions, and therefore petroleum geologists were too. the particular work persona crafted by petroleum geologists in the 1970s through their obituaries and death notices was certainly not a simple reaction to these broader events and developments, yet neither can this specific work persona be conceptualized as something wholly uninformed by wider currents of culture and politics. the persona that emerges from obituaries and death notices in 1970s petroleum geology expressly, even aggressively, distanced petroleum geologists from any external controversy; it conjured an image of themselves, for themselves, by themselves that thoroughly, even theatrically, removed the everyday work of petroleum geologists from energy politics, from debates about oil dependency, and from critiques of global economies predicated on mass extraction. but this particular persona also distanced petroleum geologists from the cycles of dependency and interdependency that would have knowingly rested on their shoulders. people living in the 1970s, as now, needed petroleum geologists. rather than create a persona that acknowledged persona studies 2015, 1.2 37 the trickiness of their footing in society, and the stickiness of their social positioning in a world wedded to oil and troubled by its future, what petroleum geologists created instead, through mourning in print, was a remarkably unified front or screen that adhered to repetition and rhetorical simplicity: a persona organized around overlooking and assuaging tensions, something square and safe and straight, something likeable-by-design, non-threatening, agreeable, and comforting. this particular persona also seems to have helped manage and mitigate any celebrification within the profession. it enfolded everyone, even stars, into what looks to have functioned as a group standard, social template, or ideal. one interpretation is that petroleum geology was simply less oriented around, or willing to tolerate, celebrities within their profession in the manner of, say, astronomy (e.g., edwin hubble, carl sagan), biomedicine (e.g., jonas salk), physics (e.g., albert einstein, stephen hawking), and the like. but something else seems to have been accomplished as well. the effect of this particular persona appears, in retrospect, as almost protective in its logic(s): no single scientist is made famous or unique enough to be blamable for what petroleum geologists do. individual identities are absorbed back into a larger figuration that remains difficult to pick apart and probe in terms of individual complicity; distinctions between the scientists are muted and muddied by the overwhelming power of the persona and its rote, formulaic telling and retelling. these ritualized, scripted forms of mourning in print extended professional commitments into the realm of the personal and physiological all while extending the personal and physiological into the pages of an otherwise technical publication. the typical memorial published in the aapg bulletin in the 1970s performed a valuing of a specific version of the scientist-subject: stoic, quiet, attached to landscapes, working to the bitter end, and driven by faith, brotherhood, kinship, and environmental care. they were reckonings of a scientist-subject working in oil that accounted for his life as godly, fraternal, and on the side of nature. in them, petroleum geologists forged themselves as an “imagined community” of more-than professionals, and collaboratively crafted a work persona grounded in valor and virtue— despite working in what, for many outsiders, was and still is a controversial extractive industry with dubious claims to any higher purpose beyond enabling oil capitalism. in addition to the repetition and simplicity built into the texts, the memorials reveal a scientific community marked by, or at least invested in projecting, a tremendous level of homogeneity, not just in terms of gender. the memorials also reveal (or perform) a scientific community marked by remarkable degrees of whiteness, heterosexuality, christianity, and bourgeois values. to look, then, at obituaries and death notices from 1970s petroleum geology is to engage with a performance of dominant culture, in anthropological or sociological terms, but also to engage with a culture of dominance— one wholly organized around finding and retrieving oil, extracting something from the planet so that it can be processed and monetized. but to look at these notices is also to engage with science as a service: a community of experts working on-demand in a “boom and bust” industry that has not always appreciated scientists and their abilities to create wealth and value. along these same lines, a complex form of codependency almost certainly informed how 1970s petroleum geologists marked the passing of life. what an “altar boy” crossed with a “boy scout” ends up sounding like, both then and now, as a manufactured presentation of self, is a figure grounded in obedience, protocol, duty, and selflessness (i.e., someone worth knowing, someone worth trusting, and someone worth employing). through the aapg bulletin, petroleum geologists that died in the 1970s each departed in roughly the same way, but also did so as someone for whom “9-to-5 time” was but one fraction of a larger social, psychological, and interpersonal repertoire. each of the individual subjects captured within the aapg memorials may have worked in the business of oil, but each was also far more than merely an oil worker. thus, a key part of how petroleum geologists collectively made sense of their world and work was by putting into words and performing this particular beaton 38 surplus of subjectivity, and by diligently documenting these extra-professional aspects of their lives. in these memorials, petroleum geologists clearly wanted to know themselves as more than petroleum geologists, and they worked hard through awkwardness and feelings to conjure themselves as more than professional workers, albeit along very particular scripts, boundaries, and guidelines. the scientists represented themselves as multi-dimensional scientist citizens with families, hobbies, faith, leisure pursuits, and avocations, in addition to (if not surmounting) their identities as petroleum geologists. at the centre of oil capitalism and oil science, according to petroleum geologists working (and dying) in the 1970s, was a fleshy, embodied economy of homosocial and person-planet attachments that continuously crisscrossed work-life divides and transcended the economy of tools, instruments, ideas, theories, debates, controversies, facts, and counter-facts that populated their “9-to-5 time.” conclusion work personas vary. they can be individual or collective. they can also be ongoing— requiring continuous maintenance and stewardship— or they can be event-specific, one-off, periodic. for instance, a promotion at work might lead someone to rework the persona they coordinate on social media platforms. a company-wide reorganization might spur an in-house project team to present themselves and their work in new ways, or return to old ways, depending on perceived management preferences— using reports, presentations, websites, and enterprise software platforms to make a new mask or resurrect an old one. on the other end of the spectrum, a long-time executive might leave a personal website unchanged for years, broadcasting the same travel photos and professional development certificates as the day she began, broadcasting a type of consistency, reliability, evenness. this paper looked at one type of work persona production, with a focus on 1970s petroleum geology and on practices of collective self-authoring in the wake of death within a community of scientific experts. while individual petroleum geologists crafted and managed individual personas, as well as other collective personas (at conferences, annual meetings, etc.), the routine inclusion of obituaries and death notices in one of the profession’s major scientific and technical journals provided an opportunity for petroleum geologists to write about themselves to themselves. writing and publishing memorials allowed petroleum geologists to engage in self-presentation and self-authoring within a relatively managed access environment (i.e., semi-privately, although not in any official sense) and, in doing so, the scientists in question inadvertently shared a significant amount about how they wanted to view themselves. several things make this case of work persona production worth adding to the growing literature on personas and self-display. for starters, this paper provided an example involving a uniquely controversial group of workers. today, petroleum geologists continue to work at the heart of the oil industries and thus in the midst of messy debates about hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), and at the centre of controversies surrounding major oil spills and oil transport methods such as multinational pipelines. depending on one’s views about the relationship between oil and recent u.s. war-making, american petroleum geologists also arguably work deep inside u.s. geopolitical strategy. looking, then, at when and how petroleum geologists make sense of themselves and at how they engage in self-display among themselves opens up new possibilities for critically engaging with a set of workers who hold a considerable amount of quiet power. what new conversations might be possible about energy forms and futures were ardent critics of oil capitalism and oil-driven war-making to confront the surreal reality of how petroleum geologists wish to be viewed and view themselves? petroleum geology also has a unique significance within our socio-material world. regardless of one’s environmental politics or personal thoughts about energy forms and futures, what petroleum geologists do has the ability to impact “downstream,” across space and time, cultural production elsewhere, including practices of self-display and persona production in other domains: nail polish, mascara, and hair gel each contain petroleum products, and cloudpersona studies 2015, 1.2 39 based software services underpinning many social media platforms run on very real energy grids. indeed, one of the reasons why our world “works” the way it does, and one of the reasons that persona production has found the material means to intensify and multiply across social domains, is because of who petroleum geologists are, what they do, and how they engage in individual and aggregate sense-making in not just their field sites and labs, but also in sites like living rooms, backyards, churches, hospital emergency rooms, and funeral parlors. the case of petroleum geologists reminds us that work personas are not always about work alone and that work personas in one social domain have the ability to affect other social domains. directions for future research might include broadening the temporal scope of this paper to chart whether and how the imaginal figure crafted by 1970s petroleum geologists as part of their group mourning ritual(s) has changed or stayed consistent over time. it would also be fruitful to map commonalities and differences between the self-display tactics that manifest in petroleum geology and those that manifest in other occupational realms, both around mourning but also around other key moments of individual and group sense-making. doing so would further illuminate what is or is not novel about petroleum geologists, and potentially reveal broader cultural patterns around work and workplace persona production. in addition, some important and unique questions that arise from this work are whether and how persona production affects resource availabilities. the material underpinnings of contemporary life are created in part with the help of a human infrastructure involving the people who find and retrieve, for a living, the material(s) in question. as allan sekula pointed out more than forty years ago, expert work is carried out by people who toggle back and forth between expert and lay subject positions, not by people who live, work, and die trapped in “9-to-5 time.” in the case of petroleum geology, routinely inhabiting a figuration something between an “altar boy” and a “boy scout,” at least micropublicly, may in fact be a critical component to how petroleum geology and oil 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c. myers (1894-1970).” memorial. aapg bulletin 55.8 (1971): 13711372. print. wengerd, sherman a. “preparation of manuscripts for the bulletin.” aapg bulletin 50.9 (1966): 1848-1867. print. wissler, stanley g. “earl bart noble (1894-1967).” memorial. aapg bulletin 54.9 (1970): 17551757. print. worzel, j. lamar. “william maurice ewing (1906-1974).” memorial. aapg bulletin 58.10 (1974): 2192-2194. print. brian beaton is the director of the center for expressive technologies at cal poly (san luis obispo, calif.) and an assistant professor in cal poly's college of liberal arts. persona studies, 2015 1.2 1 introduction: personas at work katja lee in 2001, canadian performance artist chris lloyd began a multi-year performance piece entitled dear pm. the project sought to both critique the canadian political system and challenge the uni-directional flow of information between political figures and the everyday citizen. it began as a “daily-style” letter-writing campaign and eventually moved online where it remains to this day (https://dearpmprojects.wordpress.com). however, the scope of dear pm is considerably broader and includes international exhibitions of these letters, papier-mȃché canadiana (presumably crafted from shredded letters), videos such as the one on the front cover of this issue, and participation in a variety of political forums, including membership in all of canada’s major political parties (mckenna et al).i in may 2015, it was this latter art/practice/work/performance that swiftly propelled lloyd and the question of legitimate work personas into the national spotlight. fig 1: lloyd as conservative candidate fig 2: lloyd with prime minister stephen harperii images courtesy of chris lloyd critical of canada’s “first past the post” electoral system and the conservative party mandate that did not seem to allow for deviation from party policy, lloyd adopted a conservative political “persona” (hamilton; mckenna, daigle, and rubinger) and entered the political fray. without difficulty (and, he claims, without misrepresenting or obscuring his previous political and artistic activities[“information”]), lloyd found himself the conservative candidate for the papineau electoral district in québec, a hopeless but rather famous riding for being the constituency of justin trudeau, the liberal party leader and national celebrity.iii his platform, he argued later, was to adopt the party line and see if he could render it “unpalatable,” and to contribute to the vote-splitting that could, potentially, “take down justin trudeau in his own backyard” (hamilton). however, the creative foundations for this work did not sit well with either the media or the conservative party. in a dramatic news report on may 12th, 2015, the canadian broadcasting corporation (cbc) implicated that lloyd could not be a serious or sincere politician because he was a “performance artist” pursuing an “art project” (mckenna). within 24 hours, representatives of the conservative party were on lloyd’s doorstep demanding his resignation. the issue at stake was not whether lloyd was doing his job but, rather, how he was seen to be doing the job. it was, ultimately, a question of image management. https://dearpmprojects.wordpress.com/ lee 2 for the conservatives it was necessary to rapidly distance themselves from lloyd, not simply because his work seemed to render them ridiculous and incompetent (at least in terms of how the media and other parties represented the events), but also because lloyd’s candidacy betrayed how easy it was to adopt a conservative persona, and revealed such an identity as a performance rather than a sincere and authentic representation of the self. such a creative play of surfaces is dangerous in a profession where work personas are expected to function as though they are expressions of an identity also performed in non-work contexts, and disciplined if they do not. the public attention that attended the revelation of lloyd’s work persona as performance seemed to overwhelm him and he resigned as requested. former radio-canada journalist, yvon vadnais, was tapped to take his place. after a brief reprieve to regroup, lloyd rejoined the papineau political race: this time as an independent candidate with a brand that clearly highlights an artistic and coolly detached approach to politics and self-representation.iv fig 3: lloyd’s new independent platform image credit: clément de gaulejac these events remind us that the legitimation of our labour depends a great deal on the persona perceived to perform it. it is not sufficient to simply do work and/or do it well, but its cultural, economic, and political value is shaped by the identity that performs it —hence why former us president george w. bush could not only command an exhibition of his rather uninspiring portraits of world leaders (stengle), but why the canadian public initially believed a satirical article that claimed the canadian government paid 1.5 million us to secure harper’s portrait (the lapine). however, if politicians, especially retired ones, are permitted to dabble in the arts, and artists are expected (if not encouraged) to use their work to political ends, then why the great fuss over lloyd’s work? the scandal of the situation, it appears, owes a great deal to the discourses that rendered it: the cbc reports were replete with strategic emphasis that suggested the subversive and untrustworthy nature of performance art and artists, and depended on “behind-the-scenes” discourses that construct false fronts and “real” depths (mckenna; mckenna et al; “information”). in this linguistic economy lloyd’s conservative political persona becomes both subversive and a false front, and the artist persona becomes the real identity responsible for the production of all labour. the aftermath of lloyd’s political persona performance reveals some deeply embedded assumptions and practices about the personas we mobilize at work. it is clear that we depend on work personas to, in a sense, “carry on” in the manner in which they are presented to us: we expect, hope, and need politicians (and workers in general) to remain true to the public identity they have cultivated so that we know how to interact with them. this does not mean we expect such personas to be “real,” but they are a critical site of investment: hence, while lloyd’s artist persona seemed to compromise the legitimacy of his conservative platform, it gave new life to his independent platform. his performance of persona also seems to draw uneasy attention to the scaffolding of persona construction. as lloyd argued in one interview, we all engage in persona work and “his conservative straight-man persona was no more fraudulent than other candidates who profess to support every item in their party’s platforms” (hamilton). nevertheless, the media coverage of the event betrays a distinct dis-ease about how to manage and engage with an openly-acknowledged persona performance—as though this changes the stakes and the legitimacy of the persona, its labour, and our interactions with it. another interesting thread that develops from this scenario is how persona creation and performance becomes explicitly recognized as not just work, but creative work: while work personas can be put on like uniforms and set aside at the end of our shifts, they are more often embodied and performed in ways that demand our creative and artistic energies. and lastly, lloyd’s example persona studies, 2015 1.2 3 lays bare what a “delicate, fragile thing” (goffman 56) our work persona performance is and how it is subject to conditions, surveillance, and disciplinary measures. in this special issue we take up many of these threads in order to examine and to better understand the work persona as a public identity we mobilize and perform to manage the demands of our labour. in particular we are interested in work as a social condition that makes particular demands on us, and compels and inspires us to craft and perform particular identities. the ways in which our labour and our employers shape, influence, and discipline our constructions and performances of persona in work settings does not, however, negate our agency in this process: the negotiation and management of sometimes competing and contradictory roles, impulses, and desires can be a site of anxiety and friction but also of creativity. in this introduction to the issue, work personas are framed as necessary—perhaps even inevitable—identity performances that are a condition of work, working, and interacting with other workers. however, because the conditions of how, where, and why we labour and what constitutes “work” have changed significantly over time, so too have our strategies for producing and performing work identities. in our present moment, the work persona has explicitly and self-consciously entered the marketplace as a valuable commodity as both employers and employees become hyper-aware of the significance, function, and processes of image management. moreover, the ways in which digital and social media have changed our work cultures now make it increasingly difficult to talk about and perform a work persona that is a distinct entity from personas performed in other contexts. the second half of this introduction, “shall ye know them by their fruits?,” investigates how work persona production carries on in the fruits of our labour. it begins by looking to the ways that popular culture betrays our attitudes, ambitions, and fantasies about managing work as unique and autonomous individuals, and how we have used entertainment products like films to make sense of the public identities of the individuals who are visibly celebrated for making them. our labour and the products of our labour do persona-work, and when our labour circulates away from us, the ways in which it performs a/our persona can rest in the hands of those interacting with it. thus, in addition to offering up new perspectives on various performances of work personas, the contributions to this issue also do persona-work themselves and say something about the ways in which each contributor understands and performs his or her labour. that labour is the backbone of this issue, offering us the means to think through how personas work, do work, and are work. to that conversation, this introduction is something of a preface—a means by which to sketch some contexts and frameworks for thinking about these issues and to historicize some of their developments, and to help us understand how and why the art of work persona production and performance is, like lloyd’s political campaigns, contentious, fragile, in flux, and potentially culturally, politically, and economically valuable. work personas: managing the demands of labour in “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective,” p. david marshall and kim barbour remind us that persona is an identity played and performed “by the individual in social settings” (2). social settings both compel and shape the production of the identity and thus the performance and persona cannot be fully anticipated and predicted—it comes to life as it is produced and deployed. nevertheless, certain social situations allow us to prepare our performances in advance and give us frequent opportunities to deploy them; in the contexts of our working lives, the personas we mobilize there are often the result of years of observation, conditioning, and practice. this identity that we learn to craft and mobilize in order to manage the demands of our labour (both paid and unpaid) usually has little to do with skills and knowledge accumulated through formal schooling.v more often, it is the product of some on-the job training and a great deal of practice navigating the explicit lee 4 policies and implied cultures of our workplace. as a result, we learn a great deal from both our successful and disastrous performances at work. the acquisition of a persuasive and authoritative work persona is a not insignificant asset for job security and serves a variety of other personal functions as well; however, as an identity created by and for a particular social situation, it has much broader social functions. as goffman notes in the presentation of the self in everyday life, personas crafted and mobilized for work situations are instrumental in establishing social ease between participants: instead of having to maintain a different pattern of expectation and responsive treatment for each slightly different performer and performance, he can place the situation in a broad category around which it is easy for him to mobilize his past experience and stereo-typical thinking. observers then need only be familiar with a small and hence manageable vocabulary of fronts, and know how to respond to them, in order to orient themselves in a wide variety of situations. (26) the work persona, whether we occupy it ourselves or engage with someone who does, may constrain us into particular patterns of behaviour, but it allows us considerable freedom from anxiety and the labour of negotiating new communication. the alternative is, frankly, terrifying: imagine if each time we bought a cup of coffee, the experience lacked precedent, as though we were about to participate for the first time in an unfamiliar and foreign ceremony. work personas allow (and compel) us to assume identities and roles that transcend multiple scenarios and allow us to negotiate with relative ease, analogous situations, but, as a result, it can also make the unique identities of the individual participants irrelevant. you are a barista and i am a customer: so long as our roles ensure the ritual exchange proceeds seamlessly, each of us is interchangeable, disposable, and quickly forgotten. the ways in which companies, organizations, and institutions work to keep us in those roles is the subject of intense study and research: identity and identity work in employment situations has been one of the preeminent sites of research and interest in the fields of organizational and management studies (sveningsson and alvesson as qtd in brown 20). while persona does not form a critical or explicit discourse in these studies, these works nevertheless have a tendency to invoke similar theoretical frameworks as often used in persona studies.vi of particular interest in these studies are the hard and soft mechanisms employed by organizations to manufacture, shape, and control the working identities of employees. the hard tools—those that are structural and explicit—include induction, training, evaluation and assessment, surveillance and discipline, promotion, and policy (amongst others). the soft tools—those that are cultural and implicit—include office cultures, peer pressures, discourse, and body language. our physical and communicative interactions with others, for example, are governed by law and by our organizations and/or professional bodies but, depending on one’s employment and/or the organization, one might find one’s appearance, language, body language, mannerisms, and even emotions prescribed and monitored. in such ways, organizations dictate, pressure, or steer us towards particular kinds of work identities. for my barista, then, there will be a range of acceptable professional identities he (or she) can perform and these will have been implicitly and explicitly, specifically and vaguely outlined by colleagues, employers, professional bodies, and work culture. baristas are expected to look and behave a certain way because their work personas are critical instruments for efficient, speedy, and profitable transactions with me. moreover, this persona is instrumental in conveying not just a cup of coffee, but an experience and a brand—the barista is supposed to embody and communicate a range of means that were once the responsibility of the product (brannan, parsons, and priole 5). the performance of this role will be both supervised and under surveillance: like most service workers, baristas labour under the watchful gaze of strategically placed visual and audio recording devices. those in hospitality are not the only workers to labour under such conditions: anyone who works with the public is usually expected persona studies, 2015 1.2 5 to assume a particular kind of persona which will be monitored and regulated by others. indeed, all professions and forms of employment whether paid or unpaid have a range of specific and general expectations that govern what kinds of personas we should develop for the social nature of our work. our performance in these roles is witnessed by others in some way and this has a significant effect not only on how we perform those identities and our work, but on our future prospects in that work: our work personas are, to invoke foucault, disciplined and a form of discipline. from a humanist perspective, then, the organizational work identity can strip us of our humanity—it is no surprise that dystopic representations of the future fixate on an automated, dehumanized workforce. in cloud atlas (2004), david mitchell gives us a future where hospitality workers are “fabricants” grown to work and whose distinctive personalities and autonomy are chemically suppressed. sonmi-451, who has attained consciousness and cultivated an identity distinct from her labour in a fast food chain, is no longer fit for work and is, presumably, destroyed. such representations of tyrannical political or economic systems that exert supreme control over our labour and our identities are a hallmark of the twentieth century imagination inspired, no doubt, by the advent of the assembly line and mass culture; developments in communications technologies; global warfare, genocide, and other gross violations of human rights; a new global economy; environmental destruction, and the impact of all of these on our working lives. despite our not-entirely-unfounded fears, we are not (yet) the labouring pawns and product of global multinationals. as many scholars have pointed out, we actively negotiate, respond, contest, and manage the organizational pressures that shape our work personas (alvesson and willmott 621; tarnovskaya). we remain agents in our work identity production and performance: identities are neither simply chosen nor merely allocated but are instead the effects of identity work that occurs in the interstices between domination and resistance […] identities arise in a continuing dialectic of ‘structure’ and ‘agency,’ and are most reasonably described as ‘improvised’ or ‘crafted’ through identity work processes that are sometimes calculative and pragmatic, often emotionally charged, and generally social. (brown 26) as workers, a sense of our distinctive identities cannot be effaced because, at the most basic level, how we interpret and respond to mandated work personas and the organizational pressures to assume them will depend (to some degree) upon our personal skills, talents, and inclinations. to be an agent in this process, however, is to betray signs of actively negotiating these “structures”: to find strategic ways to occupy, resist, remake, or challenge this organizational identity in a way that might serve one’s own interests. this could mean performances that are designed to bring us personal pleasure or enjoyment, or that assert aspects of our identities cultivated outside of work such as how we fashion and groom our bodies and our work spaces, assert particular cultural or political investments, or showcase particular strengths and weakness of our personalities (such as a sense of humour or lack thereof). when we personalize and assert identities cultivated beyond organizational controls, we also affect how others read our work identities and, perhaps, work with us. our agency in work persona production is found not just in our personal idiosyncrasies and strategic activities, but also in our identity “play.” as brown argues: “while ‘work’ is often associated with compliance, rationality, logic and a means-end orientation, ‘play’ implicates a different set of potentially generative ideas relating to enjoyment, discovery, intuition, imagined others, spontaneity and fantasy…” (25). to be silly, irreverent, inconsistent, ironic, imaginative and playful at work and in how we represent ourselves at work can be a means to escape, challenge, or subvert organizational or professional identity scripts. these activities also, importantly, disrupt and challenge organizational pressures that demand consistent, unified, accountable identities. play allows us to introduce contradiction, and to draw attention to the performative, fragmented, unstable, and ongoing nature of identity work. not surprisingly, lee 6 there are certain risks associated with such play: our ability to do our work or convincingly perform more serious work identities might suffer or, as chris lloyd discovered, we might find our work identity altogether discredited and formally delegitimized. in the twenty-first century, our labouring lives continue to play a significant role in how we represent ourselves outside of work: as sinéad ruane notes, “we are socially programmed, upon being introduced to someone new, to ask ‘what do you do?’ we believe that ‘who we are’ is inextricably linked to ‘what we do.’ the assumption, of course, is that the ‘doing’ refers to employment…” (9). however, the mechanisms of “doing” have undergone a “radical transformation” (brannan, parsons, priola 3) in the last two and half decades and, as a result, so too have the kinds of personas we are cultivating and performing for these new work conditions. one of the most significant and widely discussed changes arises from computing technology, or more specifically the use of those technologies for communication purposes. social media has dramatically reshaped the media, mechanisms, and spaces of work, compelling us to perform new or altered personas through new media and for potentially unknown and unknowable audiences and contexts. many forms of employment now require us to cultivate an online presence, and the performance of which adds considerably to our work and stress load as sharyn mcdonald examines in this issue. as media and working conditions change rapidly, our online work personas always seem to be both out-dated and works in progress as we struggle to keep up with new media developments, navigate the competing and sometimes contradictory impulses of our other labour persona performances, and manage the everchanging bureaucratic and disciplinary infrastructures that constrain and regulate these performances. these media changes to how we work have increasingly blurred what boundaries might previously have distinguished our labouring and non-labouring lives and the personas we performed in them. although we are continually reminded of the dangers inherent in this “context collapse” (marwick and boyd), and experts strongly advise us to distinguish between our professional and persona social media activities (millennial branding), the reality of the matter is that many of us don’t. while we do not lack for new media venues for strictly professional work personas—linkedin, for example, claims to have 380 million users (“about linkedin”)vii—venues that allow for more crossover between professional and personal lives, like facebook with its 1.49 billion active users (“our history”)viii or twitter with 316 million active users (“twitter usage”), remain incredibly popular and pervasive. it would seem that we are not always interested in keeping our work and non-working lives strictly distinct: we still talk about work at home and of home at work, but we now increasingly take our work home and on holidays and sneak time for personal interests at work. our labouring lives are losing those clearly demarked boundaries and “settings” (goffman 22) for the performance of a work persona and it is social media and mobile technologies that allow and compel us to do so. moreover, the repercussions of this are slowly becoming evident as individuals increasingly find themselves disciplined at work for activities and speech acts enacted in non-working contexts (usually on social media), a condition that, not long ago, had predominantly effected public figures rather than private citizens. another significant shift in the work cultures of late modernity is the rise of job insecurity, part-time and contractual work, and self-employment, and the increased likelihood of changing jobs and/or careers (ruane 13, 16) . many, if not most of us, will wear different hats in part-time and full-time capacities in diverse and unrelated fields over our lifetime. in such a labour climate, we must necessarily be flexible and adaptable in our persona construction and this is not easy to do, as andrea sant discusses in this issue: the competing demands of our multiple spheres of labour are not always or easily reconciled and the attempt to do so can have significant personal and professional effects. one effect of this job market that has attracted considerable scholarly and popular interest, is the rise of branding by and of individuals. in work contexts this has materialized as persona studies, 2015 1.2 7 two distinctive trajectories: self-branding and employee branding. in self-branding we take up the project of creating unique and remarkable public identities that can further our career prospects, a process that christine harold defines as part persona production and part marketing strategy: personal branding encourages workers to package and market themselves as an advertiser would a product, to distinguish themselves from the pack with a coherent online messaging and distinctive aesthetic. done well, say advocates, personal brands should convey not only one’s skill set, but one’s personality as well. (342) as harold rightly points out, when we commoditize our identities and our labour in response to the market, we may very well find ourselves having to “continually reinvent ourselves as trends dictate” (350). this is rendered more complicated by the fact that personal brands are not just a reflection of the market, but they must resonate within it through the cultivation of “distinctive[ness]”—what the “personal branding for dummies cheat sheet” disturbingly characterizes as an identifiable “freak factor” (chritton). employee branding, on the other hand, is a corporate strategy for making workers over in the image of a company or product ethos. while this is not a new employment strategy, it has recently become more systematic, explicit, and robust (brannan, parsons and priola 6). it seems to be simultaneously inspired by and fueling a marketplace where “much of the work that once was restricted to the materiality of the product, such as the embodiment of capital, quality, ethos, etc, can now be communicated by other means” (brannan, parsons, and priola 5). one of these other means is the employee who, like my barista earlier in this section, is tasked with not only delivering a product, but infusing that product with further meaning and value through a work persona: this persona will be part of how i experience the corporate brand. it is worth noting that such human resources strategies do not affect all employees of the same organization or industry equally: frontline workers at coffee shops and clothing retailers, for example, are more heavily affected than agricultural and sweatshop labourers.ix self-branding and employee-branding, although strategic activities that originate at opposite ends (the individual works bottom-up and the corporation top-down), are not necessarily contradictory or competing projects. individuals seek (for the most part) meaningful and stable employment and employers want employees whose work activities contribute to the image, well-being, and profitability of the company or institution. both employee and employing body view the labourer’s identity as flexible, strategic, and capable of change, as well as a critical asset in the marketplace. in many scenarios, the work persona project is not strictly a work performance: what is sought after in many cases (whether sincerely or superficially) is not an image contained to work spaces, but one mobilized across multiple spheres of activities and embedded in one’s “lifestyle” (brannan, parsons, and priola 4). workers, particularly in corporate and institutional settings, find themselves encouraged to “model themselves after organizational images” (4) and training policies encourage employees to become and to live the work brand (brannan, parsons, and priola 2). elsewhere, hiring practices seek to use and capitalize on the trendiness of particular personas (think, for example, of the prevalence of the hipster aesthetic in certain urban businesses and industries). not surprisingly, these efforts to breakdown or blur the distinctions between work and non-work lives have raised numerous questions and concerns about “what constitutes appropriate selves” in work environments (brannan, parsons, and priola 1). shall ye know them by their fruits? in popular culture we are fascinated by this question of appropriate selves in the work place. in fictional television programming about work and work lives, for example, the drama or comedy of these scenes is often derived from the personalities at work rather than the specific lee 8 nature of the labour itself.x in american television, for example, characters with strong idiosyncratic personalities that seem at odds with the nature of their labour often become cultural institutions: think of those bumbling agents of the law like maxwell smart (get smart) and lt. columbo (columbo), or irreverent professionals with weighty responsibilities like dr. greg house (house) or captain benjamin franklin “hawkeye” pierce (m*a*s*h). in films about work and work lives, the crux of the matter is rarely about maintaining a strict adherence to one’s professional identity and labour roles (such characters are often dystopic automatons, enemies, or great fools), but about being able to expand and adapt to the changing demands of the work. characters are rendered distinctive, admirable, and triumphant because of the personal strengths and idiosyncrasies they brought to their labour. box office favourites have included astronaut ellen ripley (alien); spy james bond (james bond); police officer axel foley (beverly hills cop); and archaeologist dr. henry “indiana” jones (indiana jones): all of these characters have been resurrected for multiple subsequent films.xi in television and film, these characters not only break with the protocols of professional behaviour, but also often manage to escape or sidestep the social, legal, or moral systems that might discipline such breaks in work persona. this we find if not always admirable, certainly entertaining. these televisions shows and films—like all popular culture products regardless of whether they offer up representations of work or not—are also critical sites of and products of labour produced by particular personas. typically only a narrow range of individuals find their labour and labouring personas made public in relation to these products: in television and film, for example, it is often the creators, directors, producers, and actors whose labour is publicly acknowledged and celebrated beyond the purview of production credits and award ceremonies. these are the visible workers with personas that are understood in relation to their labour and the products of their work. yet, how that persona is framed as a work identity that arises from labour and skill can vary dramatically. in television programming, particularly non-fiction programs, the identities at work are often read as extensions of their “real” selves: that really is oprah winfrey (oprah) or ellen degeneres (ellen). in such scenarios, the labour of producing a televisual self is made invisible (bennett 117), and audiences can come to expect the off-screen identity to behave like the on-screen work persona. in the feature film industry, on the other hand, the labour of actors in the production of their on-screen characters is widely recognized and celebrated, often in terms of “craft,” “skill,” and “talent.” nevertheless, even while we praise (or lament) an actor’s skills and recognize the distinction between the actor and the character, one’s persona as an actor can be significantly shaped by the kinds of characters he or she excels at representing and the kinds of cinematic projects pursued. women in hollywood, from mary pickford to charlize theron, have been able to cultivate reputations as strategic and independent actresses because they are seen to have chosen great films with strong female characters and to have skillfully portrayed those roles. john cusack, on the other hand, is widely regarded as an intelligent and cagey actor because of his professional approach to hollywood— he is, as lorraine york argues, a “reluctant” celebrity (9)—and his penchant for pursuing independent and/or artistic films. not surprisingly this persona is considerably buttressed by his skill at playing quirky, but usually lovable, characters who don’t quite fit into mainstream society. other visible workers in the film industry, such as directors, are also publicly perceived in terms of their labour: alfred hitchcock and quintin tarantino, for example, are understood in terms of the recognizable style and aesthetic of their films and their films are understood as expressions of their public work personas. celebrity cultures remind us that certain cultural products circulate apart from the individuals who laboured on them and act as expressions of the labourer’s identity: in such a way, “things” become capable of performing personas. we are most accustomed to seeing this at work in the arts where traces of an author, artist, musician, or actor’s identity as an author, artist, etc. are perceived in the products of their labour. in the plays of oscar wilde, the novels of margaret atwood, the music of david bowie, or the performance art of chris lloyd, we see in their works some inclination of the persona that produced the work: we often take some persona studies, 2015 1.2 9 comfort and satisfaction in identifying and attributing a philosophy, a style, tone or political perspective apparent in a product to the persona perceived to have produced it. however, there is considerable scope to investigate how the labour products and activities of other kinds of workers reveal some aspect of their labouring identities. a wine list, for example, can reveal not just the conditions of the work (the type of place and consumers), but can also act as an expression of the sommelier’s personality (watson). it is not unusual for the activities and products of curating and collecting to be read in terms of the identity of the archivist or collector, particularly when such activities happen in public spaces and/or unsanctioned ways, as jo ann oravec examines in her article on workplace hoarding. there are, in fact, many ways that working personas are revealed through labour, particularly when such work is perceived to be substandard, inappropriate, or too closely aligned with the personal and the private: the dogeared essay suggests a careless student; the overly informal signature or avatar in workplace correspondence suggests a new, young, or, perhaps, uncommitted employee; and the antiquated websites and teaching tools of academics betray an ineptitude or, perhaps, indifference to the technological demands of their labour. the opposite conditions remain true as well: the timely submission of properly formatted assignments tells us a student cares about his or her work; serious and professional correspondence conveys experience and confidence; and the professor mobilizing multiple platforms for research and teaching appears worldly, competent, and significant. in the work of scientists, administrators, corporate executives, farmers, and others, i suspect, one also finds traces of the work identity of the worker though they may be only apparent to others in the same field or offer an expression of a general work identity: this memo bears the stamp of a public relations officer; these blasting marks suggest an impatient demolitions expert; the arrangement of these hay bales reveals an experienced agricultural hand. whether we “give”—intentionally produce—or “give off”—inadvertently perform in ways read and interpreted by others—these signs of our particular or general work persona in our work (goffman 2), it is clear that our labour is part of a work persona and performs persona-work in its own right. it is thus, not a little self-conscious about my own work identities—both past and present—that i embarked upon this task of curating a collection of creative and critical works on the topic of work personas and crafting an introduction to it. in what ways will this introduction and issue speak (or be made to speak) to my own negotiation and performance of the labour of being an academic and new scholar in a precarious job market? in what ways do these contributions represent, reveal, and perform the academic and creative personas of their authors? in this issue, i have chosen not to organize the pieces according to their contribution to either a creative or critical component: all of these works, i would argue, are functions of creative and critical labour, although some more explicitly than others. all of these works are also engaged in their own performances of a labouring identity even as they engage in understanding and representing the work persona performances of others. this issue opens with sasha colby’s “staging nancy cunard: the question of persona in dramatizing her life and work,” a contribution that offers up excerpts from different drafts of the author’s work to create a play about nancy cunard, the heiress, fashion icon and political agitator whose image, style and political work had a dramatic effect on various modernist writers. in her critical preface to these drafts, colby details how cunard’s work and public identity have been variously constructed by different critics over time, and argues for the importance of recognizing both her labour and her identity as a labourer. drawing his inspiration from the photography and work of allan sekula, brian beaton explores the patterns and trends in how petroleum geologists eulogized each other through obituaries printed in professional publications. “crafting a work persona in 1970s petroleum geology” demonstrates that there was a particular kind of public image these workers sought to create of themselves and their labour, and this image was somewhat at odds with both the publicness of the publication and the controversial nature of their work. lee 10 “lipstick bullets: labour and gender in professional gamer self-branding,” by andrew zolides, takes up the question of how professional gamers cultivate marketable personas that can last longer than their competitive careers. using two case studies, he highlights the gendered nature of that labour and argues that female gamers find themselves under particular pressures to find creative ways to navigate this masculinized labour in a masculine market. in “responsible management of online academic reputations,” sharyn mcdonald explores the intense pressures academics face to cultivate an online presence as part of their professional identity. while there are significant advantages to this work, mcdonald demonstrates there can also be far-reaching and troubling consequences. her article usefully concludes with a series of recommendations that university institutions can act upon to manage this additional burden to academic work loads and mitigate the risks associated with an online presence. also engaging with the nature of labouring in academia, andrea sant’s “a rehearsal for revolution: the hybrid persona of the graduate student teacher” examines the sometimes contradictory duties, inclinations, and labour of the graduate student who occupies positions as both student and instructor in one institution. reflecting on her own experiences and attempts to challenge and manage this system, she reanimates a declaration of labour conduct crafted in her student days to guide her present labour practices. in “depraved, distracted, disabled, or just ‘pack rats’? workplace hoarding personas in physical and virtual realms,” jo ann oravec examines what it means to be characterized as a hoarder in relation to the collection of physical and virtual items. when such a persona is assumed or perceived in workplace settings, her article outlines, the responses and strategies of human resource staff can make an impact on how hoarding behaviours are managed. in hell’s angels: the strange and terrible saga of the outlaw motorcycle gangs (1966), hunter s. thompson represents himself as simultaneously “one of the gang” and ethnographic observer, strategically outside and yet at the very centre of things. it was a style of journalism that made him famous but, as jennifer hagen forsberg examines in “working through hunter s. thompson’s strange and terrible saga,” it also necessitated that he work across class lines and posture a conflicted and contradictory professional identity. using peterson and kern’s notion of the “cultural omnivore,” forsberg examines how thompson created a very marketable journalistic work persona. in the last contribution of the issue, ayellet ben ner offers a portrait of nazi war criminal adolf eichmann as told in fragments and images through an israeli sex-trade worker. “image of the absent,” translated and published in english for the first time, troubles how we make sense of identities in relation to labour performed, implied, and omitted or absent, and how language, discourse, and photography make such identities simultaneously stable and unstable. there are some distinct threads and emerging themes in how the contributors to this issue are thinking about, playing with, and performing work personas. there is clearly a great deal of interest in the capacity of life writing forms to reveal and perform persona; how the pressures and expectations of our labour and the job market influence strategic persona production; and how personal idiosyncrasies are expressed, repressed, or repackaged under particular industry conditions or within bureaucratic structures. interestingly, most of these papers touch on more than one of these themes, but in distinct and quite exciting ways. there’s a rich and lively conversation here that is, at times, provocative, creative, and performative, but it is always, in some way, crucial and relevant. for most of us, we shall spend a significant portion of our adult lives involved in some form of paid labour; many also have the additional work load of unpaid domestic responsibilities. it is, perhaps, not surprising then that the first special issue of persona studies persona studies, 2015 1.2 11 is dedicated to examining an issue that touches us all. however, this study of work personas matters for more reasons that the scope of its relevance; it also offers a precedent for examining either in broad or focused ways how particular social situations affect the production and performance of persona. it will encourage, i hope, further creative and critical investigations into how personas are regulated and disciplined, how they are strategically produced and managed, and what kinds of artistic energies and skills go into these performances. in the work of these eight contributors we have multiple, different models for how to proceed in this task, and for their intellectual and creative labour in assembling this issue, i give thanks and appreciation. end notes i for some of the exhibitions, images, and videos of the dear pm project, see http://dearpm.blogspot.com.au/p/dear-pm-exhibitions_28.html. ii harper lost the federal election on october 19th, 2015, but retains the prime ministerial title until the swearing in ceremony (treble). iii trudeau has what chris rojek would call “ascribed” celebrity (17)—fame cultivated by virtue of birth or position because he is the son of the infamous margaret trudeau and former liberal leader and prime minister, pierre trudeau. trudeau is presently the prime ministerdesignate after winning the 2015 federal election. already the texture of his celebrity is changing as news media and memes circulate in relation to his youth and appearance. see jennifer bell’s work on the trudeaus and canadian political celebrity. iv lloyd ultimately secured 1% or 512 votes. trudeau had 52% or 26, 294. (“canada votes 2015”). v for example, those who are employed in healthcare, childcare, and social work are typically formally trained in the cultivation of professional identities. vi for example, scholars of organization and management studies usually represent identity as a constructed and social phenomenon, and might site goffman or use discourses of performance in their analyses. vii “users” does not denote good or active accounts. viii facebook reported 1.49 billion monthly active users as of june 30, 2015 (“our history”). ix interestingly, both groups can find themselves mobilized and deployed in strategic ways when corporations seek to manage the commodity activism of consumers: it is no longer unusual, for example, for coffee shops to prominently showcase images of happy agricultural labourers or offer manifestos of fair labour practices. see marshall’s “when the private becomes public: commodity activism, endorsement and making meaning in a privatised world” for further reading on how commodity activism mobilizes private citizens in public and corporate ways. x in reality television, as much entertainment value as possible is mined from the personalities at work, but many programs depend upon the obstacles presented by the labour— renovate a kitchen with a $500 budget or cook a three-course meal with squid ink—to create drama. xi this list does not take into account comic book characters or fantasy genres wherein one’s labour is also a calling and/or personal quest. such genres are amongst the most popular http://dearpm.blogspot.com.au/p/dear-pm-exhibitions_28.html lee 12 box office draws: marvel cinematic universe (18 films), batman (15 films), and lord of the rings (6 films) are listed, respectively, as the first, fifth, and sixth most profitable movie franchises (“movie franchises”). works cited “about linkedin.” linkedin.com. web. 01 oct. 2015. alvesson, mats and hugh willmott. “"identity regulation as organizational control: producing the appropriate individual".” journal of management studies 39.5 (2002): 619-644. print. bell, jennifer. “canadian political celebrity: from trudeau to trudeau.” celebrity cultures in canada. eds. katja lee and lorraine york. waterloo: wilfrid laurier up, forthcoming. bennett, james. television personalities: stardom and the small screen. new york: routledge, 2011. print. brannan, matthew j., elizabeth parsons, and vincenza priola. “introduction.” branded lives: the production and consumption of meaning at work. eds. matthew j. brannan, elizabeth parsons, and vincenza priola. cheltenham: edward elgar, 2011. 1-16. print. brown, adam d. “identities and identity work in organizations.” international journal of management reviews 17 (2015): 20–40. print. “canada votes 2015.” cbc news. 19 oct. 2015. web. 21 oct. 2015. chritton, susan. “personal branding for dummies cheat sheet.” for dummies: making everything easier. n.date. web. 15 aug. 2015. foucault, michel. discipline & punish: the birth of the prison. trans. alan sheridan. new york, vintage, 1995. print. goffman, erving. the presentation of the self in everyday life. garden city, ny: doubleday, 1959. print. hamilton, greg. “ousted tory hoped to ‘take down justin trudeau’ despite his candidacy being an art project.” national post news. 14 may 2015. web. 04 aug 2015. harold, christine. “'brand you!': the business of personal branding and community in anxious times.” the routledge companion to advertising and promotional culture. ed. mcallister, matthew p. and emily west. new york: routledge, 2013. 341-356. print. “information morning saint john” cbc radio. 12 may 2015. web. 27 july 2015. the lapine. “george bush finger-painting of harper sells to canadian government for 1.5 million u.s.” the lapine. 08 july 2015. web. 27 aug. 2015. lloyd, chris. dear pm. 2001-2015. multimedia. marshall, p. david. “when the private becomes public: commodity activism, endorsement and making meaning in a privatised world.” contemporary publics. eds. p. david marshall, glenn d’cruz, sharyn mcdonald, and katja lee. palgrave macmillan. forthcoming. marshall, p. david and kim barbour. “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective.” persona studies. 1.1. (2015): 1-12. web. 25 june 2015. marwick, alice e. and danah boyd. “i tweet honestly, i tweet passionately: twitter uses, context collapse, and the imagined audience.” new media & society 13.1 (2011): 114-133. web. 01 oct. 2015. mckenna, kate. “chris lloyd, papineau conservative candidate, resigns: he was acclaimed in february to run in liberal leader justin trudeau's riding.” cbc news. 12 may 2015. web. 27 july 2015. mckenna, kate, thomas daigle, and jessica rubinger. “chris lloyd, conservative candidate, 'messing with' party: liberal leader justin trudeau's tory opponent in papineau riding launched campaign as part of art project.” cbc news. 12 may 2015. web. 27 july 2015. millennial branding.com. “identified.com study.” n.date. web. 10 aug. 2015. persona studies, 2015 1.2 13 mitchell, david. cloud atlas. london: sceptre, 2004. print. “movie franchises.” the numbers. 2015. web. 29 sept. 2015. “our history.” facebook newsroom. web. 01 oct. 2015. rojek, chris. celebrity. london: reaktion, 2004. web. 25 sept. 2015. ruane, sinéad g. “coaching the self: identity work(ing) and the self-employed professional.” february 2011. university of massachusetts amherst phd dissertation. web. 22 sept. 2015. stengle, jamie. “george w. bush displays his paintings of world leaders.” global news. 4 april 2014. web. 22. aug. 2015. tarnovskaya, veronika v. “the brand i call home? employee-brand appropriation at ikea.” branded lives: the production and consumption of meaning at work. ed. brannan, matthew j., elizabeth parsons, and vincenza priola. cheltenham, uk: edward elgar, 2011. 128–47. print. treble, patricia. “when does justin trudeau become prime minister?” maclean’s. 20 oct. 2015. web. 21 oct. 2015. “twitter usage/company facts.” about twitter. web. 01 oct. 2015. watson, jackson. personal interview. 5 dec. 2014. york, lorraine. “reluctant celebrity.” acaedmia.edu. 2014. web. 25 aug. 2015. katja lee is a postdoctoral fellow at simon fraser university in vancouver and a member of the persona, celebrity, publics research group at deakin university in melbourne. her research investigates how celebrities use life writing to craft, manage, and perform their public identities. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 27 performative trolling: szubanski, gillard, dawson and the nature of the utterance beli nda morr isse y and susa n yell abstract in 2012 the australian public witnessed three important examples of trolling play out in the public sphere that are the focus of this paper: the trolling of julia gillard’s facebook page when she attempted to discuss education policy, the anonymous trolling of charlotte dawson’s twitter page, and the trolling of magda szubanski on youtube after she came out on the project. these attacks may seem similar in that a public persona has been ridiculed and denigrated in flamboyant onslaughts. however, we will argue that there are important differences in the effects of these attacks, and that underpinning these are differences relating to the individual persona, the social medium and the nature of the utterance. the attacks on gillard and szubanski are primarily descriptive attacks on a deliberate and somewhat stage-managed public performance of identity, not a call to action. on the other hand, the anonymous trolling of charlotte dawson, which led directly to her attempted suicide, is clearly a performative utterance from the start, meant to have consequences on the object of attack. in dawson’s case, the separation between her public persona and her private self is far less distinct than in the case of gillard or szubanski. these instances demonstrate that trolling exists on a performative continuum, engaging in constant disruption, but also lending itself to the production of social action. the kind of impact trolling will have depends, thus, on the affordances of social media, the persona under attack, and on the very nature of the utterance itself. key words troll; public debate; celebrities introduction in 2012, in australia, one of our most successful comedians was denigrated as a ‘bush pig’ merely for coming out as a lesbian; a host on a popular reality show was encouraged to ‘kill herself’; and the then prime minister was ordered to cook dinner for one of her constituents and asked about the colour of her pubic hair. such is the nature of unpoliced public debate. in all three cases, the social media sites of each of these women provided those with a sexist and homophobic agenda an extraordinary lien to literally write whatever they wished. this was accommodated through the phenomenon of trolling, which, while not especially new, certainly took on a new vigour at this time. although public figures have always been at the mercy of debate and abuse, the public is generally well aware of the risk of legal action to punish specific morrissey & yell 28 slander or vitriolic insult uttered in conventional media. not so with the internet, where trolls seem to believe that they are able to write whatever they please, with few, if any, consequences to themselves.1 this paper will discuss three cases where the level of trolling was both unprecedented and especially vicious. they include the trolling of madga szubanski on youtube after she came out on the project; the trolling of julia gillard’s facebook page when she attempted to hold a forum on education policy; and finally, the trolling of the twitter account of australia’s next top model host, charlotte dawson, after she attempted to gain justice over a specific instance of malice. in szubanski’s case, the trolls’ comments, while evidently hurtful, seem almost generic to the occasion: a woman comes out as a lesbian and is immediately denigrated for her looks. the gillard trolling contains many features of relatively generic attack as well: she is taunted with insults which have been used against powerful women for decades in being told to ‘get back to the kitchen’ and that her voice shrieks like ‘nails on a blackboard’. far worse, in her case, were comments relating to her recently deceased father, in clear reference to alan jones’ statement that her father would have ‘died of shame’ at his daughter’s ‘lies’ (hall). the dawson example is, by far, the most extreme. in this instance, this ‘mean’ reality tv judge was told to ‘please go hang yourself’, to ‘stick her head in the toaster’ and sent images of bloodied corpses after she defended one of her supporters from a nasty attack regarding the woman’s deceased husband who had killed himself (hornery and hall, baird). this assault had the most severe consequences as dawson was hospitalized for attempted suicide and sadly, she subsequently succeeded in committing suicide in 2014. at first glance, all three cases may seem similar in that a public persona was attacked and denigrated in a flamboyant manner using the remarkable capacity of social media to do so. in this paper we argue that there are important differences in the effects of these attacks, relating to the performative and affective nature of the utterances in each case, the persona and the social media platform. j.l. austin’s theory of the utterance posits a basic difference between illocutionary (or descriptive) speech acts, and perlocutionary speech acts which function as a call to action. using this, admittedly controversial, distinction, it is relatively easy to argue that the trolling of szubanski and gillard, while cruel, is nevertheless illocutionary. the trolling of dawson, on the other hand, is a clear example of the perlocutionary utterance, designed to have direct consequences for the object of attack. the instances that we discuss in this paper demonstrate that trolling exists on a performative continuum, from disruption to the production of social action. trolling can be described as the internet’s signature mode of discursive politics, at once disruptive for the sake of an anarchistic vision of political life, while using the freedom of the internet to insert wellplaced and necessary commentary in an idealistic vision of true democracy. our examples show that trolling can be both repetitively banal and tremendously effective, both utterly pointless and utterly shameful. we assert that the kind of impact trolling will have depends on its discursive context and on the very nature of the utterance itself. the force of the speech act is, thus, bound up with its affective intensity. trolling has been defined in a variety of ways. for a number of writers, trolling is considered to be a time-wasting activity, where a participant deceitfully posing as genuine draws others into pointless and circular discussions (donath, dahlberg, herring et al, turner et al). this relatively benign version of trolling takes its cue from a fishing term, where a baited line is dragged behind a boat (oxford english dictionary), but could also be connected with the scandinavian hairy monster hiding beneath a bridge hoping to snare hapless strangers (herring persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 29 et al 372). this latter example leads to far more malevolent conceptions of trolling behaviour. trolling has sometimes been contrasted with ‘flaming’, defined as insulting, provoking or rebuking messages sent specifically to vulnerable or naïve participants (herring et al 372). however, the two frequently merge, as, in more recent years, trolling has become a catch-all term for a suite of negative behaviours (hardaker 224). rebecca rafferty notes in her 2011 study that trolls who are deliberately insulting tend to be motivated by three reasons: informal social control, dominance and entertainment. informal social control is usually carried out by people known to the victim and it is effectively a form of ‘cyber sanctioning’ for perceived bad behaviour (27). dominance, on the other hand, is defined as ‘the attempt to hurt, humiliate, or influence the behaviour of another individual in order to gain or regain access to some valued resource’ (rafferty 33), and is generally carried out by former partners in romantic relationships who are anxious to either regain control over the partner, or to make them miserable. the most important of the three motivations for our purposes in this paper is the entertainment motivation. in rafferty’s study, entertainment was given as the most popular reason for cyber bullying or online aggression (37). the desire is to annoy or to provoke the victim into exhibiting anger or misery through persisting with harassment long after being asked to stop (37). anonymity is vitally important to this sort of trolling as it allows perpetrators a sense of power over their victim, and a feeling of invulnerability from any form of consequences to themselves (38). such trolling is considered ‘successful’ when the victim finally responds in the way suggested, or when others applaud the troll’s posts (hardaker 233). it would seem then that trolling, at least of the malicious sort, is conducted by people who ‘take pleasure in disrupting the social order out of anger, perversity or contempt’ (herring et al 382). while trolls interviewed in jenny brockie’s insight programme claimed their trolling was motivated by the desire to create comic effect and to expose hypocrisy, illogical argument or fallacious reasoning, or as a form of ideological resistance, one might argue that malicious trolling, whether banal or incisive, would rarely be motivated by anything other than very personal peeves. the relation between the public persona of the troll as manifested in their online discourse, and their private selves is complex and apparently contradictory. as elizabeth grice notes in relation to the case of troll brenda leyland, who committed suicide after being exposed for her relentless online abuse of kate and gerry mccann, “the image of the incoherent, half literate troller who spits poison as a reflex compensation for lack of self-esteem” is far from the truth (22). the notion of ‘persona’ is valuable here in distinguishing the effects (and affects) experienced by public identities under attack in instances of trolling. the concept of persona as we are using it here is based on the poststructuralist argument that identities are not psychologically stable entities but are produced through acts of discourse. identity is “not a fixed property of individuals but … part of an ongoing process by which subjects are constituted” (van zoonen 123). the production of any persona is then an ongoing performance, which is open to contestation. as judith butler has observed, such a production is the “reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names” (2). thus, persona is a fundamentally performative and denaturalised concept referring not to an autonomous and stable identity, but to an array of constructions. public figures such as gillard, dawson and szubanski operate with one or more public persona, in addition to their private ‘selves’, and use social media in a more or less ‘managed’ way to perform these personas. marshall and barbour argue (following jung) that persona is: morrissey & yell 30 a strategic public identity, not necessarily in tension with an inner soul of self and individual … but a way to manage the various dimensions of life and its public formation of the self. persona can be seen as something that needs to be managed and … a personal practice that is performed in order to enter the social world in some particular way (4). for celebrities and other public figures who are required to negotiate the relation between the public and private personae on a daily basis, there are significant risks if the boundary is unstable or the distinction unclear. the consequences of a close versus distant relation between their public and private persona can be profound, as these case studies will demonstrate.2 we argue that we can learn a great deal about the nature and power of trolling and its effects by using theories of the utterance – specifically speech act theory and implicature theory. j.l austin first introduced the distinction between utterances whose pragmatic function is to describe a state of affairs, which he called constatives (3) and those that perform an action, which he termed performatives (6). that is, to say or write something is not merely to produce a sequence of words with certain meanings, but to perform a kind of act, which may then have particular consequences. austin (109) further distinguishes the act performed in saying something (its illocutionary force) and the effect or result of the act (its perlocutionary force). in relation to this paper, a troll may attempt to insult someone by calling them a ‘slut’ and the person may indeed feel hurt or insulted (the perlocutionary act) or may merely laugh off the insult as an obvious attempt to insult or provoke. perlocutionary force is thus not predictable from nor a direct consequence of the illocutionary act, and also cannot be judged based on the grammatical form of the utterance; it is very much linked to the ripples of affect, as we’ll discuss further below. numerous types of speech acts can be distinguished and these can be grouped into four basic categories: statements, questions, offers and commands (halliday 69). these categories are based on the understanding that all utterances are performative in the sense that all utterances, in social contexts of interaction, have illocutionary force. the purely constative act which is a neutral statement of fact not designed to produce any corresponding response from the hearer is a theoretical type which is rare in actual contexts of interaction, including online discourse. nevertheless, we argue that it is theoretically necessarily and analytically useful to distinguish between speech acts that are primarily descriptive and those which are directed towards inciting action. to understand the grammatical structure and performative nature of trolling, we will consider the illocutionary and perlocutionary forces, not only of ‘obvious’ performatives (commands, offers, threats, and so on) but also various types of statements and questions. trolls may make statements, ask questions, offer to perform services, or command others to act. in many cases, these trolling utterances can be perceived as speech acts which seem to flout, or perhaps ignore altogether, that which h. paul grice described as the cooperative principle in conversation, and in discourse more generally.3 grice’s principle asserts that participants in a dialogue will attempt to be as informative, truthful, relevant, clear and unambiguous as they can in order to communicate effectively and to maintain relationships. when these rules of communication are deliberately flouted, participants may deduce alternative meanings since the literal meanings do not appear to comply with the cooperative principle. these implicatures require participants to infer meanings other than those stated. while it may seem that the language used in the three cases we are discussing is characterised by a consistent violation of the cooperative principle, nevertheless these speech acts are clearly meaningful, and so do take on the status of implicatures. for example, several of the utterances, such as when julia gillard is told to ‘get my dinner ready’, or charlotte dawson is instructed to persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 31 ‘put your head in the toaster’, are commands which are clearly not meant to be taken literally, and therefore must be interpreted as insults. both are impossible acts: julia gillard is being addressed as down-trodden housewife in relation to her interlocutor; charlotte dawson would find it impossible to place her head inside a toaster. however, they form part of the conversational pact with the interlocutor that requires an interpretation of their ‘relevance’. in both cases, they demand that the reader infer that these women are not worthy of respect: the command to cook is used to denigrate julia’s status as prime minister; an act designed to deform her face, and thus her ability to carry on her career, is prescribed for charlotte. to better understand the nature of such speech acts, we also need to consider the way illocutionary force is bound up with affect. by affect, we mean the capacity of the body to affect or be affected (massumi, parables 15). following spinoza, brian massumi further describes affect as a ‘pre-personal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another’ (massumi, ‘autonomy of affect’ 222). we use it here particularly as it relates to changes in emotional states, and include the body’s capacity to incite affects through discourse. while the concept of affect as it has been taken up by cultural studies is usually regarded as outside signification and as non-discursive, massumi does acknowledge the possibility that affect can be discursively captured (see gilbert 14). atkinson and yell argue that there is a complex relation between affect and discourse – since utterances are enunciative acts which emanate from bodies, even in cyberspace – and these bodies use discourse to react to bodily experience and to transmit and evoke further affective states in themselves and others. trolling is a discursive act that provokes affects and incites further discourse and sometimes other forms of embodied social action. we argue that the grammar of trolling speech acts cannot be understood without consideration of its capacity to provoke affects. indeed, this is the driving force underpinning acts of trolling. in the following we analyse both the types of affects and the types of speech acts performed in these instances of trolling. the grammar of trolling utterances allows affect to be linguistically ‘captured’ and transmitted or transmuted, with varied illocutionary and sometimes perlocutionary force. trolls use affective triggers including explicitly emotive terms which present positive or negative evaluations, often of high intensity (‘fat’, ‘ugly’, ‘disgusting’), as well as using expletives and abusive language or evoking scenarios which invite a strong emotional response. these, when combined with directly performative utterances (e.g. commands like ‘kill yourself’), produce powerful affective/perlocutionary force. these affects are in turn further mitigated or enhanced by the affordances of different social media platforms, such as youtube, facebook and twitter. twitter is a “microblogging site” with a “directed friendship model” (marwick and boyd 116) in which participants choose to follow particular twitter account holders. facebook is also based on a directed friendship model but its settings can be adapted to enable public or private access to content, and when settings are public anyone can view or comment on the site’s content. facebook sites can be specific to an individual or used by a group or a public figure, enabling strategic presentation of a persona which may be more or less detached from a private self. both youtube and facebook function as repositories or databases for content created by an individual or organization or hosted on behalf of a third party (paolillo 156). they have the additional feature of allowing posts or comments to be added and to be visible long after the interaction has taken place. in the case of facebook, this content is usually directly related to the construction of a particular persona, their tastes, interests, relationships and activities. whereas youtube, as a video morrissey & yell 32 hosting site, is the least personal of the three platforms, often parasitic on other media (such as movies, music videos and broadcast television) and not specific to an individual, unlike twitter and facebook. all three social media afford public opportunities to participate in extended dialogue (and thus opportunities for trolling) but in the case of twitter, the short 140 character tweets directly address the twitter account holder and more closely approximate real-time conversation whereas posts on facebook and youtube enable lengthier posts and can be responded to over a period of hours, days or even months, and thus lack the rapid-fire immediacy of twitter. case study 1: magda szubanski on youtube when magda szubanski publicly ‘came out’ on tv panel show the project in february 2012 a clip was immediately posted on youtube, where it rapidly accumulated a large number of comments, and comments continued to be added over a period of some months. amongst apparently genuine attempts to debate australian government policy and cultural attitudes to same-sex marriage, and messages of personal support for magda’s courage in expressing her own sexuality and her support for gay marriage, were inflammatory statements denigrating homosexuals in general (particularly lesbians), and homophobic insults directed at magda. the reaction of these youtube trolls was perhaps unexpected, given magda’s wellknown and well-loved public persona. she is possibly best known for her work on the television series kath and kim, where she played the loveable, but gormless, sharon, forever on the receiving end of kim’s jokes and aspersions. magda previously had a well-known comic persona in other shows as well, such as fast forward and big girl’s blouse, where she once again played likeable characters. her acting career extended to playing esme hoggett in the babe films, which were internationally popular and the science fiction series farscape. on top of her acting career, magda was also a spokesperson for jenny craig as she publicly battled her weight problems, with the support of the australian public. in short, magda had developed a warm, funny, charming public persona by the time she decided to reveal her sexuality. even when she did, this was not considered much of a ‘scoop’ in journalistic terms. as the sydney morning herald noted, it was ‘one of the entertainment world’s worst kept secrets’ (quinn). yet, the trolls were vitriolic in their abuse, leading to the inescapable conclusion that it wasn’t magda’s confession they were concerned with in particular, but instead, the notion of lesbianism in general and the idea of anyone ‘coming out’ at all. the trolls were primarily concerned with the existence of any lesbians in their midst, which is evident in their utterances that predominantly took the grammatical form of descriptive third person statements – they were about magda (or gays/lesbians in general) rather than being addressed directly to her. the only time the second person (‘you’) was used in a statement was to issue a generalised (future) threat to supporters of homosexuality (‘magda is going to hell and so are all you fag enablers’), albeit one not to be carried out by the speaker but by an unnamed higher power. some included the use of the first person to project the speaker’s opinion (‘wow i’m shocked… not’, and ‘i notice lots of fat cake eaters are carpet munchers’). such statements violate grice’s principle for the speaker to be truthful (i.e. sincere) and unambiguous, requiring other participants on the youtube site to read the first example as sarcasm and the second as an insult (and one in which the participant must be complicit in recognising and decoding the metaphor of a ‘carpet muncher’). within the ongoing ‘conversation’ on this youtube comments page, these evaluative statements are speech acts which are designed to incite responses – the posters are not making a statement as a disinterested contribution to knowledge, but an affectively loaded expression persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 33 of opinion, designed to incite equally affectively loaded responses. the evaluative terms are strongly negative homophobic terms of abuse (‘ugly dyke’, ‘carpet muncher’, ‘carpet licker’), insults based on physical appearance (‘fat ugly unfuckable pig’, ‘a whale like her’, ‘disgusting to look at’, ‘disgusting overweight bitches’) and include generic statements such as ‘no man in his right mind would want to fuk [sic] a whale like her’. these insults are perverse but also predictable and banal. the use of explicit homophobic language is crude, unskillful and reductive, with its references to appearance, body weight and physical attractiveness and the use of animal terms. magda szubanski was being informed that her ugliness would preclude heterosexuality – effectively an implicature asking readers to infer boundaries and makes specific that magda is to be reviled as an outsider. the language expresses primal affects of revulsion, disgust and contempt. while these statements undoubtedly have the potential to hurt and contribute to a discursive universe in which homophobia continues to exist, their reflexive rehearsal of primitive homophobia seems to blunt the affective force of these utterances. one potential reading of these utterances is that the trolls are taking a position just to get a reaction through such ‘ludicrous rants’ (narraine 146). however, the trolls gained little traction or support for their trolling. some posters responded to the trolls’ comments, but if anything, the trolls incited increased positive responses in support of gay marriage and in praise of magda szubanski. furthermore, there is no evidence of any perlocutionary effects on the primary subject of these trolls, magda herself, who is not a participant in this conversation and apparently unaffected by the existence of these comments. the effects (and affects) of the trolling are mitigated by the affordances of youtube, in that its primary function is as a video hosting site and it is not personal to an individual. furthermore, because both the original content (in this case the footage from magda’s appearance on the project) and the sequence of comments on this, are archived on the site, the debate does not necessarily occur in real time, nor does it necessarily involve the denigrated individual as an interlocutor. finally, the pace of the debate can be extended over days or months, again diminishing its affective intensity as a concentrated onslaught of comments. in terms of the definition of trolling, this is an example of ‘unsuccessful trolling’ (for the trolls), and perhaps offers some support for the notion that trolling can indeed make a positive contribution to internet discourse, since in this case it activated others to articulate and defend their views in opposition to discursive positions that were intolerant, unreasonable or inflammatory. case study 2: julia gillard on facebook in october 2012 then australian prime minister julia gillard engaged in what was touted as a ‘first for a federal politician’ (hall), conducting a live chat session on facebook with the aim of discussing education policy and the national curriculum with members of the public. for approximately an hour the debate ran smoothly, with questions and answers on various education-related topics, however the session then descended into abusive trolling, with the most offensive remarks being posted after the prime minister had logged off. by ‘invading’ what was intended as a civil and democratic dialogue on the prime minister’s facebook page, these trolls shifted the debate from public discourse to a highly personal attack. unlike the trolls targeting magda szubanski on youtube, these trolls were on a site hosted by and for communication with a specific person, albeit a public figure in her official capacity. the institutional context in which these speech acts were performed is public but directly targeted, thus sharpening their potential to enact not only illocutionary but perlocutionary force. who is meant to be affected and acted upon is quite explicit. morrissey & yell 34 julia gillard, australia’s first female prime minister, was a divisive figure in australian public life. holding high public office makes very particular requirements of women in terms of persona management and gender identity. as anne cranny-francis notes, “female politicians constantly deal with attacks that challenge their femininity rather than their policies and values” (26). what was publicly known of gillard’s private life presented a persona lacking in stereotypically feminine qualities – she was in a de facto relationship with a (male) hairdresser, childless, and apparently not skilled in the domestic arts (much was made of the empty fruit bowl photographed in her kitchen). in public life, she was a strong feminist politician, heading up a minority government where she was required to negotiate the balance of power with various independents. she was an object of hatred and vilification by right-wing groups, as expressed in the infamous “ditch the witch” and “juliar” signs held by protesters at a march 2011 rally against her government’s planned introduction of a carbon tax. yet gillard was also much admired, particularly by feminist groups, for her strong and explicit feminist principles. the very same day the trolling incident took place, gillard made her famous ‘misogynism’ speech in the australian parliament (october 8, 2012), in which she defended herself and attacked the opposition leader, tony abbott, for his gendered double standards (“gillard labels abbott a misogynist”). subsequently anti-feminist discourse against her has lost considerable ground as a legitimate form of attack, most particularly in the light of the immense public support not only within australia but worldwide, ironically garnered substantially via another social medium, youtube, where her speech had 2,764,308 views by february 2016 (with 32,243 likes and 2,029 dislikes). gillard’s public persona was, in october 2012, one that had already been the target of abuse and personal attacks. in the trolling of her facebook forum on education, the context was specifically a dialogue with gillard’s public persona, however this didn’t prevent the trolls from attempting to target her in quite personal ways. the grammatical form and types of speech act employed demonstrate an escalated kind of trolling in comparison to our first case study. in this instance, the trolling utterances included not only constative but performative utterances, using the second person (‘you’) and directly addressed to julia gillard. in what constitutes one of the milder insults, one poster stated ‘hopefully when you say “i have to go now” its [sic] back to your home planet’. the attacks drew on anti-feminist and misogynist rhetoric, some of it amounting to nothing more than primitive name-calling, such as the drawn out hissing insult ‘ssssssslllllllllllllllluuuuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!’). this utterance, while expressing a strong affect of sexual contempt, does not require any action from the prime minister. likewise, the trolls also asked rhetorical questions, which expect no response but have the illocutionary force of insults because of the implicatures they generate. asking julia gillard ‘how’s your dad?’ was deliberately cruel and deeply offensive given the wide public knowledge that the prime minister had recently lost her father – and that talkback host alan jones had made an after dinner speech castigating julia gillard by saying her father ‘died of shame’ at his daughter’s lies. it fails the gricean principle of relevance at a literal level (the question is quite unrelated to the stated topic of education), but has strong relevance and affective resonance in relation to these recent events, which would have been well-known to all accessing the facebook site. another poster asked ‘are your pubes as radiant, shiny and glorious as mine?’ – again, not a sincere request for information, but a boundary-violating and lubricious speech act, with the illocutionary force of an insult. these statements and questions, while sexist, derogatory and insulting, have no particular perlocutionary force, although they do have strong affective potential, and contribute to the overheated environment of the facebook page. some trolls did address direct commands persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 35 to gillard, including telling her to ‘lube up’, ‘get my dinner ready’ and ‘mcpiss off’ (hall, whyte). ‘lube up’ and ‘get my dinner ready’, using sexist discourse to put down the prime minister and attempt to assert the primacy of phallocentric power over political power.4 here again the trolls are violating the gricean principle of relevance, in order to generate the implicature that it is gillard’s gender which is of overriding relevance, not her political performance or her education policies. all of these commands, issued apparently by predominantly male trolls, assert the speaker’s power over the addressee and their supposed right to tell this upstart woman what to do. but in reality julia gillard is never going to cook one troll’s dinner for him, nor perform sexual acts for another; these utterances confuse the public persona with the private individual. the commands are ultimately hollow illocutionary acts with little perlocutionary force. the trolls on julia gillard’s facebook page were enacting a specific form of antifeminism, and in the ensuing media coverage and online debates men, as well as women, joined in condemning the trolls, while others attacked gillard for having a ‘glass jaw’ and suggested ‘playing the victim is working wonders for her poll results’ (comments posted to crikey.com, whyte). the gillard facebook debate constitutes an example of partially successful trolling. while facebook as a social media site enables dialogue directly with the site’s ‘owner’ as well as hosting content, it was being used in this case for a managed debate which unfolded over a specific and limited time-frame as an event in a politician’s public engagement schedule. the affordances of facebook enabled comments to be archived and therefore on the record for intended target (gillard) to read later but also allowed for the most offensive of these posts to be removed by her staff, meaning she may not have seen them. the trolls’ attacks did succeed to some extent in derailing the facebook education debate, but the strong affects of contempt articulated by the trolls’ speech acts did not appear to have a direct effect on their target, who was in any case constituted through a public performance in her persona as prime minister, separate from the private individual. their ineffectiveness was compounded by the fact that most were made after she had logged off the site, perhaps an indication of the false bravado of many trolls, who use the online environment to act out aggressive behaviour they would never display face-to-face. as in the magda szubanski case, the trolls’ offensive and sexist speech acts did not succeed in the perlocutionary act of creating a ‘victim’, but rather incited a number of positive responses and expressions of support. case study 3: charlotte dawson on twitter on august 30, 2012, charlotte dawson was admitted to hospital, following an overdose of prescription medication. this desperate act was the culmination of weeks of online aggression on her twitter account, during which her battles with depression were made clear. even more pressing, in terms of her suicide attempt, were the several hours of severe abuse prior to the act, during which dawson was repeatedly told to ‘go hang yourself’, ‘kill yourself’, ‘put your head in the toaster’; described as a whore and as a ‘sad, ugly moll’; and sent images of bloodied corpses in an effort to make her understand her persecutors meant business (hornery and hall, baird, tarasov). at last, dawson gave in to the will of the mob, posting a picture of a hand holding pills and two messages: ‘you win x’ and ‘hope this ends the misery.’ dawson’s final tweet on that day demonstrates the extraordinary impact anonymous malicious trolling can have. for, although the vicious attack began only after dawson managed to name and shame one of her abusers, tanya heti, the rest of the trolls remain unaccounted for. heti infuriated dawson days before when she tweeted that she could understand why the morrissey & yell 36 husband of a follower of dawson would have committed suicide (baird). she also responded with the message: ‘on behalf of new zealand we would like you to please go hang yourself’, after dawson had described her native country as ‘small, nasty and vindictive’ (aap, ‘posts put in perspective’). dawson discovered the university heti worked for, and had her suspended from employment. at this point, the real barrage of anonymous threats, insults and commands began. dawson is an interesting figure in any discussion of malicious trolling. no stranger to conflict herself, as the well-publicised ‘mean’ judge on australia’s next top model, she insulted would-be models for a living. for some, her performance of this role was enough to deny her sympathy, or to at least temper it (hornery). however, to engage in this form of debate is to misrecognise the fundamental differences between a public and a private persona. dawson was a public figure, playing a part; she cannot be simply and unproblematically collapsed into a cardboard cut-out caricature of herself. many trolls argue that their online abuse is playful (insight, johnston). if we look at the structure of the utterances in dawson’s case, it becomes very hard to believe that these attacks could have been anything other than serious. the vast majority of the statements made to dawson were clearly perlocutionary performative utterances; they were commands to take action. as the crescendo built, and the mantra ‘hang yourself’ was repeated, the commands gathered an urgency demanding immediate response. this command is hardly subtle, and requires no inference from the reader. it cannot be argued that this injunction is merely acting as an insult, desiring nothing more than that the reader leaves the writer alone. the addition of images of corpses, making visually evident the expected and required outcome, put paid to that. dawson is told what to do, and preferably, how to do it. there is no flouting of the conversational principle here; the message is self-evident. other speech acts directed at dawson are more problematic. dawson was told to ‘put your head in the toaster’, and described as ‘fat’, ‘ugly’ and a ‘sad moll’. the first command demands an impossible act that, were it indeed possible, would destroy dawson’s face. because it is literally impossible to carry out, it therefore generates an implicature. flouting the conversational principle of clear, unambiguous speech, this strange command demands inference on the part of the reader that dawson should not only die but be disfigured in her death. there is clear reference here to her career as a judge on a show evaluating the performance of models. the constatives on dawson’s appearance disparage her looks and thus challenge her right to speak at all regarding the looks and the style of others. the private individual charlotte dawson has clearly been confused and conflated with her job here; her public persona becomes her only persona and her performance of the performative ‘mean judge’ is equated with her personality. this kind of attack, especially on women, is hardly new. dawson herself had been the target of such vitriol many times before. on this occasion, however, she allowed it to affect her to such a degree that she took her pain out on her own body. suddenly, the rude constatives and the appallingly violent performatives produced affect in the off-line world. in discussing why this should be the case, it is necessary to consider the discursive context of the statements, and the medium in which they were made, to determine why they had such affective intensity. dawson was a self-proclaimed avid twitter devotee: “i like twitter. i like the sense of community it creates, the ideas it gives us access to, its ability to make people feel closer intellectually and personally than they might otherwise be geographically or demographically.” (byrnes). even after her attack, she had no intention of stopping her use of the medium and indeed did not until her suicide in february 2014. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 37 this statement, and her devotion to twitter, lead us some way to discovering the reasons for her response to her abusers. twitter is a conversational medium; fast moving, information can be shared back and forth with the speed of an off-line conversation. it doesn’t have all the baggage of facebook, which asks for an enormous amount of information on its users, and encourages them to keep up their profile by adding posts and attachments that are kept in a relatively static environment, so that it is easy to follow a thread from weeks prior. twitter, on the other hand, is all about the present, demanding its followers keep up with current developments at all times, insisting on responses constantly. twitter is designed to be a relatively simple form of social media, allowing its participants the feeling of being in the same time as those they follow, regardless of their geographical distance. it is the very nature of the medium, and the spare nature of the conversation it encourages, which creates its extraordinary affective intensity. no-one in the off-line world would ever have conversations such as those held on twitter, where simple declarations or commands take the place of extended discourse. on twitter, phatic communication is cut to a minimum, resulting in a world where social cues are frequently lost. on august 30, 2012, charlotte dawson received a string of these simply worded messages, exhorting her to commit suicide in no uncertain terms. the phrase ‘hang yourself’ was repeated so often it became an act in and of itself: to write ‘hang yourself’ was to commit an act, to ‘hang’ dawson both metaphorically in stopping her voice for a time, and literally in its clear demand which was ultimately followed through, although not to the letter. the closeness of the twitter world was shattered for dawson by those words. the community she had enjoyed engaging with turned against her, the intimacy she had experienced evaporated. the discursive context of twitter, then, with its swift, unambiguous messages created such intensity of affect in dawson that she overdosed. yet, even in extremis, she reached out, yet again, with her tiny suicide note: ‘you win xx’. conclusion in the three cases examined in this paper, the trolls conformed to certain stereotypical behaviour. firstly, they chose to pick on a woman and a celebrity; two of the prime sufferers of vitriolic abuse online, according to jason wilson (cited in hornery and hall). secondly, most of them prized their assumed anonymity, believing that this privilege guaranteed them free reign to say whatever they pleased. for, under the blanket of anonymity, trolls are able to ignore social constraints and write things they would never normally be able to say in the off-line world (johnston). while the cases share some similarities, we have demonstrated that the effectiveness of trolling differs with respect to the performative and affective nature of the utterances in each case. using our three case studies, we have demonstrated a continuum of speech acts, from the constative and primarily illocutionary, to the performative and perlocutionary. in doing so, we have shown how the impact of the perlocutionary, combined with specific discursive contexts, can lend the utterance greater and greater power. in the szubanski case, the trolling took place on youtube in response to a clip put up by producers of the project. the trolls did make rude comments about szubanski, but they were merely descriptive and generic. there is also no evidence that szubanski even saw these comments as she did not maintain the site. here we have an example of highly ineffective trolling. the utterances are generally constative, and thus have only illocutionary force. there is no demand for szubanski to act in a particular way. the trolling of julia gillard’s education forum on her facebook site is only partially effective. the trolling took place after she had morrissey & yell 38 logged off, so was never seen by her in real time. consisting of mostly garden-variety, constative insults and illocutionary rhetorical questions and commands, the comments lacked any relevance to the topic of conversation, and thus took on no more significance than the posturing adopted by playground bullies. nevertheless, action was taken: the posts were removed, and the prime minister began targeting trolls in an attempt to work out ways to catch them (matheson). yet, as with szubanski, gillard herself did not appear outwardly perturbed by the ludicrous comments aimed at her public persona. this is due to the relative lack of intimacy possible on a facebook page dedicated to politics, and to the inescapable fact that she elicited such messages because of her high status and public role, which undercuts the effectiveness of the trolls’ attempts to humiliate her. in the charlotte dawson incident, we see perlocutionary demands made repetitively and at fever pitch, insisting on a response. the discursive context of twitter, perhaps the most intimate of the social media, contributed to increase the effectiveness of the statements and commands. dawson maintained her own page and she saw every post as it came through, in real time. eventually, the trolls succeeded, and dawson attempted suicide in the offline world. it is evident, then, that discursive context is essential in determining affective intensity and perlocutionary consequences: the more intimate a medium, the more results trolls can expect from malicious messages. the form of the medium is important as well; slower moving social media sites, such as youtube and facebook, are often read asynchronously which, in these instances at least, tended to distract from their power. twitter, on the other hand, with its extraordinarily swift turnaround, demands constant attention, and thus an online campaign can be devastatingly destructive. the affordances of social media also enable greater or lesser degrees of separation between a public figure and their audience; from a more public and managed persona to a relatively intimate and private ‘self’. finally, the structure of the utterance differs on each medium, from the relatively lengthy messages possible on youtube and facebook, to the short, sharp commands and comments available on twitter. the sense of intimacy on twitter is also problematic for those subjected to trolling, as it encourages a sense of community through its real-time messaging which is as close to face-time as it is possible to get. the loss of this community can have dire consequences, as dawson observed after her 2012 suicide attempt. to conclude, malicious trolling is both possible and effective on all three of the social media platforms we looked at in this paper. however, the posts which have the greatest effectiveness, and especially those that create trouble in the off-line world, combine intensely personal and specific insults and commands with a page on a site that the victim considers particular to them, and which is experienced by the victim in real time. the more communal a page becomes, the less likely that trolling will be effective in a personal sense to an individual victim. the more perlocutionary and performative an utterance is, the more likely it will create long-lasting effects on its target. in the final degree, as we have demonstrated in this paper, malicious trolling can potentially lead to the death of the victim. never have mere words been more powerful than in the virtual societies we now inhabit. 1 australia’s first conviction for internet trolling was in 2011, and involved the defacing of facebook tribute pages with child pornography (keim). the australian criminal code part end notes persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 39 10.6 covers offences committed using the internet, including using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence (the findlaw team). 2 in 2015, lena durham, creator and writer of the hbo series girls, chose to delegate the management of her twitter account because of abusive tweets directed at her (milsom). 3 grice entitled his original paper “logic and conversation”, however his arguments apply to all dialogic communication, whether synchronous or asynchronous, as it accounts for the inferences made by the addressee or audience (in the case of youtube and facebook this includes those reading posts “after the event”). 4 the futility of this gesture was duly noted and commented on by others: “self emasculating morons looking for a group hug” and “some of you blokes need to have your right to vote revoked”, comments posted on crikey.com (see whyte). works cited aap. “posts put in perspective.” newcastle herald 31 aug. 2012: 3. print. atkinson, 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jan. 2013. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 143 dolly parton’s mythologised persona, collective life writing, and building a home for lgbtq+ listeners in country music ja mes barker n e wc a s t l e u n iv e r s it y abstract this article conceptualises persona and life writing as being collectively constituted to explore multiplicity in the way country artist dolly parton’s persona can be constructed by lgbtq+ audiences. i use the idea of mythmaking, where myths are neither true nor false, to explore how parton’s persona and life writing challenge dominant narratives and assumptions around lgbtq+ belonging in country music, a genre that is increasingly being re-evaluated in terms of its lgbtq+ representation and queer resonances. parton’s persona is deeply invested in her constructed life story that represents a collective mythology around the smoky mountains of east tennessee, appalachia, and country music. this paper uses close readings of parton’s songs ‘coat of many colors’ and ‘my tennessee mountain home’ to explore how these texts enable lgbtq+ listeners to anchor themselves within the life-writing practices of her country music and appalachia. ‘coat of many colors’ uses an episode from parton’s life story to work through class and regional representations that also have the potential to resonate with lgbtq+ experiences through the renegotiation of narratives of shame that become reworked into pride and acceptance. my reading of ‘my tennessee mountain home’ expands on this using the idea of home and the affective role this has within queer narratives to explore how parton situates lgbtq+ experiences within the genre of country music. the final part of this article considers the importance of anti-racism and intersectional critiques of overly romanticised narratives around parton to ensure multiplicity when conceptualising the role of persona in parton’s work. key words country music; lgbtq+ audiences; life writing; collective persona introduction dolly parton's self-mythologised persona and collective life-writing practices offer the potential for lgbtq+ listeners to assert their place in the genre of country music. parton is a figure who is recognised for embracing a duality (edwards 2018 p. 30; wilson 1998, p. 99) of being a folkinflected singer-songwriter (edwards 2018, p. 6; hamessley 2020, p. 65; hubbs 2015, p. 74), whilst at the same time being a hugely successful pop-crossover artist and celebrity icon in tv and films: she is a media personality (edwards 2018, pp. 101-151). throughout her fifty-year long career, parton has interwoven her life-writing narratives of her childhood growing up in rural poverty in appalachia, specifically the smoky mountains in east tennessee (watson 2016; barker 144 wilson 1998, p. 109, see also hamessley 2020, p. 59) into her persona (edwards 2018; wilson 1998). parton tells these narratives through interviews (dolly parton: here i am 2019), her onstage patter (dolly parton: live from london 2010), and songs like ‘coat of many colors’ and ‘my tennessee mountain home’. these narratives fit into many tropes needed to authenticate parton within the genre of country music (hamessley 2020, p. 59; moore 2002; peterson 1997; wilson 1998, p. 109). at the same time, parton is recognised as an lgbtq+ icon and ally (edwards 2018, p. 6; hamessley 2020, pp. 194-197; hubbs 2015, p. 73). popular cultural narratives around country music and rural america often posit that lgbtq+ inclusion and country music do not belong together (herring 2010; hubbs 2014), yet parton’s persona and her life-writing practices become places in which they do. parton offers generative potential as a case study in both persona and life writing together as parton’s persona is largely constructed through her life writing, which weaves in aspects of her life story, especially her childhood (hamessley 2020, pp. 42-49). this article will explore the way that parton’s persona resonates with lgbtq+ audiences and how queer experiences are integrated (especially by her audiences) into parton’s life-writing practices. parton’s persona has been increasingly constructed around being inclusive of lgbtq+ people. parton’s activities over recent years have taken a proactive role in constructing her legacy, through for instance the 2019 bbc documentary: dolly parton: here i am and her lyric book songteller in 2020. both of these reference her lgbtq+ fanbase and her relationships with lgbtq+ people, thereby explicitly incorporating her lgbtq+ allyship into her persona (parton & oermann 2020, p. 263). this allyship has been consistent especially over the past thirty years, including an explicit reference to accepting “gay” people in the 1991 song family (parton 1991), emphatically stating in vanity fair “i love and understand gay people” (sessums 1991) that same year, writing and recording the song ‘travelin’ thru’ in support of trans people for the film transamerica in 2005 (parton 2006), supporting marriage equality in 2009 (betts 2009), and speaking out against transphobic toilet bans in 2016 (hamessley 2020, p. 194). this advocacy constructs parton’s persona in a particular way and encourages readings of parton’s life writing that may suggest a way of including lgbtq+ people in her narratives of growing up in a supportive familial home in rural appalachia, a region dominant narratives would perceive to be hostile to lgbtq+ subjects (hubbs 2014). although parton’s intentional lgbtq+ allyship is impactful, it is also important to acknowledge the role and persona of parton’s lgbtq+ audiences. this article will first outline parton’s persona and life writing to conceptualise the generative collective potential of her mythmaking (edwards 2018, pp. 1-26) and the ways in which parton’s audiences are active within this. i will then analyse ‘coat of many colors’ to explore how parton’s “empathic songwriting” enables lgbtq+ listeners to engage with parton’s persona and life writing (lordi 2020). this will be followed by an analysis of ‘my tennessee mountain home’ that will explore how these queer resonances are situated more broadly to produce collective life-writing narratives of an lgbtq+ inclusive appalachia and country music. the final part of the article will consider the limitations of mythologising parton and how to ensure that a “multiplicity” of audience readings and personas can be conceptualised (barbour, lee & moore 2021, p. 2; lee et al. 2021). parton and persona previous scholarship has analysed the way parton constructs her media persona. leigh h. edwards argues that parton constructs her “persona” through “strategies of exaggeration” (2018, p.4), which can be observed in parton’s use of camp and jokes about the construction and artificiality of her appearance (2018, pp. 1-2). jada watson identifies parton’s song writing as being an important practice “to interrogate issues related to the traditions and culture of place, helping to establish a sense of regional identity” which has “left a mark on parton’s identity” persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 145 (2016, p. 128, 127). parton’s persona (which is partially constructed through song writing) becomes a space where, as pamela wilson argues, “parton manages and actively exploits the contradictory meanings associated with the social categories of gender, class, ethnic, and regional identity” (1998, p. 99). one of these contradictions, and the focus of this article, is how parton’s persona “combines” (edwards 2018, p. 31) an appalachian regional identity with lgbtq+ allyship. conceptualising parton’s persona as an lgbtq+ ally or advocate highlights the relationship parton has with her lgbtq+ audiences. this dynamic can be situated within a longer history of lgbtq+ and especially gay men’s identification with women celebrities (such as judy garland [dyer 2004, pp. 137-192]). stephen maddison suggests that this can be an effective political strategy to use “identification with similar desires in [heterosexual] women” (sexual desire for men) to enable gay men “a much wider range of places to locate culturally” (2000, p. 6). since women’s sexual desire for men has some form of “cultural legitimation and widespread representation” (maddison 2000, p,6), this enables gay men to have some outlet for expression, albeit coded, within a homophobic culture (dyer 2002, p. 153). this identification is not just about articulating gay men’s sexual desire but becomes more broadly a means of articulating an affective and political relationship to the social world (maddison 2000, pp. 6-7). gay men are active in this relationship with the celebrity and in constructing the “star persona” (dyer 1979; wilson 1998, p. 99). broadening this approach out to lgbtq+ readings of parton’s persona, considering the way parton’s lgbtq+ audiences are active in the interpretation of parton’s persona shifts the emphasis to the persona of parton’s audiences. parton’s audiences are often described in a way that suggests that they have taken on a particular persona that marks out a collective identity that distinguishes them from that of other artists’ audiences. although the country music industry has continued to privilege white and predominantly heterosexual audiences as its main demographic (martinez 2020, p. 128), parton’s audiences differ from this industry assumption and have been identified as being politically and demographically broad (smarsh 2021, pp. 36-37), including a large lgbtq+ fan base (hamessley 2020, p. 194). this diversity within parton’s audiences is sometimes perceived as atypical for a country artist (cottom 2021), although it should be acknowledged that country music audiences are more diverse than the country music industry recognises (martinez 2020, p. 128). parton’s audiences bring an opportunity to further explore “the collective dimension of persona” (barbour, lee & moore 2021, p. 3). a key idea to explore is the “multiplicity” (barbour, lee & moore 2021, p. 2; lee et al. 2021) of perspectives within this audience and, in particular, the “communicative and emotional” (fairchild & marshall 2019, p. 9) ways lgbtq+ listeners can engage within this collective persona. in persona studies: an introduction, marshall, barbour and moore conceptualise persona as being collectively constituted where persona can be conceptualised “as a multiplicity of nodes in a distributed network, where each node connects to a different micro-public" (2020, p. 88). micro-publics can be conceptualised as operating under the radar (marshall, barbour & moore identify “the book club, the church, the clinic, or the quiet chat over a drink” (2020, p. 87) as examples). yet through their “latency” (marshall, barbour & moore 2020, p. 88) micropublics can influence the organisation and advancement of political movements (keane 1995, p.10). micro-publics are key to constructing personas through a process of negotiation as there are “multiple micro-publics", which “complicates [the] shape and presentation” of the persona (marshall, barbour & moore 2020, p. 88). it is therefore important to be attentive to multiplicity within this collective. the collective persona of parton’s audience creates an opportunity for (re)interpreting parton’s songs through listening with queer resonances in mind and representing more of the multiplicity of personas (barbour, lee & moore 2021, p. 2; lee et al. 2021; martinez 2020, p. 134; martinez 2021) that are available in both parton’s repertory, and by extension more widely in the genre of country music. this paper will shift the emphasis from barker 146 analysing the construction of parton’s individual persona to foreground the texts of the songs (barker 2022) utilising the potential of “queer reading” (maddison 2000, p. 8; see also dyer 2004, pp. 137-192). queer reading not only constructs the individual autobiographic persona of parton, but also a particular collective persona of an lgbtq+ country audience. parton and life writing these tensions “between the individual and the social” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 8); star and audience, can be unpacked within parton’s life-writing practices. parton’s persona is constructed through practices of life writing that use aspects of parton’s life story as the tennessee “mountain girl” (edwards 2018, p. 30). these life-storying practices become part of parton’s celebrity representation and individual star brand (wilson 1998, p. 99). there are other attributes to her life-writing practice that take on a more collective element. the regional aspects of parton’s life writing (watson 2016) figure her as a representative of appalachia and, at times, more broadly, the genre of country music. an example of this is when linda ronstadt described parton as “authentic appalachian music”’ during promotion of the 1987 trio album (edwards 2018, p. 123). these representational narratives figured by and around parton transform her individual life story into narratives with collective resonances and significations. these collective aspects enable listeners to participate within parton’s life-writing practices. for lgbtq+ listeners this provides an opportunity to participate within the genre of country music and, through the regional aspects of parton’s persona, participate in a representation of appalachia as well as the “familial” or “childhood home” that is constructed as a space of acceptance and “belonging” (fortier 2003, p. 131). parton’s life writing and persona are heavily invested in affective claims to chronological narrative and understanding our lives and selves “as if they were narratives” (drąg 2019, p. 224). these narratives have strong affective power and appeal as a “source of illusory and feeble reassurance” (drąg 2019, p. 225). there has often been a critique of this kind of lifewriting practice that suggests a linear narrative and a stable subject. drąg suggests that there is comfort in this “quest for singularity, the therapy of becoming oneself” (2019, p. 225), but that this kind of narrative is inadequate for conceptualising the way we experience and live our lives. life writing as a chronological and linear narrative, in drąg’s view, is inaccurate because “life is... devoid of a teleology or narrative pattern” (2019, p. 226). the most accurate or “appropriate strategy to represent life is parataxis-the collage-like method of juxtaposing elements without any discernible logic” (drąg 2019, p. 226). further, destabilising the “singularity” (drąg 2019, p. 225) of the self provides potential for collective life writing (auster 2017, p. x). in destabilising the link between experience and self, this opens up life writing to the potential to represent not just an individual life, but potentially multiple, as there is a more porous boundary between the self and other. a text like joe brainard’s i remember (2017) is structured through a “random arrangement of recollections [that] do not engage with one another in any discernible way and do not constitute a chronological or cause-and-effect sequence” (drąg 2019, p. 229). brainard conveys “the sense of the self as … [being] irreducible to being enclosed in the neat parameters of a story” (drąg 2019, p. 228). experience is presented as “universal rather than unique and self-defining" (drąg 2019, p. 232). these universalising techniques attempt “to embrace everyone and assume a collective subjectivity” (drąg 2019, p. 233). i remember is an example of collective life writing that destabilises the self to conceptualise a collective persona. parton’s reliance on tropes of traditional life writing and a stable coherent self through, for instance, repeated references to growing up in the smoky mountains that anchor her childhood and “formative years” (drąg 2019, p. 233), could suggest a conservative approach to life writing. nevertheless, parton’s life writing has its own complexity. richard middleton persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 147 asserts that “repetition is both subjectivity’s greatest support – its mimetic screen – and the ground of its self-questioning" (2006, p. 196). repeated narratives of the self’s identity sustain its presentation of coherence, whilst at the same time each repetition is an individual act that risks failing to sustain the illusion of coherence and stability, and thereby revealing the self’s inconsistencies. similarly, every repetition of parton’s life story risks failing to convince audiences of the coherency and stability of her own life-writing narrative. like her persona, parton’s life writing and mythology are “knowingly exaggerated” (edwards 2018, p. 2). the foreword to parton’s 1994 autobiography introduces her life story as if it is a fairy tale: “once upon a time and far, far away, back in the hollers at the foothills of the great smoky mountains of east tennessee there lived a little girl with yellow hair, blue-green eyes, fair skin, and freckles” (parton 1994, ix). from the “once upon a time” storytelling cliché and the excesses of the description, there is a campy mythologising of both parton’s own life story and the smoky mountains as a region, which serve to bestow the region with a majestic quality (hamessley 2020, p. 57). the knowing way that these fairy tale tropes are deployed demonstrates a conscious act of mythmaking (edwards 2018, pp. 1-26). my approach to parton’s self-mythologising is not “debunking” or aiming to “retrieve an authentic version of” it, but to explore the “workings of myth” (tost 2011, p. xi-xiii). i am less interested in exposing or discovering “the truth” behind the myth, but in exploring what parton’s mythmaking does. parton’s life writing transforms episodes from her life story into myth, and by extension her persona is a mythologised construction (edwards 2018, pp. 1-26). mythmaking is ambivalent to “definitive notions of truthfulness or falsity” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 4), yet these myths have powerful affective and tangible effects. myths achieve their impact “not because … [of] adequate empirical evidence” (shusterman 1999, p. 230), but through the affective logics that they deploy to resonate with their audiences. parton’s mythologised life writing similarly does not depend on “factual demonstration” (shusterman 1999, p. 226) to work, “but... [by] designing and tapping into mountain scenarios and sounds that her audiences want to, and can, accept as authentic” (hamessley 2020, p. 60). there is not a complete distinction between believing and wanting to believe in the way audiences engage with parton’s life-writing myths. for lgbtq+ audiences, parton’s myths can offer a promise of belonging within country music, appalachia and her familial life-writing narratives that do not require “factual demonstration” to resonate (shusterman 1999, p. 226). for lgbtq+ people who have been excluded from country music (as an industry [hubbs 2021]), appalachia, and the “familial home” (fortier 2003, p. 120) parton’s mythmaking can offer a possibility of renegotiating these relationships. reclaiming traditional life-writing conventions and collective narratives of appalachia and country music offers potential for lgbtq+ listeners to assert their presence within the genre. life story and persona in ‘coat of many colors’ this next section will analyse ‘coat of many colors’ to explore how parton’s “autobiographical” song writing (berman 1978, p. 78; hamessley 2020, p. 59) is given collective resonances that enable lgbtq+ listeners to identify with and read into parton’s persona and life-writing practices. ‘coat of many colors’ is a key text for understanding the way parton’s persona integrates individual experiences into a more collective life-writing practice. ‘coat of many colors’ is a song that is often presented as inspired by parton’s life story. when performing, parton will often introduce the song with a comic anecdote about her childhood (dolly parton: live from london 2010). parton identifies ‘coat of many colors’ as being one of her favourite songs (dolly parton: here i am 2019) and being key to how fans engage with her (hamessley 2020, p. 53). the song has become directly linked with parton’s persona, infusing it with parton’s constructed life story (edwards 2018, p. 23). the process of parton’s persona and barker 148 integrated song writing is reiterative and through its “mimetic” process (middleton 2006, p. 196) over the past fifty years, parton has reinforced the continual reiteration and reconstruction of this persona. through its emotional content and storytelling ‘coat of many colors’ forges affective attachments to both the song and parton’s persona. ‘coat of many colours’ retells an episode from the protagonist’s (implicitly parton) childhood: her mother sewing her coat out of “a box of rags” (parton 1971) which gives the song’s protagonist a sense of “pride” (hamessley 2020, p. 52), but when she goes to school, all that the other kids see are the “rags” (parton 1971) and they “make fun of her” (barker 2021). in focusing on this moment, the song communicates the emotional significance of the coat, which represents the mother’s “love” (parton 1971). the coat is also a way of passing down bible stories: “as she sewed she told a story from the bible” about “joseph” and “his coat of many colors” (parton 1971). through these stories being passed down both orally and tangibly through the coat, the protagonist is given a sense of belonging (within the family and the stories) and pride within herself: “i wore it so proudly” (parton 1971). this episode is also a moment of conflict when she gets to school “to find the others laughing and making fun of” (parton 1971) her. this conflict is upsetting to the song’s protagonist and represents a conflict of value systems (hubbs 2014, p. 81). parton’s protagonist at first “couldn’t understand” why the other children were laughing at her. in her value system she “felt [she] was rich” (parton 1971). “rich” in this line is about being provided for, not with material wealth or possessions, but “with love” (parton 1971). parton’s life writing in this song, by tapping into the stigmatisation and “shame” (parton 1994, p. 51) experienced by working-class people and those living in rural poverty, takes on a more collective significance beyond an individual experience of bullying and stigma: “we had no money” (emphasis added parton 1971). parton’s song represents more than just the individual persona of the artist and resonates with the collective persona of some of parton’s audience, some of whom may have backgrounds like parton’s (smarsh 2021, p. 5) and some of whom may identify with being shamed through other identity markers and experiences. in parton’s own description of the song, she encourages different readings that enable the song to resonate widely beyond her individual experience. parton says: “it really covers a lot of ground... it’s about confidence, it’s about bullying. it’s about acceptance” and describes the song as her “philosophy...: it’s ok to be different... it’s ok to not be like everybody else. in fact, it’s not only ok, it’s wonderful that you are who you are” (dolly parton: here i am 2019). parton’s statement that the song “covers a lot of ground” could easily refer to the multiplicity of experiences within her audiences. ‘coat of many colors’ is a song that is more than about parton herself and in its message of acceptance of difference, the song has the potential to resonate across a “diverse” group of listeners (cottom 2021). her “philosophy” that “it’s ok to be different” could also be read as an lgbtq+ pride statement (barker 2021). amongst the multiplicity within parton’s audience is the potential for lgbtq+ personas and queer readings of ‘coat of many colors’. parton’s song can have particular resonances for lgbtq+ listeners. the ‘coat of many colors’ as a visual image has a striking resemblance with the lgbtq+ pride flag (barker 2021; richard elliott, personal communication, 2 september 2020). parton’s protagonist in the song wears the coat as a statement of pride. parton’s protagonist wears her poverty quite literally on her sleeve. the poverty in the song is presented in a matter-of-fact way, whether that is describing the coat as “rags” or “patches on [her] britches/ and holes in both [her] shoes” (parton 1971). the protagonist does not express any discontent or sadness with her situation until she experiences shame within the social environment of the school. in representing the protagonist’s poverty in this way, ‘coat of many colors’ does affective work renegotiating ideas of pride and shame (barker 2021). shame, as an affect, has been theorised by queer scholarship persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 149 as being capable of being “transmuted into pride as part of a strategy by individuals and groups to reverse the discourse” (munt 2008, p. 4). further, there is potential for “horizontal bonds [to be] formed through communities of shame [which] can be transmuted into collective desires to claim a political presence and a legitimate self” (munt 2008, p. 4). ‘coat of many colors’ offers the potential for “coalitional alliances” (butler 1993: p. 20) and forging “horizontal bonds” (munt 2008, p. 4) through the affective reworkings of shame that makes a point of connection between the socially stigmatised groups of working-class people in appalachia and lgbtq+ people (barker 2021). the collective persona of parton’s “diverse” audiences (cottom 2021) is able to interpret the affective logics (hubbs 2021) in ‘coat of many colors’ around renegotiating pride, shame, and acceptance (barker 2021). this offers a point of entry for lgbtq+ audiences into parton’s life-writing practices, which draw heavily on the genre of country music (the family setting (neal 2007, p. 43), christian theology, and parton’s song writing). the narrative of ‘coat of many colors’ enfolds through three frames of storytelling: the mother, the bible, and the song’s protagonist. by retelling a story her mother has told, the protagonist is continuing a family tradition. by linking that to retelling a bible story, the protagonist's experiences of poverty and shame are granted a sense of “dignity” (hubbs 2014, p. 87). parton’s performance of this song is a further act of storytelling that establishes it as part of the country music genre’s story-telling tradition (hamessley 2020, p. 51). through family, faith, and the genre of country music, parton’s protagonist has tools to challenge the shame attached to poverty and achieve a personal sense of pride and dignity. this is a possibility that the song also promises lgbtq+ listeners. lgbtq+ belonging and “home” in parton’s life writing and persona to explore this idea of collective life writing that relates to broader representational narratives of the place of lgbtq+ people within the genre of country music, these next sections will analyse ‘my tennessee mountain home’. from its title, ‘my tennessee mountain home’ identifies the specific region of appalachia and the smoky mountains of east tennessee as the setting for parton’s life writing in this song. parton’s individual narrative becomes part of a collective representation of appalachia and country music. individual listeners, including lgbtq+ listeners, can situate themselves within these representations. through analysing how parton represents “home”, i will explore the potential ‘my tennessee mountain home’ has for lgbtq+ listeners to “make… home” (fortier 2003, p.120) and belong within the song; parton’s wider repertoire, persona and life writing; and more broadly the genre of country music (goldin-perschbacher 2015, p. 779). “home” is a key concept to explore the potential for audiences to articulate their persona and assert their presence not just in parton’s collective life writing but also in the genre of country music. anne-marie fortier has critiqued the way some lgbtq+ life-writing practices represent and conceptualise “home” within coming-out narratives. such narratives can rely on too crude an oppositionality with a “tendency to oppose queerness and the childhood home, where the latter is a space where queerness does not fit” (fortier 2003, p. 116). in constructing this opposition and narrative of exclusion, these narratives nonetheless remain attached to the idea of home “as the emblematic model of comfort, care and belonging” (fortier 2003, p. 115). home as belonging is then figured as a stark contrast to lgbtq+ subjects’ presumed exclusion from this, and the coming-out narrative becomes one where lgbtq+ subjects attempt to find “comfort, care and belonging” elsewhere (fortier 2001, p. 410). fortier critiques this, arguing that in narratives defining belonging for lgbtq+ subjects as outside the family home, the “familial home remains unproblematically heterosexualized”, and heteronormativity “is fatalistically... inscribed within, the family” (fortier 2003, p. 120). for these oppositional barker 150 narratives to function, places and identities are static and fixed. this oppositionality too readily accepts homophobic definitions of family, home, and where lgbtq+ people belong (mcclary 2002, pp. 160-161). the home in ‘my tennessee mountain home’ should not be monolithically heterosexualised nor uncritically assumed to lack or marginalise lgbtq+ subjects. such a critical practice, as fortier argues, would “fatalistically” reinscribe that homophobia back into this home and erase lgbtq+ subjects and their agency (fortier 2003, p. 120). parton’s life writing can demonstrate how parton’s persona is infused into songs leading to sonic connections that resonate with lgbtq+ experiences. in her 1994 autobiography, parton makes the case for sexuality and sexual pleasure as having the potential to exist within her community and faith. parton describes her experiences in an old, abandoned church, observing “the dirty drawings on the walls... studying the way the sexual organs had been drawn and at times trying to add to them” and taking “pieces of ivory that had been the tops of the piano keys... and strings from the soprano section [and attaching them] to an old mandolin” (parton 1994, p. 77). parton then asserts: “here in one place was god, music, and sex” (parton 1994, p. 77). parton makes an emphatic claim that sex and her sexuality belong within her faith: “i had come to know that it was all right for me to be a sexual being. i knew that was one of the things god meant for me to be” (parton 1994, p. 78). parton makes a powerful claim for divine permission for sexual desire (edwards 2018, pp. 162-163). hamessley argues that parton’s support for lgbtq+ people stems from her own “sense of being judged as an outsider” (hamessley 2020, p. 196) during her pentecostal (church of god) “upbringing” (edwards 2018, p. 16). parton knows that these institutions were often not encouraging around open sexuality and sexual pleasure. a few pages earlier in her autobiography, parton critiques the shame-filled, “fire and brimstone” (hamessley 2020, p. 186) style of preaching within her experiences of church: “i can remember sitting in church and listening to what a worthless sinner i was, and feeling so ashamed without giving much thought to what i had to be ashamed of. what has a six-year-old kid done that justifies being burned in hellfire?” (parton 1994, p. 72). these experiences of shame and fear are aspects of religious institutions that parton has consistently criticised. parton describes how sex is treated within these frameworks of shame and sin: “it must be sex that condemns you to hell. not that you’ve had sex or anything close to it, but somehow just being aware that it exists feels like a grievous sin in itself” (parton 1994, p. 73). parton refuses to accept these frameworks around shame and sexuality, which is key to forging a point of connection for lgbtq+ audiences to engage with parton’s persona to challenge dominant cultural homophobic narratives that attach shame to queer sexuality. the representations within ‘my tennessee mountain home’ like all of parton’s constructed persona and life writing are practices of mythmaking. the song is a nostalgic and positive representation of the area parton grew up: the poor, rural region of appalachia. the song opens on a summer afternoon representing peace and relaxation (“life is as peaceful as a baby’s sigh”) before building into a celebration of the region’s natural beauty (“mountain”, “fields”, “honeysuckle vine”) and wildlife (“june bugs”, “fireflies”, “crickets”, “eagle”, “songbird”). all of this takes place within the thriving social world connected to “church on sunday with the ones ya love” (parton 1973). the warm, relaxed pace and arrangement of instrumentation at the beginning of the song suggests that this “tennessee mountain home” (parton 1973) is a place of “comfort... and belonging” (fortier 2001, p. 410) for the song’s protagonist. lydia r. hamessley points out that media and cultural representations of appalachia are rarely romanticised and positive (2020, p. 59) and therefore this mythmaking is “subversive” (edwards 2018, p. 4). pamela fox argues that ‘my tennessee mountain home’ recuperates “class abjection” (2009, p. 140; see also hamessley 2020, p. 63). parton does this not by deconstructing dominant cultural narratives and myths, but through articulating her own. leigh h. edwards argues that parton “combines” both the “stigmatised” and “privileged” together (edwards 2018, p. 31). the rural persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 151 appalachian poverty is brought within the realm of respectability through the comforting pastoral imagery in parton’s representation. the same potential for “horizontal bonds” (munt 2008, p. 4) between rural poverty and lgbtq+ people in ‘coat of many colors’ (barker 2021) is in this song. ‘my tennessee mountain home’ also contains a direct invocation to “creating home” (fortier 2003, p. 131) for the song’s listeners. parton’s mythmaking in ‘my tennessee mountain home’ has the potential to demonstrate that lgbtq+ people belong in appalachia and country music. parton’s experiences of being judged for her own sexuality (hamessley 2020, p. 196) are implicitly invoked in the third verse of ‘my tennessee mountain home’ where there is a clear reference to sexuality and romantic relationships: “walkin’ home from church on a sunday with the one ya’ love/ just laughin’, talkin’, makin’ future plans” (parton 1973). this quick succession of verbs embodies the social activity described, with the church at the heart of this. the following lines bring sexuality into this social scene: “and when the folks ain’t lookin’, you might steal a kiss or two” (parton 1973). it is ambiguous the extent to which the protagonist’s sexuality is represented as belonging within the social world of the song. that these kisses take place “when the folks ain’t lookin’” suggest that this is something “folks” may disapprove of. the verb “steal” suggests that these moments of sexual pleasure must be gained despite the social world around the childhood family home. at the same time, the social dynamics and routines enable these sexual interactions. the walk home from church on sunday, with the community in attendance facilitates them through the opportunity to meet potential sexual partners. in the sexual relationships alluded to there is a notable absence of shame. the tone of the line “when the folks ain’t lookin’’ (parton 1973) suggests that avoiding people ‘lookin’’ is predominantly a practical consideration, rather than an action driven by shame. therefore, the “idealistic, nostalgic” sound of the song remains in this verse and its representation of sexuality (hamessley 2020, p. 59). the affective logics within this verse are queerly resonant and, similar to ‘coat of many colors’, are “rearranging” and “rearticulating” (ross 1991, p.100) shame and pride, constructing a persona that is recognised as trying to include more people within the “comfort, care and belonging” of home (fortier 2003, p. 115). home within parton’s persona and life writing represents multiple things: the literal childhood home of ‘coat of many colors’, belonging within mythologised representations of appalachia, and the genre of country music (goldinperschbacher 2015, p. 779). ‘my tennessee mountain home’ produces a sense of comfort and belonging through situating acceptance of the protagonist’s sexuality within a nostalgic, idealised representation of home. this sense of comfort alongside the song’s representations of sexuality within this pastoral scene can offer lgbtq+ listeners a sense of “belonging” (goldinperschbacher 2015, p. 779) within parton’s discography, and a way to participate within parton’s self-mythologised persona and life writing. ‘my tennessee mountain home’ constructs, even if just temporarily, a sense of a home, a “childhood”, “familial” (fortier 2003, p. 120) home that is inclusive of lgbtq+ people. the sonic palette and tropes of country music construct this home using the backdrop of the appalachia region. this does significant “cultural work” (edwards 2018, p. 13) in conceptualising where lgbtq+ people can belong. queer multiplicity in ‘my tennessee mountain home’ in approaching parton’s lgbtq+ audience as a collective persona it is important to acknowledge the intersectionality (crenshaw 1991) within this and to recognise a multiplicity of listeners. it is important to approach the home represented in ‘my tennessee mountain home’ critically, and interrogate which experiences, readings, audience personas, and lifewriting narratives are enabled, and which are “marginalised” (pittelman 2021). black listeners can have a different positionality to appalachia and country music. rhiannon giddens suggests barker 152 that “there ain’t nothing for [black listeners] in that nostalgia” (giddens quoted in abdelmahmoud, 2020). indeed, these same representations of home may also invoke “visceral feelings of fear of racialised violence” (royster 2017, p. 307) for black listeners. when exploring parton’s songs, it is important to consider these different experiences and positionalities in relation to country music. of equal importance is not to overly romanticise these life-writing narratives that remain uncritically attached to the idea of home as “seamless belonging” (fortier 2001, p. 420), especially when experiences of racism are not acknowledged. just as parton has to navigate restrictive narratives around class and gender whilst also being able to benefit from and “leverage” her white privilege (cottom 2021), white lgbtq+ listeners may need to navigate homophobic attitudes and narratives around the family home, but they can also access privilege through their whiteness. this privilege may mean that white lgbtq+ listeners may be able to enjoy a song like ‘my tennessee mountain home’ and its invocations of home free from the “fear of racialised violence” that royster describes (royster 2017, p. 307). in representing an idealised sense of comfort and belonging, ‘my tennessee mountain home’ risks obscuring these other narratives and experiences of home. home should not be treated in any monolithic way, neither being “inherently” inclusive nor as a complete rejection of lgbtq+ people (fortier 2003, p. 131). instead, home should be conceptualised as “a contingent product of historical circumstances and discursive formations – of class, religion, ethnicity, nation – that individuals negotiate in the process of creating home” (fortier 2003, p. 131). home is something that is always “in... process” that different lgbtq+ subjects “negotiate” (fortier 2003, p. 131) in various ways. within the collective persona and collective life writing enabled through ‘my tennessee mountain home’, there is the potential for a multiplicity of interpretations of the song and affective work around “creating home” (fortier 2003, p.131). the life writing in ‘my tennessee mountain home’ offers potential to resonate with more people within parton’s audiences. francesca t. royster suggests that country music “can be a productive sonic space of nostalgia and mourning for black queer listeners” (2017, p. 307). the listener takes an active role in undertaking a “subjective reconstruction” of the relationship between racial and sexual identities and country music (whitlock 2013, p. xxix). parton’s ‘my tennessee mountain home’ may therefore not be irretrievably inaccessible to black lgbtq+ listeners. the smoky mountains have specific geographic and cultural roots but they can also take on additional meanings and resonances through the experiences of different listeners (ma 2021). jad abumrad describes the experience of driving to parton’s tennessee mountain home as “exactly the feeling of driving up to [his] dad's old village in the mountains of lebanon” (abumrad & oliaee, 2019a). kenyan artist esther konkara is well known in kenya for performing parton’s songs and particularly ‘my tennessee mountain home’. konkara grew up in a rural village and would go up to the mountain and sing parton’s song (abumrad & oliaee, 2019). she describes the personal significance of the song: “my tennessee was those hills where i come from” and attributes this to “the vividness of the imagery”: “dolly's very vivid about the place. you can imagine this is how tennessee looked like. the birds singing and you can just get that picture” (konkara quoted in abumrad & oliaee, 2019). ‘my tennessee mountain home’ is able to resonate with different listeners across the us and globally. the song performs important functions within different narratives of home that suggest a complex and versatile potential within different life-writing narratives and audience personas, which can include lgbtq+ people beyond just cis gendered white gay men. conclusion parton's self-mythologised persona, life writing, and mythmaking offer a generative mode for understanding lgbtq+ belonging in country music, both geographically and musically. it is also important to acknowledge the tensions and limitations of parton’s collective life writing in being persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 153 able to resonate across the lgbtq+ community, and it should not be assumed that texts such as ‘my tennessee mountain home’ and ‘coat of many colors’ are read by lgbtq+ listeners in any singular way. although it is important to not overstate or romanticise belonging, it is also important that in resisting racist and white-washed narratives around country music, we do not overly determine (hubbs 2021) or “fatalistically” inscribe (fortier 2003, p. 120) representations of country music or appalachia. this would risk granting them more rhetorical power than they already have (barker 2022), by presenting them as if they are completely totalising of the way different listeners can and have responded to parton’s songs. there is a need for further critical work and critique of parton’s persona, such as tressie mcmillan cottom’s critique of the “whiteness” of parton’s image and its cultural significations (cottom 2021). just as these critical reading practices have the potential to open parton’s discography to lgbtq+ listeners, a practice attuned to the cultural context of whiteness and racism within the country music industry is key to articulating and representing the multiplicity of listener (and artist) persona and life-writing practices in the genre of country music (martinez 2020, 2021; royster 2017; watson 2021). more broadly the case studies in this article have shown the importance of unpicking the interrelationship between star persona, life writing, and audiences, enabling a multiplicity of readings within these conceptualisations. further research within persona studies should continue to emphasise the “collective constitution of... persona” (marshall, barbour & moore 2020, p. 87), and specifically devote more attention to audiences’ interpretative and reading practices. this could involve ethnographic research to explore more empirically the ways fans and audiences participate in the construction (and deployment) of a star’s persona (across different artists and musical genres), and the ways 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middleton, r 2006, voicing the popular: on the subjects of popular music, routledge, london and new york. moore, a 2002, ‘authenticity as authentication’, popular music, vol. 21, no.2, pp. 209-223. munt, sr 2008, queer attachments: the cultural politics of shame, ashgate, aldershot, england and burlington, vt, usa. neal, j 2007, ‘narrative paradigms, musical signifiers, and form as function in country music’, theory music spectrum, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 41–72. parton, d 1971, coat of many colors, coat of many colors, rca. —1973, my tennessee mountain home, my tennessee mountain home, rca. —1991, family, eagle when she flies, columbia. —1994, dolly: my life and other unfinished business, harpercollins, new york. —2006, travelin’ thru, transamerica (soundtrack), nettwerk. parton, d, & oermann 2020, rk, songteller: my life in lyrics, hodder and stoughton, london. peterson, ra 1997, creating country music: fabricating authenticity, chicago university press, chicago and london. pittelman, k 2021, ‘how does country music use nostalgia to keep white supremacy in place’, panel, country soul songbook, 15 december. ross, a 1991, ‘poetry and motion: madonna and public enemy’, in easthope, a, thompson, jo (eds), contemporary poetry meets modern theory, toronto university press, toronto, pp. 96-107. royster, ft 2017, 'black edens, country eves: listening, performance, and black queer longing in country music', journal of lesbian studies, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 306-322. sessums, k 1991, 'good golly, miss dolly!', vanity fair, june, viewed 29 april 2022, <https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1991/6/good-golly-miss-dolly>. shusterman, r 1999, ‘moving truth: affect and authenticity in country musicals’, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 221-233. smarsh, s 2021, she come by it natural: dolly parton and the women who lived her songs, pushkin press, london. tost, t 2011, american recordings, bloomsbury, new york and london. watson, je 2016, ‘region and identity in dolly parton’s songwriting’ in williams, k & j. williams, j (eds), the cambridge companion to the singer-songwriter, cambridge companions to music, cambridge, pp. 120-130. —2021, 'redlining in country music: representation in the country music industry (20002020)', songdata, 12 march, viewed 12 dec 2021 <https://songdata.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2021/03/songdata-watson-redlining-country-music-032021.pdf>. whitlock, ru 2013, ‘introduction: loving, telling, and reconstructing the south’ in whitlock, ru (ed) queer south rising: voices of a contested place, information age publishing inc, charlotte, north carolina. wilson, p 1998, ‘mountains of contradictions: gender, class, and region in the star image of dolly parton’, in tichi, c (ed) reading country music: steel guitars, opry stars and honkytonk bars, duke university press, durham, north carolina, pp. 98-120. james barker newcastle university abstract key words introduction parton and persona parton and life writing life story and persona in ‘coat of many colors’ lgbtq+ belonging and “home” in parton’s life writing and persona queer multiplicity in ‘my tennessee mountain home’ conclusion works cited persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 77 portrayal by inappropriate interaction: persona meets persona in journalistic profiling chr isti ne isa ge r u n i v e r s i t y o f c o p e n h a g e n and steff en moe s trup d a n i s h s c h o o l o f m e d i a a n d j o u r n a l i s m abstract a close reading of three different profiles of danish-palestinian poet yahya hassan (1995-2020) showcases how interactions between journalists and subjects may become a mutual performative challenge and how, on such occasions, the personas of both parties may serve as a multi-layered journalistic resource in both an ethical and aesthetic sense. applying the concept of “rhetorical maneuvers” (phillips 2006) to describe reporters’ uses of an understated ‘first-person minor’ versus a demonstratively responsive ‘first-person major’ perspective (phillips 2019), we highlight a principle that may reorient interview situations that are tense or out of control. the principle entails continuous shifts of subject form that are potentially inappropriate but enable both contextual transparency and a distinct textual structure or narrative style. by considering the mutual constitution and reconstitution of personas as rhetorical maneuvering we hope first to expand the analytical perspective of persona studies at the level of form while also, secondly, motivating journalists to explore the relational and interactive aspects of persona performances as a resource for occasional, productive disruption of their professional practice. key words journalism; profiles; persona; yahya hassan; denmark introduction while character sketches have a long literary history, we currently live in a veritable age of the profile, argue joseph and keeble (2016, p. 1), who refer to interview-based biographical stories as the “archetypical manifestation” of an all-dominating “‘people/human interest bias’ in contemporary media” (2016, p. x). while the production of such profiles typically involves personal interaction between a journalist and the person being profiled, the encounter as such may not eventually form part of the story; indeed, it would seem obvious that a journalist ought not to steal the limelight in a profile piece. not rarely, however, journalists do find reason to intrude in the first-person singular, putting the meeting of personas to the forefront and letting the interaction between interviewer and subject become integral to the portrayal. when and how such two-persona media performances might become productive in terms of both the ethics and aesthetics of profiling, is the fundamental question driving the present study in which we take a close look at three different written profiles of the danishpalestinian poet yahya hassan (1995-2020) who became notorious for challenging representatives of the press to reorient their professional performance. isager & moestrup 78 hassan was intensely outspoken – in his poetry as well as in media appearances – about his background in a deprived, immigrant community with an abusive father and a criminal record that continued to grow alongside his literary career. consequently, hassan came to represent not only literary and intellectual celebrity, but also an uncompromising streetwise attitude that transcended conventional logics of journalistic beats and news angles as well as relations between journalists and subjects. at the latter level, yahya hassan would sometimes be earnest, reflective, and argumentative, sometimes polemical and playful, even flirtatious, and occasionally rude or ill-tempered. “i am an intellectual criminal. remember that! write that!” he insists in his characteristically assertive manner when interviewed over the phone from a forensic mental health ward prior to his death at age 24 just five months later (krasnik 2019b). such journalist-subject encounters have sometimes been portrayed as a dance (joseph 2016, p. 213; mygind 2014), or sometimes as a conflict or struggle for control (joseph & keeble 2016, p. i). for this study, we have selected three hassan profiles from danish media in which the interpersonal relation and dynamic become part of the story, and we adopt the concept of rhetorical maneuvers (phillips 2006) when describing the mutual constitution and reconstitution of personas as performed at the textual level. hassan’s sometimes transgressive persona performances challenged journalists to improvise and develop theirs in order to meet the challenge in a personally and professionally defensible manner that may still, as we shall see, become transgressive too. this rhetorical maneuvering implies that profilers flip through their respective back catalogue of personas or subject forms, making abrupt shifts to expose the constraints of their position and also to develop the narrative structure and style of their stories. we hope to show how this ‘flipping’ proves a remarkable resource for profiling as a journalistic form, making the most of what phillips refers to as the “productive tension between the multiplicity of the subject and the singularity of the subject position” (phillips 2006, p. 310). we may note that even if profiling hassan was a both challenging and prestigious job, our study is not concerned with the development of individual journalist personas and careers, at least not this time around (cf. isager 2016; moestrup 2021; see also rønlev & bengtsson 2020). instead, we suggest that rhetorical maneuvering deserves attention as a resource for journalism practice in terms both of professional ethics and textual aesthetics while proving a productive focus point in a further diversified field of persona studies beyond the sphere of journalism. each of the three profiles of hassan selected for this study are occasioned by a celebration of hassan’s literary achievements at different stages of his career and under different circumstances. one is a rhetorically refined portrayal of hassan on a promotion tour, featured in the danish men’s magazine euroman (surrugue 2014), while the other two are more tentative and personal: a resistant and allegedly failed encounter with the poet written up for a national literary supplement weekendavisen bøger alongside an award speech for hassan (mygind 2014), and finally the aforementioned profile of hassan five years later, based on a series of hectic phone calls and advertised on the entire front page of the same newspaper weekendavisen’s main section (krasnik 2019a; podcast edition 2019b).1 before presenting our analysis, however, we will provide some background for the case study and introduce the theoretical framework in more detail. background: yahya hassan yahya hassan’s first collection of poetry, yahya hassan (2013), is based on autobiographical material that includes scenes of domestic violence on the background of hassan’s parents’ immigration to denmark via lebanon as stateless palestinians. the volume was a major event on the danish literary scene, praised for its literary merits while debated intensely for persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 79 its depictions of social benefit fraud and religious hypocrisy in islamic immigrant communities as well as its implied criticism of danish social and integration policy. an immediate success among critics as well as readers, yahya hassan ended up being the most sold debut poetry collection in denmark to date. a follow-up volume titled simply yahya hassan 2 was published in 2019 to renewed critical acclaim. both volumes were written in all capital letters with no punctuation, a style that became iconic for yahya hassan’s insistent public voice. a number of spectacular events drew media attention in the years in between. one was hassan’s relationship with an educator at an institution for juvenile delinquents who published an auto-fictional novel of her own about their affair (østergaard 2014); another was hassan’s try at a political career in a new party, the national party (nationalpartiet), that was put to a stop when hassan was arrested for drug-driving; and yet another was an assault on hassan at the copenhagen central station by a danish-palestianian man who was convicted for terrorism and out on parole. throughout this time, hassan received death threats and was periodically under protection by the danish intelligence and security service. in order to keep a low profile immediately after his first appearances on national media, hassan moved in with reporter and chief editor martin krasnik and his family for a couple of months. strict security measures were taken during his numerous readings and talks at schools, libraries, and other public venues across and beyond denmark in the following years. when one library had to cancel for safety reasons, politicians across the political spectrum stepped in to defend hassan’s freedom of speech and the event was rescheduled under security precautions that included an aircraft operating ban in the area. in 2016 hassan received a prison sentence for a shooting episode, and again in 2018 he was charged with no less than 40 offenses, including threats and theft, and was held in preventive custody in a psychiatric ward. in april of 2020, yahya hassan was found dead in his apartment; the cause of death has not been revealed. some of these events were dealt with in hassan’s poetry too, making his literary persona hard to delineate. throughout his approximately 7-year-long literary career, his public persona developed through multiple media performances, both in profiles in representational media (marshall 2013) where hassan, as we shall see, often sought to claim authorial control, and in presentational media (marshall 2013) where hassan’s social media presence gradually developed into a transgressive persona characterized by drug abuse, criminality, and decreasing mental well-being. public interest in his story was great, and while his literary merits remained undisputed, there seemed to be no way to stick to the routines of a cultural journalistic beat when portraying him. theory: profiles, persona performance, rhetorical maneuvers with their edited volume profile pieces from 2016, joseph and keeble wanted to submit profile writing – its history, theory, and practice – to closer critical inquiry, taking it seriously as more than “public relations exercises or … ‘soft journalism’” as they put it (2016, p. i). in the preface, they refer quite specifically to the idea of the profile interview as a “contested space [for multi-layered interaction] that has applications beyond the subject of celebrated individuals” (2016, p. i). we second that as we zoom in on the mutual constitution and reconstitution of personas in the three hassan profiles and quite literally address the ways that the multiple layers of both the journalist and the poet persona unfold on the page. the more general question of introducing the journalist persona into a text has been theorized by kidder and todd (2013) and developed by phillips (2019) in terms of deploying an understated, observing “first-person minor” or a more dominant, autobiographical “firstperson major” perspective (phillips 2019, p. 385-86). as an example of use of the first-person isager & moestrup 80 minor in which the reporter intrudes only when exchanges with the profiled person add essential information, phillips brings up a canonized profile piece by lillian ross on ernest hemingway, “how do you like it now gentlemen?” from the new yorker in 1950. ross’ portrait is tellingly subtitled “the moods of ernest hemingway” which indicates her professional reasons to introduce herself into the text: she serves, as phillips put it, as a “guardian of normalcy” on behalf of the readership to counterbalance the eccentric, somewhat self-deluding manners of the aging celebrity writer (phillips 2019, p. 390). at the other, more spectacular end of this spectrum of authorial presence, phillips places figures like nellie bly (1864-1922) and hunter s. thompson (1937-2005) who are known for their ‘stunt’ and ‘gonzo’ journalism, respectively. both become protagonists in their stories that arguably still remain journalistic rather than autobiographical since the reporters’ responses to events serve to reflect or portray the subcultures they are covering rather than their own personalities (phillips 2019, p. 388, 391). we will be adopting these concepts of first-person minor and major to discuss the ways that the three danish profilers, stéphanie surrugue, johanne mygind, and martin krasnik, describe their respective interactions with yahya hassan. as we shall see, hassan’s persona performances make it almost indefensible for his profilers to choose other than a first-person major form even if one of them, surrugue, does not. ultimately, we will recommend thinking of these persona performances not in terms of a more or less dominant or entertaining presence, but of more or less multi-layered presence on the page. to this end, we introduce rhetorical maneuvering (phillips 2006) as, firstly, a performative principle that may guide a profiler’s practice by making the “showing of the doing” (schechner 2013) of profiling felt and transparent in an ethical sense (bechkarlsen 2007), and, secondly, a formal principle that may structure a profile piece to make this performative principle present to readers in style. while we are inspired by auslander’s conceptualization of the performing persona (auslander 2015), in our study, we are refocusing auslander’s ideas on how contexts constitute personas to a concern with the mutual constitution of personas. while in auslander’s contextual approach the persona is read as an instrument working within a given performance (see moestrup 2021), we suggest that it is productive to pay further attention to the performative space that is interpersonal and relational. the performative nature of profiling is discussed also by joseph (2016) who, however, suggests to think of performativity in relative terms. both phillips (2019, p. 388-89) and joseph are concerned with ways for journalistic narrators to facilitate empathy with their subjects, but while phillips discusses degrees of presence, joseph focuses on degrees of performativity, in profile pieces specifically. she suggests a spectrum model that includes ritualized and strategic identity performances at one end and unfeigned responses, ‘raw’ acts of witnessing and advocacy of trauma narratives, at the other. in between those poles, joseph places the celebrity profile as driven by a level of mutual and acknowledged opportunism between profiler and profiled (joseph 2016; see also lee 2019, p. 246-49). phillips deploys narratological concepts to capture levels of reflection that enable reader empathy; in short, she argues (with reference to aare 2016) that narrative dissonance is productive in the sense that an immediate, internally focalized first-person major perspective turns into a more open space for reflection and empathy when combined with retrospective narration (phillips 2019, p. 389). joseph, on her part, questions celebrity profiles as not legitimately deserving of public interest. instead, her main concern as both a practitioner and scholar of journalistic profiling is on trauma narratives and the peculiar ways that the deliberate identity performances of more mainstream profile pieces may be suspended or stripped raw in the name of authentic, empathetic advocacy when trauma victims rather than celebrities are interviewed and profiled (joseph 2016, p. 214-17). persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 81 in the case of hassan and his profilers, however, joseph’s spectrum seems to collapse since several of these relations are at work on one and the same occasion. hassan was basically recognized as a celebrity as well as victim of trauma, and his persona transformations that sometimes happened from one minute to the next, challenged journalists to explore their own repertoire of personas in a way that did indeed suspend identity performances but only to reveal and develop different ones. while the profilers are reinforcing the celebrity status of hassan in the mere act of doing profiles of him, they must, on the one hand, keep ready to resist the “mechanisms of publicity” (lee 2019, p. 246) and counter blatant opportunism. on the other hand, they need to respond to hassan’s positioning as a trauma victim and do so, as we shall see, by trying on, for instance, the subjectivities of a caring supporter and ally or a concerned social worker, parent, or friend. this particular dynamic is well captured, we propose, by the notion of rhetorical maneuvers, i.e. a continuous, potentially inappropriate shifting of perspective that adds new dimensions to the spectrum models of both presence and performativity while multiplying the levels of narrative dissonance. the rhetorical maneuver is introduced as a way of “speaking out of place” (phillips 2006, p. 315). while subjects may be positioned as students and teachers, for instance, they may still choose to “mis-name” their selves, as phillips puts it, and violate the constraints of a given position by adopting subject forms that belong to different subject positions (phillips 2006, p. 316). when a rhetorical maneuver is considered “inappropriate” it means simply that a given subject form is deployed even though it is not prescribed by the context. phillips offers an everyday example: if a student says not just, “my essay will be late” but “my essay will be late because my girlfriend and i worry that she might be pregnant”, it challenges the teacher to relate to the student as also a father-to-be and obviously complicates or simply expands the potential spectrum of the teacher’s available subject forms when responding (2006, p. 317-18). a dynamic much like this is set in motion by the quoted lines that serve as titles for the three selected profiles of yahya hassan to which we now turn. each of them highlights a statement from the poet, and together they indicate a spectrum from informal or blunt to more reflective or philosophical subject forms that invites a complex response on the part of the journalist and readers: “these days i don’t get much writing done except for horny text messages to beautiful girls” (surrugue 2014), “there is no such thing as recognition. there is just staging” (mygind 2014), and, finally, “i was fed up with being the integration showpiece [or more literally ‘prize wog’ (da. præmieperker)]” (krasnik 2019a). while all three profiles might have been (to echo lillian ross) subtitled ‘the moods of yahya hassan’, they respond to hassan’s rhetorical maneuvers in very different manners. analysis: three encounters with yahya hassan on the page 1. rhetorical maneuvering as coolly observed versus performed in passion both of the profile pieces from 2014 are occasioned by a celebration of yahya hassan’s literary achievements. one is from a 250th special issue of the monthly euroman in which hassan is featured on the cover as one out of three “danish boys and men who [by way of their talent and ambition] will be shaping society in the coming years” (surrugue 2014; stenbach 2014); the other is published in the literary supplement of the weekly weekendavisen when hassan won the paper’s prestigious literary award of that year (mygind 2014). at this early stage in hassan’s career, he is already notorious for unpredictable interactions with the press – including episodes of walking out on interviewers – which both profiles explicitly address, not only by giving examples, but making this issue inform the very structure of their pieces. isager & moestrup 82 as for surrugue, who is immersed on a promotion tour to finland with hassan, his publisher, and security guards, large parts of her text are structured to reflect hassan’s rhetorical maneuvering. indeed, encounters with other people serve as a humorous narrative arc, starting off with hassan flirting with an airline hostess on the plane to helsinki and culminating in a prolonged, central scene from the destination that is set off by the following cliffhanger: danish journalists [may] become nervous at the mere prospect of interviewing yahya hassan who doesn’t play in any way by either written or unwritten rules. few finnish journalists are aware of this. yet. (surrugue 2014) surrugue is not a participant in the scene. instead, she observes and reports with careful use of comic contrast, euphemism, and informal language how her finnish colleagues line up for interviews with hassan on par with the princess’ suitors in hans christian andersen’s fairytale of “jack the dullard” to the shared amusement of hassan, surrugue, and the implied reader. while hassan is commenting passionately on the immigration situation in denmark versus sweden, he suddenly remarks that there is no smoke detector in the room and that he may light a cigarette. he is friendly (one journalist “looks like he wants to either hug yahya hassan or light a cigarette himself … [the s]ympathy seems mutual”) and then hostile (another journalist gets no response, and witnessing their interaction is described like “watching a car crash in slow motion”) (surrugue 2014). in one instance, surrugue seems to have unlimited access to hassan’s mind as he plots a rhetorical maneuver in the middle of an interview with a reporter from the finnish women’s magazine me naiset: “he finds her questions [about women and interior decoration] stupid to the extent that they are actually funny. but he does not tell her. instead he decides to tease the reporter by firing up his charm. as in all the way up.” (surrugue 2014). surrugue sides with hassan in distancing herself fully from this particular reporter by observing, in conclusion, how the woman giggles and “doesn’t look like she knows what hit her” (surrugue 2014). in eason’s terms (see phillips 2019, p. 390), surrugue is practicing ethnographic realism in the vein of lillian ross by offering the euroman readership an exclusive account of life behind the scenes. this life is presented as an ““object of display,” with the reporter and the reader seeing that object with an assumed, shared set of values” (phillips 2019, p. 390). accordingly, surrugue remains in an understated first-person minor that largely supports hassan’s persona performance when reporting, for instance, that hassan is not just keeping a number of people waiting in the morning, but that he is “late, the rockstar way” (surrugue 2014). that surrugue herself is consistently performing an on-top-of-things attitude is reflected in her careful depictions of the layers of hassan’s persona. her composure is reflected in her succinct use of oxymorons like “the 19-year-old star writer” as well as in more extended versions of the same trope: a year ago he looked mainly like a trouble maker. hoodie, leather jacket, defiant look, cigarette or joint in mouth, fuck that, fuck you. but look at him now: through the bustle of the airport he slides like another busy business man; impeccable grey suit, shiny black shoes … on a closer look however, the image falls apart. the breast pin showing the palestinian flag. the hair band pacifying a long, black mane of curls. and the two inconspicuous men keeping remarkably close to him. … persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 83 [t]he social workers once taking care of the youth criminal yahya hassan have become intelligence officers looking after the young author yahya hassan. (surrugue 2014) in this manner, surrugue describes how the ‘former hassan’ (the traumatized, socially deprived criminal teenager of minority background) is not actually former or transformed but stays enfolded in the repertoire of the ‘new hassan’ (the celebrity, a rich and famous literary star). this is further emphasized in the photos that accompany the profile and depict, for instance, hassan dressed in a fancy suit and blue shirt eating a cheap fast-food meal. so while continuously suggesting that ‘the image might fall apart’ to paraphrase the passage above, surrugue insists on keeping the oxymoron intact, i.e. putting the seeming contradictions of his subject forms on display and revelling in it. tensions are kept unresolved and unquestioned which seems to be exactly what hassan is inviting her to do by happily parading his rhetorical maneuvering as a special skill: “you have to take them as they need to be taken,” hassan shouts loudly down the hallway. it is somewhat unclear whether he means journalists or women. “the one from the ladies’ magazine, she needed to be charmed. the one before her, needed to be met with a stoneface,” he says laughingly and lights up a cigarette in the middle of the publisher’s building out of sheer enthusiasm. (surrugue 2014) generally, surrugue conveys how she is particularly well equipped to profile yahya hassan, not by responding to his maneuvers through repositionings of her own, but by keeping coolunder-immersion, tracking and even imitating hassan’s maneuvering as a way of granting her readers backstage access to his full repertoire of subject forms. it is worth noting, that hassan’s rhetorical maneuvers are often decidedly inappropriate – unexpected, not called for – as the definition goes. and while surrugue may expose the maneuvers for aesthetic value as well as for profiling purposes, she plays along and supports them too, inviting readers to be amused, where she might perhaps have put up some resistance and attempted to negotiate what transgressions of decorum and of professional standards to allow for on her watch. to resist, however, is what her fellow freelance profiler, johanne mygind, decides to do when performing the part of unfortunate interviewer-suitor when lining up for an audience with the celebrity poet. mygind is exposed to the full force of hassan’s moods in a one-onone encounter in the kitchen of her private home and responds, as we shall see, by almost desperate rhetorical maneuvering that explores her own repertoire of subject forms. unlike surrugue, she reports on her meeting with hassan in the first-person major, exposing her personal and professional struggle to win his trust or even catch his interest. the interview is occasioned by hassan winning the weekendavisen book award for 2013, and mygind puts up resistance from the beginning of their interaction as hassan adopts the subject form of a demanding celebrity persona by calling her back late only to insist that the interview takes place immediately. mygind resists by claiming her subject form both as a parent and a professional: “i was at the daycare and had one more stop to make at the kindergarten, and there had to be limits as to how much i was going to kowtow to an award winner” (mygind 2014, p. 8). this does not exactly serve to set a productive line of maneuverings in motion, and, in contrast to the smooth, festive award speech printed on the front cover of the same literary supplement, the interview is abrupt in its syntax marking a hostile atmosphere. when they finally meet the dialogue between hassan and mygind hardly qualifies as a dialogue: isager & moestrup 84 – okay, not family, not integration, not islam, not literature, what have we got left? “the future?” – oh yes, the future. what have you got to say about that? “nothing.” (mygind 2014, p. 9) rather than keeping a literary focus, the piece changes and is soon driven by rhetorical maneuvers on mygind’s part from reporter to mother to teacher of interview methods to critic of media coverage, and on to the specific, vulnerable role of freelancer-not-able-to-deliverwhat’s-expected. some of her maneuvers are addressed to readers only and performed by way of inner monologue as if sharing her sense of professional humiliation out of hassan’s hearing range (“yahya hassan makes me feel like a social worker encountering a particularly sullen young criminal … who does not get that i mean well”, mygind 2014, p. 8) or fighting for our professional respect (“when i teach interview techniques, i usually say … but this …”, mygind 2014, p. 8). others are directed to hassan as attempts to change the scene and enable dialogue: “then he gives an order: ‘for this interview piece, don’t describe neither clothes nor mood or anything.’ i smile. i don’t know whether or not he is serious. i tell him i’m a freelancer …” (mygind 2014, p. 9). mygind touches on the same oxymoronic nature of hassan’s persona that surrugue does, but takes the ambiguity much more seriously or personally, describing it as a challenge to her persona performance and confusing to her professional maneuvering: “i don’t know whether i am dancing around with a genius or with a 18-year old brat who picked up a couple of new concepts at the academy of creative writing.” (mygind 2014, p. 9) she insists on hassan having other subject forms available to him and reminds him, for instance, of his poet persona which he immediately resists: “i do suppose a poet has a knack for recognizing what makes a good scene?” ”not really, i’m not a filmmaker. i don’t know whether or not i’m a poet either, just because i wrote a collection of poetry. i may become a money man.” now he gives me a daring look. i smile again like i imagine a social worker might smile. (mygind 2014, p. 9) in terms of transgressions, the so-called emotional turn in journalism (wahl-jorgensen 2020) has steadily expanded the boundaries for professional decorum. certainly, mygind continuously notes – showing the doing of profiling process – how hassan makes her feel: “i smile. i don’t know if he is serious”; “it feels as if i have got a hold of him now. i can’t help but wishing that it is because he likes me”; “i have lost the ability to assess his statements because i am so thankful that he is speaking to me” (mygind 2014, p. 9). addressing the reader in confidence may come across as rude to hassan. still, some of these responses are also analytical or reflective, and serve at least as attempts to support her professional ethos. at one point, however, her emotion and positioning turn into aggression, and she employs language that is quite clearly inappropriate by professional standards: he looks at my kitchen bulletin board … newspaper clippings, bills, and pictures of my kids. a study in middle-class normalcy. the kind we state in columns and comments that every child deserves. … but now, in my own home, i’m not sure that’s what yahya hassan wants. i feel like he is pissing all over my middle-class values. (mygind 2014, p. 9) persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 85 with mygind’s first-person major form, we see a rapid, tentative rhetorical maneuvering performed in dialogue with hassan and by continuous reflections on the uncomfortable attempts to change the constellation and subject positionings. so, again, rhetorical maneuvering becomes the driving narrative principle: in this case, a decidedly scrambling, narrative principle as mygind performs an almost gonzo-like overreaction to the circumstances that serves as an attempt to resist the discrediting position she is offered. a broken aesthetic is established that may not direct empathy away from the journalist towards the profiled subject as a profile should (cf. phillips 2019; joseph 2016) but which serves, at least, to reveal the constraints the journalist is dealing with on this particular occasion. by responding to inappropriate subject forms, and testing a variety of alternative and still more inappropriate subject forms herself, mygind makes the negotiation of control of the interview space much more ambivalent than what we saw in the finnish scenario. the spectrum of her persona performance expands, for better or worse, and makes it hard for readers to identify with her without some discomfort or pause for reflection. this way of ‘showing the doing’ of profiling serves also to conspicuously underline the constructed nature of print journalism. in a live interview hassan might be able to claim and keep authorial control; in writing, the profiler has the final word. hassan decides which bits and pieces to offer the profiler and may resist responding to her changing positionings and invitations, but at the end of the day, it is mygind who decides how to frame the mutual constitution of their personas. by way of her somewhat inappropriate rhetorical maneuvering, however, she ensures that readers will actually notice this exercise of power and, hopefully, feel encouraged or provoked to position themselves in relation to hassan as they see fit under the circumstances. 2. rhetorical maneuvering as personal-professional shapeshifting five years after surrugue and mygind’s encounters with yahya hassan, his personal situation had changed dramatically; he is hospitalized, but his second volume of poems is ready for publication, a situation that pushes the combination of a celebrity and trauma victim profile to an extreme in our third and last example. the piece appears after a longer period where hassan has been partly controlling his own media story and partly unavailable to the press while serving a prison sentence. under these circumstances, an interview-based profile by martin krasnik, chief editor and also closely acquainted with hassan, counts as a veritable scoop, and hassan is given a significant amount of space in the nov. 8th 2019 edition of weekendavisen. a large drawing of him is printed on the front page alongside a quote from the profile saying “i am one of the greatest poets alive but this wog [da. perker] has had enough” (weekendavisen 2019, p. 1). a new poem by hassan is featured on the front page of the literary supplement which includes the four-page profile, including a page featuring imagery and several provocative updates from hassan’s facebook profile. again, the challenge for the profiler is to handle the oxymoronic persona – that hassan himself invokes by proclaiming himself a superior poet and an unruly ‘wog’ – in a manner that is both ethically and aesthetically proper for the occasion. krasnik’s profile piece is narratively paced by the institutional limitations imposed on the interview. it takes place via telephone calls to and from the forensic mental ward at aarhus university hospital wherein krasnik and hassan are only able to talk for a limited number of minutes at a time. these context-creating constraints are addressed explicitly with sentences such as “the social worker is here now, i will call you later,” and “it’s over now. i will call you later. have some proper questions ready” (krasnik 2019a, p. 5). hassan makes several demands like these on krasnik as an attempt to take control of the profile piece, giving professional directions to his profiler as he did with mygind. with krasnik, hassan isager & moestrup 86 orders specific bits of content that he wants his profiler to include which involves a change of subject form on hassan’s part from pr conscious poet, “i am an intellectual criminal. remember that! write that!”, to an almost desperately affectionate family member, “you have to write that i love my mother, my brother and i love my family. it’s important to include that i love my family. (...) you have to underline that. promise me.” (krasnik 2019a, p. 5) krasnik navigates these requests by rhetorical maneuvering, alternating between a number of subjectivities. his past history of interviewing and privately hosting hassan makes patches of common ground and subject forms available to him while also making a level of transparency mandatory in order to ensure professional accountability. krasnik’s shapeshifter strategy gets as personal, if much less emotional, than mygind’s. that said, in terms of editorial power, krasnik offers an additional level of transparency by producing a podcast version of the interview (2019b) in which longer parts of the interview are reproduced and hassan can be heard unremediated by krasnik’s pen. and these parts do in fact display a significantly higher emotional intensity in the interaction than the printed version does, if also less variation of style and pace and less space for reflection. here we focus on the printed version in which, first of all, krasnik performs the persona of hassan’s trusted friend repeating the well-known story of how hassan ended up staying at krasnik’s home, “smoking his weed [hassan’s own] in the backyard. playing playstation with my son” (krasnik 2019a, p. 2). this particular maneuver and the ensuing information count as a way to demonstrate transparency in his professional work, and beyond that, it serves to establish krasnik’s ethos as a profiler with a unique relationship and exclusive access to the celebrity poet. he performs the trusted friend persona or advocate when fulfilling, for instance, the wishes or demands of hassan by quoting his directions and by being remarkable informal, even blunt when opening the conversation by stating his surprise: “i am so glad you are alive … i imagined you would have run into a bullet or a baseball bat” (krasnik 2019a, p. 2). at other stages in the conversation, the age difference allows krasnik to reposition himself as a kind of father figure showing his concern by way of a reprimand: “why didn’t you pull out earlier? didn’t i tell you to go away for a few months.” while being highly responsive to hassan’s repositionings in the phone call passages of the written text, krasnik demonstrates closer control of his own subject forms when performing the roles of a curious reporter and, in turn, professional literary critic or connoisseur. this happens as he introduces hassan’s new and still unreleased collection of poems, again a feature that underlines his exclusive access. krasnik admits to reading the poems, first, for autobiographical, factual information, simply to discover what has happened to hassan in the past few years. later in the interview, he comments and discusses their literary merits and demonstrates his cultural capital as a both sensitive and knowledgeable reader of poetry: “black, cruel, wild, violent, uncomfortable, beautiful, absurd, but also completely irrefutably him, his energy, his chanting restlessness, his language,” and “the second part of the collection is called hunting season. there is a touch of dark humour in it. halfdan rasmussen [humorous danish household poet] meets tarantino,” (krasnik 2019a, p. 2). krasnik’s continuous shapeshifting from personal to professional becomes his way of handling hassan’s unpredictable behaviour and preserving the oxymoron, so to say, as he introduces readers to both hassan the currently disturbed patient and, in interposed passages, hassan the poet in his own right. moreover, the maneuvering works as an aesthetic strategy that provides variation and substance to a piece that would otherwise be based on bits and pieces of telephone interviews. indeed, the hectic, interrupted dialogues is reminiscent of mygind’s article including allusions to interfering with krasnik’s private life: “[hassan] calls persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 87 at 7:36pm while i’m putting the kids to sleep” (krasnik 2019a, p. 5). in addition to invoking here again, krasnik’s actual father persona, krasnik highlights the backstage conditions of putting this particular profile together. krasnik, too, is ‘showing the doing’ of profiling as schechner phrased it (schechner 2013), and developing a shapeshifter strategy of his own on the basis of his particular personal history. performing the maneuvering: personas turning inappropriate but showing us why by way of conclusion, it is tempting to follow the narrative logic of goldilocks and the three bears and congratulate martin krasnik on striking just the right balance between the coolness of stéphanie surrugue and the emotional scrambling of johanne mygind in the discipline of profiling yahya hassan by personal interaction. rhetorical maneuvers, however, are inappropriate by definition, and there are good reasons to question krasnik’s encounter with the poet persona: how does one legitimately perform the part of friend in a piece of journalism? and when is it ever appropriate to invoke one’s parental persona and reprimand someone in a published interview? we hope, instead, to have presented and developed rhetorical maneuvering (phillips 2006) as a way for profilers to not only demonstrate a responsive approach to subjects but also possibly change the dynamics in a tense journalist-source encounter or at least make a demonstrative attempt. importantly, as we saw in mygind and krasnik’s stories, rhetorical maneuvering may disrupt conventional patterns of identification in relation also to the reader and provoke reflection on the constraints and dynamics of the profiling practice. this feature is not striking in surrugue’s use of the first-person minor. on the contrary, the rhetorical maneuvers in her piece are witnessed from the perspective of the unaffected fly on the wall, and readers are positioned safely and stably alongside surrugue herself as observers, alienated instead from other characters in the story. still, all three profilers realize the potential of turning rhetorical maneuvering as such into a narrative principle that gives each article an aesthetic quality that is unique, reflects their subject’s special character, and serves to turn these profile pieces into genuine examples of literary journalism. at the level of persona studies, we have refocused auslander’s conception of how contexts constitute personas (auslander 2015) to a concern with the mutual constitution of personas in media performances in which journalists – by introducing their first-person major (as in the case of mygind and krasnik) – performatively point to the showing of the doing (schechner 2013) of profiling on special occasions. while subscribing to auslander’s reading of personas as an instrument working within a given performance, we suggest it is productive to pay extra attention to the performative space that is interpersonal and specific to journalistic profiles in which a tricky or tense occasion may call for profilers to explore their spectrum of subject forms and respond with deliberate creativity to disruptions of their persona performances. by way of rhetorical maneuvering in the performative interpersonal space, firstperson profiling puts a condensed version of journalist-source-relations to the foreground, exposing the fragile social dynamics of professional work and the limits and successes of journalistic encounters. first-person major performances may stand in the way of audience identification in a traditional journalistic sense or of reader empathy as a key value in literary journalism more generally (phillips 2019) and profiling specifically (joseph 2016). still, we argue that the interactions do perform a productive, tentative identification process in the rhetorical sense of a temporary and partial recognition of community that enables coordinated thought and action in public matters (burke 1969). rhetorical maneuvering may be isager & moestrup 88 considered an exemplary practice in the sense of a flipping through of potential previous subject forms that may produce poses that are unfit for the occasion but are still warranted, on special occasions, as worthy of a try. as an ethical principle, it recognizes the multiplicity of personas as well as the professional and personal obligations and responsiveness of both journalist and subject. it may be deployed when subject positions become limiting and uncomfortable in order to add narrative structure, pace, variation and, in fact, a variety of perspectives within the otherwise often limiting first-person singular. in sum, the varied, performative attempts of seeking identification and cooperation – the showing of the rhetorical maneuverings – qualify as instructive and creative instruments of portrayal, even as they sometimes, and sometimes spectacularly, fail. end notes 1. all three profiles are originally published in danish. english translations are by isager and moestrup. works cited aare, c 2016, ’a narratological approach to literary journalism: how an interplay between voice and point of view may create empathy with the other’, literary journalism studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 107–39. auslander, p 2015, ’on the concept of persona in performance’, kunstlicht, vol. 36. bech-karlsen, j 2007, åpen eller skjult. råd og uråd i fortellende journalistikk [overt or covert. orientation and disorientation in narrative journalism], universitetsforlaget. burke, k 1969, a rhetoric of motives, university of california press. hassan, y 2013, yahya hassan. digte [yahya hassan. poems]. gyldendal. hassan y 2019, yahya hassan 2. digte [yahya hassan 2. poems]. gyldendal. isager, c 2016, 'playful imitation at work: the formation of a danish ’gonzo thingummy’', literary journalism studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 78-96. joseph, s 2016, ’the empathic profiler and ethics: trauma narrative as advocacy’, in: s joseph & rl keeble (eds.), profile pieces: journalism and the ‘human interest’ bias, routledge, pp. 211-225. joseph, s & keeble, rl (eds.) 2016, profile pieces: journalism and the ‘human interest’ bias, routledge. kidder, t, and todd, r 2013, good prose: the art of nonfiction, random house. krasnik, m 2019a, ‘jeg blev træt af at være præmieperkeren’ [i was fed up with being the integration showpiece], weekendavisen bøger nov. 8. krasnik, m 2019b, ‘avistid: jeg blev træt af at være præmieperkeren: interview med yahya hassan’ [papertime: i was fed up with being the integration showpiece: interview with yahya hassan], weekendavisen: https://www.weekendavisen.dk/2019-45/boeger/jegblev-traet-af-at-vaere-praemieperkeren. lee, k 2019, ‘‘boswellized from mere persons to personages’: arthur stringer, mary pickford, and the trouble with celebrity profile(r)s’, life writing, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 245-259. marshall, pd 2013, ’persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self’, journalism, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 153-170. moestrup, s 2021, ‘the use of wine as a performance of a style of being: a methodological proposal to the study of persona-driven cultural criticism’, in: nn kristensen, u from, & hk haastrup (eds.), rethinking cultural criticism: new voices in the digital age, palgrave macmillan, pp. 43-65. mygind, j 2014, ’der findes ikke anerkendelse. der findes kun iscenesættelse’ [there is no such thing as recognition. there is just staging], weekendavisen bøger, january 31. phillips, kr 2006, ’rhetorical maneuvers: subjectivity, power, and resistance’, philosophy & rhetoric, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 310-332. https://www.weekendavisen.dk/2019-45/boeger/jeg-blev-traet-af-at-vaere-praemieperkeren https://www.weekendavisen.dk/2019-45/boeger/jeg-blev-traet-af-at-vaere-praemieperkeren persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 89 phillips, la 2019, ’from major to minor: literary journalism and the first-person’, in: w dow and r maguire (eds.) the routledge companion to american literary journalism, routledge. ross, l 1950, ‘how do you like it now, gentlemen’, the new yorker, may 6: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1950/05/13/how-do-you-like-it-nowgentlemen. rønlev, r., & bengtsson, m. 2020, ’the media provocateur: a rhetorical framework for studying an emerging persona in journalism’, journalism: theory, practice & criticism. schechner, r 2013, performance studies: an introduction, routledge. stenbach, k 2014 oct 8, ‘yahya, robert og pierre-emile tager over’ [yahya, robert, and pierreemile are taking over], euroman: https://www.euroman.dk/kultur/yahya-robert-ogpierre-emile-tager-over. surrugue, s 2014, ’yahya hassan: ’lige for tiden får jeg ikke skrevet meget andet end liderlige sms’er til smukke piger’’ [yahya hassan: ’these days i don’t get much writing done except for horny text messages to beautiful girls’], euroman, nov. 9: https://www.euroman.dk/kultur/yahya-hassan-lige-for-tiden-faar-jeg-ikke-skrevetmeget-andet-end-liderlige-smser-til-smukke-piger wahl-jorgensen, k 2020, ’an emotional turn in journalism studies?’, digital journalism, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 175-194. weekendavisen, november 8th, 2019 østergaard, l 2014, ord [words]. people’s press. persona studies 2015, 1.1 1 making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective p. dav id mars hall and kim ba rb our it is an enormously difficult—and perhaps impossible, but ultimately important—task to comprehensively define the contemporary moment through a particular concept. this introduction and this journal make the claim that both in a pervasive way and to a pandemic extent, there is enormous activity and energy in the production, construction, and exhibition of personas. something quite extraordinary has shifted over the last twenty years that has led to this intensive focus on constructing strategic masks of identity. the catalyst is the development of online culture and its invocation to personalize the expression of a public self—essentially a persona—regularly and incessantly. this culture of producing and monitoring our public selves is the focus of this journal as online culture blends with everyday culture and leads to an insistent proliferation of personas for both presentation and for strategic purposes in order to manage very new notions of value and reputation. the task of investigating persona is complex, and is dependent on connections and intersections across an array of disciplines. this journal and the field of persona studies is designed to serve as a site for this essential work of comprehending, analysing, and critiquing persona, and to allow disciplines to intersect, exchange ideas, and debate the play of persona historically and in contemporary culture. what follows in this introduction is both a defence and proclamation of the need to both investigate persona and do so in a formal, official venue like a journal. persona studies identifies a lacuna of essential and emerging work that has been overlooked by many journals. in addressing these questions, this journal’s introductory essay provides a map of the concept of persona. from this vantage point, we identify where what we call persona studies fits into the academy and intellectual currents—in other words, what are its intellectual relations, antecedents, and sources that will help us both discern its likely directions as it ventures forward, as well as its points of differentiation. some of the answers are beyond the scope of a single essay, and hence the journal’s mission is activated in this first issue. the collection of articles in our inaugural issue identify some of these future directions for persona studies, and the authors use many of the sources we introduce below, sources we see as foundational to an emerging way of thinking. this essay is designed to justify making room in the academy for persona studies, and to assist those in parallel academic traditions to see the advantages of the particular range of lenses that persona studies privileges in its analyses. the uses of persona: an historical and etymological roadmap intellectual inquiry is often driven by how a concept identifies a particular understanding of an object, a process, or a condition. persona’s peculiar value as a term is the way that it helps describe and articulate the relationship between the individual and the social. marshall & barbour 2 more specifically, persona helps us understand the construction, constitution, and production of the self through identity play and performance by the individual in social settings. the word persona is derived from the latin, and its original meaning is very close to the idea of “mask.” as the oxford dictionary traces its etymology to its etruscan origins, it relates persona to the word prosopon—the ancient greek term for the mask traditionally worn in dramas as well as religious rites. the greek theatrical mask has served as the indexical sign of drama for thousands of years, and the word prosopon is the greek etymological root word for persona1. embedded in the meaning of the word persona from these connections to the prosopon and greek performance is the utility of the mask to simplify and convey the identity of a character to an audience at some distance. indeed, the word persona is etymologically connected to the idea of sound—sona—moving or projecting through wood—per—of the mask itself. the mask as persona also allowed early greek allow actors to play more than one role, while the uniformity of some masks, such as those used by the chorus, created a univocal identity. from these classical origins in greece, one can see how persona begins to embody a particular way in which individuals move into social settings. theatrical performance becomes a formalistic expression of presentation, but also one designed for display to others. from this original usage of the word, personas2 are ways of being that are not necessarily modelled on truth, but are forms of presentation and performance for certain effects. personas, in the most general sense then, are a strategic form of communication. the use of “persona” was far from static in antiquity. however, it nonetheless articulated with some consistency an intellectual trajectory around personhood that is distinct from the search for the true self that has enveloped psychological study. reiss, for instance, details the way that cicero, the roman philosopher and politician, interpreted persona in its plurality in the individual and claimed that a different constitution of individuality was part of roman experience more broadly (reiss 127 138). cicero identified four personas making up the individual. the first two were what he described as “common” and “singular” (127). the “common” persona identified the virtues that differentiate us from the rest of the animal kingdom and “fundamental states of the soul,” and allowed the person to move through and conduct themselves for the organization of “societas,” what cicero called a decorum and moral rightness (honestum) (127). the singular persona or role referred to specific abilities and “inclinations” that an individual brought to their being. for cicero, this singular persona was also under the disciplines of decorum and the associated rules and virtues of the social. the third persona was determined by received or acquired status—thus one’s social, economic, and political position was also constrained by decorum and the social dimensions of these positions (128). reis identifies cicero’s fourth and final persona also operated within this social environment organised by decorum, but cicero described it as our identity of voluntary choice. all personas that cicero identified were part of the human being and fit into the structure of community and the virtues of what this entailed. reiss’ interpretation of cicero’s personas underlines that individuality as we understand it today has been framed and conceived differently in other historical periods and these other formulations should not be taken as congruent with our contemporary notions. nonetheless, these conceptions of persona identify the understanding of the self from its position in the social and the natural world (to use cicero’s terms) of the community. persona once again describes the peculiar relation of the individual to the social in its production and enactment by individuals. this quality that situates persona as a point of individual negotiation with the social persona studies 2015, 1.1 3 is ultimately what is valuable and also what has some continuity to our own equally peculiar construction and constitution of identity in this contemporary moment. what can be discerned from this tour of persona as a concept in antiquity is that it helps to delineate the relationships that we negotiate as individuals between the private, the public, and the intimate. these ideas, along with more recent conceptualisations of persona, offer a starting point and a language for the study of identity at a time of increasing complexity in identity performance. as hannah arendt’s remarkable reading of classical ancient greek culture explains, the divide between the public and private was much more well-developed and articulated through a distinctive and strategic public identity. classical ancient greek culture made it clear that there were clearly delineated spheres of the domestic or home, and public life. the character or identity of an individual was not continuous between these realms. one constituted a public identity for its play in the disputes and debates of the political realm—the polis—and another for use in the realm of the affairs of the household—the oikos (arendt 185). for arendt, this separation of the private and the public was essential for the development of the political persona of citizen. from arendt’s position, in fact, one of the key failures of contemporary politics was the blending of these two personas—the private person and the public person in the public realm. in contra distinction to the developing feminist proclamation that "the personal is political," arendt saw the need to construct clear and separate public and private identities. what can be discerned from this understanding of the public and the private is a nuanced sense of the significance of persona: the presentation of the self for public comportment and expression (allard, 25-43). despite this historical richness in the meaning of persona, it has to be acknowledged that it was not a concept that was used with any frequency before the twentieth century. its use appeared from two related directions. in the new literary traditions emerging at the beginning of the twentieth century, persona became a term that certain poets such as ezra pound connected to a movement called imagism and used to describe the subsumption of their identity into the object or subject they were describing. whether it was a tree, a setting, or a person, the language of expression produced a persona or character that was beyond the authorial identity. in contrast to the affective romantic expression of the self, pound's use of persona was designed to separate the poet's identity from the poem itself—a kind of characterisation—that described his work in the cantos. pound, along with ts eliot and others, helped define this different relationship to the self in modern literature, a path quite divergent from the consciousness of self as a form of expression represented by contemporaries such as james joyce and faulkner. baddick summarizes this use of persona in literary criticism: “the assumed identity or fictional ‘i’ ... assumed by a writer in a literary work; thus the speaker in a literary poem, or the narrator in a fictional narrative” (qtd. in fowler and burchfield 588). the other site for the development and deployment of the term persona was in psychology. whereas freud’s notion of the unconscious clearly informed the development of modernist fiction’s self-consciousness in much of twentieth-century literature (as identified above via joyce and faulkner), carl jung’s different configurations of archetypes and anima provided at least an alternative source for understanding the relationship between the self and the social. jung used the word persona sparingly but significantly in his work, which has actually made it relatively straightforward to identify how he defined it. for jung, persona is “the arbitrary segment of the collective psyche” that the individual inhabits as “a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks” (two essays 157). jung’s approach to the unconscious is fundamentally different to that of freud in its appeal to a kind of universal human unconsciousness—a collective unconscious as opposed to a collective psyche—that marshall & barbour 4 must be reached, and thereby dismantles the arbitrary and not fully formed presentation of the “outer personality” or persona, and not the “inner-personality” or anima (psychological types 466-67). persona is influenced by “adaptation to the [social] environment” (psychological types 469-470) and a concerted effort to make oneself understood and recognized in that social environment. as jung explains it, persona is designed “to impress and conceal” (qtd. in fawkes 4). jung’s idea of persona captures some key elements of why persona is useful to both analyse and read the contemporary condition. the mask of the individual—the persona—is derived from the social environment: it is constituted from that interaction between the social and the individual, and stands for the individual in the social. from reading jung, persona represents something that needs to be overcome, or at least recognised for its threatening potential for leading to an unbalanced self where this externally driven identity can be mistaken for the whole being and there is “minimal” integration made with “one’s own” inner self or “individuality” (two essays 302). what is essential to understand from jung’s approach is that persona is a strategic public identity, not necessarily in tension with an inner soul of self and individual (which jung also acknowledges can overwhelm the connection and balance with the social identity (two essays 303)), but a way to manage the various dimensions of life and its public formation of the self. persona can be seen as something that needs to be managed and, from this perspective, to be understood as a personal practice that is performed in order to enter the social world in some particular way. conceptually, the emerging twentieth-century reading of persona from either jung or literature is, generally, a narrative of falseness and fiction. persona is a separation from truth. fiction merges the idea of persona with character or personnage to use the french form of the word. there is no question that this study of character has informed some of the most interesting directions in performance studies over the last century where the study of the fictional character has been explored through both theatre and film (see landy performance and persona). by extension, these ideas of persona have moved comfortably into a description of the false nature of presentation in politics as well. in a similar vein, theological studies and literary approaches to character have developed forms of exegesis of biblical texts and novels, to develop interpretive readings of these texts: not definitive notions of truthfulness or falsity, but rather positional and contingent. these kinds of hermeneutics, which acknowledge the idea of the relative and strategic posture of different versions of the self, have offered useful comparative readings through character analysis of persona, and how individuals are involved in similar constructions of public identity. extending this idea of persona as performance is erving goffman’s influential text presentation of self in everyday life. taking the dramaturgical analogy to its full extent, goffman described the performance of self as a series of roles similar to characters, which we inhabit in different spaces and for different purposes. those roles come with front and back stages, and settings that have recognisable elements: a lab coat, a large desk, a book-lined office, a particular hat. it is the interaction of these elements with the performance of the individual that allows the role to become legible, the persona identifiable. goffman’s conceptualisation of the performance of self gives persona studies scholars a way to directly analyse the way a persona is enacted by an individual. also useful is the fact that the terminology utilised by goffman is familiar and translates easily from physical to digital spaces—a core necessity as the performance of self becomes increasingly visible through online platforms such as social and professional networking sites. persona studies 2015, 1.1 5 goffman’s work has also inspired the new emerging theory of performance registers. by considering complexity of role performance in contemporary digital society, we see the overlapping of persona performances by a single individual requires new explanatory terminology. in conceptualising registers of performance, we address the strategies used by us all in performing different elements of a persona to different audiences, often in the same performance space. we use the metaphor of vocal registers as a starting point, which differentiates between types of vocal sounds that can be created by a single voice (hollien 1). in her study of the online persona creation practices of artists, kim barbour theorised professional, personal, and intimate registers of performance, and we see this as usefully dealing with the potential problems associated with the context collapse inherent in the use of online networking sites to connect with family, friends, colleagues, and strangers. the registers are ways of looking at particular types of performances, those roles we play for the purpose of connecting, differentiating, and engaging with our personal and professional communities. by foregrounding the agency of the individual performer, registers also allow us to study the individual as empowered in the process of creating and enacting of their personas. throughout the twentieth century, persona moved gradually into much more common usage. more or less, it has maintained its connection to the fictive in various capacities and, in name only, is often linked to goffman’s work; but because of its association with jungianinspired psychoanalysis, it has also been associated with a psychological inflection in its deployment of character and personnage. one of ingmar bergman’s most famous films, persona (1964), emphasizes the link between the relationship of performance and psychology. the film itself is seen as a classic text that disorients the viewer from a fixed position within the story. persona then is explored through the film not only through the characters themselves but also through clear allusions that draw the attention of the audience to the fabrication of the performance itself: the opening scene for instance shows the film sprocket and the spark that illuminates the projector. the “patient” identified in the film is presented as a famous actress, but has chosen a new presentation of the self where she does not speak. the nurse who cares for the actress talks incessantly as though experiencing herself some form of freudian-inspired talking cure, a strategy that challenges our understanding, reading, and delineation of patient and carer roles. the film works to disturb the fixity of identity, but also interrogates the selfproduction of new identities as fabricated personas. persona is organized and presented by bergman and his actors as a way for the individual to negotiate his or her social role and position. it is important to understand persona as very much connected to performance, as both goffman’s study of the everyday underlines, and as bergman’s reading of the public and private self engenders in his film. to fully understand the play of persona in contemporary culture, it is necessary to integrate the thinking of judith butler on performativity and gender. butler claims in gender trouble that gender is a discursive construction and, like identity itself when thought of as persona, is not fixed or biologically grounded. unlike performance, butler’s concept of performativity does not acknowledge the presence of a subject or enacting of a subject. performativity of gender then is bringing into being a constitutive construction of gender. what butler’s approach to gender and performativity allows us to see is that the range of identities that we associate with gender are performative spaces that are strengthened through their reiteration through discourse and enactments by individuals. persona then can be thought of as a similar construction, a resignification of identity that relies on what is playable and performable in the public world. thus, a persona is a reinforced form of performativity that can produce a professional identity, a political identity, or an entertaining identity for various individuals to inhabit. butler’s work also allows us to begin further exploring our registers of performance of persona and the purposes we have behind these efforts and their relation to marshall & barbour 6 dominant and collectively constructed identities. persona, by the very word (as goffman’s work also emphasises), implies that there is something behind the mask—another persona that reveals some connection to dimensions that are usually called private or intimate. these further dimensions of the constructed and performative structure of identity are the registers that we inhabit and sometimes now deploy more publicly in the era of online culture and social media. anthony giddens’ work on understanding how the self and the social intersect in the formation of a malleable modern identity (32-34) is another useful way to understand how the contemporary moment produces new pushes towards both forms of revelation and forms of performativity that allow the social to move into the territories of the previously private and intimate. if there is a single impetus behind this journal’s genesis, it is related to how online culture specifically has demanded a reconsideration of the public projection of the self. the origins of this transformation of the public self can be seen in outline in the early days of the internet and, in particular, the world wide web. in contrast to sherry turkle’s first reading of online identity that focused on anonymity and play, by the mid-1990s when the web was beginning to be prevalently explored and deployed, the projection of a visible public self was becoming increasingly standardized. the focus has shifted from the classic the new yorker claim that online no one knows you are a dog, to the implementation of “real names” policies and the expectation that online identities are authentic representations of an offline self. interestingly, david foster wallace, in his novel infinite jest, described with a certain perverse prescience the need to present a mask to the world in this new connected culture where telephones transformed into “videophonic calls.” wallace described how individuals became uncomfortable with the video image of themselves (a general psychological condition he labelled “video-physiognomic dysphoria: vpd” ) and clever entrepreneurial companies began developing high definition video masks to help individuals present better versions of themselves for others to see without imperfections (148). these masks also included “improved” features such as attentive facial expressions for the caller to feel comfortable that the person stayed focussed and empathetic (149). even these were replaced in wallace’s imagined near-future parallel world by still photographs of good-looking models—what wallace described as a new market for the pleasing-to-the-eye performers who ended up on infomercials—presenting full-body versions of any caller (150-151). although fictional, wallace’s humourous exposé of the development of public masks in widespread use does identify the way in which online culture demands a regular and insistent presentation of the self. online gaming culture similarly has pushed its players into constructing public identities with even greater complexity in the online environment the gamer developed a simultaneous parallel and dual public identity. on one level, an avatar, in the tradition of second life or in role-playing games such as world of warcraft, defined the online game identity of a player. however, because of the capacity to engage in online chat and develop teams and networks of related players, the avatar became a visible version of identity that was twinned with real-time discussions and engagements by the player him or herself. in effect, the avatar became a persona that was linked to another persona of the online gaming identity that the player inhabited when texting or talking with other players. in a very real sense, the choice and constitution through modifications of the game avatar was a strategic form of persona production, and can be played out in multiple forms, as players switch between characters and their avatars. likewise, the “real” expression of the player as a gamer in a gaming community was also a form of strategic identity that could potentially separate new players or “noobs” from more experienced players. persona studies 2015, 1.1 7 one of these role-playing games developed in the 1990s and still played today is intriguingly called persona, and represents another prevalent way in which persona is thought of in the contemporary moment, and specifically in online gameplay. persona the game launched in 1996 for playstation by the japanese company atlus, and connected indirectly to the shin megami tensai series (wartlick). over time, the actual title of persona—and there have now been 8 versions of the game—simplified in its acknowledgement of the centrality of its key trope and difference from other role-playing games that emerged in the post-mud3 era of roleplaying games. as opposed to being set in some medieval-inspired universe, persona was contemporary and set in a high school. the title refers to how players can release or call forth versions of themselves—personas—to perform certain more powerful tasks that are beyond their human-world. in various newer versions of the persona game, it becomes clear that these released or latent versions of player/characters as personas emerge from some underside of the unconscious. various tropes in the game are movements into liminal spaces from day into night, and the personas are ways in which the character discovers more about themselves—their hidden selves. in many ways, persona has a loose, mysterious, ethereal, and alluring connection to the psychological dimensions of how persona is perceived in contemporary culture. similar to jung, the personal demons or personas in the game emerge out of the shadows to inhabit temporarily some space between the real and the world of shadows. without over-theorizing the constitution of the particular game, it does point to an exacting position or zone of persona that is between the social world and the individual. game culture consciously moves the individual into a zone of production and constitution of public identity and, like other games, certain extensions of the self—“specific characters”—provide distinctive repertoires to assist the player in negotiating a particular world. persona in these versions of online culture is both strategic and tactical as well as relies on a kind of “persona literacy” (marshall, “monitoring persona” 125). playing online games builds the capacity of the individual player to understand the various and differentiated forms of online personas and cultivates this understanding of the public self in action. although it may seem quite a different direction to focus on industry in the final section of our historical roadmap of the uses of persona, it nonetheless represents one of the other major ways in which the concept of persona has been applied, and predates the research trajectories that have informed this journal. in 1999, alan cooper wrote a highly influential book in the area of technological design entitled the inmates are running the asylum, where he detailed techniques to involve the end-users in the process of design and production. for cooper (and a host of others that have followed him), persona identifies a way to creatively construct the type of person that is most likely to use the application. because software development implies a form of interaction in it structural development, this conceptualization of an end-product user of a particular technological program has to be imagined to ensure that a technology’s application makes sense. if the production of a technology product is a series of “coders” who think like coders, a technology and software company needs to imagine the intersection of their code-construction with a consumer. personas then are the consumers of the products configured into types and probabilities of likely uses of a technology product. lene nielsen has extended this approach by ensuring researchers and designers conduct adequate research before the probable personas are integrated into product design. her ten-step process of first identifying personas in terms of a range of likely and targeted users and profiles, and then using personas regularly to test the product as it is being developed and fine-tuned, perhaps represents the most sophisticated and adaptable use of persona in technological design work (nielsen, 3,10-11). it is worth noting that one of the goals in integrating personas into the marshall & barbour 8 design process is to limit the numbers of personas who are actually developed and “interacting” with the different steps: too many personas confuses the design process. what is interesting about nielsen’s approach, and the parallel “lifecycle” technique that corporate consultants john pruitt and tamara adlin have developed, is that they are heavily involved in the production of possible stories—scenarios—that allow for a kind of projection of whether a design will work with particular end-users or consumers. personas are fictive, but nonetheless most often built from data about likely users; personas perform forms of interaction and thereby help fine-tune the design and development of a product. how we can define this industrial and technologically-inspired use of persona is that it is a technique of simplification of the collective into the individual. employing the term persona similarly models for companies the capacity to move between individual practice and social patterns, and then recalibrate that back into individualized fabrications for the eventual use of a form of software or a new “app.” so, instead of the industrial model being antithetical to some of the other meanings and directions of persona, it is precisely strategic, openly fictive, and clearly a negotiation of the relationship between the individual and the social in order to construct a projection of a self. the contested public dimension of persona that we have foregrounded throughout our historical review is, therefore, the only element that is overlooked in this attempt by industrially-inspired researchers. parallel worlds from this historical and etymological reading of the deployment of persona in many contexts, it is important to understand that there have been parallel research directions in related disciplines that are also valuable in understanding persona and, more importantly, are seeing its relevance in the contemporary moment. these parallel worlds have, in actuality, been very influential in the intellectual location of this journal. our efforts here to establish the intellectual space and justification for persona studies therefore need to address the connected and generally supportive relations; but it should be also understood that this essay can only provide a vignette-like series of connections. these issues around connections will no doubt be explored in much greater detail in this issue and the succeeding issues and years of the journal’s existence. first, somewhere near the core of persona studies is a recognition of the complexity of agency. agency has never been easily defined, but some of the best efforts at understanding it have emerged from cultural studies. this value of cultural studies is instrumental in positioning the work and the future work of persona studies. it is useful to recall john fiske’s phrase most eloquently developed in understanding popular culture (1989), where he refers to the “art of making do” (fiske, 28) as a defining motif and directly referenced in a recent work on methods in persona studies (marshall, moore and barbour). this phrase embodies a great deal in cultural studies. it takes on de certeau’s notion of the strategic and the tactical as a way we (collectively) negotiate our way through the world: we use the available resources and make it work for ourselves and in order for these practices to become meaningful in our lives. persona studies is pursuing this investigation of the art and the making of negotiated identities. where much of cultural studies has focused on collective configurations of meaning—for example, subculture—persona studies looks at how the individual moves into the social spaces and presents the self. as we have identified, persona studies is turning the approach of cultural studies on its head—not in some negation, but rather in a refocussing of critical examination of how the individual gains or articulates agency. the current reconfiguration and privileging of the individual as the gatekeeper in online culture has made this focus on agency of increasing persona studies 2015, 1.1 9 importance. the complexity of reconfigured structures of power in this differently constituted era of personalization demands this refocus on the individual and its configuration of the social through persona. second, another area or subfield that has been critical in the emergence of persona studies is celebrity studies. the investigation of celebrity has operated as a remarkable precursor for understanding persona. the study of celebrity itself has emerged from related fields of media studies, leadership in political and business studies, performance studies, popular culture, and film studies, as each of these areas has explored in-depth the play of the highly visible individual in different environments. each of these areas has also intersected with biographical and autobiographical studies, and the related areas of life writing in their exploration of the presentation of the public figure in all sorts of environments. what is critical to understanding celebrity is to recognise that it is an investigation of the textual and the extratextual elements of a particular public personality. augmenting this research is the close study of the audience and fans that celebrities produce with incredible regularity. how we read celebrity from the position of persona studies is that celebrity represents a powerfully visible exemplification of persona: celebrities are public presentations of the self and they inhabit the active negotiation of the individual defined and reconfigured as social phenomenon. moreover, they operate in a pedagogical way as individuals use the way that celebrities present themselves to pattern their own forms of the mediatization of the self (see marshall “promotion”; marshall “celebrity”). celebrity, from a persona studies perspective, is therefore a subset of the wider play of persona. particularly with the massive appropriation and integration of online culture and social media, the construction of a public persona has become pandemic and the mediatization of the self has become enacted in parallel social networks. persona studies is also very much linked with the various approaches to the study of online culture. for some, this is grouped in internet studies; for others, it is better defined as digital sociology; and for still others, in terms of the online reconstruction of interpersonal and mediated communication. whatever way that online culture is identified, what persona studies underlines is that there is a clear process of personalization and mediatization of the personal that both organizes and monetizes the current generation of the web. indeed, the push to monitor and share the self in some mediated way, defines a great deal of the contemporary cultural experience as billions engage in forms of social media across the globe. alice marwick’s innovative study of the online selves of the tech community of silicon valley reveals the leading edge and strategic dimensions of this construction of an edited or life-streaming public identity: value and reputation, she reveals, are at play in this social media/mediated world. self-branding becomes both acceptable and naturalized in what alison hearn has effectively explored in her studies of visibility, influence, and the new dimensions of regular online labour. terri senft, in her sophisticated and intimate study of web-cam girls, links this new value to previous constructions of individual commodification by calling these personas formations of “microcelebrity” and further explores this through the constraining dimensions of this new public world via the branded self. persona-making as a practice, in short, is pandemic. and persona studies must necessarily be a discipline that is transdisciplinary, drawing on and cultivating a series of new connections to reveal insights into the contemporary self and the volatile world of the fabricated publics these collective selves conjure. marshall & barbour 10 the issue and the issues through its authors and articles, the first issue of persona studies begins that intellectual journey that has been explored via these parallel worlds and their parallel journals and conferences up to this point. there have been conferences, articles, and special issues (m/c: journal of media and communication 17:3) that have served as the building ground for the launch of this issue. the interest in those precursors along with the concentrated intellectual engagement of a group of scholars at deakin university associated with the persona, celebrity, publics research group and, specifically, the persona node of this group have been the demiurge that have helped build this intellectual work and, ultimately, this intellectual place and space called persona studies. this particular issue captures many of those directions from an international group of scholars exploring the dimensions of persona in vital ways. with their work and with our invitation we hope that you engage in this emerging constellation of inquiry. three papers in this issue take a single public figure as their subject. melanie piper theorises the performance of a comic’s persona through the television show louie, comparing this with the persona of the real-life actor louis c.k.. channelling the ideas of front and back stage from goffman, piper examines the role of the stand-up comic persona as a complex negotiation between an “authentic” front stage performance, a hidden back stage performance, and a semi-autobiographical television character whose fictional life mirrors and comments on the experiences of the actor who has created him. soojin lee looks at the way that artist yayoi kusama has constructed a persona that draws on existing tropes of both japanese women and visual artists more generally. lee uses persona studies focus to deal with the object focus common within art history, challenging disciplinary tradition by including the artist’s persona as a creative medium, and in recognising the persona as holding primacy in kasuma’s body of work. andrew munro’s focus is on the persona of julian assange, offering a possible new direction for persona studies by taking a rhetorical orientation. in providing a close descriptive analysis of the texts created by and about assange, munro unpacks the process by which assange became both famous and infamous, while connecting assange’s persona to the issues of digital leaking, secrecy, and publicity which appear intrinsically connected to this persona. taking a broader focus, meghan nolan’s considers the writerly persona derived from the literary traditions introduced above by examining the process of catfishing online. by using the lens of poetics to consider the performance of this type of online persona, nolan considers the roles of authority, authenticity, and moral accountability in the making of an authorial persona. in his paper “the carer persona,” timothy broady usefully and effectively challenges the value and accuracy of jung’s negative approach to persona by exploring the value of a strategically managed identity. the role of the carer often represses aspects that could be seen as more authentic—something antithetical to jung’s idea of persona—in order to assume their supporting and caring role. indeed, broady makes the point that this carer persona actually can shift the individual’s identity in a positive direction and further challenges the personal and professional identities associated with caring in provocative ways. suneel jethani and nadine raydan’s paper, “forming persona through networks,” provides a counterpoint within the issue by looking at the role of new technologies—specifically activity trackers—in the construction of persona. by considering wearable sensors as manifestations of systems of control, the authors question the role and effect of trackers in the production and understanding of the self. persona studies 2015, 1.1 11 it is with particular pride that our inaugural issue includes not just the traditional scholarly papers introduced above, but also six creative responses to persona studies. these art works were exhibited together first in deakin university’s phoenix gallery in association with the persona studies working papers symposium in february 2015, and challenge us to move beyond the written in our exploration of persona studies. artist and exhibition curator, glenn d’cruz, provides an introduction to these works, drawn from the exhibition program. we hope to continue to incorporate creative works into persona studies and look forward to continuing a collective exploration of persona with our diverse international community of scholars. end notes 1 prosopon has also since been used to describe the historical research tradition called “prosopography,” as well as a particular form of theological investigation into the person. 2 from its roots, the plural of persona can either be personae or personas. the journal and this article have chosen to identify one that both sounds plural when spoken and looks plural when in text form. 3 muds originally referred to the first generation of online role-playing games and were generally set in fantasy worlds and filled with monsters and other imaginary beings. muds is an acronym that stood for multi-user dungeons which identified that these first generation of online games were linked to the board and role-playing game dungeons and dragons. subsequently, mud stood for multi-user domains or dimensions. works cited allard, julie "le personnage en politique: secret et apparence chez hannah arendt." personne/personnage. eds. lenain, thierry and aline wiame. paris: librairie philosophique j. vrin, 2011. 25-43. print. arendt, hannah. “the public and the private realm.” the portable hannah arendt. ed. peter baehr. new york: penguin, 2000. 182-230. print. butler, judith. gender trouble. new york: routledge, 1990. print. ---. "performative agency." journal of cultural economy 3.2 (2010): 147-61. print. cairns, michael. “five predictions for academic publishing in 2015.” content forward. publishing technology, 14 jan. 2015. web. 16 apr. 2015. cooper, alan. the inmates are running the asylum : why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity. indianapolis: prentice hall, 1999. print. fawkes, johanna, “cultural complexes in professional ethics.” journal of jungian scholarly studies 6.8 (2010): 1-13. web. fiske, john. understanding popular culture. boston: unwin hyman, 1989. print. fowler, h. w., and r. w. burchfield. fowler's modern english usage. 3rd ed. oxford: oxford up, 2004. print. giddens, anthony. modernity and self-identity : self and society in the late modern age. cambridge: polity, 1991. print. goffman, erving. the presentation of self in everday life. usa: anchor books, 1959. print. hearn, a. "structuring feeling: web 2.0, online ranking and the digital reputation economy." ephemera: theory and politics in organization 10.3/4 (2010): 421-38. print. http://www.publishingtechnology.com/2015/01/five-predictions-for-academic-publishing-in-2015/ marshall & barbour 12 hearn, a., and s. schoenhoff. "from celebrity to influencer: tracing the diffusion of celebrity value across the data stream." companion to celebrity studies. eds. marshall, p. david and sean redmond. boston: wiley, 2015. print. hilliard, kyle. “what is shin megami tensei: persona? gameinformer 4 aug. 2012. web. 15 apr. 2015. hollien, h. on vocal registers, university of florida, communication sciences laboratory, 1972. web. 27 nov. 2013. jung, c. g., et al. two essays on analytical psychology. 2nd ed. princeton, n.j.: princeton up, 1966. print jung, c. g. psychological types. the collected works of c.g. jung. vol. 6. london: routledge, 1991. print. landy, robert j. persona and performance: the meaning of role in drama, therapy, and everyday life. new york: guilford press, 1993. print. marshall, p. d. "the promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media." celebrity studies 1.1 (2010): 35-48. print. marshall, p. david. celebrity and power: fame in contemporary culture 2nd edition. minneapolis: uof minnesota p, 2014. print. ---. "monitoring persona: mediatized identity, lifestreaming and the edited public self." frame: journal of literary studies 28.1 (2015): 113-131. print. marshall, p. david, chris moore and kim barbour. “persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies” celebrity studies 6.2 (2015). forthcoming. marwick, alice e. status update : celebrity, publicity, and branding in the social media age. new haven and london: yale up, 2013. print. nielsen, lene. personas user focused design. london: springer, 2013. ebook. phillips, angus and bill cope. the future of the academic journal. oxford: elsevier science, 2014. ebook. pruitt, john, and tamara adlin. the persona lifecycle : keeping people in mind throughout product design. boston: elsevier, 2006. print. reiss, timothy j. mirages of the selfe : patterns of personhood in ancient and early modern europe. stanford, calif.: stanford university press, 2003. print. senft, theresa m. camgirls : celebrity & community in the age of social networks. digital formations. new york: peter lang, 2008. print. ---. "microcelebrity and the branded self." a companion to new media dynamics. eds. axel bruns, jean burgess and john hartley. chichester: john wiley & sons, 2013. 346-54. print. turkle, sherry. life on the screen : identity in the age of the internet. new york: simon & schuster, 1995. print. wallace, david foster. infinite jest: a novel. boston: little, brown and company, 1996. print. p. david marshall holds a research professorship and personal chair in new media, communication and cultural studies at deakin university. he is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of many books including celebrity and power, 2nd edition (2014), companion to celebrity (november, 2015), new media cultures (2004), celebrity culture reader (2006), and fame games 2000. his current research is primarily focused on persona as way to understand the presentation of the contemporary and online public self. kim barbour recently completed her doctorate in communication, online culture, and persona studies with an investigation of the online presentations of fringe artists. she has published and presented on academic persona, digital identity, and the presentation of the self in a variety of leading publications and at international conferences. she is currently based at deakin university where she is a research fellow associated with the persona, celebrity, publics research group and teaches in the school of communication and creative arts. https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-future-of/9781843347835/ https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-future-of/9781843347835/xhtml/b9781843347835500069.xhtml https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-future-of/9781843347835/xhtml/b9781843347835500069.xhtml https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/the-future-of/9781843347835/xhtml/b9781843347835500069.xhtml persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 131 ‘talent offends, genius terrifies’: myth and persona in the biographical research on christopher langford james mar c röntsch n e l s o n m a n d e l a u n iv e r s it y abstract christopher langford james (1952 – 2008) was a zimbabwean-born composer, orchestrator and pianist, whose style conflated traditional european musical textures with southern african instrumentation, rhythms, and harmonies. his compositions include works such as four portraits for pianoforte in four movements (1982), songs of lamentation and remonstration (1985), images of africa (1987), and paradise regained (1999). while my research on james’s life and music has uncovered multiple angles for critical inquiry, the dominant narrative that emerged from interviews with his family, and discussions with colleagues, was that of mental illness. this article argues that mental illness – while being a very real condition experienced by james – can simultaneously be understood as doing persona work. through the intersecting frameworks of persona studies and life writing, this article critically interrogates the understanding of stereotypical concepts of mental illness within the construct of what kim barbour terms ‘artistness’. through critical examination of how mental illness is understood and interpreted as a central construction of artistness, this article speaks to the complexity of the construction of james’s biography, and how the narrative performance of james’s mental illness can be understood within the framework of persona studies. key words artistness; persona; christopher james; biography … the really important thing about myth is its character of a retrospective, everpresent, live actuality ... neither a fictitious story nor an account of a dead past; it is a statement of a bigger reality still partially alive. (malinowski 1954, pp. 102-103) in august of 2015, my doctoral supervisor stephanus muller and i travelled around south africa, interviewing christopher james’s various family members, friends, and colleagues. i had made an error in calculating the timing of our schedule, and as a result we found ourselves in pretoria on the last day of our fieldwork, with a few hours to spare before our red-eye flight back to cape town. pretoria had been where james had experienced the worst of his psychotic episodes, and he had spent time in two psychiatric hospitals in the city. we decided to occupy röntsch 132 our time by visiting weskoppies, the public hospital where james had been treated. our decision for this visit was to investigate what procedures we could follow within the ethical boundaries of research and patient care, to acquire some form of firm diagnosis on james’s condition. we arrived at weskoppies just after lunch on friday, 14 august. muller commented to me that the institution’s position outside of the city, but next to one of pretoria’s townships where the apartheid government had forcibly placed black citizens, was indicative of the way the apartheid government saw the status of the mentally ill. upon our arrival we were shocked to find that there were no staff on duty – medical or administrative – and we were left to wander the grounds without any form of guidance or supervision. the gloomy buildings, seemingly abandoned in advance of a weekend’s revelries, heightened to me a key aspect of critically engaging with james’s biography: that although james’s artist persona was performed through the myth of the tortured artist, this persona had its locus in tangibility. under my feet i felt the linoleum floors of the institution where james had been committed, i felt the physicality of the reality of james’s illness. that while the james persona was performative, that it was formed through mythic tropes surrounding how we understand “artistness”, it was also a life lived by an individual who was once very real. christopher langford james (1952–2008) was a composer born in zimbabwe (then rhodesia) who spent most of his life in south africa. his compositional voice displays a dexterous versatility ranging from small single-instrument works, to large-scale orchestral compositions. while james’s compositional output is by no means insignificant within the south african western art music landscape, my own research was created within a dearth of scholarly engagement with his work, meaning my construction of biographical sketches relied heavily on archival fragments and interviews with family, friends, and colleagues. while my research on james’s life and music has uncovered multiple angles for critical inquiry, the dominant narrative that emerged from interviews with his family, and discussions with colleagues, was that of mental illness. from 2015 to 2017, i embarked on research which involved creating – primarily through archival sources – the first ever biographical account and extensive musicological discussion of james and his compositions. this article places at its core the construction of what kim barbour (2014) terms “artistness”. through close examination of archival artefacts housed in the christopher james collection stored at the documentation centre for music (domus) at stellenbosch university, this article presents a critical discussion of how james’s artistness persona was enacted. by viewing these artefacts within persona studies literature and the context of james’s life, this article provides new critical perspectives not only on james’s life, but also on how mental illness contributes to the formation of the artist persona. this is not to say that mental illness is not a real ailment experienced by james, but that, in the context of artistness, mental illness does persona work. therefore the presence of mental illness within a composer’s biography contributes to the enactment and interpretation of their artist persona. through critical examination of how mental illness is performed and interpreted as a central construction of james’s artistness, this article speaks to the complexity of the position of mental illness within the conceptualisation of james’s biography, and how james’s mental illness can be understood as a contributor to interpretations of his artist persona. this article also considers the theoretical intersections between artistness persona and myth, and how these two discourses not only share similar intellectual frameworks and foci, but that myth forms a part of artistness persona. by considering myth as a critical intellectual lens through which to contextualise archival artefacts from the james collection, this article considers how the discourse of persona studies aligns with that of myth, and how these dual persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 133 theoretical positions can be productively utilised within biographical constructions of artists’ lives. mental health mental illness constituted an indelible presence in james’s life. in researching james’s mental health, multiple terms were used by james himself as well as his family, resulting in a lack of a precise diagnosis. christopher james’s mother, marjorie james, stated both in her interview with stephanus muller in 2010 and in her interview with me in 2015, that her son had bipolar disorder, which he had self-diagnosed in his early high school years. chris james’s daughter, melissa, stated that she preferred not to give her father’s condition a label, while his ex-wife tina described him as having both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and that his condition was complex, and not simply a case of extreme highs and extreme lows. this lack of concrete diagnosis is also evident in james’s letters, in which he described his illness as “not schizophrenic but...bi-polar disorder (manic depression)” (c james 1999b) and as a “schizoaffective bipolar disorder” (c james 2006). what is known was that chris james did have mental health issues, and that he had spent time in psychiatric hospitals in pretoria, having been admitted to both denmar and weskoppies. in his diaries, james made regular notes of his admission to and discharge from these institutions. in both private and public spheres james was open about his illness, and despite the differing opinion of how to label his condition (or whether it should be labelled at all), his family have displayed a similar openness and honesty in the years since his death. in a letter he wrote to his doctoral supervisor scott huston, dated 3 december 1986, james speaks candidly about his illness, saying: “i’ve actually just had a serious nervous breakdown from which i am still recovering”. he showed similar candour in a letter to david smith on 4 december 1996: “thereafter i suffered a major nervous breakdown and have still not recovered fully after ushaka”. this candour was also present in his letters of a more professional nature. on 20 april 2003 he wrote to his friend christopher ballantine, and after appealing for a position at the university of kwazulu natal where ballantine was a professor, continued: “regarding the schizo-affective illness i suffer from, i have made an almost complete recovery from my last major breakdown (in 1995 and 1996)”. even in his most public forms of communication, his compositions, he declared his vulnerability. titles such as four portraits (in its original title of suite schizophrenia), as well as three tranquilisers for piano, reveal james’s illness to the world. the title page of james’s symphonic tone poem paradise regained1, reads: “the work was created under difficult personal (particularly mental health) circumstances and is a tribute to south africans of all races and creeds for their resilience in the face of misfortune”. considering the openness of both my subject and interlocutors, i was able to speak with similar openness and candour about james’s mental illness in my research (and continue to invoke this privileged position as i continue to publish on james’s life). yet i felt it essential to be careful in the way i approached james’s illness, and for his illness to not be the only or predominant focal point of my research on james. mulvihill and swaninathan (2017, p. 1) describe life writing as storytelling, and there is impetus on the storyteller therefore to be mindful of “the powerful agency vested in the meaning-making storyteller, who must also understand that they are a story-creator first before they are a storyteller”. in committing to create a life-and-works study about someone suffering from these ailments, careful consideration has to be given with regard to what information is made public in the research and how it is done, and what information needs to remain private which serves no function röntsch 134 other than revelation. these considerations inaugurate the perennial questions about intrusion, respectfulness, protection and the way in which these ethical considerations interact with the selection of material. persona studies and ‘artistness’ in considering persona, moore, barbour, and lee argue that the conceptualisation and curation of persona is performative (2017, p. 4). persona can be understood less as an individual expression of self, but rather how the individual constitutes their identity within a public space or perspective (marshall, moore & barbour 2019). p. david marshall describes this as “an investigation of the presentation of self” (marshall 2014, p. 166). this public construction of self therefore becomes the way in which we wish to be considered to the world, and the creation of this persona is cultivated through decisive actions of the individual. persona studies is described by fairchild and marshall as a “mutable concept”, allowing it the intellectual dexterity to be utilised in a variety of scholarly discourses, including music studies (fairchild & marshall 2019, p. 1). while the disciplinary boundaries of this field are influx and broadening, of particular interest to my work on christopher james is kim barbour’s theoretical construction of “artistness”. barbour’s use of this term engages with “recognisable tropes and typologies that fit within established notions of what it means to be an artist” (barbour 2014, p. 2) and how these characteristics are expressed, performed and interpreted. artistness is therefore “the performance of a specific role: that of the artist” (barbour 2014, p. 5). by conceptualising the performance of artistness through a historico-culturally informed understanding of what it is to be an artist, barbour’s notion of artistness provides an intellectual lens through which to explore the persona of the artist, and how this is performed. the notion of artistness, or “the quality of being an artist” (barbour 2014, p. 5), is informed by erving goffman’s 1959 book the presentation of self in everyday life. the performative nature of the self here is the dual presentation of fulfilling a role on the one hand, and simultaneously behaving in line with societal perceptions of one who performs said role. in the case of christopher james therefore, the performance of his artistness is both the composing of music, and behaving in a way that society understands a composer to behave. thus “the performance of artistness is the performance of a socially constructed role, made up of identifiable elements drawn from historically grounded discourse of what it means to be an artist” (marshall, moore & barbour 2019, p. 134). throughout this article, barbour’s construction of artistness, as well as those performative characteristics that comprise artistness, will be used as interpretive tools to critically consider james’s own performance of artistness within the biographical paradigm. artistness and mental illness if, as marshall, moore and barbour (2019) argue, artistness is a conflation of a series of “identifiable elements”, consideration should be taken into identifying these elements and considering them critically. by constructing james’s biography through the lens of artistness, i argue that mental illness can be considered as one of the elements that make up artistness. that is to say: mental illness can be understood as a part of the construction and enactment of the artist persona. such a position could create discomfort, particularly for those who experienced james’s illness first-hand as of course mental illness is not only a part of an artist persona, but also is experientially real. it is a lived experience that – certainly in the case of james – caused pain and formed the basis of immense struggle. my position here is not to deny the reality of persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 135 mental illness, but rather to view it being simultaneously a real condition and experience, as well as being part of the artistic persona construction. in considering mental illness as a lens through which one interprets both biographical narratives and creative works, mary elene wood’s book life writing and schizophrenia: encounters at the edge of meaning, provides valuable critical discourse. wood examines the literary output of new zealand author janet frame, who herself had spent a period of eight years in and out of institutions. this critical examination of frame’s life and writing illuminates what wood terms “the public fascination with mental illness” (wood, 2013, p. 177), and how the narrative intersection of artist and mental illness is “…very compelling” (wood 2013, p. 177). yet wood is critical of this fascination, and argues that it is a delimiting approach to critical biographical considerations, stating that this: “reading of her [frame’s] ‘condition’ gave her work a certain charisma, but it also limited expectations of her as a writer and restricted interpretations of her work” (wood 2013, p. 174). this singular interpretation that reduces creative work to instances of mental illness has concerned me throughout the duration of my research into christopher james. of course, james’s illness was part of him, and this article certainly does not argue for a victorian prudishness towards this obvious reality. however, to simply define james by his mental illness is to stifle potentially interesting and accurate ways of understanding his life and reading his music. it seems productive to me that the above is a position of understanding james’s expression of his artistness persona. because the notion of artistness is in itself a construction of a series of intersectional overlapping aspects of identity, mental illness is one of a potential of arrays of performative aspects that inform an artist’s persona. in the case of chris james, mental illness has been centred within this article as the interpretive springboard in reaction largely to its centrality within my interviews. yet i argue that mental illness – in conjunction with other enmeshed myths of what it is to be an artist – informs and shapes james’s performance of his own artistness persona. mental illness as part of james’s artistness persona if “artists perform artistness” (barbour 2014, p. 45), how did james’s mental illness contribute to the performance and reception of his artistness? of particular importance here is the potentially uncomfortable proposition that mental illness is both a real condition and experience, and part of an artist persona. within the discourse of persona studies, moore, barbour and lee (2017, p. 4) write that: “the public performance of the self is neither entirely ‘real’ nor entirely ‘fictional’. the accomplishment of performativity means that a persona connects together and meshes all the various characteristics that are staged and presented in the everyday and intended to interact with others”. within the construction of a biographical narrative, there is certainly a form of duty on the part of the biographer to ensure the accuracy of their research. within the interrogation of persona, factual accuracy is less of importance, as such an approach considers what can be deduced about the artist persona through the telling of anecdotes, whether accurate or not. for an example of this, one can look at an event in james’s life. in 1986 james was hospitalized in a government-run psychiatric hospital in pretoria, called weskoppies, following a severe nervous breakdown mere days after the birth of his daughter. after james attempted to escape, he was placed in a high-security ward of the hospital where he was not allowed pens or pencils. in my correspondence with his ex-wife tina, she stated that james had taken to using röntsch 136 burnt matches in lieu of pens or pencils to sketch musical ideas on the wall of his room at weskoppies. in unpacking this anecdote, there are a number of interpretive layers, many of which feed into tropes of understanding of the artist with mental illness. such interpretations do not necessarily hinge on accuracy, even though there is no reason to believe that tina james is being dishonest about her husband’s behaviour. however, this story lines up with stereotypical perceptions of artists with mental illness as being unable to control their desire to create and who go to extremes to ensure an ability to create. this has implications on the way others view the artist, and additionally impacts the artist’s perception not only of themselves, but also of the notion that the creative impulse is one that transcends the creator’s immediate scenario and surroundings. in a letter to his father on 17 june 2001, james states that he believes composition is for him a “divinely given” gift. james also displays a dexterity in using certain tropes of the tortured artist in his own thinking about his work and his place within south african and global music history. on 6 november 2001, nearly fifteen years after he and tina divorced, he described the divorce to his mother as “probably the most tragic divorce in the history of music” (c james 2001a). in other letters, he attributes the reason for the divorce as tina being “tired of living with a composer” (c james 1989). here james utilises the trope of the misunderstood artist, impossible to put up with due to his behaviour. again, this is based in some truth. tina james described living with chris as difficult, not due to him being a composer, but rather due to his erratic use of his antipsychotic medication. james arguably aligns himself most notably to the historical trope of mentally unwell composers in the letter he wrote to marjorie on 4 february 1999, macabrely nine years to the day before his passing: as you know, mother, we composers have very controversial lives, particularly if we suffer from some emotional and mental instability. just remember how much beethoven, schumann and tschaikovsky (sic) suffered, not to mention the way in which wagner, berlioz and debussy suffered. also, as you are well aware vincent van gogh suffered enormously from being so badly misunderstood by his generation. (c james 1999b) in this letter, james lists composers whose life stories are linked almost inextricably to illness and suffering. the inclusion of van gogh – the only artist in james’s list who is not a composer – is itself equally telling, as van gogh’s struggles with mental illness are widely known. here james links his own issues with mental health with those who hold prestigious places within their artistic canons, further performing the trope of the tortured artist unappreciated in his lifetime. in critically considering these archival artefacts and biographical sketches from my research into james, what can be seen is that james’s mental illness is linked to his selfperception, as well as how others perceive him, as an artist. james’s letters seem to make this link quite explicit, and it thus seems productive to consider that james’s mental illness forms one of an array of “identifiable elements” that form his persona of artistness. in the context of james’s life, his mental illness is doing persona work. this provides an interesting extension on barbour’s notion of artistness, as notions of artist persona continued to be grappled with in the persona studies discourse. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 137 myth and the artist i would argue that, in conceptualizing and, in a sense, codifying the “identifiable elements” which make up an artist persona, critical engaging with the notion of myth is productive, as this discourse engages with similar territory as that of persona studies, but in differing ways. barbour also makes this link, arguing that artistness is informed by a discourse of the “myth of the artist” (barbour 2014, p. 5). thus, in understanding artistness, it seems pertinent to consider the notion of myth, and how this is applied to artists. it is important to understand that, as with our usage of artistness as an interpretive tool, the myths used as theoretical frameworks are not based in untruths, but often founded on a degree of fact (bain 2005; midgley 2003; finnegan 2006; samuel & thompson 1990). luisa passerini describes myth and history as being two poles, the first involving stories that are more metaphoric and the other, stories with a clearer grounding in analytical fact. oral history, passerini argues, moves between these two poles, often distorting their mutual exclusivity, and thus has the ability to link the mythical to biographical frameworks of individual lives (passerini 1990, p. 45). roland barthes (1972, p. 107) described myth as “a system of communication”, and mary midgley (2003, p. 1) wrote that myths are: “networks of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world”. this argument is also made by alistair thomson (1990). yet myth-making is not only a tool used by one person to understand another, it is also a tool for understanding ourselves, a marker for our own self-identity (finnegan 2006; samuel & thompson 1990). thus, if myth-making is an interpretive framework used internally and externally to understand a person, it can be seen as productive for the biographical scholar to analyse life stories through the lens of myth: “any life story, written or oral, more or less dramatically, is in one sense a personal mythology” (samuel & thompson 1990, p. 10). much like these personal mythologies, persona relies on the creation of artistness and the ways it is interpreted by the people to whom this is communicated. by understanding that both myth and persona play simultaneously intersecting and interlocking roles in these mechanisms of understanding, we are able to attain a deeper understanding of the subject. jean peneff writes: the mythical element in life stories is the pre-established framework within which individuals explain their personal history: the mental construct which, starting from the memory of individual facts which would otherwise appear incoherent and arbitrary, goes on to arrange and interpret them and so turn them into biographical events. (peneff 1990, p. 36) as with persona, one can understand myth in this context as being performative, a mechanism through which to understand the complexity of the individual. additionally, both discourses reject the notion that seeking truth or untruth within their respective frameworks is productive. in the case of myth, “it is too simple to dismiss such images as ‘fantasy’, for they have their reality in people’s lived experience” (finnegan 2006, p. 180) and “[t]he key step … is not the crude weighing of ‘myth’ against ‘reality’” (samuel & thompson 1990, p. 14). thus, we see two discourses with similar foci: how the presentation of the self, and the interpretation of a life, is performative, collective, and functions in the spaces between truth and untruth. those historical figures involved in creative endeavours are arguably the most susceptible to interpretation through myth, in particular through attempts to read and understand their work. as previously stated, to embody an artist persona is itself performative. the barthesian myth of the artist extends beyond the idea of the artist as seemingly transcending of the fleshy refines of the human body, and engages with an understanding of the artist who is perennially engaged with their craft, even when seemingly not actively involved: röntsch 138 what proves the wonderful singularity of the writer, is that during the holiday in question, which he takes alongside factory workers and shop assistance, he unlike them does not stop, if not actually working, at least producing. so that he is a false worker, and a false holiday-maker as well. one is writing his memoirs, another is correcting proofs, yet another is preparing for his next book. and he who does nothing confesses it as truly paradoxical behaviour, an avant-garde exploit, which only someone of exceptional independence can afford to flaunt. one then realizes, thanks to this kind of boast, that it is quite ‘natural’ that the writer should write all the time and in all situations. first, this treats literary production as a sort of involuntary secretion, which is taboo, since it escapes human determinations: to speak more decorously, the writer is prey of an inner god who speaks at all times, without bothering, tyrant that he is, with the holidays of his medium. writers are on holiday, but their muse is awake, and gives birth non-stop. (barthes 1972, p. 28). barthes speaks here to a very specific perception of the creative artist, one who works manically, without rest, to recreate the sounds or images in their head. in considering notions of creativity through a psychological lens, andrew steptoe’s description of the perception of artists as “ … preoccupied with work to the exclusion of social activity …” (steptoe 1998, p. 253) aligns with barthes’ portrayal of the writer. such considerations additionally have links with perceptions of mental illness. catherine prendergast (2017, p. 237) describes frederic jameson’s aestheticisation of schizophrenia as being: “always/already artistic, always/already literary, always/already metaphorical”. such a view links constructions of creativity and mental illness with the barthesian notion of the work-obsessed artist. what can be seen is the myths that inform artistness are intersected and interconnected. however, this notion of the evercreative and simultaneously absent-minded artist – while again having roots in real world experiences – is equally performative, and can be seen in the constructions of chris james. in her interview with me, tina also spoke of the two years that she and chris lived in cincinnati, and that site-seeing trips with him were not ideal because “… his mind was always on the music, so he wasn’t a great person to travel with…” (t james, 2015). tina here reflects a performance and perception of james’s artistness: an incompatible travel companion due to artistic distraction. here we see in james’s life a reflection of barthes’ description of the creative muse as “an inner god” to whom the artist is forced to give constant praise and attention. those holiday trips in chris and tina’s “clapped out datsun with a hole in the floor” (t james, 2015) reflect the duality of artistness and myth: that such actions can simultaneously occupy the space of reality and performance of a persona. these anecdotes reflect a perception of james’s artistness as one that, like barthes expresses, is linked to a seeming inability to occupy one’s mind with anything other than the creative impetus. mythologising christopher james the use of myth by both james himself and his family was prominent throughout my interviews and archival research. in her interviews with both myself (2015) and muller (2010), marjorie james relayed stories about her son’s childhood which indicated an early affinity for music. these ranged from her using music to soothe his infancy illnesses, to the creation of his own musical instrument out of string and a battery box, to being identified by a visiting pianist from the uk (whose name she does not remember and who makes no appearance in the archive) at the age of five as being musically gifted. as is the case with much theoretical understanding of myth as interpretation of life, there is nothing to say that these stories are untrue, but there is also no evidence to support persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 139 them either. marjorie was the only surviving member of the james family who knew chris as an infant (his sister was younger than him), and the story about the pianist from the uk is not detailed with information such as dates or names (which is not surprising – marjorie was 86 years old when she was first interviewed by muller, and 91 years old when i interviewed her). this means that finding either other interviewees to support her stories, or secondary source material about a pianist playing in rhodesia, is impossible. while the accuracy of these statements is a concern in the creation of a historical document on james’s life, their veracity is of less importance when interpreting through the lens of artistness and persona construction. what is more important is to probe marjorie’s understanding of her son and his character in light of these stories. the mythic conception of artistic traits being apparent in early childhood is discussed by christopher wiley in his 2008 doctoral dissertation “re-writing composers’ lives: critical historiography and musical biography”. wiley writes: “one key function of the childhood myths retold in biographies was to provide early indications of the adult whom the subject was to become” (wiley 2008, p. 45). indeed, we see marjorie’s description of her son following the same process: early childhood excursions into music which would be an indicator of future musical passions and this notion of the gifted child as a precursor to the creative adult. such constructs actively work to form part of james’s artistic persona. a further contributing aspect of james’s artistic persona is james’s self-perception as being a misunderstood artist, a position synonymous with post-humous recognition. throughout his diaries james writes a single phrase repeatedly: “talent offends, genius terrifies”. he also expressed a desire for certain of his compositions to only be played after his death due to his perception of them being politically controversial. writing to his daughter melissa on 6 may 2007, less than a year before his death, chris bemoaned the lack of performances of his work by macabrely stating “perhaps the performers in this country are waiting for me to die before they decide to perform my works” (c james 2007). despite the notion that biography grants the artist and their work an ability to all but cheat death by having their stories and creations live on, david attwell (2015, p. 22) writes that: “all good writers dread biography, of course, even when it is not contemptuous. biography is one of the ways in which the present generation puts the previous one firmly in the past”. within the biographical enterprise, death becomes not merely an unavoidable event within a person’s life, but a subdivision between life events and posthumous responses. it is thus not surprising that james’s performance of his own artistness is concerned with his posthumous reputation. what can be seen is the persona that james performed utilised various myths of the artist: mentally unwell, unable to focus on anything other than their art, tortured, and unrecognised in their life-time. through archival materials, this persona is enacted and communicated. it is a persona equally performed by james’s family, present in the stories they choose to foreground and reflects their perceptions of christopher james as a (stereo)typical artist. conclusion this article has spoken to the performance of james’s artistness through myth – and the reception of this performance by those he knew during his life. yet an intellectual avenue for further exploration is the extent to which i as the researcher not only perceived james’s artistness persona, but further extended it. i wrote about my first encounter with james through his archive, and how my interest piqued when i heard he had suffered from mental illness: röntsch 140 like most of south africa, i had not heard of christopher james. when muller [my supervisor] told me that he had had some form of mental disorder, my ears pricked up. i suddenly became interested, suddenly this man was interesting. i had only a few weeks previously lost a close friend to suicide, and it somehow, somewhat tenuously, seemed serendipitous. i agreed to the project. i write this nearly four years later, and i am still ashamed that my initial interest in chris was his illness. (röntsch 2017, p. 18). this response – both my initial interest in his illness as well as my retrospective shame – can be seen as my response, or even continuation of james’s performance of his own artistness. the shame i felt in viewing james through this overly simplistic lens can be seen as my own performance of my persona as a scholar, and derived from the intimacy i felt with my subject, having had an insight into his personal life through the archive. a perennial balance i have attempted to strike with my broader research on james has been the positioning of mental illness. this balance involved an acknowledgement, on the one hand, that the struggles of mental illness was part of james’s lived reality, and on the other directing the historical narrative to portray a nuanced and multi-dimensional person. one such mechanism for this balance is the consideration of myth and persona within the biographical research on james. my own initial interest in him based on his mental health betrays the fact that i was an active participant in the performance and perpetuation of his artistness persona. that for me – mental health issues were an integral construction of artistness broadly, and when james aligned with this understanding, he suddenly became interesting to me. as the field of persona studies continues to grow and find further interdisciplinary avenues for discourse, the role of persona within biography has the ability to provide – as it has with me – an interpretive and perhaps even methodological lens through which to view the biographical subject, the people in their lives who inform the research, and the researcher themselves. the consideration of the performance of artistness persona, allows for new conceptual avenues of exploration into the role of the composer within their own historical moment, and their reaction to their surrounding environment. what this research into the enactment of artistness in james’s life demonstrates, is the centrality of interpretation of persona within the biographical paradigm. like mythologies, persona may be constructed by the individual, but it requires engagement from others to be formed, shaped, and understood. in the case of christopher james, there are multiple participants in james’s artistness enactment; it is not an undertaking exclusively of his own. the ways in which james’s artist persona was received and interpreted by those in his orbit (as well as myself as would-be biographer) has formed a key position in understanding how this persona is maneuvered. in the same ways that life writing as a discourse has considered the position of its authors (and i am thinking here specifically of janet malcolm’s the silent woman, although it is a common theme within life writing), persona studies will require similar inward reflections. by positioning the biographical research on an artist like james within the scholarly mechanisms of persona studies discourses, this article has shown that understanding the elements which constitute the enactment of a persona – in this case that of artistness – can yield interesting scholarly results. exploring how the lived experience of mental illness can form an persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 141 integral part of an artist’s persona, and how positioning persona within conjoining fields of mythology and life-writing opens up new avenues for consideration of persona and its constructions. as the first scholar to conduct research into james’s life and music, i felt a sense of obligation to him and his legacy. i was granted unlimited access to an archive that held within it documents that were revealing, showing james at his most vulnerable. during my fieldwork trip with muller, james’s family showed us every hospitality, displaying a generosity and allowing unfettered access to all available resources for my research. part of my obligation – or my end of the bargain as i perceived it – was to create research that was at its core nuanced, that reflected the complexity of this individual. this meant that mental illness could not be shied away from, nor could it form the basis of sensationalist storytelling of the mad composer. i have aimed to place mental illness within my research on james in a position similar to that which it occupied in his life: as one of many constructive elements of his artist persona. end notes 1. james’s work paradise regained is only related to the milton poem by its title. see röntsch, 2020. works cited bain, a 2005, ‘constructing an artistic identity’, work, employment & society, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 25–46. barbour, k 2014, ‘finding the edge: online persona creation by fringe artists’, phd thesis, deakin university, australia. barthes, r 1972, mythologies, trans. a lavers, noonday press, new york. fairchild, c & marshall, p 2019, ‘music and persona: an introduction’, persona studies, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1-16. finnegan, r 2006, ‘family myths, memories and interviewing’, in r perks & a thomson (eds), the oral history reader, 2nd edn, routledge, london, pp. 177–183. goffman, e 1959, the presentation of self in everyday life, anchor books, new york. james, c 1986, ‘letter to scott huston’, correspondence, 3 december 1986, christopher james archive. —1989, ‘letter to susan’, correspondence, 10 january 1989, christopher james archive. —1996, ‘letter to david smith’, correspondence, 4 december 1996, christopher james archive. —1999a, paradise regained programme notes, april 1999, christopher james archive. —1999b, ‘letter to marjorie james’, correspondence, 4 february 1999, christopher james archive. —2001a, ‘letter to marjorie james’, correspondence, 6 november 2001, christopher james archive. —2001b, ‘letter to th james’, correspondence, 17 june 2001, christopher james archive. —2003, ‘letter to christopher ballantine’, correspondence, 20 april 2003, christopher james archive. —2006, ‘letter to susan’, correspondence, 25 june 2006, christopher james archive. —2007, ‘letter to melissa’, correspondence, 6 may 2007, christopher james archive. james, m 2010, interviewed by stephanus muller, ballito, 2010. —2015, interviewed by marc röntsch, ballito, 2015. james, t 2015, interviewed by marc röntsch, pretoria, 2015. malinowski, b 1954, magic, science and religion: and other essays, doubleday, new york. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2015, ‘persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies’, celebrity studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 288-305. —2019, persona studies: an introduction, john wiley & sons, chichester. röntsch 142 marshall, pd 2014, ‘persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self’, journalism, vol. 15, no.2, pp.153-170. midgley, m 2003, the myths we live by, routledge, london. moore, c, barbour, k & lee, k 2017, ‘five dimensions of online persona’, persona studies, vol. 3, no.1, pp. 1-11. mulvihill, tm & swaminathan, r 2017, critical approaches to life writing methods in qualitative research, routledge, new york. passerini, l 1990, ‘mythbiography in oral history’, in r samuel & p thompson (eds), the myths we live by, routledge, london, pp. 49-60. peneff, j 1990, ‘myths in life stories’, in r samuel & p thompson (eds), the myths we live by, routledge, london, pp. 36-48. prendergast, c 2017, ‘the unexceptional schizophrenic: a post-postmodern introduction’, in lj davis (ed), the disability studies reader, routledge, new york, pp.232-241. röntsch, m 2017, ‘an anthology of existence: explorations into the life and work of christopher langford james’, phd thesis, stellenbosch university, stellenbosch. —2020, ‘“no use calling yourself south african. south african is nothing”: understanding and exploring the concept of place and nationhood in the life and music of christopher james’, in m rensen & c wiley (eds), transnational perspectives on artists’ lives, palgrave macmillan cham, london, pp. 77-89. samuel, r & thompson, p 1990, ‘introduction’, in r samuel & p thompson (eds), the myths we live by, routledge, london, pp. 1-22. steptoe, a 1998, ‘artistic temperament in the italian renaissance: a study of giorgio vasari's lives’, in a steptoe (ed), genius and the mind: studies of creativity and temperament, oxford, oxford university press, pp. 253-70. thomson, a 1990, ‘the anzac legend: exploring national myth and memory in australia’, in r samuel & p thompson (eds), the myths we live by, routledge, london, pp. 73-82. wiley, cm 2008, ‘re-writing composers’ lives: critical historiography and musical biography’, phd thesis, royal holloway, university of london, london. wood, me 2013, life writing and schizophrenia: encounters at the edge of meaning, rodopi, amsterdam. marc röntsch nelson mandela university abstract key words mental health persona studies and ‘artistness’ artistness and mental illness mental illness as part of james’s artistness persona myth and the artist mythologising christopher james conclusion end notes works cited persona studies zolides 42 lipstick bullets: labour and gender in professional gamer self-branding andrew zolides abstract with the growing professionalisation of electronic sports (or e-sports), the individuals who compete are, like their more “traditional” sport counterparts, becoming celebrities. actual competition is a fraction of the labour a professional gamer undertakes to earn a living and generate a self-brand—there are also complex arrangements involving sponsorships, team-memberships, and digital reputation management. indeed, taking part in e-sports can be understood as another mode of celebrity-creation within a particular fan community. a key vector to the persona formation of professional gamers is gender. female professional gamers must navigate additional hurdles in the creation and management of their brand and attempts to commoditise their personas. female gamers carefully negotiate and perform their gender while maintaining their status as a competitor and influencer in gaming’s highly masculinised culture. this performativity places these young women in a precarious position not just in terms of economic stability, but also in terms of their gendered identity. this paper compares the online personas of professional gamers matt “nadeshot” haag and kelly “mrsviolence” kelley, analysing their social media presences and mainstream media appearances. reframing the labour of professional gamers as one of building a commodifiable work persona can help us better understand the economically precarious position in which professional gamers, particularly young women, find themselves. key words branding, e-sports, video games, labour, professional gaming, social media, gender, persona with the growing professionalisation of electronic sports (or e-sports), the individuals who participate in these competitions are, like their more “traditional” sport counterparts, becoming more and more celebritised. as with professional athletes in basketball or football, the actual competition is only a fraction of the labour a professional gamer undertakes to earn a living and generate a self-brand. as this article examines, reframing the labour of professional gamers as one of building a commodifiable self-brand can help us better understand the economically precarious position in which these gamers find themselves. in other words, more time must be spent analyzing the labour of professional gamers that does not involve playing games. the commodification of professional gamers involves a complex arrangement of sponsorships, team-memberships, and digital reputation management. most importantly, however, is the fact that these relationships are frequently temporary, particularly for the persona studies 2015, 1.2 43 individual gamer. competitive e-sports as a profession is almost exclusively dominated by the young, with most players only participating for a short amount of time. physical deterioration plays a factor, as response time and alertness can weaken with age, meaning older players may be at a physical disadvantage to succeed at high levels of play. there is also the impact of a constantly shifting menu of games being played at the highest levels, as professional gaming leagues constantly change the games being offered for competitive play. these changes arise because licensing deals with game developers and publishers are constantly restructuring and developers want their latest games given the most coverage on the e-sports circuit. there is also a need on the e-sport organisation side to draw in audiences to broadcasts of their events, which in turn raises sponsorship deals. to attract those audiences, popular games must be featured and rotation is necessary to keep up with interest and demand. professional gamers frequently perfect a single game or genre of games, and thus may not be able to successfully shift when a new game becomes more popular on the professional circuit. this means they may have a limited time where their game proves lucrative at the big-money events sponsored by these major gaming leagues. the major gaming leagues that make up this industry primarily cater to a male audience, as professional gaming culture is intimately tied to the masculinasation of video gaming more broadly. major league gaming (mlg), a new york-based north american professional gaming circuit and operator of the online broadcast network mlg.tv, boasts a 50% 16-34 year old demographic. even more telling, however, is the 90% male audience that leads mlg to tout itself via its “about us” webpage as “the definitive property for major advertisers to reach young men.” many have written about the positioning of women and gender in gaming spaces (see royse et al. and shaw 2014), but here we have a strong, explicit articulation of how competitive gaming is gendered. age and gender play key roles in the identity formation of professional gamers. since many of these professional gamers are in their early twenties, particular attention must be paid to their status as young adults and early labourers. the brevity of their careers weighs heavy, and future plans are always conceived of in terms of what happens after one stops competing professionally. the other key element is gender, as women in this space must navigate extra hurdles in the creation and management of their self-brand and future attempts to commoditise their labour and influence. women gamers must carefully negotiate and perform their gender while also maintaining their status as viable competitors and influencers for what is perceived as a highly male audience. this performativity in a masculine culture puts these young women in a precarious position not just in terms of economic stability, but also in terms of their gendered identity. the neoliberal information economy has led to a rise in precarity for many workers, ushering in a new culture of self-branding with a particular focus on building a credible work persona. no longer a simple pastime motivated by a desire for self-expression, digital profile management has become integral labour in its own right, and professional gaming’s young status makes it an excellent case study for this larger phenomenon. this paper thus opens with some background on the rise of e-sports and how the academy has addressed this phenomenon. while previous scholarship has primarily focused on games and competitive spaces themselves, this article argues for an expanded approach to the representational labour these professionals perform online and in press outlets. by analyzing and comparing the representational practices and surrounding discourse of two professional gamers of different genders, nadeshot and mrsviolence, we can uncover a greater understanding of the role of brand-management in the realm of professional gaming. this comparison highlights the legitimate labour professional gamers perform outside the competitive space and demonstrates that it is just as caught up in fraught gender performances as the games and competitions themselves. zolides 44 the rise of e-sports and the pro-gamer the professionalization of competitive video gaming is a story of working towards legitimation: both industry and labourers within it have constantly attempted to create more public awareness that would lead to more profits. while e-sports first blossomed in south korea, today they have become so internationally popular that “pro gamers have been spotlighted as new celebrities” (jin 81). this celebrity status indicates the degree to which online branding and persona management has become a critical part of the profession. professional gaming careers demand a broader awareness of the industry beyond the skills required to play games at a high level. as t.l. taylor argues, successful players—defined in terms of both economic gain and career longevity—earn that success through career-focused praxis like “building a recognisable name/brand for themselves, having a public reputation, dealing with contracts and sponsorships, changing teams as needed to maintain a stable playing trajectory, and in many cases adapting their play to fit the evolving nature of the competitive scene” (raising 97-98). professional gaming is thus a story not just of legitimising a competitive practice or industry, but also of legitimising a form of identity, labour, and the individuals performing them. professional gaming as a form of labour is thus more than knowledge-based economics. jin classifies professional online game players in korea as “new media workers” (84) because they do not just produce goods and services, but are able to commoditize their public personas through strategic identity management. this construction of a commodifiable self allows professional gamers to leverage their reputation and persona into other coaching, managing, and media careers after they are no longer able to play competitively. companies and advertisers are also invested in the production of these identities, “because the images of the pro gamers affects the images of the companies and the sales of the goods of those companies” (jin 97) leading to a star-making process well beyond that of gaming prowess. professional gaming as an industry is built upon corporate sponsorship and advertising, and so the labour of those participating in that field is also deeply indebted to these marketing practices. underlying all of this, of course, is the precarious nature of such labour. the world of professional gaming is certainly home to contemporary neoliberal polices and temporary employment opportunities: players can change teams or be dropped very quickly. in order to carve out a living both during and after their time as active competitors players must construct a particular work persona that is seen as valuable within the professional gaming industry. the creation of a commodified self in the realm of professional gaming involves a complex interaction between individual and institution, persona and platform, and notoriety and network. at stake are the financial lives and capitalistic statuses of these gaming labourers, not just in the present, but also in their potential futures. what makes this particularly troubling is the fact that most of these players are in their late teens or 20s, prime years for career and job training with more long-term stability. these players quickly realise the stakes in themselves as products, “in some senses… training themselves to be more valuable commodities” (jin 98). it is for this reason that critics should pay more attention to what happens after a professional gamer has hung up the controller, as it is more important to their status as workers than simply what goes on during their time in competition. professional gaming has high stakes—both economic and cultural—for its players beyond the obvious tournament cash prizes. every competition is another opportunity for gaining followers, building one’s reputation, and crafting a marketable persona that will allow a professional gamer to earn money through sponsorships and endorsements well after they have stopped playing competitively. while this might be true for a variety of industries that value individual persona management, professional gaming comes with the problematic identity politics of video game culture more broadly. persona studies 2015, 1.2 45 the gender disparity in professional gaming is steep as the vast majority of audiences and participants are men. t.l. taylor explains how this gendering is relative to the larger “geek” culture surrounding video gaming. this is most evidently seen in the complex relationship between “geek masculinity” and “hegemonic masculinity” (raising 112). while hegemonic masculinity is more traditionally associated with physical prowess often displayed in traditional sports, geek masculinity, in contrast, emphasises skill and knowledge of technology or science. these two masculinities are “typically framed in opposition” (raising 114), yet are both present in professional gaming as a sport-like competition and a technology-based activity. in e-sports the result is a highly masculine space based on multiple—and sometimes conflicting— masculine ideals. so where does femininity, as well as the female professional gameri, fit in? women are often framed as outsiders in both geek and sport culture, making them doubly marginalised in the e-sport realm that combines these: “the on-the-ground lives of women in pro gaming reflect a complex navigation, with not only the practical issues of being a top e-sports player, but the additional challenges being a woman in the scene presents” (t.l. taylor, raising 122). these challenges for women in professional gaming extend into the other forms of labour they perform, like self-branding. when crafting these gaming personas, the way to craft this identity as female can take many forms; taylor calls them “compensatory signals” meant to reaffirm the player’s gender in this highly masculinised sphere (raising 123). these signals can be “pictures (or avatars) meant to convey sexual attractiveness, mentions of other ‘girlie’ interests, or notations of hobbies or other activities that perform a more traditional femininity” (t.l. taylor, raising 123). a more aggressive, traditionally masculine stance may be taken up in order to present oneself as not only belonging to, but also dominating the video game being played. interestingly, some women “try to simultaneously enact both ends of the spectrum – a dazzling display of performative agility where they come to represent both a hyper masculinity and femininity” (t.l. taylor, raising 123). taylor does not go into more detail on this, but the case studies in this paper will show how these actions of reaffirming femininity while also reinforcing masculine dominance also become part of the self-branding strategies that some women professional gamers undertake. gendering practices and structures within the professional gaming industry often mirror those of traditional mainstream sports, both intentionally and unintentionally. as taylor, jenson, and de castell note, “the e-sports industry may be replicating the same ornamental and secondary role of women well established in the domain of professional sports” (240). this comes from the representations and discourses of gender within the professional gaming spaces as well as in the secondary markets surrounding it in websites, journalism, and promotional material. effectively, these elements combine to create a masculine domain that rewards and encourages a hypermasculine subject position. this comes about in several ways, mostly in the limited kinds of roles that are made available to women who wish to participate in this industry. most women who appear at professional gaming events are often sexualised in supportive roles such as the cheerleader or promotional “booth babe,” both of which have their own conceptions of how to perform femininity. taylor, jenson, and de castell show how those women who are active participants are also subject to increased scrutiny, particularly when it comes to appearances. in their analysis of one competitive gamer with the professional handle, final fantasy, they note her contradictory need to perform a heteronormative femininity—as dictated by the culture—as well as gaming competence as a competitor. this results in her being one of the only gamers to emphasise her gender through her appearance during competitions, both in her use make up and more formal feminine outfits, as opposed to the young men frequently in sweatpants and casual clothing (taylor et al, 245). final fantasy and other professional gamers like her do have some agency within these spaces in how they perform their feminine identities. it is made clear, for example, that final zolides 46 fantasy is self-aware of her status as an “outsider” and expresses a desire to distance herself from the more objectified women in the industry. taylor, jenson, and de castell point out that final fantasy was adamant that her reasons for participating were to compete and win, effectively positioning herself against the “booth babes” whose purpose is to promote and gain attention. this means female gamers perform their femininity within and against the expectations of a space and culture that privileges and promotes women as sexualized objects. men are also constricted in their self-presentation in this hypermasculine environment that encourages heteronormative behavior. like the performances of femininity described above, these accepted forms of performative masculinity are reinforced via discourse and practice much as they are in mainstream sports. nicholas taylor describes professional gaming as a culture of “safe or sanctioned physical contact that act as forms of self-regulations and bodily discipline in the service of gendered subjectivity” (237). these forms of heteronormative male-to-male contact include high-fiving, slight hugging, and back-patting, but are restricted to very quick celebratory moments. masculinity is also performed through how male gamers dress, and is particularly apparent when contrasted with female gamers’ more “made-up” appearances. clothing choices for male gamers is frequently casual with jeans, t-shirts, sweatpants, and hoodies all being the norm. these clothes also serve a marketing function as shirts or sweatshirts often sport graphics for teams or logos of sponsoring brands. formal attire that could be construed as overly fashionable—and thus possibly feminine—is almost non-existent among players. only male commentators or others working for the hosting company might appear in business casual attire. the overly casual display and seeming disinterest in fashion is, in fact, a calculated form of presenting a heteronormative geek masculinity that belittles and avoids feminized forms of fashion. the physical surroundings and cultural apparatuses that are a part of e-sports competitions are large contributors to the masculinised culture of competitive gaming, but we must also consider the institutional parameters that influence this gendering. janina maric addresses this in her empirical study of e-sporting events, noting not just the actions of the individuals participating, but the structures laid down at an institutional level. for example, in tournaments where male and female participants are separated into their own divisions, the male side is naturalised in the nomenclature such as counter-strike: the women’s division, on the other hand, is called counter-strike female. since mainstreams sports are also divided along gender lines, the companies’ reasoning goes, instituting such divisions in e-sports will make the endeavor appear more legitimate. this is not often the case in the us where teams and divisions are all inclusive and there is growing pressure for competitions to stop dividing altogether (mullis). while there are crucial differences between traditional sports and e-sports, what is important here is not so much in how they are played, but the business behind them. female gamers, “booth babes,” and cheerleaders are seen as desirable from a sponsor perspective, as they can generate significant and valuable attention and thus provide a powerful platform to showcase gaming-related products to a presumably heterosexual male audience. as maric notes, “unlike (traditional) sports, gendering within e-sport is not understood as a result of competing bodies, but as the result of an economic logic which relies on gendered bodies for marketing” (215). the bodies of male and female gamers are not divided and gendered so much for their physical abilities as for their potential value and contribution to the sponsorship system undergirding the entire enterprise. these women thus carry an additional value as bodies to attract attention—rather than skilled agents—creating additional pressures in their self-presentation as both competitors and profitable commodities. e-sport competitions are highly masculinised spaces with gendered practices and cultures, but that gendering structure does not end when the competition is over. for persona studies 2015, 1.2 47 professional gamers, the need to brand themselves online comes with just as many gendered expectations as their competitions. the case studies that follow reveal how professional gamers must act within and against gendered expectations, both in press interviews and in their own social media. while the masculinity of male gamers like matt “nadeshot” haag is less explicitly part of their strategies of self-representation due to it being considered the norm, female gamers like kelly “mrsviolence” kelley must directly address questions regarding their femininity and are constantly, explicitly reaffirming their gender performances. the gendered realities of professional e-sports combined with the precarious and limited nature of the labour involved leads to a highly gendered and conflicted form of self-branding. what’s your handle? nadeshot, mrsviolence, and gendered gamers the presentation of professional gamers in the press often focuses on their young age and non-traditional labour practices. articles written about matt “nadeshot” haag, a 21-year old competitive call of duty player currently signed with optic gaming, are indicative of a larger discourse surrounding professional gamers that establishes them as a new form of labourer. most importantly, this discourse frequently describes not just the act of performing in gaming competitions, but the use of social media in the generation of larger self-brands, indicating the strong link between professional gaming and the generation of commodifiable online personas. the discursive construction of haag within these media outlets frames his persona as an accomplished entrepreneurial success story as well as a vision of a future industry. a january 26, 2014 article in the chicago tribune by john keilman summarised the dual role of professional gamers as competitors and cultural icons with the headline, “pro gamers enjoy celebrity, income from heeding the 'call.'” the sub-header continues this connection by emphasising the ability to form a “steady living” while also using social media sites for “capitalising on fandom.” language in the article emphasises the disconnect between haag’s age, profession, and degree of celebrity noting, “the lanky, dark-eyed 21-year-old is a global celebrity to an enormous number of young people, very few of whom know him as matt.” the description focuses on the young age of both the player and his audience, as well as hints at the fact that such connections are not “traditional” in the sense that haag’s fame is for his online persona, nadeshot, rather than his given name. nadeshot is clearly a successful brand as haag charges $4.99 per month for fans to watch him practice on his twitch.tv channel. this is a common practice among professional gamers, not unlike gaining “backstage” access to watch athletes in a non-competitive atmosphere. drawing on advice from his team and teammates, haag established financial stability through means outside the tournaments, a skill represented as necessary to the life of a professional gamer. playing for optic gaming on national and international stages becomes another opportunity to build a fan base, which leads to more direct income for haag. suddenly prize money is not the only thing on the line at a competitive gaming tournament: a precious audience is also up for grabs. haag’s other primary source of income is through his sponsorship deal with red bull. haag is part of their e-sports division of athletic talent and they promote his recent activities, training, and e-sports events on their website. the site includes footage shot by haag that appears on his personal youtube channel where he discusses his team’s training regimen at the red bull headquarters. moreover, the site also discusses personal events surrounding his performance, always using his handle nadeshot rather than matt or haag, and frequently promotes his social media activity through hyperlinks and images. one article, for example, mentions how, “nadeshot also finds himself under the weather. a few days before the call of duty championships, he suffered a bout of the stomach flu that required a trip to the hospital. this time it’s a sore throat and cold” (smith). this is followed by a screen capture from haag’s (verified) twitter account where he mentions the illness. references to haag’s personal life and integration with the red bull sponsorship indicate how haag is always performing his persona on these social media sites both for his fans and his business partners. zolides 48 despite running his youtube and twitter accounts on his own, he references his sponsorship to red bull in those account profiles. while red bull is not producing any of this content (although they do have in-house publicity teams), they are still using it to promote haag and his upcoming tournament. we see a symbiotic relationship here between sponsor and athlete that challenges formulations of celebrity commodity branding systems as exclusively top-down. haag clearly has autonomy to construct his online persona through various social media accounts while maintaining his affiliation with red bull. at the same time, however, red bull is able to exploit haag’s social media labour by reposting this content as they build up their own brand within the professional gaming community. haag becomes a team member not just for his play in tournaments, but also for his actions online. essentially, the nadeshot persona is a product of haag as well as his corporate sponsors although haag performs most of the labour. haag is not an atypical example of the type of relationship a professional gamer might have with his or her sponsor and the responsibilities gamers undertake to build a fan base on their own. in neither his own selfgenerated content nor profiles like the red bull and chicago tribune articles is haag’s gender made a particular point of interest, which is very much in contrast to women professional gamers whose gender is frequently mentioned across their media footprint. the male gender is thus positioned as “neutral” or “natural” within this space, reinforcing the masculine identity as primary for professional gamers. representations of nadeshot (whether generated by himself or by others) also prioritise a particular mode of masculinity that privileges violence and enforces heteronormative behavior. these markers of “traditional” masculinity are both performed by haag and imprinted upon him from outside. the gamertag, nadeshot, itself emphasises violence tied to his particular competition in the call of duty series, as the name is a reference to killing someone with a grenade instead of shooting them.ii the way gamertags, slang, and ingame banter build upon these apparatuses of violence affirm a hegemonic masculinity built on aggression, competitiveness, and technological skill (donaldson 644). haag’s heteronormative masculinity comes not so much from presenting himself as a sexual or gendered being, but from the privilege of him not having to present himself as such. this is in contrast to female gamers whose sexuality is a constant point of representation and performance both in terms of appearance and interactions with other gamers. women gamers are constantly presented and considered in such a way as to invoke their sexuality and/or gender, marking them as “other” in this masculine space. kelly “mrsviolence” kelley is a 26 year-old professional first-person shooter (fps) gamer. like many professional gamers, kelley has an extensive social media presence wherein she not only builds her status as a professional gaming celebrity, but also performs her gender in a way that both sets her apart from and embeds her within the masculine space of professional video gaming. as we shall see, kelley emphasises both her femininity and her dominance in a masculine field across various media channels to show that she belongs to a sphere that can and does include femininity. kelley’s negotiation of traditional binary gender identities is immediately present in her choice of gamertag or nickname that all professional gamers take on. while nicknames in more traditional sports may be a mix of journalistic creativity mixed with a dash of self-branding, professional gamers often choose their nickname in the same way non-professional gamers choose their account names at home. the choice of nickname is important beyond selfexpression, as it becomes intrinsically tied to the gamer and part of a much larger branding practice that extends outside the realms of competitive play. kelley’s choice of mrsviolence is significant, as it emphasises both her gender as well as her penchant for violent video games like first-person shooters. in interviews she frequently emphasises how she only plays violent games (typically first-person shooters), hence “violence” is evidence of both her personal persona studies 2015, 1.2 49 preference in genre, but can also be read as her desire to affirm her belonging to this masculine space (and a response to those who see her as invading it). there is also the curious choice to use “mrs” rather than “ms,” which implies that mrsviolence is married or takes the name “violence” from a partner (presumably a man). while kelley does date a male professional gamer, it would be incorrect and inappropriate to conclude she derives her game playing tendencies from him as she was already competing before that relationship. ultimately, the use of “mrs” is troubling to her strategies of self-representation as an independent woman, but i would speculate that her use of “mrs” was ill-conceived and, perhaps, was only meant to be read as a humourous way of juxtaposing the informal violent worlds of gaming with the more formal, domestic-sounding “mrs.” although she is active on twitter, facebook, and live-streaming gameplay on twitch.tv, kelley’s youtube page carries the most significant and influential content that crafts her online persona. the banner on youtube notes her various jobs in the professional gaming industry, noting her roles as a “pro gamer,” “show host,” and “livestreamer.” there are also links to her sponsors, like gaming gear companies razorzone and gunnars, the latter of which is a brand of gaming glasses that kelley praises in many videos. here, kelley reaffirms her corporate sponsorships out of contractual obligation, but these statements also work to legitimate her public identity within an industry where achieving sponsorships is a sign of success. while still competing in various tournaments, kelley, like other gamers, has built a larger online following that allows her to net lucrative sponsorship deals to promote products not just during competitive play, but also on various social media platforms. these products are primarily highpriced video game peripheralsiii that add to her public image as a highly competent and technologically savvy competitor, key markers of success in the masculine culture of professional gaming. kelley not only attempts to fit in and belong to this masculine culture, but also to stand out as feminine within it. her youtube video series plays a critical role in building the feminine aspects of her public persona, often mashing up hegemonic symbols and markers of both genders. each video begins with a quick montage of images mixing gameplay and older youtube videos of kelley. the various border designs around these images mixes traditional masculine and feminine iconography in unique ways. the first border design is a pink background with various types of makeup displayed on the corners: a compact with blush or powder, mascara, and other makeup tools. the next border, silhouettes of guns on a purple border, surrounds images of a first-person shooter played by mrsviolence. a graphic overlays the main video and border with the image of two lines of ammunition, not unlike a bandolier, but with the tips of the ammunition coloured pink. the result is a hybrid ammunition that looks like both a bullet and lipstick. the final piece of the montage features a flower-topped bright orange background with a clip where kelley takes up the centre of the frame while chatting into her webcam. the introduction ends with a shot of kelley being awarded a giant novelty cheque for $50,000 for winning a battlefield 3 tournament. this montage that plays before every video on kelley’s youtube channel sets up an interplay of femininity and violence, blurring the line between conventional masculine and feminine iconography. bright pastel colours emphasise her femininity, and dramatically contrast the greys and browns of the first-person shooter role played in parts of the montage. the stark difference between the colour palettes represents the difference in the masculine and feminine spaces, but connecting them reflects mrsviolence’s belonging to both. images of makeup and flowers seem to reinforce her femininity in contrast to the videos of violent gameplay in which she participates. ammunition coloured to look like lipstick perhaps best encapsulates the complex identity kelley is performing. the persona of mrsviolence is built upon disjunction, seen in images and colours being paired in unique ways. her desire to mark her own online spaces as feminine must also meet the demands and expectations of a gaming zolides 50 culture that expects masculinity: the result is a contestation of gender norms through the melding of masculine and feminine symbols. one of the most direct ways kelley crafts her gaming persona is through a series of videos on her youtube channel called “question & answer.” in these videos kelley addresses fan questions and promotes her competitions, media appearances, and sponsors. in “mrs violence [sic] question & answer #4 teamredbaron giveaway!,” for example, kelley notes that the video is sponsored by “team red baron pizza” and steelseries professional gaming gear which explicitly highlights her value and significance in the gaming community. again, the highlighting of brands fulfills both contractual obligations as well as contributes to her persona as successful within the field—in fact she claims she is the only female gamer to have been sponsored by red baron pizza (“mrs violence [sic] question & answer #4”). in “mrs violence [sic] question & answer #2,” kelley answers what she describes as “an offensive question” that asks why she wears “so much” makeup. she hesitates before answering, suggesting that it is not something she wants to address, but she does provide a personal answer. first, she reflects on her personal history growing up feeling, as she characterises it, unfeminine: “when i was growing up, i didn’t play with makeup. i didn’t play with dolls, makeup, girls… eww. so i was a boy growing up.” claiming that her youth did not involve these self-described “girl activities,” mrsviolence goes on to state how “now is [her] time to shine with the makeup.” she emphasises that she has spent her money on the makeup and that she is “obviously going to have fun with it.” using makeup is presented as a way for kelley to define her femininity as well as her adulthood. she chooses to use makeup: it is an agency borne of a personal growth into womanhood as well as a mark of her success as a professional gamer/labourer which is, again, irrevocably tied up in those lipstick bullets. the question and answer videos also provide a forum for kelley to construct her gamer persona as one built on a kind of femininity that challenges certain hegemonic ideologies (and leaving others alone like her use of “mrs,” makeup, and other traditionally feminine symbols). when asked what her favourite part of working at the video game retail chain gamestop, she answers: “proving every dude wrong that thought i was not a gamer… so you never know guys. so stop judging women the moment you walk into gamestop” (“mrs violence [sic] question & answer #4). kelley is using her celebrity to not only build a persona and valuable audience that increases her value as a commodity, but also to address issues of shaming women in gaming culture. by answering a question this way, she moves beyond her role as professional gamer and into an ambassador role for women gamers more broadly. in “mrs violence [sic] question & answer #5gunnaroptiks deal, favorites, & esports!,” she begins the question and answer segment by showing various screengrabs from social media all featuring forms of questioning if she is single, if she has a boyfriend, or if there is a “mrviolence.” she emphasises that anyone who has followed her for the past two years should know the answer, as she has been very public about her relationship with fellow professional gamer tom “tsquared” taylor. this montage is designed to demonstrate that such a question is unnecessary and, ultimately, disrespectful: questions about her relationship availability are clearly frequent, and the sheer quantity indicate a larger cultural issue. her frustration with the question further cements her image as an “outsider” in gaming as she implies that such questions are overwhelmingly common (and offensive) for women gamers. kelley’s interest in the larger political project of female empowerment in gaming communities was also emphasized in a 2011 gamespot interview. when asked if she would like to say anything else, she takes the opportunity to connect to her fans on a personal level by referencing broadly some personal hardships she says her fans would know about and to make a statement on women in professional gaming: “thanks for all the support you guys. it’s been a rough couple years, but i’m here to dominate. i’m here showing you guys that female gamers persona studies 2015, 1.2 51 can definitely win it” (sampson). again, in an interview with cnet, kelley articulates a long term desire to be “the ultimate female gaming ambassador”: there needs to be a female ambassador in competitive gaming. we need someone out there who can s**t [sic] on boys and say they can s**t [sic] on boys. and i feel like i’m the only girl who can do that right now. (profis) in both of these interviews, kelley uses her celebrity in order to call for change in the gender dynamics of professional gaming. noting the difficulty and lack of female role models and representation, kelley sees her role as one of stewardship and shows a greater awareness for the gendered nature of professional gaming than one sees in the public commentary of many male professional gamers. haag, for example, is never questioned about the role of men or women in professional gaming. kelley’s social media persona and branding thus goes well beyond her need for financial and economic stability in the pursuit of earning a living: she creates an explicitly political dimension to her public persona. however, kelley’s calls for new gender dynamics and more acceptance of female gamers is also self-serving as becoming the “female ambassador” in competitive gaming also means more publicity for her. this is not to say that her intentions are entirely selfish, but by positioning herself as a spokesperson for women within professional gaming, kelley builds on her image as an empowered woman in a masculine space which has strong value in generating her audience. the two case studies presented here help show the ways professional gaming both imprints and is influenced by traditional gender norms and how this affects persona construction and self-branding for professional gaming labourers. it is worth noting that these case studies replicate and reflect the overall binary gender constructions of gaming where there is little acknowledgement or engagement in trans or queer identities. this silence is at odds with a culture where the use of avatars and the creation of digital representations of identities within virtual spaces enables and, perhaps, even encourages gender identity play and experimentation. adrienne shaw analyzes interviews with those in the video industry to surmise, “it is not necessarily a matter of homophobic exclusion (though that exists too) but rather specific concerns of this industry make including glbt content difficult and shape how the content that does get into games ultimately looks and plays” (“putting the gay in games”). in other words, the solution to the lack of video game diversity must take place at an industrial, cultural, and formal level. more diversity behind-the-scenes of the video game and professional gaming industry is needed in order to pave the way for more diverse representations in games and among those who play them for leisure and for work. making money and crafting identities in e-sports a decade ago, “professional gamer” was not a job title. now e-sports have emerged as a new form of spectator sport that takes advantage of the technological, cultural, and political foundations of the present in order to craft a new experience for player and viewer alike. video games have broadened as a medium that extends beyond entertainment to include education, training, and now professional, organised competition. these new uses are still being explored and understood, and the people looking to profit or earn a living off of such activities find themselves in a precarious position in an ever-changing field. the people with the most at stake in e-sports are the professional gamers, as they pay in time, energy, and physical strength for the opportunity to win prize money and gain sponsorships. due to the field’s unpredictable nature and short shelf-life, it is becoming more and more necessary to make money elsewhere, primarily through building a fan base via social media that can then be monetised through advertisements and sponsorships. in many ways the professional gamer is a signal for a growing trend in all web 2.0 neoliberal economics for it epitomises the rise of personal accountability and the need to generate digital influence and audiences in order to position oneself in the highly competitive, highly precarious economic system. zolides 52 that said, divisions and inequities along gender lines still persist in this new economic system, and this is especially true for the world of professional gaming. as an offshoot of the highly-masculinised video game culture, e-sports is a heavily policed space, often unwelcoming of signs of femininity or any perceived “attacks” on heteronormative masculinity. just as all esport professional players find themselves in a perilous position to earn online notoriety that can then be commoditised, female professional gamers face additional hurdles in crafting their online identities in these spaces for they also must also explicitly explain, negotiate, and perform their femininity. for female professional gamers, what is at stake is not only their economic livelihoods, but their identities as women, as gamers, and as “female gamers.” selfbranding for female professional gamers must be understood as both an act of economic independence and stability as well as one of personal, political identity work. end notes i“female gamer” commonly appears as legitimate in industry discourse, and thus appears in this article as reflective of that usage. i have otherwise tried to avoid the phrasing. ii nadeshot is shorthand for “grenade shot.” iii auxillary devices for playing video games include controllers, keyboards, computer mice, and even eyeglasses. works cited “about us.” major league gaming. web. 8 june 2015. castillo, michelle. “video games: when girl gamers go pro.” time. 11 oct. 2010. web. 8 june 2015. chan, dean. “negotiating online computer games in east asia: manufacturing asian mmorpgs and marketing asianess.” computer games as a sociocultural phenomenon: games without frontiers war without tears. eds. andreas jahn-sudmann and ralf stocmann. new york: palgrave, 2008. 186-196. print. donaldson, mike. “what is hegemonic masculinity.” theory and society 22.5 (1993): 643-657. print. enstad, nan. ladies of labor, girls of adventure: working women, popular culture, and labor politics at the turn of the twentieth century. new york: columbia up, 1999. print. hutchins, brett. “signs of meta-change in second modernity: the growth of e-sport and the world cyber games.” new media & society 10.6 (2008): 851-869. print. jin, dal yong. korea's online gaming empire. cambridge, ma: mit, 2010. print. keilman, john. "pro gamers enjoy celebrity, income from heeding the 'call'." chicago tribune 26 jan. 2014. web. 8 june 2015. kelley, kelly mrsviolence. “mrs violence question & answer #2.” youtube. 25 feb. 2012. web. 8 june 2015. ---. “mrs violence question & answer #4 teamredbaron giveaway!” youtube. 31 july 2012. web. 8 june 2015. ---. “mrs violence question & answer #5gunnaroptiks deal, favorites, & esports!” youtube. 18 july 2013. web. 8 june 2015. marcia, janina. “gaming at the e-sport event: mediatized confrontations (re)negotiating sport, body, and media.” playing with virtuality: theories and methods of computer game studies. eds. benjamin bigl and sebastian stoppe. frankfurt: pl academic research, 2013. 205-223. print. marshall, p. david. “persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self.” journalism 0.0 (2013): 1-18. print. persona studies 2015, 1.2 53 mullis, steve. “yearning to be a 'true sport,' e-sports group changes gender rules.” npr. 6 july 2014. web. 21 july 2015. profis, sharon. “meet mrs. violence, your not-so-average gamer.” cnet. 14 dec. 2011. web. 8 june 2015. royce, pam, joon lee, baasanjav undrahbuyan, mark hopson, & mia consalvo. “women and games: technologies of the gendered self.” new media & society 9.4 (2007): 555-576. print. sampson, aaron. “mrs violence interview” gamespot. 18 oct. 2011. web. 8 june 2015. shaw, adrienne. “putting the gay in games : cultural production and glbt content in video games.” games and culture 4.3 (2009): 228-253. print. ---. gaming at the edge: sexuality and gender at the margins of gamer culture. minneapolis: u of minnesota p, 2014. print. smith, ryan. “going for glory: optic nadeshot at mlg anaheim.” red bull. 28 june 2013. web. 8 june 2015. taylor, nicholas, jen jenson & suzanne de castell. “cheerleaders/booth babes/halo hoes: progaming, gender and jobs for the boys.” digital creativity 20.4 (2009): 239-252. print. taylor, nicholas. “play globally, act locally: the standardization of pro halo 3 gaming.” international journal of gender, science and technology. 3.1 (2011): 229-242. print. taylor, t.l. play between worlds: exploring online game culture. cambridge, ma: mit, 2006. print. ---. raising the stakes: e-sports and the professionalization of computer gaming. cambridge, ma: mit, 2012. print. turner, graeme. “approaching celebrity studies.” celebrity studies. 1.1 (2010): 11-20. print. andrew zolides is a phd candidate in media & cultural studies at the university of wisconsin-madison. he researches the labour and industry of online self-representation by comparing the social media strategies of celebrities, companies, and activist groups. holland 90 “my battery is low and it's getting dark”: the opportunity rover’s collective persona trav is holla nd c h a r l e s s t u r t u n i v e r s i t y abstract the mars exploration rover opportunity operated on mars from 2004 until it was disabled by a dust storm in 2018. its demise was declared in february 2019 after months of unsuccessful recontact attempts by scientists at the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa). this announcement sparked a global outpouring of grief that demonstrated people understood and related to the robot in a notably human-like manner. in short, it had been given a collectively understood persona. this paper presents a study of 100 digital postcards created by users on a nasa website that demonstrate the ways in which people expressed love, grief, hope, and thanks for opportunity’s fourteen years of operation on another planet. in presenting this case study, the paper argues that certain personas are collective achievements. this is especially likely to occur for robots and other inanimate objects which have no centrally controlled or developed persona. the paper is situated within existing persona studies literature to extend and stretch the definition of persona studies and therefore expand the field in productive ways to incorporate the study of non-human personas. key words opportunity rover; mars; non-human; robot; nasa introduction on february 13, 2019, science journalist jacob margolis posted a message on the social network twitter that said the national aeronautics and space administration’s (nasa) jet propulsion laboratory (jpl) was preparing to send the final message in a months-long attempt to rouse the dormant mars exploration rover (mer) opportunity (margolis 2019a). opportunity and its twin, mer spirit, had been on mars since january 2004 and had continued to operate well beyond an initial 90-day mission window. although spirit had ceased transmission in 2010, opportunity continued into 2018 until “a severe mars-wide dust storm blanketed its location” (nasa 2019). the rover was solar-powered and the dust storm had cut off its access to sunlight. on twitter, margolis further posted: “the last message they received was basically, ‘my battery is low and it’s getting dark’” (margolis 2019b). this message was later separated from the context in which it was posted and widely claimed as a literal final message from opportunity (margolis 2019c). opportunity did not respond to any of the messages sent from earth in 2019 and so the mission was declared to have reached its end (nasa 2019). subsequently, nasa established a dedicated webpage under the broader mars.nasa.gov website which invited users to send messages in the form of digital ‘postcards’ to opportunity (nasa n.d.a). at the time of persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 91 writing, over 30,000 such postcards have now been created and remain displayed on the nasa website. users can press a button that refreshes the postcards to display a suite of 15 at a time. can a robot die? if not in the physical sense, might we consider such a robot dead if it ceased to operate after 14 years on the surface of another planet and its space agency invited the global human population to mourn it as if it had died? margolis’ interpretation of opportunity’s final transmission gave a very human sense of death to the end of the rover’s mission, while the collective outpouring of grief evidenced in the digital postcards and other locations are reminiscent of that following a celebrity death. on npr, simon (2019) characterised margolis’ tweet as a “poetic translation of the digital bursts, bytes, and squeaks oppy [opportunity] sent out before going silent”, concluding “we might all hope for such a gentle end to a useful life.” the demise of this robot elicited widespread emotion. people talked to and about it as if it had lived and it had died. in doing so, they displayed an understanding of opportunity as a persona one with which they could communicate and empathise. this paper argues that opportunity is best understood as a collectively achieved persona, a conceptualisation that may prove fruitful for expanding and stretching both the definitional and methodological models for understanding, accessing, and assessing personas and their presentation. marshall, moore & barbour (2020, p. 3) have argued that “persona is not a collective” (emphasis in original) but is instead “a way to negotiate one’s self into various collectives”. i am not directly contesting that viewpoint, but i am seeking to extend the concept of persona so that certain types of persona can be understood as a collective achievement as demonstrated through the case study presented in this paper. this aim is achieved through a careful textual study of artefacts such as a sample of the postcards described above and other prominent contributions to understandings of opportunity’s persona, such as margolis’ viral tweets. the collective achievement of this persona is possible because this robot, though itself a collective achievement of all the relevant teams and organisations that contributed to its creation and operation, does not have a centrally controlled persona. in the absence of such a centre, collective understandings of the rover’s persona have nonetheless developed among its fans and space aficionados around the world. this paper is situated within the existing persona studies literature, with extensive reference especially to moore, barbour & lee’s “five dimensions of online persona”, being “public, mediatised, performative, collective and having intentional value” (2017, p. 1). it demonstrates that while the online collective achievement of opportunity’s persona includes many of these dimensions, it challenges others. this re-contextualisation of a non-human persona challenges what our understanding of persona might be. if persona studies is “the close study of the public self” (barbour, marshall, & moore 2014, n.p), how might we interpret robots with clear personas that people write to, speak to, or mourn when they do not have a clear ‘self’? the ways in which people responded to opportunity’s demise demonstrate that persona may be more than a unified, created (or curated) identity, particularly for such non-human objects. instead, the personas of these objects can be dispersed and collective attempts at meaning making. robot emissaries the fact that opportunity, like spirit and indeed other extra-terrestrial rovers and probes, was a stand-in for human beings in travelling to environments we ourselves cannot yet access is another key aspect to its development of a collectivised public persona. along with a myriad of other spacecraft and landers, both on mars and elsewhere in the solar system, these rovers constitute the primary means by which human beings access and experience places that we holland 92 cannot currently attend in our embodied human form. such robotic spacecraft are our primary means of accessing and understanding the solar system since “what all robots have in common is that they perform tasks that are too dull, dirty, delicate or dangerous for people” (hubbard 2005, p. 651). this includes, for the present, exploration outside cislunar space (that is, beyond the earth-moon system). messeri contends that “mars was made a place due in part to images of local landscapes” (2016, p. 118). gorman likewise notes that “the palette of the solar system outside the blue earth has grown… martian reds are familiar now as we’ve followed the journeys of rovers” (2019, p. 188). the landers and rovers, including opportunity, that provided hundreds of thousands of detailed images of mars have assisted in human conceptions of the planet as a place which we might someday visit ourselves. whereas the phenomenologist merleau-ponty argues that the body constitutes “our means for having a world” (2012, p. 147), such rovers and other spacecraft might be understood as our collective means for inhabiting places such as mars. such vehicles are clearly suitable for projections of persona since there is no human form in which persona can imbue. in this way, opportunity becomes an extension of humanity, in much the same way that mcluhan famously defined all media in the title of his famous book as “the extensions of man” (sic), (2013 [1964]). but it is important to remember, as clancey asserts that, “people are exploring mars, not robots”, because “people are exploring mars using robots” (2006, p. 66). opportunity and spirit were one further step in a decades-long mars exploration program carried out by nasa and other global space agencies (nasa, n.d.b). they were the second and third rovers landed on the planet, after sojourner, which launched from earth in 1994. as of 2021, nasa’s rovers curiosity and perseverance and the china national space administration’s zhurong rover are all operating on the planet’s surface, as are several stationary probes. robots, a category to which this collection of rovers and spacecraft can adequately be assigned, have long been a target for projections of persona-like characteristics and anthropomorphisation. sandry suggests that although “scientific discourse is generally biased against anthropomorphism… social robots research has, for some time, been open to the idea of encouraging anthropomorphic responses in humans” (2015, p. 337). former director of the nasa ames research centre, g. scott hubbard (2005, p. 650) notes that the popular conception of robots “comes from science fiction”, citing isaac asimov’s i, robot and the star trek films and television series. historical cultural narratives of robots have positioned them as “artificial people”, “similar to humans in shape and size, able to communicate and be communicated with in familiar ways” (sandry 2015, p. 336). miller (2021, p. 11) suggests that one of the reasons for the deep cultural currency of robots has been their “potential to realize our imagination of the anthropomorphic machine that closely resembles a human being.” while the rovers, which are more like cars than humans, do not physically resemble human beings, they do indeed share certain faculties of vision, motion, and limb dexterity with us and this ingratiates them into human social understandings even while they are physically at a great distance from all humans. popular media sources have widely anthropomorphised opportunity. for example, the webcomic xkcd (2010, 2015) popularly presented both spirit and opportunity as capable of human-like thought and actions. hubbard (2005, p. 653) contends that this generation of rovers presents a model of human-robot interaction in which: instead of a supervisor human dictating to a subordinate robot, the human and the robot converse on essentially equal footing to exchange information, ask questions, and resolve differences. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 93 sandry’s study of human-robot teams found that “developing a social understanding of a robot with which one is required to work strengthens the human-robot team, enabling and effective use of both human and robot abilities” (2015, p. 336). likewise, vertesi’s ethnographic study of the scientists who controlled spirit and opportunity demonstrates a sense of close embodiment between these scientists and their machines wherein the human scientists contort and move their bodies to mimic or help understand the capabilities of the robots (2012). given the description of opportunity as a ‘robot’, it is pertinent also to consider its position within the context of the emergence of other forms of online ‘bots’ that contain distinct personas with which people interact. bots are “software applications that perform automated tasks over the internet” (ford & hutchinson 2019, p. 1013) or simply “non-human agents” (burgess & baym 2020, p. 112). varol et al. (2017) found that between 9% and 15% of twitter accounts were bots. they may perform conversational tasks, automatically generate content in reply to user interaction, create spam or noise around popular topics, or a range of other tasks. burrough acknowledged that “a twitterbot is likely to be perceived as a social actor”, which “are shaped by their online audiences” (2016, p. 15). the opportunity rover can be situated within broader histories and understandings of robots, which include anthropomorphised machines, extensions of ourselves and our abilities, and a developing model of interaction that also includes bots accessed and experienced online. within this framework, projections of humanity and a sense of persona upon such a machine is likely to occur. the next section more closely traces the ways in people’s collective understanding of opportunity’s persona is visible within the postcards displayed on the mars.nasa.gov websites. building a rover, collectively the nasa webpage (n.d.a) where users can send a postcard to opportunity remains online and active at the time of writing. new postcards can still be created and sent and the collection of postcards can be viewed at any time. to ‘send’ a postcard, users select from a collection of 10 images of mars captured by opportunity and spirit, including one that features the rover itself, two that show clear views of its tracks in the martian regolith, one that is filled by the rover’s shadow, and another which shows a mark made by the rover in the soil. the others show close-up features of geological features of mars and a setting sun over a crater rim. an eleventh image shows an artist’s impression of the rover on mars rather than a photograph. after selecting an image, users write their own message to the rover, which is displayed in a postcard format with a receiver address of “opportunity rover, 2.35 s, 354.65 e endeavour crater, meridiani planum, mars 012504”. these are the coordinates of the rover’s final location. each postcard is signed “a martian fan”, although some users have taken the opportunity to sign off with other names, which may be real or pseudonymous. the postcards also display a postmarked stamp image which reads “planet earth 2019”. the website’s ‘view’ tab shows a collection of 15 postcards at a time, which appear to be randomly generated. on a single day in march 2019, the author took 150 screenshots of this website after using the built-in refresh button to build an expected corpus of 2250 postcards, which was then nearly 10% of the total of around 23,000. by mid-2021, the apparent total number of postcards was over 32,000. however, on closer inspection of the material generated, it was clear there were a significant number of non-unique postcards. from a subset of 240 postcards, only 100 were found to be unique. nasa has not responded to multiple requests for access to a larger number of the postcards and it remains unclear how many are actually available or how the website generates the 15 displayed in any given visit. the remainder of this holland 94 analysis focuses on the sample of 100 postcards. it is not claimed that these are fully representative of the total, but they are indicative of the ways in which users attribute personalike characteristics to the opportunity rover and they do form a rich qualitative data set. this resource proves fruitful for the arguments made in this paper because it is an online source of user-generated content containing multitudinous perspectives on opportunity, even though it is not the sole source of cultural ideas about what or whom the rover might be or represent. the analysis shows that a vast majority of the postcard writers anthropomorphised the rover, referring to it directly as “you”, using nicknames, and expressions of mourning such as “rip” (for rest in peace). others thanked the rover, expressed love and gratitude, and acknowledged its efforts as if those efforts were of the rover itself and not the humans who had designed, built, maintained, and operated it. broadly, the postcards are observed to contain the following content types, with indicative samples for each: • science/research/discovery: “thank you for the amazing things you've discovered and helped us to learn. it's unbelievable what you and the team has been able to do. god speed.” • love or emotional attachment: “i love you oppy. i love you oppy. i love you oppy. youve (sic) helped us so much and been so strong. i love you oppy. goodnight cowboy.” • grief: “its (sic) been a week since you were declared dead. but i still get sad everytime i think about you.you [sic] did amazing, you beautiful and hardworking girl.” • thanks or gratitude: “thank you for everything oppy!” • hope or expressions for the future: “thank you for making our planet more hopeful and exciting, i'm so sorry we couldnt (sic) get to you in time to sing you happy birthday like you deserved.” • support for nasa: “thank you for the journey. i wish nasa continued success and look forward to the next adventure. [name].” many postcards include more than one of these elements. at least 10% of the 100 postcards were signed off with the name of one or more people (including organisations), some of which are readily identifiable while others are more obscure. persona in the postcards the collection of postcards examined for this paper offer a rich resource of persona-like attributions for opportunity. moore, barbour & lee’s “five dimensions of online persona”, being, “public, mediatised, performative, collective and having intentional value” (2017, p. 1), are all present in the collection of postcards, although to varying degrees and with different emphasis than might be expected of other online personas. this paper is the ideal source upon which to build the primary framework for analysis because it strongly sets out the ways in which persona might be constructed online and the postcard data used in this case study is, indeed, an example of online persona presentation. this section explores each of these five dimensions in greater detail, along with other contributions from the persona studies literature, to further develop the central claim that opportunity presents a clear example of a collectively developed persona. moore, barbour & lee (2017, p. 2) suggest that online activity is “almost always public in some way” and that this publicness is central to the development of an online persona. nasa/jpl managed opportunity’s social media persona primarily by posting about the rover in persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 95 a dispassionate manner on the main @nasajpl twitter account. unlike other missions since (for example, curiosity), opportunity did not have its own active social media accounts. in a study of the use of social media by united states government science organisations, including nasa, lee & van dyke (2015, p. 537) concluded that “while they shared a lot of information, they did not make suggestions about how publics should use the information.” to some extent, this role of active persona creation was filled by non-official accounts such as @sarcasticrover, which plays into a wider history of parody twitter accounts (highfield 2016). the social media accounts that nasa did operate, and non-official accounts performed by other actors – whether bots or human-curated – contribute as social actors to the wider perception of opportunity’s persona. without a centrally curated persona, people developed an understanding of opportunity’s persona via other means, and these concepts are evidenced in the postcard sample. opportunity’s persona is reminiscent of many celebrity personas in which publicness is the primary form of accessing and understanding a celebrity given the distance between them and fans. however, whereas other celebrity personas are “highly polished, scheduled and controlled” (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 3), opportunity’s is dispersed much more widely. it is useful to recognise that in this regard opportunity is not dissimilar from some celebrities for whom persona is “multi-dimensional and versatile” (deflem 2019, p. 42). likewise, the outpouring of grief evident in the sample mimics reaction to celebrity death given “mourning is an exercise in persona construction” (culbert 2020, p. 52). to this end, the sample includes six expressions of grief as in the words “sad” or “cry”, three mentions of “rip”/“r.i.p”/“rest in peace”, two direct mentions of death, and six other mentions of rest as a euphemism for death. leaver & highfield’s study of instagram user’s posts related to funerals found that posts were “far more about articulating the mourner’s emotional state in their own social media spaces rather than eulogising or attempting to shape the deceased person’s legacy” (2018, p. 43). the content of these postcards likewise demonstrates intense emotional connection and reaction to opportunity’s mooted ‘death’. however, importantly, the postcard space cannot be said to be the user’s own social media and nor are there a lack of eulogies for the rover itself. thus this site is clearly distinct from many forms of social media even as it shares certain characteristics with those platforms, an aspect to this dataset which is discussed further below. in centring their emotional state in public website submissions as a response to the rover’s reported demise, users of the postcard side are performing a relationship to opportunity and, by extension, its creators and others who share a connection with the robot. burrough (2016, p. 12) describes in which they are both “being” and “becoming” through online interaction with a self-representing twitter bot. in that project, the self is represented through the interaction of two versions of the twitter account, “two ‘i’s involved in the process of knowing” (burrough 2016, p. 12). the postcard creators are likewise involved in a process of relating to a being, opportunity, by also writing their own persona into being in the postcards. this is, perhaps, especially true for those postcards which are signed with some form of name. the second of moore, barbour & lee’s (2017, p. 3) dimensions of online persona is mediatisation, a process for which the “contemporary assemblage of persona now combines multiple media technologies”. given the rover is literally at a great distance from earth, the development of its persona also necessitates a highly complex technological mediation. opportunity’s capturing of a “selfie” from the surface of mars (jpl 2018) involved not only the usual technological gadgetry of online media such as “cameras, digital image compression algorithms, and communication across wireless or telecommunication carrier signals, apis, and hashtags” (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 3), but also other spacecraft, ground based receivers, and nasa’s internal image capture, processing and publication infrastructure, to say nothing of holland 96 the greater complexity required for its facilitation of scientific research. the development of opportunity’s public persona thus places even greater emphasis on mediatisation than other personas might, and this too is recognised in the postcard sample. three messages directly mention photographs and images captured by opportunity, including one which refers to its selfie. a further seventeen mentioned science, exploration, research, or discovery. the performative element of opportunity’s persona differs markedly from that described for other forms of person in moore, barbour & lee’s study. this is because there is no entity which has performed opportunity’s persona in any persistent or controlled manner. there is no “we” who can be the subject of the actions described in the following sentence: to present a publicly mediated persona, we must perform our identity, our profession, our gender, and effectuate our tastes, interests, and networks of connection, through activities like commenting on posts, liking other’s contributions or framing a selfie (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 4) instead, it is in the collective performance of attachment and relationship to this robot in which opportunity’s persona is achieved. users who voluntarily contribute to the nasa website to write and display postcards to opportunity are collectively performing an understanding of the machine’s persona in much the same way as users of any social media site. while the aim, arrangement, and content of the postcard website does not fit the general definition of social media, the postcards certainly can be recognised as user-generated content (van dijck 2009). the postcard webpage forms a kind of “networked public”, “simultaneously a space and a collection of people” (boyd 2010, p. 41). within this space, users generate and then post content related to opportunity which helps to reinforce and create the space itself and relationally generate the persona of opportunity identified in this sample of postcards. despite this aspect of the site, it is clearly functionally distinct from other online spaces which may perform the same roles, especially social media sites. this is because the markers of most social media sites, defined by boyd (2010) as persistence, replicability, scalability, and searchability, do not apply. although the material is persistent, it is not linked to any individual and is irretrievable, save by the method described in this paper. it is replicable as all digital media are, but its searchability and scalability are limited by the technical functions of the site. the site, and the posts made by users contained within it, perform a function as a collective persona site for opportunity but not a substantial persona-building resource for the users. however, user deployment of naming practices when names or other identifying information are otherwise not required for posting to the site indicates a desire for a certain level of performative identity given “both anonymity and pseudonymity allow people to enact specific, and arguably valuable, identity practices online” (van der nagel & frith 2015, p. 2). in some cases, the names given by users appear to be readily identifiable, such as in the following example: “it's a lovely bright sunny day here in [city], [country]. i hope your journey on mars is going well. lots of love from the [name] family xxx”. such a post is a clear move toward performativity of the connection between this family and the opportunity rover, which in turn builds toward the collective achievement of opportunity’s persona. this stands in contrast to the point made above and indicates a clear rejection of the relatively limited affordances of the site compared to others in allowing users to perform their own identities. instead, it is opportunity’s persona which is most clearly and strongly performed. finally, although opportunity is a non-human object, a number of postcard writers sought to project human-like gender identity onto it in their postcards. opportunity often is referred to by male pronouns or labels, such as the three separate references which label the rover as “space cowboy” and another use of the phrase “best boy”. one example notably refers to opportunity as a “beautiful persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 97 and hardworking girl” and another message is addressed to “u [sic] and your baby sis […] my beautiful girls.” for moore, barbour & lee (2017), the fourth dimension of online persona is indeed a collective effort, although again with a different emphasis than as shown in this case study. whereas in their collective, the individual who curates or is centred in a persona can be seen to “produce, seek out, and move between connections” (2017, p. 5), this is simply not applicable to the collective-derived persona demonstrated here for opportunity. instead, the idea of opportunity acts more as a central activating figure around which various “micro-publics” activate to collectively produce a persona. again, this relates to boyd’s (2010) description of the networked public, a space in which users might collectivise their contributions to creating a shared sense of the object which has brought them together. that persona, as demonstrated in the varying genders ascribed to it shown above, might have differing meanings for different publics, but nonetheless the postcard sample still demonstrates a tangibly conceptualised persona around which users of the postcard site have gathered. moore, barbour & lee (2017, p.7) posit as the final dimension of online persona an intent to generate a persona which has "value, and how that value is dependent on agency, reputation, and prestige.” this is a difficult aspect of online persona to reconcile with opportunity’s persona as collectively achieved in part through the postcards described in this paper. although the choice to engage in postcard-making might be highly performative, as described above, the affordances of the site itself offer limited reputational value given the way in which the postcards are displayed and since they are largely irretrievable once created. there is no login or apparent history retained by the site for a user to view any postcards they have sent and no in-built mechanism to save, print, share, or download any postcards created. of course, users may use other means to capture and display their postcards and at least one sample seems likely to have been written with this intent: instead of a postcard to opportunity, one user of the site has used the postcard format to write to his children. we can infer an intent to capture and present the postcard to them given the text, which reads: “[name 1], [name 2], [name 3], [name 4] this is a reminder of the tings [sic] you can accomplish in life. daddy you loves you from earth to mars and back.” some other users of the site direct their postcards to entities other than opportunity, most notably mentions of jpl/nasa, either directly or via an indirect name such as “team”, for example: “you have been a part of our family since lift off. kudos to the whole team for a job well done.” formulations such as these, with direct addressing to either family or the human beings behind the rover missions, demonstrate affective states which indicate intentional value associated with them. often, the postcards include geographic identifiers, which allows them to be situated with a wider context of the spatial self, which is a collection of practices where “individuals document, archive, and display their experience and/or mobility within space and place in order to represent or perform aspects of their identity” (schwartz & halegoua 2014, p. 1647). leaving aside the stellar scale of geography suggested by the postcard quoted above (“from earth to mars and back”), such tags still situate users within the geopolitical contexts of earth itself. this extends also to the affordances of the site which automatically places mars as the destination address and earth as the origin. within the persona studies context, morrissey & yell (2016, p. 31) note that “utterances are enunciative acts which emanate from bodies, even in cyberspace” and that these are both reflective of and in response to affective states. therefore, the affective nature of many of the postcards contained within this sample demonstrates the kind of agency, reputation, and prestige inherent to the final value dimension of moore, barbour & lee’s five dimensions of online persona. holland 98 conclusion as evidenced by the collection of postcards surveyed for this study, opportunity’s persona is a collective achievement. it is an idea dispersed across different people, fans, and organisations. the postcards are not the only possible sites in which opportunity’s persona might be found, but they offer a rich case study which can assist in stretching the boundaries of the persona studies discipline. alluded to but not addressed in detail in this article are instances in which opportunity’s persona resides amongst those who built and operated it, at jpl/nasa, and among other sources such as cartoons, parody twitter accounts, and other sites. its presentation in this postcard dataset is related to but distinct from other forms of social media. more widely, the spacecraft’s persona can be seen as a projection of hope and desire related to human exploration of the solar system writ large since it stands in for us in a place we cannot access in person, and in this way it is an extension of earlier culturally significant robots. it has certainly been mourned as such. as gorman has noted, “spacecraft are far more than just technology; they are woven into systems of politics, belief, and emotion” (2019, p. 73). these systems are collective positions, and so too is opportunity. opportunity’s persona is not an “individual is connected to multiple publics” (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 6), but arises entirely from collective understandings that link into the sociotechnical systems of jpl and nasa, but also of others around the world for whom opportunity was an entity that could be mourned upon its demise. while the users quoted above were mostly anonymous, and a number of those who did sign the postcards with identifiable names have done so as representative of organisations or perhaps pseudonymously, the postcards represent a collection of user-generated content that shares many similarities with social media content. such material is used for understanding and positioning the self within wider constellations of others and this may be accomplished through a variety of means including direct reference to people, places, and organisations which hold meaning for the user concerned. the references to earth and its relationship to mars may also be read to signal an intent or hope to move beyond geopolitical configurations with the hope of discovery inherent in projects such as the exploration of mars. opportunity’s persona has indeed been achieved by a messy collective, containing differing positions held by different users. but in the absence of a more directed personabuilding effort, those who hold affinity for opportunity have demonstrated a collective achievement at persona-building through the corpus of postcards displayed on nasa’s website. the global process of mourning completed the anthropomorphisation of a non-human entity that had nonetheless spent more than a decade as a human emissary on another planet. the many thousands of respondents to the nasa website demonstrate individual and collective understandings of what (or who) opportunity was, in much the same way as margolis’ poetic viral interpretation of its final message. the project offers an opportunity to extend persona studies beyond the human, starting with objects which are frequently assigned human-like personas as in the example of the mer opportunity. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 99 works cited barbour, k, marshall, pd, & moore, c 2014, persona to persona studies, m/c journal, vol. 17, no 3, 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professional persona; diary; authenticity introduction in an interview with the new york times, lifestyle maven rachel hollis describes her approach to giving advice: “i’m telling you something that happened with me…i’m telling you about my own loss or my own trauma or something that i did that helped, and then trying to use that to give you some guidelines” (jones 2019). hollis’s style of no-nonsense advice is rooted in the autobiographical; her personal brand is that of an experienced friend who is confessional in order to be instructional. hollis began as a lifestyle blogger and has since grown her media enterprise to include multiple self-help books, lifestyle workshops, a wellness app, and a range of products designed to help her followers achieve a version of the good life that she portrays herself as possessing. in essence, she has used life writing to establish a persona as a professional of everyday life. hollis’s claim of expertise correlates with her start as a lifestyle blogger. a lifestyle blog is, in its most conventional iteration, a website comprised of digital content that represents its author’s everyday life and interests. the blog is typically divided into specific content categories, and many women’s lifestyle blogs focus on relationships, fashion, travel, wellness, design, and parenting, the gendered dimensions of everyday life. these areas are often tailored to the author’s location, life stage, and experience, resulting in a clearly identifiable personalized brand that helps shore up the author’s claims to authenticity. combining a highly visual experience with an autobiographical narrative organized into chronological posts, lifestyle blogs persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 39 are the cultural descendent of both women’s magazines and individual diaries. the opportunities for engagement through the interactive affordances of the medium also create the additional sense of a community based around a shared lifestyle—whether that lifestyle be actual or aspirational—and opportunities for monetizing the site through affiliate links or promotions.1 lifestyle bloggers utilize life writing, a term that serves as a big-tent description for a range of autobiographical acts and practices (smith & watson 2010, p. 4; couser 2012, p. 24) , as a tactic of persona management. but they also frame life writing as a disciplinary function to create a professional persona that allows them to transform their own life experience into a form of knowledge that they can market to others. this tactic transforms both the private, reflective role of the diary and the intimate space and practices of the domestic sphere into the basis of a professional identity. describing professional personas, marshall, moore & barbour explain that within their selected fields, professionals “have constructed systems or relative monopolies of knowledge, an elaborate filtering system where the public identity of their work is generally understood with great consistency across its occupation and in the wider notion of the general public” (2020, p. 185). for lifestyle bloggers, there is no such recognised system that functions as a filter. instead, individuals must gain a following through a combination of relatability and expertise, the two uneasily paired domains of the lifestyle profession. scholars have noted how figures such as martha stewart have established proficiency and discipline in the domestic sphere as an aspirational ethos for professional women through traditional media (smith 2016; lewis 2010; mcnaughton 2016). but lifestyle bloggers are microcelebrities, figures with a more limited audience developed through practices such as direct interaction with followers and the sharing of personal information (marwick and boyd 2010, p. 121). as media scholar teresa senft argues, this engagement decreases the sense of distance that characterizes typical celebrity and leads to a differentiation between the celebrity’s audience and the microcelebrity’s community (2013, p. 350). for lifestyle blogger microcelebrities then, the aspirational ethos of figures like martha stewart is paired with an accessibility established through life writing and the interactive engagement afforded by the technics of blogging. another way that lifestyle bloggers establish their expertise is by asserting that a lifestyle is a valid professional realm. their blogs make it clear that achieving your best life requires knowledge and effort. whether it is the emotional and affective labour required by the roles of mother, partner, or daughter, or the creative energy of dressing yourself and outfitting your home, or the physical effort of maintaining your skin, your hair, and your body, being your best self is work. what the lifestyle blog offers is a blueprint and a marketplace for the strategies and products any individual might need to accomplish this work. the use of life writing further allows lifestyle bloggers to reintermediate the practice of private consultation, meaning that they create economic sites of expertise for themselves through the instructional space of the blog. while this innovative professional persona transforms a sphere that has typically been gendered and thus undervalued into a significant site of meaning in the web 2.0 era, it is also a precarious position because lifestyle expertise is tied to the individual’s own autobiographical narrative. challenges to a blogger’s personal authenticity are thus also challenges to their professional persona, creating a demand for continual self-revelation and persona management. faced with these demands, lifestyle bloggers use life writing to balance the demands of their personal and professional personas by deploying the diary genre in two ways: as a rhetorical mode that signals revelatory and confessional moments, a utilization of what i am calling the diaristic mode, and as a reflexive disciplinary practice. a comparative close reading of posts on the topics of blogging as a career and the use of the diary illustrates how life writing allows the lifestyle blogger to anchor her professional persona in a discourse of authentic hall 40 selfhood while offering the lifestyle as a product that can be consumed and then reproduced by the reader. the result is a professional persona that is relatable yet highly precarious. the complicated authenticity of blogging in her memoir/self-help manual, girl, wash your face, rachel hollis describes her desire to show others how to live a life that allows them to grow into better versions of themselves as the motivation for her blog: that’s why i do what i do. that’s why i run a website and talk about how to make a centerpiece, or parent with kindness, or strengthen a marriage. it’s why i researched thirty different ways to clean out your front-load washer before i taught my tribe how to do it. it’s why i know the perfect ratio of balsamic to make your pot roast amazing. sure, i cover a whole host of topics using my online platform, but ultimately, they boil down to one thing: these are the elements of my life and i want to do them well. (2018, p. xii) hollis here establishes her “distinction and expertise” as a lifestyle professional by detailing her research, her specific knowledge, and their rootedness in her own daily life (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.181). marshall, moore & barbour illustrate how the category of “professional” is in a state of flux precisely because of presentational media, and hollis’s comment about teaching “her tribe” or the audience for her microcelebrity, allows her to establish a professional persona because of her ability to utilise presentational media effectively. this correlation points to the co-construction of the lifestyle blogger as a professional and the blog as a specific medium of life writing. it is important to attend to the materiality of blogs to understand how the specific affordances of a blog, similar to the specificities of the genre of life writing, shape the persona building that happens there. in the early years of the web 2.0 era, feminist scholars of life writing explored how the emerging medium of blogging was a textual practice with roots in the diary, accounting for its appeal to authors and readers (karlsson 2007; mcneill 2003; sorapure 2003; van dijck 2004). more recent work by scholars pushes at the boundaries of definitions of life writing and blogging in recognition of their co-construction. jessalyn keller (2016, p. 6) frames blogging as a multimodal and cross-platform practice, and anthropologist julian hopkins defines blogs as “socio-technical assemblages” highlighting the attention that must be paid not only to the textual and aesthetic practices of blogging, but how these are formed in relation to the specific material demands through which these texts are formed (2019, pp. 12-15). extending julie rak’s work on “automediality,” emma maguire argues for use of the term, over “life writing” or “life narrative” because as a conceptual tool it works to identify more precisely “what it means to represent life and the self in increasingly social, networked, multi-media ways” (2018, p. 21). along similar lines, literary scholar anna poletti illustrates the political and ethical dimension of such specificity, arguing that ignoring the materiality of life writing, is to “underestimate the role of media forms in shaping the veracity of the claims that underpin autobiography as a cultural and social practice that purports to speak a truth about lived experience and foster the forms of recognition we require for a more just politics and social field” (2020, p. 6). blogging, then, is not a medium through which one just communicates her life, but which acts to constitute it as well. this scholarly conversation makes clear that while blogs maintain strong ties to their textual, diaristic beginnings, as a contemporary practice, blogs differ from other forms of life writing in their temporality, structure, and interactivity. all these elements can be put to good use in conveying the authenticity of a blogger, but they require a high degree of attentiveness, a persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 41 practice akin to curation. while other textual forms of autobiography, such as the memoir, offer a kind of narrative fixity because of their boundedness on the page, the blog, like the diary form it evolved from, creates an in-the-moment, accretive form of life writing that builds as it goes. the author as a self emerges post by post, forgoing the kind of literary shaping afforded by more demarcated forms of autobiographical writing. this creates an uneven line of development rather than a narrative arc. the temporality of a blog’s narrative opens up the author to claims of inconsistency or even transformation from their reader. these claims must be managed in order to maintain the author’s aura of authenticity. the idea of the self as both performative and fragmented corresponds with philosopher charles guignon’s argument that “we are a telling,” meaning that while selfhood is experienced as “a disjointed, fragmented collection of semi-selves living out episodic, stuttering, and other-directed lives” (2004, p. 126), narrative as a form always inclines toward structural coherence. the tension between the lived experience of selfhood and its expression in narrative actually allows for more fluid persona management because “a persona connects together and meshes all the various characteristics that are staged and presented in the everyday and intended to interact with others” (moore, barbour, & lee 2017, p. 4). the blog, then, as a medium of life writing, affords both senses of the self: the coherent, clearly narrativized self, and the fragmented, self-in-progress of the diary form, the self that emerges entry by entry. because the professional persona is grounded in everyday practice and an awareness of context and audience, the performative dimension this persona lends to life writing in a blog merges with the specific temporal affordances of the blog as a medium. the significance of medium and social context is also resonant with theories of authenticity. philosopher charles taylor argues that “in the culture of authenticity, relationships are seen as the key loci of self-discovery and self-confirmation… [and because] identities are formed in open dialogue, unshaped by a predefined social script…the politics of equal recognition are more central and stressful” (1991, p. 49). to recognize the self as authentic is merely one part of the equation; to be recognized as authentic is, in fact, a personal and political imperative around which an entire culture has emerged. this culture, taylor notes, lacks the scripts of class or bloodline that provided structure in previous historical moments and cultural regimes. instead, contemporary authenticity is an open dialogue fraught with the potential for failure, which is why it must be negotiated through modes of communication that mark the individual as both unique and recognizable within perceived standards of identity. building on taylor’s notion of the “social horizon” of authenticity, guignon argues that authenticity is a social value correlated with our faith in democratic ideals of individualism, and authenticity “brings with it a sense of belongingness and indebtedness to the wider social context that makes it possible” (2004, p. 163). authenticity, then, is an expression of a mutual social relation, one which precipitates the formation of the self. indeed, this social dimension, as judith butler has argued, is the foundation of social ethics, whereby the narrating “i,” in attempting to gain recognition from the other, is bound by the historical and cultural conditions of that narration and must, in response, craft an account that will be recognized within these conditions of emergence (2005, pp. 38-40). in the life writing taking place on blogs, the engagement of this social horizon is given narrative form in the comments and responses that readers leave for bloggers. but it is also a paratextual discourse, in which the economic and social functions of blogs, the lifestyles they represent, and the embodied norms of their authors, all form the basis of a negotiation of professional authority and personal authenticity. it is this very visible negotiation that makes lifestyle blogs an important site of self-production. hall 42 the expectation of a recognizable persona points to one of the problematic dimensions of the discourse of selfhood expressed in lifestyle blogs: while on the one hand lifestyle blogs offer women a space of personal expression and social connection, in many other ways they reify a very narrow definition of female identity, one defined by upper middle-class consumption and white, cis-gendered, thin, heteronormativity. in the mediakix (2022) list of the “6 top lifestyle bloggers,” all of the women depicted in artful photos are white, thin, married mothers. it’s clear from the aesthetics of these images that control over one’s body and how it presents in the world, as well as what one consumes in terms of food, and goods for the home and self, is a critical component of the professional persona and stands in for the kind of certification or education that other professions might require. this projection of control also falls within what communications scholar sarah banet-weiser identifies as a “neoliberal moral framework,” that includes the tenets of postfeminism and networked sociality, where women are expected to produce “a self-brand” (2012, p. 60), meaning that the authority of the profession rests in a form of personal regulation that is in alignment with the ideology of personal responsibility at the core of neoliberalism. if the blogger wants to offer life advice, it must be clear that she herself is a product of such advice and adheres to the established norms of an aspirational lifestyle. this is clear in rachel hollis’s work when she asserts, “you, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are” (2018, p. vii). but while the dominant identity position of lifestyle bloggers remains alarmingly narrow, there are bloggers such as luvvie ajayi jones, sydnei jarman, and courtney quinn who are redefining the racialized norms of the lifestyle blogger persona. as luvvie jones explains in a may 14, 2020, blog post, “i was afraid because i didn’t see the example of a writer like me, but i became that example for myself. i am a writer.” even after blogging successfully for nine years, jones hesitated to claim the professional title of writer until finishing the draft of her second book. her reflection highlights the complex media ecology of blogging, where the prestige of a book grants a higher degree of legitimacy to the blogger as an author, despite the difference in medium and genre. but jones also points to the ways that asserting the authority of a professional persona is even more challenging when the dominant paradigm isn’t a reflection of an individual’s identity, and points to the racial inequities that persist in lifestyle blogging. jones’s quote also highlights the vexed claims to professionalism that arise from a form of writing that has long been associated with the private, domestic sphere. while the diaristic structure of the blog is effective for expressing the authenticity of the individual, those same qualities are challenging for a professional persona. the blogger must be able to translate personal authenticity into a valuable form of expertise using the same tools. because the diary is the interface through which the aspirational dimension of a blogger’s life becomes adaptable into the everyday life of the reader, bloggers signal awareness of this demand by highlighting their own role as readers. for instance, in the faq section of her lifestyle blog, love taza, author naomi davis explains: at the end of my day, if i’m lucky, i’ll have ten or twenty minutes left to browse my favorite blogs or online sites. i want to be uplifted and edified and encouraged in those ten or twenty minutes of browsing and i hope this space can do something life that for you, too. i hope when you read this blog, over anything else, you’ll take away a message of finding the joy in what is around you. (2022) the motivation for davis as an author is rooted in her practice as a reader. blogs, for her, are a way of realizing the joy in “life, marriage, motherhood, and all those little tasks that fill your day,” or the components of everyday life. lifestyle blogging turns the mundane into an persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 43 aesthetically pleasing tableaux, accompanied by bite-sized autobiographical stories that transform the ten to twenty minutes of available reading time into an affirming and accessible practice. davis uses this brief autobiographical narrative to craft a very reflexive persona: she is relatable to her readers because she is blog reader herself, and so understands what makes a blog uplifting and edifying, shaping the kind of blog she will create. her framing also highlights how a cycle of textual consumption and production is centred as a core practice of selfhood and wellness in lifestyle blogging. as literary scholar kylie cardell agues, “the diary is a generic and rhetorical choice…that reveals a social and cultural context,” signalling both the role of authorial agency in choosing the mode of expression and an understanding of the situatedness of the genre (2014, p. 7). by embracing the specificities of the blog as a medium of networked sociality, lifestyle bloggers demonstrate their professionalism as both authors and consumers of lifestyle content, while expanding the boundaries of the diary as a genre of life writing. by expressing her desire to reproduce the dimensions she finds valuable in other blogs, naomi davis makes explicit the paradoxical demand for individuation through replication that is core to the professional persona of a lifestyle blogger. lifestyle blogs are didactic discursive spaces as well as expressive ones, and for this reason the question of authenticity is particularly fraught. readers must be able to reproduce the lifestyle expressed through the genre of life writing, and so it isn’t just the persona that is branded, it is the lifestyle itself, which must be presented in a way that makes its individual components available accessible to readers. the entire enterprise is based on the idea that the reader will be able to become their best and truest self by following the methods or buying the products that have allowed another to find her authentic self. so, while a blog like a girl in progress promotes “a space where you can strive to become the best version of yourself, while simultaneously accepting yourself exactly as you are,” (norris 2021) this ideal state of selfhood is facilitated by coaching, a formatted journal, and an e-book of writing prompts all sold on the blog site. in his critique of post-fordist capitalism, philosopher paolo virno notes that the rise of “communicative capitalism” results in a form of expertise that requires the witness of others and never settles into an end product, creating a fluctuating and technically demanding performance that collapses the boundary between personal and professional: “it is precisely this ability to maneuver among abstract and interchangeable opportunities which constitutes professional quality” (author’s emphasis, 2003, 86). in order to establish a professional persona, the lifestyle blogger must be adept at the technical and communicative demands of the blog as a medium, but she must also deploy the blog as medium for her professional performance. this is a performance that must be continually reiterated, witnessed, and validated, an ongoing demand that creates an inescapable condition of precarity. engaging with this precarity is thus a personal and professional imperative for lifestyle bloggers, emanating not only from their readers, but from the economic realities that give rise to the possibility of their professional personas. the diaristic mode lifestyle bloggers present a self that is accessible, even intimate; the invitation to look inside the private, domestic sphere of the home and to open up the practices of daily life through their use of life writing (and here i am including autobiographical images and videos as elements of life writing on blogs), creates a sense that these individuals are transparent. and yet the notion of authenticity is a highly debated one in both life writing and lifestyle blogging. as scholar sarah mcrae (2017) has noted in her analysis of the get off my internets (gomi) blog, a crowd-sourced blog which critiques the performance of other bloggers, authenticity is produced within a complicated power dynamic between the producer of lifestyle blogs and their consumers/readers, and this negotiation emerges narratively in how authors manage the issue of control. as mcrae argues, lifestyle bloggers are beholden to complicated questions about hall 44 “what authenticity looks like, and who has the authority to decide,” highlighting an undercurrent of tension between bloggers and their readers (2017, p. 25). in contemporary life writing this tension endures as well. autobiographical scholarship acknowledges the multiplicity and performativity of selves that emerge in the life writing process2. the self of life writing is a negotiated identity that bears witness to the emotional truth of an individual’s past without the possibility of absolute felicity to the objective truth of the historical past. the autobiographical act is thus a negotiation of this difference, with the written or textual self emerging as a production of the culturally and historically situated self as well as the remembered and writing selves. this complicated notion of the self highlights the importance of the “autobiographical pact,” what literary scholar phillipe lejeune has defined as the shared understanding between author and reader that the text is not fictional and represents a truthful account of the author’s life (2009, p. 203). the negotiation of authenticity, then, occurs within the author and between and amongst her readers as well. as a result, a professional persona that is read as authentic is one that recognizes these complex demands and routinely cedes narrative control. decentring the locus of authorial control occurs primarily in two ways in lifestyle blogs; first by utilizing a confessional mode of metadiscourse, a move that reinvigorates lejeune’s autobiographical pact for the medium of the blog, and secondly by actively calling-in readers as collaborators of the narrative developed in the lifestyle blog. blogs are structured so that the readers can respond to the textual production of the authors and other readers, creating an interactive loop that doesn’t exactly mirror conversation, but that does afford a greater degree of interactivity than other textual forms of life writing. incorporating and responding to this engagement requires a significant investment of time and attention. and because the lifestyle blog incorporates different genres of life writing, the diaristic mode is used to emphasize the intimate register of the persona and signal moments of authenticity in the performance of self, which is one way of managing this engagement. one good example of this use of the diaristic mode occurs in cup of jo, the blog founded by joanna goddard. cup of jo receives over 5 million monthly page views thanks in part to what journalist amelia diamond describes as goddard’s “whimsical yet approachable tone” (2017). goddard began her career as a magazine journalist, eventually reaching the position of editor in chief of bene, a quarterly lifestyle magazine, a background reflected in the clean and subtle aesthetic design of the blog. everything about the visual layout of the site communicates balance, control, and a class-marked style. but a subtle visual cue on the original design of the home page disrupts this perfectly polished surface: the first letter of the word “of” in the site’s title looks as if it has been carefully cut from a piece of paper and then peeled back to reveal a surprise image underneath. this visual trope suggests that goddard will pull back the surface layer of her life to reveal another layer of reality, one that doesn’t always match what is presented on the surface. this impression is reinforced by goddard’s cosy and confessional narrative style. her particular quirk is the use of parenthetical asides, which create metadiscursive interruptions that that make goddard seem transparent and accessible and give readers a sense of being in the moment with her. in the august 12, 2012, post “blogging as a career,” for instance, goddard recounts how she ‘found herself’ as a blogger, highlighting both the successes and dead ends that led her to her current career. reflecting on her professional path, she writes, “five years ago, i broke up with that same boyfriend and needed a distraction from feeling sad (read: eating potato chips and watching tv). (funny that now that i’m writing this bio, breakups seem to be at the crux of all my positive life decisions! when a door closes, a window opens, right?)” goddard here is not painting her past as an inevitable trajectory to her successful present; she instead uses the diaristic mode to reveal different and less controlled aspects of her life. that one word, “read,” offers herself up as a text available to readers and multiplies the potential meaning of that persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 45 moment. the self she reveals in the parentheses is breaching the gendered norms of controlled female eating and idleness. this additional information is humorous and confessional, potentially reworking or deepening the meaning of goddard’s narrative. these parenthetical asides also provide a real-time record of reflexivity. the two run-on parenthetical phrases are stacked together with the second commenting on the first. the first phrase is much more selfdirected; goddard presents a snapshot of herself in the moment and then uses the second parenthetical phrase to zoom out to a pattern that it seems she is just noticing in the moment. finally, she uses the third sentence to switch to a more reader-focused framing of the situation, ending with a rhetorical question that actively solicits the reader’s opinion. while these brief sentences may seem disordered and even silly, they are a masterful evocation of authenticity. as goddard demonstrates, being honest about oneself, even confessional, is not nearly enough in the age of interactive media. she narratively mirrors the interactivity of the blog medium to create a more layered and nuanced identity that also has the sense of real-time composition. but it is also important to note that goddard offers this confessional vignette in a post about her role as a blogging professional, illustrating her understanding of the co-construction of her personal and professional personas. courtney quinn from color me courtney has a slightly different approach to these metatextual moments that reflect her own professional persona. quinn started her blog as a side hustle in 2017 as her way to break into the fashion business. quinn has an mba, and the blog reflects her marketing savvy. it is vibrant and visually compelling, with the bright colours and whimsical aesthetic that reject many of the earlier standards of lifestyle blogging that goddard embraces. quinn also relies heavily on instagram, meaning that much of her content is visual— photos and videos—but through this medium she also provides a revealing metadiscourse about the creation of these seemingly effortless images on her website. in a may 15, 2021, instagram video embedded in her blog, quinn highlights the hours of labour that it takes to produce a single image. her playful caption, “always directing,” with the hand to forehead emoji, reveals the tension between the freewheeling and seemingly spontaneous image she projects and the tightly controlled aesthetic vision that makes it possible. but like goddard, she skilfully uses the confessional, revelatory video to underscore her professionalism and her claims to expertise. both quinn and goddard also actively emphasize the social dimension of authenticity by foregrounding their readers/followers not just as passive consumers, but as collaborators. in her post about blogging as a career, goddard explains that her decision to include discussions of motherhood on the blog was a result of “having a close relationship with my beloved readers. starting the motherhood mondays column took the relationship to a new level (do you agree? :)” (2012). here she directly addresses her reader as “you,” suggesting that their approbation of such a move enhances the authority of the community she is only part of creating. and quinn explains in an interview with google for creators, that it is her community of readers and followers that not only motivate her, but also help her shape her content (july, 2020). in her post, “why failure isn’t a bad thing” (2021), quinn explains that the genesis for the post was the community response to an earlier post: “after talking publicly about how i failed i got an influx of messages saying i was being too hard on myself because i used the f word,” before going on to explain why failure is so important for her career. goddard and quinn both understand that the blog is not a broadcast, but an interaction. they identify their readers as members of a shared community of authors and address them directly, particularly in ways that reveal their own vulnerability. in doing so, they reinforce their personal authenticity while also subtly emphasizing their professional expertise. hall 46 diary as disciplinary practice while authenticity is an important component of the lifestyle blogger’s persona, they must also convey authority. because lifestyle bloggers offer their practices of everyday life as a template for others to follow, they must also make clear that their expertise is founded in a dimension that requires productivity and thus has recognizable value. this is an extension of what theorist michel foucault identified as “an entire practice of the self” that emerges at the height of the roman era of the culture of the self (2001, p. 86). selfhood is a state of doing rather than a state of being, he details, one that demands ongoing disciplinary and often corrective work during the adult years (2001, pp. 87-90). and for the lifestyle blogger to proclaim herself as a professional, she must be able to establish this disciplinary work of selfhood as within her legitimate realm of knowledge. life writing serves a valuable function in this process, specifically the way that journaling or diary writing is framed as a keystone practice of an aspirational lifestyle. as kylie cardell explains, the idea of “the authentic self as available through a process of excavation and redemption, as a mundane but central project of the modern individual, underpin[s] the position of the diary as a unique disciplinary technology for self-analysis and authentic selfdiscovery” (2014, p. 30). the diary is how the lifestyle blogger produces her autobiographical account—creating content for her site—and establishes such discourse as a practice of both selfhood and mastery. and by modelling its effectiveness, she positions herself as a professional of selfhood, creating a field of knowledge over which she proclaims authority. set against the backdrop of the culture of the self and the demands of an identifiable profession, the lifestyle blogger’s expertise emerges in her ability to use life writing in order to help others build their best life, using practices like life writing. one example of this paradigm can be found in rachel hollis’s blog, msrachelhollis. while the site has many of the same elements as both goddard and quinn, hollis has a less confessional and more formulaic discursive style that feels infinitely reproducible, a sense underscored by the heavy rotation of self-branded products and workshops that feature in every post. one such example is a post titled “the decisions i make daily to be my best self” (2020), a list of seven actions that rachel hollis offers to the reader as a formula so they can be their best selves: 1. make my bed 2. drink water. lots and lots of it. 3. write down my gratitude 4. eat the stupid salad 5. move my body 6. quality time with my family 7. push myself in each step a kind of disciplinary action is required—eating a salad not for pleasure but for benefit, movement and water consumption in order to keep the body within a socially prescribed range of acceptability. even the idea of spending time with one’s family is framed as “work i love to do, but it is not without effort,” signalling that caring for the self is an act of control and regulation at every stage (2020). none of hollis’s proposed rules are groundbreaking and most, in fact, repackage the tenets of twenty-first-century wellness culture, but she is positioning these practices as rooted in her own lifestyle, endorsing their validity as a persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 47 practice. within this framework, identity becomes a reproducible formula that disciplines the body and the mind in order to achieve an ideal yet abstract “best self.” crucial to this discipline of the mind is the habit of daily gratitude writing, the act of journaling that hollis is, in effect, modelling for the reader. but rather than revealing herself through this practice, as quinn and goddard do, hollis positions journaling as regulatory: “the act of writing down your gratitude every day has power…whatever you do, turn this into a habit you do without fail, every day” (2020). like her directives to eat salad, exercise, and drink water, daily gratitude journaling emerges as a habit of subjective control. it is a source of power rather than reflection. this corresponds to the deep gendered history of diary keeping as a “discipline of self-reflection that leads to self-control,” producing a subject who is not selfsufficient, but one “forever at work, caught in a cycle of eternal vigilance and the need for constant reinvention” (cardell 2014, p. 43). journal writing, then, like hollis’s other prescribed steps to the good life, is a practice of individual control and a process of self-discovery that can be mastered only through its repetition. the endless work of self-control through the discipline of self-writing points to both the impossibility of conclusion—or narrative end as other forms of autobiography promise—and an implicit sense that the self is inherently unruly. hollis argues that the dailiness of her documentary and disciplinary practices bring the self into focus. but her recognition that these activities constitute a state of ongoing maintenance rather than a state of actualization signals a discourse of a control society. in his extension of foucault’s formulation of the disciplinary society gilles deleuze argues that the control society has succeeded the disciplinary society in late capitalism, and this society is characterized by different forms of “modulation” that require an individual to perpetually delay fulfillment of expertise, and to instead submit to “perpetual training” (1992, pp. 4-5). such training requires a model and produces demand for tools and practices of training. hollis steps into this gap by offering clear practices of perpetual modulation, producing small changes that require reproduction in order to be sustained. her recommendations bring her expertise into alignment with larger contemporary ideological norms of selfhood. this alignment illustrates her mastery of such norms and reinforces her status as a professional of selfhood. in her professional persona, hollis employs a much more one-way mode of communication that bloggers goddard or quinn, underscoring that her authority is central. hollis notes in her “the decisions i make daily to be my best self” post (2020) that she uses her own brand of journal, the start today journal for her gratitude work. the absence of description in the post about her own practice becomes an invitation to learn more by purchasing the journal. in this incredibly recursive move, hollis journals about journaling in the journal that she has created in order to entice others to journal as she does. such a practice speaks to the development of the “dividual” in the control society, a subject position that replaces the individual in deleuze’s formulation and is defined by anthropologist karl smith as a fractal, atomistic, socially embedded, “heteronomous actor performing a culturally written script” (2012, p. 53). smith’s use of the term script correlates with the journal templates hollis is offering as scripts of selfhood, and points to the ways that selfhood professionals are coconstructed with the demands for such scripts. political theorist jodi dean similarly posits that blogs as a medium are cultural affective scripts that allow an individual to adopt different identities without having to also endure the political realities—both in terms of community and vulnerability—that accompany a more permanent form of identification, disrupting the opportunity for a politics of allegiance that can emerge from the shared recognition of difference (2010, pp. 63-73). what hollis offers, then, through her seven-step formula for selfhood, is an experience of selfhood absent the identity or political risk that a social hall 48 negotiation of authenticity might create. the formulaic good life she peddles is an echo chamber, a repetition of disciplinary behaviours that creates copies rather than individuals. this is not the model of shared authorship and sociality that goddard and quinn model. hollis presents authenticity as a consumptive simulacrum of selfhood whose effectiveness derives from its unfulfillability, a requirement of her professional persona. because it never completely satisfies, it must be continually iterated, creating a sense of value for her authority. conclusion one final complication for the professional persona of lifestyle blogger is that of navigating a personal change in a public, revelatory forum. how a blogger manages such a change impacts an audience’s perception of her authenticity and authority. the possibility of replicability that is the source of authority for lifestyle bloggers also creates the profession’s precarity because such a premise relies on a static notion of authenticity while the diaristic nature of the blog medium exposes an ever-changing self. the long-form multimodal structure of blogs offers a sense that readers “know” bloggers because the duration of engagement with their life story is both daily and ongoing. psychologist anita blanchard studies virtual communities and describes her individual attachment to lifestyle blogger heather armstrong of dooce.com as part of a shared social discourse: “dooce was stored in the ‘friend’ parts of our brain because people really got involved with her experiences…we would be standing around at parties talking about her like we knew her” (lieber 2019). but this knowledge also leads to an expectation of consistency— commentators on gomi regularly point to instances of identity or messaging inconsistency by lifestyle bloggers—a demand that can be regulated by the intimacy and archive of the blogger’s life writing. communicating personal changes can thus be a fraught endeavour that undermines the professional persona. many lifestyle bloggers have faced backlash and very public accusations of inauthenticity when their life writing revealed elements that altered the personal and professional personas they had created. rachel hollis faced backlash after announcing her divorce in 2020, with fans suggesting that the marriage advice that she offered was based on a lie. heather armstrong of dooce.com and glennon doyle of momastery have also had to navigate this tension between changes in their personal lives and their blogging personas. as heather armstrong described in an interview, “people were just awful to me, calling me a fraud, a liar, saying how my kids weren’t safe with me. it was all broadcast across the web, and i was reading about it every day, and it was hell” (lieber 2019). while the diaristic mode worked to establish these women in their personal and professional personas, the turn in their professional fortunes because of changes in their personal lives illustrates the difficult alliance of these two realms and the inherent tension of the lifestyle blogger as a professional persona. another tension is how lifestyle blogging relies on an assumption of relatability; as microcelebrities, bloggers are more accessible and ‘real’ than celebrities. but their very success as bloggers makes them exceptional. managing this tension through life writing can be done successfully, as goddard and quinn have shown, but when the blogger over indexes on her professional persona, which is based on her difference from her readers, she is disrupting a delicate balance central to her status as a lifestyle professional. it is perhaps not surprising that rachel hollis has faced this dilemma, given her reliance on the prescriptive function of her life writing. in an april 1, 2021, tiktok video in which she responded to outrage about her comments about the “sweet woman who cleans her toilets,” which made her “unrelatable,” she underscores her individuality by asserting, “what is it about me that made you think i want to be relatable? no, sis. literally everything i do in my life is to live a life that most people can’t relate to” (treasure 2021). citing the amount of “hard work” that she put into establishing her career, hollis privileges her professional persona, despite the ways that it further distances her persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 49 from her audience. this directive was also delivered as a close-framed, self-shot video, and the misalignment of the intimacy of her chosen medium from the intended distancing of her message creates a further sense of schism in which hollis seems to lose sight of the balance between the prescriptive and the personal that originally allowed her to originally establish herself as a lifestyle professional. in using the diary to establish a persona as authentic, the lifestyle blogger acknowledges that the personal life they are presenting correlates with growth, development, change, and social negotiation, as joanna goddard and courtney quinn illustrate. at the same time, the persona of lifestyle professional demands that the presentation of authority is grounded in stable, reproducible, and consumable dimensions of lifestyle. if a blogger offers marriage advice and then reveals that she is going through a divorce, there are claims of personal inauthenticity when, in fact, the underlying breach is in the professional persona. while the rhetoric may be personal, the presumed fault is professional. this places lifestyle bloggers in a precarious position and calls attention to their highly negotiated claims to the professional persona and the ways in which life writing plays a vital role in the balance of their two public personas. end notes 1. a september 29, 2021, article on the blogging platform wix notes that advertising, merchandise sales, sponsored content, and affiliate links are some of the top methods for blogs to become profitable. 2. feminist scholars of autobiography such as susan friedman (1998), shari benstock (1991), and hertha d. sweet wong (1996) in particular have engaged with the complicated notion of selfhood in life writing. works cited banet-weiser, s 2012, authentic: the politics of ambivalence in a brand culture, new york university press, new york. benstock, s 1991, ‘the female self engendered: autobiographical writing and theories of selfhood,’ women’s studies, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 5-14. butler, j 2005, giving 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persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-12. norris, e 2022, a girl in progress, viewed 10 february 2022 <https://agirlinprogress.com>. poletti, a 2020, stories of the self: life writing after the book, new york university press, new york. quinn, c 2021, ‘behind the scenes: shooting with a leo, instagram, 15 may, viewed 28 january 2022, <https://www.instagram.com/reel/co5gc_hnvqc/>. —2021, ‘why failure isn’t a bad thing,’ color me courtney, 27 may, viewed 28 january 2022, < https://www.colormecourtney.com/why-failure-isnt-a-bad-thing/>. senft, tm 2013, microcelebrity and the branded self. in j hartley, j burgess & a bruns (eds), a companion to new media dynamics. blackwell publishing, pp. 346-354. smith, cd 2016, ‘discipline—it’s a “good thing”: rhetorical constitution and martha steward living omnimedia,’ women’s studies in communication, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 337-366. smith, k 2012, ‘from dividual and individual selves to porous subjects,’ the australian journal of anthropology, vol. 23, 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virno, p 2003, a grammar of the multitude: for an analysis of contemporary forms of life, semiotext(e) press, cambridge, ma. wix, 2021, ‘how to make money blogging in 2022: the complete guide,’ viewed 25 january 2022, <https://www.wix.com/blog/2020/12/how-to-make-money-blogging/>. wong, hds 1996, ‘first-person plural: subjectivity and community in native american women’s autobiography,’ women, autobiography, theory, watson, j and smith, s (eds), university of wisconsin press, pp. 168-182. kimberly hall wofford college abstract key words introduction the complicated authenticity of blogging the diaristic mode diary as disciplinary practice conclusion end notes works cited persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 17 tweeting the world a better place: motivation and values underpinning the creation of a digital cosmopolitan persona roman lietz university of mainz and fergal lenehan university of jena abstract while the reputation of the platform twitter was severely dented during the presidency of president donald trump, who often retweeted far-right content, this article engages from the argumentative assumption that twitter is an inherently cosmopolitan online space, both in terms of statements found there and of the lived experience of users on the platform itself. cosmopolitanism is understood as a normative concept and as a descriptive term for increasing cultural interconnectedness. twitter users may engage in pursuing liberal aims by taking responsibility for or identifying with all humanity, and thus enact the more conceptual ideas of cosmopolitanism into pragmatic and viral utterances. they may also be deemed cosmopolitan influencers. based on qualitative interviews with ten purposely selected twitter users, it is argued that the motivation behind such online political engagement is chiefly societal and activist, and stems from a desire to change society and, indeed, to “give back to society”. tweeters are guided by an array of values, such as authenticity, solidarity, justice and equality, and freedom of expression. these socially-engaged twitter users also often see themselves as exceptional, and able to view social developments others cannot see. the data shows that positive reinforcing as well as negative discouraging feedback plays a crucial role and gives hints for the promotion of cosmopolitan twitter. key words cosmopolitan twitter; digital interculturality; postdigitality; online persona; digital civic engagement cosmopolitanism in the twitterverse the social media platform twitter connects more than 300 million people worldwide every month (twitter 2019). as part of social media (baym 2011; van dijck and poell 2013; hepp 2015), it unfolds within a previously unrealisable dynamic of ongoing, ubiquitous intercultural communication. political twitter communication was popularised by the unconventional election campaign of former us president donald trump, who recognised and instrumentalised the potential of the platform (gounari 2018, pp. 212–225, nacos et al. 2020). his slogan “america first” is virtually the epitome of nationalism and a diametric opposition to cosmopolitanism as a form of world-openness (beck and sznaider 2010, p. 382). thus, twitter received attention as an echo chamber of the authoritarian and nationalist-recursive right (schroeder 2018, nacos et al. 2020). lietz & lenehan 18 viewed from a wider perspective, however, it may be observed that recursive nationalism has long been fighting a defensive rear-guard action in an increasing intercultural, globalised, and interconnected world. from the 19th to the mid-20th century, according to petzold (2013, p. 58), “all processes in reality and in science followed the national idea” and cosmopolitanism was a quasi-romanticised “philosophical-normative expression”. but the catastrophes of the 20th century marked a turning point. the situation has been reversed: the world has broken away from nation-state unambiguity and has become fuzzy (beck 2012, p. 113; bolten 2013, p. 6). the present and the future are set within the wide cultural interconnectedness of cosmopolitanism, which has now become a social, pragmatic, lifeworld reality (beck and sznaider 2010, pp. 388-389), while (neo-)nationalism is the yearning of some for an “imagined past” (beck 2011, p. 1354). this cosmopolitan reality is also evident on twitter, especially as social media can be precise indicators of moods and developments (cardoso et al. 2013, p. 219). cosmopolitanism is evident in the representation of the agents who present themselves online as personas (marshall and barbour 2015, pp. 1–2) in order to find a positioning in relation to the outside world. therefore, it is worthwhile to analytically turn away from nationalistic-recursive twitter and turn towards what we would like to call cosmopolitan twitter. thus, we begin from the argumentative assumption that twitter is actually an inherently cosmopolitan online space, both in terms of many of the statements found there and of the lived experience of cultural interconnectedness upon the platform itself. as delanty (2019, p. 3) stresses, cosmopolitanism is not just a synonym of transnationalism, but also “concerns ways of imagining the world”, is “more than a condition of mobility or transnational movement”, but is “particularly bound up with the expansion of democracy and the extension of the space of the political”. indeed, the extension of the space of the political imagination beyond the local is central here to the personas of the twitter users (hereafter ‘tweeters’) examined. while such a political imagination may be seen as having distinctly progressive elements, this does not fit easily into a simplified left-right framework. thus, twitter is not only fed by backward-looking personas, but also by a number of personas committed to cosmopolitan ideals. the motivation and values of these personas is the centrepoint of this article. cosmopolitanism on and outside twitter cosmopolitanism as a philosophical concept has been widely studied. as an idea and from a european perspective, it has undergone some change since the ancient greek stoics surrounding zeno of cition, throughout the enlightenment marked by immanuel kant, and to the intellectual currents of the second half of the 20th century including post-colonialism, feminism, individualisation, and globalisation (appiah 2007, pp. 12–20; inglis 2012; nussbaum 2020, pp. 6–14). however, the core question of cosmopolitanism remains unchanged: ”how can we live as equals in a peaceful world?” (krossa 2018, p. 139). in the 21st century, social scientists have dealt with cosmopolitanism descriptively as an existing social reality rather than as a purely philosophical concept (roudometof 2012, p. 115). cosmopolitanism is no longer solely a desirable ethical normative idea, but may be seen as a banal, everyday, pragmatic description of global and intercultural interdependencies (cf. beck and sznaider 2010, p. 388; beck 2011, p. 1348; stråth 2012, p. 72). the ethical-normative cosmopolitan orientation is underpinned by generalised ethical ideas regarding humanity, such as the conviction that “each human being has responsibilities to every other” (appiah 2007, p. 32) and is “worthy of equal respect and concern” (nussbaum 2020, p. 101). these ideas can be translated not only into visionary concepts but may also become a pragmatic, cosmopolitan maxim for action by actively and publicly opposing exclusion based on “nationality, class, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 19 ethnicity, or gender” (nussbaum 2020, p. 101). therefore, progressive or liberal thinking can represent the baseline for cosmopolitanism (appiah 2005, p. 267) and thinking and acting becomes connected to a (cosmopolitan) engagement for topics that not only concern one’s own interests but also a more expansive solidarity concern for humanities’ needs (robertson 2019: 248). finally, cosmopolitanism as a “progressive humanistic ideal” has today been practically understood in reference to “social, cultural, political and economic features of the modern globalized era” (skrbis et al. 2004, p. 116). not solely a synonym for left-wing, liberal progressivism, cosmopolitanism lies beyond the right-wing versus left-wing divisions (koopmans and zürn 2019, p. 4), as many political progressives see the nation-state as retaining the pragmatic boundaries for their progressive politics, engage in a ‘softer’ type of internationalism and restrict the context of their argumentation to the national. regardless, twitter offers opportunities for the creation of a cosmopolitan, quasi-activist online persona worthy of further study. cosmopolitanism can be experienced as a digital lived reality. with the development of social media as a user-generated web form through sites such as facebook, youtube, and twitter, a new era began (stormer-galley and wichowski 2011, p. 170; ritzer and jurgenson 2010: 12). the core of social media lies in the comparatively low-threshold possibility for users to generate their own content with a potentially high medial reach (rosa 2020), reciprocity (castells 2010, p. 389), and interactivity (stormer-galley and wichowski 2011, p. 170). this fundamentally changes communication from a one-to-many communication to a many-to-many communication (röll 2020, p. 119), while offering a more accessible opportunity for the majority of internet users to becoming producers and consumers of internet content at the same time (kelly 2005; ritzer and jurgenson 2010). negotiations and (intercultural) spaces of encounter, which previously took place predominantly in the national or were required substantial effort (travel, migration, deployment), now happen on a daily basis in digital space. we have steadily been breaking away from the hegemony of the local: social proximity is moving away from the notion of physical-local proximity. today's cosmopolitans no longer disembark from ships to settle in the ports of arrival cities (yeoh & lin 2012, pp. 209-210) but figuratively navigate the internet from home. characterising digital cosmopolitans appiah (2007, p. 137) writes: “they believe in human dignity across the nations, and they live their creed. they share these ideals with people in many countries, speaking many languages. as thoroughgoing globalists, they make full use of the world wide web.” questions around whether interpersonal social relationships on the internet could fulfil the function of previous forms of social relationships were critiqued from the outset. as early as 1995, giddens assumed that there would be no need for shared (physical) space and shared (synchronous) time in order to establish social relationships. by the 2000s, there was no doubt that virtual social networks function according to comparable principles such as reciprocity, support, and interactivity, even though their cohesion may, when compared to physical communities, be based more on asynchrony and on weak ties (castells 2010, p. 389). however, as röll (2020, pp. 123-124) points out, it is precisely these weak ties that are particularly attractive for the propagation of ideas in social media. this in particular makes twitter attractive for people who wish to share their ideas for a solidarity-oriented, responsible humanity and have thus essentially become cosmopolitan influencers. one of the ongoing social debates regarding cosmopolitanism surrounds whether cosmopolitanism must go hand in hand with financial, social and cultural capital and social resources (woodward and skrbis 2012, p. 129). beck (2011, p. 1352) argues that cosmopolitanism is by definition unbound and inclusive, and werbner (2012, p. 154) adds that it cannot be only the choice of an elite. does this apply equally to digital cosmopolitans? the lietz & lenehan 20 cosmopolitanism taking place on twitter detaches itself from hierarchical systems and enables participation with only a small input of resources. representing a (potential) counterpublic to institutionalised communication, relativising and diversifying uniform and essentialist views, and establishing itself without spatial mobility, twitter has the potential to be a cosmopolitan platform for anybody able to use it, while remaining also mindful of the digital divide, which disadvantages many people on social media, including those with low literacy and low computer literacy, with disabilities, and persons with low english proficiency (singh & zarger 2021). thus, is twitter cosmopolitanism inherently a “cosmopolitanism from below” (kurasawa 2004; appadurai 2011)? stormer-galley and wichnowski (2011, p. 173) identified that politically and socially-engaged internet users from the 1990s to 2007 were generally well-educated and affluent. a 2019 study from pew research centre (wojcik and hughes 2019) on twitter users in the usa sharpens this picture. their findings demonstrate that twitter users are younger, and have higher educational qualifications and higher incomes than the us average. their political views are more likely to be on the wide leftist spectrum. they are also more likely to articulate favourable views on immigration. among particularly active twitter users, such political positions are even more prevalent (wojcik and hughes 2019). twitter is, thus, primarily used by those with a large degree of social privilege. yet, elon musk’s activities since purchasing twitter at the end of 2022 and earlier scandals regarding far-right activists on the platform, would also suggest that a relativisation of the ‘twitter as leftist platform’ idea is necessary. cosmopolitan twitter takes place in the environment of a postdigital1 world. the dichotomy between a supposedly ‘not-real’ online and a ‘real’ offline world has now become obsolete and is giving way to the realisation that the internet also plays an increasingly important role in the supposed offline world (thelwall 2013, pp. 69-70). recent theoretical discussions have viewed the postdigital in terms of a “critical understanding” of technology’s pervasion of the social (jandrić et al. 2018; peters and besley 2019). for knox (2019, p. 358) the term postdigital is an attempt to outline what is new regarding our relationship to the digital, but also highlights the ways that digital technologies are “embedded in, and entangled with, existing social practices and economic and political systems”. postdigitality also means that we frequently come into contact with an array of digital cosmopolitan flows, via our devices (lenehan 2022). twitter engagement: motivation and values it is clear that twitter has become a space for a type of argumentative (normativephilosophical) digital cosmopolitanism. but what is driving these cosmopolitan influencers? cosmopolitan messages on the microblogging platform are (mostly) intended to reach a public (marwick and boyd 2010, pp. 117-118). are they therefore also the expression of civic or political engagement? according to kersting (2013, p. 156), political engagement inter alia takes place in the form of “demonstrative democracy” (e.g. demonstrations, signature campaigns). even if engagement research is primarily concerned with the physical world (e.g. simonson and vogel 2016), “demonstrations” or “petitions” on the social web should not be neglected from a postdigital point of view (abbott 2012, p. 84). especially in the case of statements on twitter, characteristic features of “demonstrative democracy” as described by kersting (2013, p. 156) 1 we follow sinclair and hayes (2019) in not hyphenating the term ‘postdigital’ in order to normalise this concept persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 21 are very applicable: they may be seen as an expression of “symbolic participation” and certainly have an “appeal function”. engagement research recognises different reasons for political and civic engagement (e.g. clary and snyder 1999; müller et al. 2016). engagement motives can be summarised under the three umbrella terms social motives, societal motives, and self-referential motives. of course, these are interwoven, and all three groups of motives appear in varying degrees (clary and snyder 1999, p. 156). social motives include aspects of social cohesion, but also emotional diversion, which is associated with engagement. relationships are strengthened, and social exchange is perceived as enjoyment. the objective is to be entertained (müller et al. 2016, p. 419; clary and snyder 1999, p. 157). by contrast, in the case of societal motives, the focus is on the appellative function. committed people want—not infrequently for humanistic reasons (clary and snyder 1999, p. 157)—to influence their fellow human beings (müller et al. 2016, p. 419). the objective here is the shaping of society (clary and snyder 1999, p. 157). however, civic engagement does not have to be altruistic per se. the third category of self-related motives focus on direct or indirect personal benefits and one’s own needs and goals (clary and snyder 1999, p. 156). this can be the accumulation of expertise, or the gaining of reputational or career advantages. the objective is the promotion of oneself (müller et al. 2016, p. 419; clary and snyder 1999, p. 157) and the values of those involved are superordinate to motivation. huxhold and müller (2016, p. 475) find that civic engagement correlates more than anything else with the values of “solidarity” and “creativity”. in the case of “solidarity,” the interests of fellow human beings carry even more weight than self-centred interests (huxhold and müller 2016, p. 476). the idea that values underlie engagement is not surprising; they are the “vocabulary for attributing motives” (thome 2019, p. 51). the immediate functions of value systems are to guide human action in daily situations. value systems “lead us to take particular positions on social issues and predispose us to favour one particular position” and they are moral “standards employed to persuade and influence others, to tell us which beliefs, attitudes, values, and actions of others are worth challenging, protesting, and arguing about” (rokeach 1973, pp. 1314). values are generally either self-centred or group-centred (rokeach 1973). they therefore fulfil an important function of social integration and strengthen both personal and collective identity affirmation (thome 2019, p. 47). cosmopolitan twitter as an affirmation of identity the examination of one's own self and the relationship to the social environment is the core of the identity question and is treated centrally under the concept of persona (marshall and barbour 2015, pp. 1–2). identity is formed between privacy and publicity (humphrey 2021, p. 21) which means through the “alignment of inner and outer world” (keupp et al. 2008, p. 7). keupp et al. (2008) argues that individuals are caught between two positions: they strive for “originality, […] uniqueness, and distinctiveness” (p. 262), thus seeking differentiation from the environment, while simultaneously striving for “integration […] into a particular group” and social recognition (p. 261). individualistic and collective orientations are, therefore, in opposition. identity is formed on the one hand through self-organisation and on the other hand through recognition by others (lucius-hoene & deppermann 2002, p. 49); and thus by forming a personal identity, these contrasting poles are harmonised. lietz & lenehan 22 this duality is also found within the activities of cosmopolitan tweeters. indeed, it stands to reason that individuals who present themselves in the hyper-public twitter space, greatly appreciate recognition by and embeddedness in the “imagined audience” (marwick and boyd 2010, p. 115). with the imagined audience, a “digital intimacy” is established and “serves a social function, reinforcing connections and maintaining social bonds” (marwick and boyd 2010, p. 118). the “continuous performance” (giles 2020, p. 20) in the public online space has the effect of a brand strategy (p. 25), for which the persona earns attention and recognition. according to keupp et al. (2008, p. 256), the “feeling of recognition” arises from the interplay of three factors: (1) attention, (2) positive evaluation by others, (3) self-recognition/selfevaluation. the final of these factors—self-recognition—bridges the function of integration with the function of individualisation. twitter users may strive for recognition by the social environment, while also desiring the representation of a preferably ‘authentic’ online persona. ‘authenticity’ is of course a problematic concept, not least in the internet context. marshall and barbour (2015, p. 6) mention the shift that has taken place from “the classic the new yorker claim that online no one knows you are a dog, to [...] the expectation that online identities are authentic representations of an offline self”. following erving goffman's model of theatrical performance, it is questionable whether ‘authenticity’ is in itself something reflective of a non-performative reality, or whether every interaction takes place within the space of a performative situation, where every individual agent remains mindful of their conduct and their desired effects on the audience, and thus may be seen as always wearing a mask (goffman 1956, pp. 2-4). twitter users have to “negotiate multiple, overlapping audiences […] to portray both an authentic self and an interesting personality” (marwick and boyd 2010, p. 122). while doing so, the “credibility” and time-enduring “coherence” of the performance seems to be a central aspect of authenticity (lacoste et al. 2014, p. 2). this mirrors again the dual elements of identity creation: the validation by others and the verification of the self (introduced beforehand as alignment of inner and outer world). methodology in order to explore the argumentative assumption (established above) that cosmopolitan personas can be found on twitter, interviews with twitter users were conducted to identify motivating biographical and personality factors for digital cosmopolitans. thus, the underlying empirical research is embedded in the field of qualitative social research in internet studies (cardoso et al. 2013, p. 219). the research design pursues an interpretative approach, which, following bakardjieva (2011, p. 61), examines the meaning, negotiation, and domestication of and by the internet in everyday life, and addresses the fusion of internet and everyday life. issues of (narrative) identity (lucius-hoene and deppermann 2002) of twitter users are in question, and identity reveals itself as a “progressive process of one's own shaping of life, which (re)constructs itself in every everyday action” (keupp et al. 2008, p. 215). episodic interviews (flick 2019, pp. 228–237) with narrative-generating elements (werner 2013, p. 141), were chosen as the principal method. the interview guide included narrative-generating questions about twitter activities, respective twitter biographies, motives, and values pursued in the virtual, the analog and hence the postdigital world. to identify suitable candidates, we looked for tweeters whose tweets expressed the cosmopolitan ideals established above, firstly by showing a responsibility for or identification with potentially all of humanity, well beyond the national, and secondly by addressing the question of how we can live together as equals in a peaceful world. we accept that this general approach is highly subjective (especially in relation to ‘responsibility’ and ‘peaceful world’) and persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 23 can be interpreted differently from diverse viewpoints. to operationalise, we took the pragmatic cosmopolitan ideas of solidarity and connectivity to humanism and applied these to tweets concerning contemporary topics that represent challenges for the world, humanity and the environment. specifically, we looked for tweeters engaging with (global) climate protection, international understanding, pacifism, pro-eu feeling, anti-authoritarianism, fair trade, lgbt rights, or a positioning against any form of group-focused enmity (e.g., against anti-semitism and racism). since a principal concern of the research was the personal motives of the subjects, and twitter was to be investigated as a cosmopolitan space for potentially everyone, accounts run on behalf of political parties, foundations or associations were excluded; only private accounts were included. the tweeters, being neither professional campaigners nor celebrities, can thus construct their persona on their own terms. sharing tweets on cosmopolitan ideas regularly was important, with inclusion criteria requiring a minimum of 4 cosmopolitan-themed tweets per month, and this content constituting at least 10% of tweets in the year prior to the interview. some tweeters engage mainly or nearly solely (50% or more of their tweets) in cosmopolitan themes (we call them focused tweeters), others cover cosmopolitan topics visibly (proportion of at least 10%), but among other interests (we call them occasional tweeters). under this premise, the operators of 66 twitter accounts were approached and 10 interviews were arranged. these took place between september and december 2021 and were conducted and recorded using video conferencing software. the distribution of the participants in terms of country of residence, cultural affiliation, age, gender and twitter activity can be found in table 1. there was a variety in age (between 17 and about 55 years) and occupational status (students, employees, executives, self-employed). the interviews were carried out in german or english, while english was in use either as the native language of the participants or as a lingua franca (for the interviewer and for the participants). the corpus of approximately six hours of audio recording was completely transcribed (except passages not belonging to the context, like microphone tests) and subsequently analysed on the basis of qualitative content analysis procedures (mayring 2015). in order to increase validity, the application of interrater reliability was implemented by assigning three researchers and assistants to independently evaluate the data. it was especially applied in the case of highly interpretative questions, such as those concerning values and motives. ethical evaluation of this research was completed by the german federal ministry for education and research. the qualitative content analysis identified five thematic groupings across the interviews. highly significant interview quotes have been selected and translated as necessary. the ten interviewees are identified as i1-i10, corresponding to their identifier in table 1 below. lietz & lenehan 24 table 1: overview of interview participants location (ethnicity / country of origin) sex joined twitter number of tweets (000s) number of followers (000s) type of user (by proportion of cosmopolitan tweets) topics of interest 01 germany f 2020 < 1 < 0.1 occasional antisemitism, racism 02 netherlands (ireland) m 2016 10-20 2-3 occasional racism, migration, diversity, disability, globalisation, lgbtq 03 united kingdom (ireland) f 2009 5-10 <1 occasional lgbtq, racism, disability, europeanism 04 germany (turkey) m 2021 10-15 3-4 focused racism, migration 05 poland f 2018 50-100 3-4 focused globalisation, climate change, human rights, authoritariani sm 06 austria (kurdish) f 2017 5-10 < 0.5 focused human rights, migration, peace, authoritariani sm 07 germany (mexico) f 2011 < 1 < 0.5 occasional global mobility, environment 08 united kingdom f 2016 50-100 20-30 occasional authoritariani sm, europeanism 09 germany f 2013 10-20 20-30 focused climate change 10 united kingdom m 2019 1-5 2-3 focused lgbtq persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 25 results our analysis revealed a bundle of findings connected to the motivations and values of the cosmopolitan twitter personas. beyond motivations and values, the analysis also encompasses attitudes (like bleak optimism, modest vanity and non-conformism) as well as giving an allusion to effects of resonance and mediated reach. motivations as depicted in the preceding discussion, engagement research identifies three main motivations for civic engagement: social motives, societal motives, and self-referential motives. when asked about their motivations for their cosmopolitan twitter activities, the interviewees focused primarily on societal motives. these are predominantly activist-oriented (“appealing to society and changing it”), and sometimes also altruistic (“giving something to society”). “the only thing i want to get back is i want to get rid of authoritarianism, that's the reason i do it. i want people to wake up to who we’ve put into power […] somehow or other, is make people wake up and say we've had enough.” (i8) “i indeed have the intention of helping to start a revolution. so, this is not a theoretical discussion for me. i'm not doing this as a diversion, i want us to save our fucking future, and i'm honestly also trying to radicalise people, in terms of communication. […] i'm very concrete about changing the world.” (i9, about the climate crisis) “i think it's also a platform for me to make people publicly aware of problems that i see or things that are going wrong. i definitely use it to a certain extent for the purpose of social media activism or hashtag activism.” (i2) even though societal motives clearly play a key role for twitter cosmopolitans, social and selfrelated motives can also be found. the social motives arise, on the one hand, from the desire for entertainment and, on the other hand, reflect the need to be integrated into a group. “that is the power of social media such as twitter and things like that. you bring like-minded people together. and you have kind of a voice where you can show people: ‘hey, there are actually a lot of like-minded people who think that we should stop investing in fossil fuels and whatever other kind of stuff.” (i2) “it's helpful because you are sharing information with like-minded people, who are trying to do similar work to you. […] but it's not just that. it's about having a community of people of support.” (i10 about lgbt rights supporters) even if people often do not admit to self-centred motives – not least in the solidarity-based spectrum of cosmopolitanism – such motives are occasionally represented here too. “twitter, let's be honest, is a form of self-promotion, isn't it? so, i promote events, i promote talks, i promote things i do in a podcast. […] most of the stuff is focussing on activism and society and schools and inclusion and having that moral purpose. but as a consequence, you gain a reputation in a good way, which leads to people getting in touch, asking you for talks and things. and who knows, in future maybe jobs and stuff. so, i think they go hand in hand really, and i don't necessarily do one for the other. obviously, it is a nice by-product.” (i10) as motivations, especially the motivation to become committed in civic engagement, are highly connected to underpinning values, it is worth drawing attention to these in the next section. lietz & lenehan 26 values reflecting the scholarly discussion, there is a fundamental importance placed on values for human actions (see the introductory pages). indeed, many statements made by the interviewees could be used to elicit references to their values. their narratives repeatedly revolved around four values: authenticity, solidarity, justice and equality, and freedom of expression. authenticity was evident from the following quotes, with similar sentiments expressed by others: “i think, for me, it's really important that my account is about all of me. it's not manufactured.” (i8) “if something is against my moral code, i try to talk about this. […] so i try to promote all these values i believe in.” (i5) the value of solidarity (i.e., the emphasis on or even the appropriation of the needs of others) plays an essential role. “[i saw] certain minority groups that i felt really needed to be defended and supported.” (i3, about discrimination of lgbt and immigrants) “i just wanted to promote and support people and human rights and humankind and a better world and to move away from that sort of vitriol and hatred. […] humanity, that's the whole point. it's all about being human.” (i8) similarly, digital cosmopolitans share a strong sense of justice, a vehement rejection of inequality, and they also wish to keep fighting for human rights as well as for freedom of speech. “[…] i believe that everybody should be treated the same way because we are equal. and it makes me nervous or aggressive when i just see that human rights are violated by the government, by politicians and so on.” (i5) “it is always good to stand up for human rights. no matter where.” (i6) “it is important to me that my opinion is clear to my fellow human beings. […] i find it important to position myself.” (i1) “in the netherlands, there is ‘sprekvrijheid’, meaning things can be talked about, and you have the freedom of speech and i use it. they shouldn't have given it to me, if they don't want me to use it.” (i2) motivations and values have been core aspects deduced from the corpus. however, there are numerous further aspects, which round out the picture of the cosmopolitan twitter users examined here. bleak optimism being politically and societally interested, the interviewees regularly evaluated societal developments. these show a kind of paradoxical bleak optimism, which is a pessimistic (misantropic) vision of the future combined with the (philantropic) belief in the effectiveness of individual efforts for a better world: “my great big fear was that we would have an authoritarian government. […] we slip into fascism. i mean, for me it's as simple as that, you know.” (i8) "racism and ableism are increasingly being seen. however, it is not yet fully recognised that these social problems are also related to the ecological catastrophe, and [...] that all these crises become worse and more difficult because we do not solve the problem." (i9) persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 27 “there's been more and more hugely reactionary stuff and populist stuff that needs to be addressed. […] we're going to end up in a situation where all these people are demonised the extent that gay cannot be accepted in society anymore and that is hugely dangerous.” (i3) “just when i saw how awful the government was, i mean they were so much worse than i could possibly imagine […] i realised i actually had an account with quite a big following and that maybe that voice was important.” (i8) having analysed that bleak optimism is characteristic for the interviewees, it is now of interest how they position themselves in relation to the broader society. exceptionality and non-conformism it is striking that almost all of the interviewees perceive themselves as “exceptional” in some way. as a result, the interviewees repeatedly place themselves in outsider positions. “i associate myself with a kind of hashtags [… ] like #twiceexceptional and #divergentthinking and stuff like that. […] my family, sometimes amongst ourselves, we speak as we are not part of the […] society, […] now, i associate most closely the sensation of being ‘other’ with my intelligence. i think that people, who are on this autistic spectrum, have a different frequency. […] the sensation of being ‘other’, i think, it helps me, or it means that in terms of diversity and gender or race, i very easily put myself in the shoes of other people.” (i2) “we were political refugees. […] that has shaped my life, including that of my family. we have very close family members […] who were murdered, put into prisons. these are very real experiences. […] then, of course, growing up in a foreign country, with a different language […], having to explain oneself, always having to meet the demands of both sides, european-western and kurdish traditional, was a balancing act.” (i6) therefore, the interviewees assume that they perceive social dynamics that others have not noticed or ignored so far. “i'm quite an open-minded person, because i travel a lot and i see more things than people who don’t.“ (i5) “normal people, just like me when i was growing up, think that being wealthy and successful are the values you should strive towards. i think that is keeping people blinkered about what's happening in the world around them regarding power, regarding politics, and regarding the climate, all these kinds of things. they become trapped in an old system. they need to be shown a better way of how things can be.” (i2) for some digital cosmopolitans, their own perceived “exceptional” role in society is accompanied by a non-conformist critique of political and economic elites and systems, or a questioning of authorities. “we stop looking at what the problem is, which is governments and corporations who want to ultimately take away all our power and make us hate each other.” (i8) “you have to take things into your own hands and somehow can't trust politics.” (i4) lietz & lenehan 28 “it is also about real awareness, i.e. creating attention. look, that's a different perspective, it's not always like the politicians say, you can also look behind the facade.” (i6) “it was the first time in my life, i think, that i also understood that grown-ups weren’t always right. in fact, they were very very often wrong and that i should start questioning what a grown-up said to me.” (i3, about an anti-gay statement of an adult caregiver) social media (companies) are criticised by the tweeters as opinion-manipulating elites, even if they actively use them themselves. “social media is another tool to manipulate you. you have to be aware of that, so don't let yourself be manipulated. […] i know that twitter is a kind of machine, fuelled by algorithms which intentionally divide people. […] i think in general, social media is rather a toxic environment.” (i5) “so many people falling down so many rabbit holes and believing what's going on in the echo chambers with so many bots and sock puppet accounts. there are an awful lot of people who are incredibly naive about how social media works, and they just read one thing, and they believe it.” (i3) the prior examples show the self-perception as “exceptional” and/or non-conformist. the following section now draws attention to the mediated reach and effects of resonance of these persons in the twitterverse. mediated reach and effects of resonance participating in a hyper-public space like twitter, the participants also reflect on the mediated reach they have and how it influences them. of course, their twitter activities do not happen in an isolated space, but are very much connected to other people's reactions, be they positive or negative. “i never cared about followers. that didn't really interest me.” (i6) “from a totally vain ego point of view, if i’ve posted something, and it starts getting a lot of likes and a lot of retweets, that’s always nice […] it’s like ‘yeah, i’ve been validated’.” (i3) “i once left some clever comment on marina weisband's profile, which she then retweeted. it had around 5,000 likes, so it went through the roof.” (i1, about a comment on a well-known politician and activist's profile) “if i write something and then a lot of people are retweeting it or a lot of people are commenting, it gives me some kind of energy. it feels like an endorsement of my viewpoint.” (i8) in addition, qualitative data analysis reveals that digital cosmopolitans seem to be particularly capable of not being intimidated by negative comments. above all, they are successful in not letting hostilities affect them when there is an intrinsic belief in doing the right thing, and when toxic discussions are avoided. for example, by blocking aggressors or by belittling them. “i'm not that sensitive, as long as there's not someone standing in front of my door. […] but what i actually do is to block out these comments. i don't just leave them.” (i1, referring to online harassment) persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 29 following the presentation of interview results, we would like to engage in the following discussion, highlighting the most interesting results, and relating them to each other and to the underlying literature. discussion from the selected corpus, we have seen key elements which align the identity of cosmopolitan tweeters. the interviewees do not use cosmopolitanism as a self-narrative, but when asked they identify as “internationally active” (i01), “citizen of the world” (i02), “member of the human race” (i03) and as an aspirant of being “a good human” (i07), which reflects a strong connection to the cosmopolitan baselines formulated by appiah (2007) and nussbaum (2020). although every individual has a unique self-narrative and views the world and society individually, there are common fixed points that characterise the cosmopolitan twitter personas examined here. twitter enables a persona to behave simultaneously and in playful alternation performatively (oriented toward self-expression), collectively (oriented toward the community), and in a values-based manner (oriented toward basic beliefs) (moore et al. 2017, pp. 3–7). through twitter use, one’s own sense of identity is confirmed, while simultaneously one is embedded in the ‘collective identity’ (keupp et al. 2008; thome 2019) . we also see a strong parallel between twitter engagement and traditional, civic engagement (clary and snyder 1999) and argue that cosmopolitan engagement on twitter can be understood as another form of civic engagement. as seen in the earlier theoretical discussion, values are viewed to be superior to motivation (thome 2019, p. 51) and are linked in self-narrations. the guiding principle of action for digital cosmopolitans is their claim to appear authentic. whether or not authenticity—seen as performative in a goffmanian sense—is possible at all remains irrelevant as the interviewees at least are convinced it is possible and achievable. they highlight that their account is “not manufactured” (i08), they emphasise that they promote only elements in line with their values and they wish to be seen by their followers (audience) as they see themselves. for example, i01 stated “i find it important that i position myself [according to my values] and that the others see it, and i02 argued “if i put something on twitter i stand by that, you know, my name is beside it and i don't use a fake profile or an avatar”. here, the twitter activity has the role of an identity self-verification (keupp 2008, p. 262), being in line with ellison and boyd (2013, p. 153) who state that self-representation in the virtual (but of course also in the analogue) space also serves the purpose of assuring to appear as the person one identifies as. adding to authenticity, the further primary values we can see are mainly from the field which rokeach (1973, p. 7-13) has called group-centred: solidarity, justice and equality, and freedom of expression. this brings us back again to the idea of cosmopolitanism, as that a sense of wider solidarity—as well as justice, equality and freedom of expression—have been shown by scholarly discussion to be an explicit expression of a cosmopolitan attitude which gives the needs of others a high priority (skrbis et al. 2004, p. 116). for the cosmopolitan twitter personas presented in this study, freedom of expression is not just a mere democratic law, but is indelibly linked to the deepest of convictions and becomes part of identity. almost all of the interviewees perceived themselves as “exceptional” in some way. among other things, they explained this with biographical experiences that have sharpened their perspectives. these included the opportunity (or necessity) to travel or to learn languages, or with personal traits such as autism. their dispositions, presented by the participants as exceptional, have led them to believe that they perceive the social environment from a special perspective. lietz & lenehan 30 we have identified the world view of these tweeters as bleak optimism. it is a pessimistic vision of the future. in principle, the tweeters expect social conditions to deteriorate, at least if no active efforts are made to improve them. this pessimistic to misanthropic worldview apparently does not lead the tweeters to resignation or nihilism. on the contrary, it seems to encourage them to become engaged in order to prevent the foreseen catastrophes. in the belief in the effectiveness of the individual as part of a critical mass, something quite opposite to misanthropic pessimism is revealed: a sense of responsibility for the world and humanity as a whole that connects to cosmopolitanism (appiah 2007, p. 15). another apparent paradox lies in a characteristic trait of digital cosmopolitans: on the one hand, the participants often express themselves modestly, not exaggerating their own personality, for example by stating that they are “not looking for followers” (i6), on the other hand, this modesty displayed in a hyper-public space like twitter also seems contradictory, as a microblogging service like twitter is fundamentally a “megaphone” (i4). the interviewees are also aware of this, so their own influence in the network is also taken into account, and occasionally celebrated. drawing on castells (2010, p. 389), we have deduced that successful social media is founded on reciprocity, support and interactivity. we could see this also represented in the results. the data shows that these reciprocal interactions are, logically, encouraging when positive. in addition, qualitative data analysis reveals that digital cosmopolitans seem to be particularly capable of not being intimidated by negative comments. instead, they do not let hostilities affect them when there is an intrinsic belief they are doing the right thing. they avoid toxic discussions, for example, by blocking aggressors or by belittling them. the research supports the theory of the postdigital society, in which online and offline processes merge and distinctions between the two ultimately dissolve. the digital cosmopolitans behave in a postdigital cosmopolitan manner. the interviewees are all ‘cosmopolitically’ active in domains that are not primarily internet-based, either in a professional context or in a private environment (family, friends). thus, the postdigital applies to their public and private lives, as well as their activity both on twitter and elsewhere. conclusion and outlook digital cosmopolitans use twitter to develop their persona as a representation of the self in virtual public space. they are very strongly value-based. in addition to solidarity, justice and freedom of expression, authenticity appears to be a fundamental value for actions on twitter. thus, the theatrical mask of the public persona loses some of its more disguising elements and shows (still performative) ‘authentic’ facets that are important for the self-image of the agents. the digital cosmopolitans are deeply convinced that they are doing the right thing, and they are also deeply convinced that they have to do it, especially in order to (positively) influence society on the basis of societal motives. moreover, the motivations show that digital cosmopolitanism must be understood as a form of civic engagement, being primarily driven by societal motives and, complementarily, by social motives and self-centred motives. although the engagement strengthens the integration into and social cohesion within a community, the commitment can also lead to finding oneself in an outsider position. the participants see themselves as “exceptional” observers of social events who do not necessarily belong to the mainstream, and they are united by a critical attitude towards authorities, and economic and/or political elites. they are characterised by “modest vanity” and perceive societal changes with “bleak optimism”. assuming normatively that digital cosmopolitanism is something worth aspiring to and contributes to a world community based on shared human rights, values and tolerance, the persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 3 31 question becomes, indeed, how cosmopolitan tweeting can be strengthened. according to what we deduce from our data, we suggest this takes place on three levels: a structural level, community level and individual level. firstly, at a structural level, twitter activists may be protected against threats and violence by the operating platform itself. however, since the platform level is beyond the immediate reach of users, the recommendations for action addressed by the interviewees focus on the community and the individual level. at the community level, positive reinforcement can outweigh negative feedback. therefore, there are good arguments for actively using positive endorsements such as likes, retweets and even active counter speech. finally, at the individual level, users who have acquired an ability to deal with discursive frustration and to find an emotional distance to the subject matter retain better possibilities for coping with online harassment. with this study we gathered new insights into twitter users who actively seek to make the world a better place from a cosmopolitan perspective. these digital cosmopolitans are values-driven, highly motivated and sociallyconscious. this makes them vulnerable, but also extremely valuable. works cited abbott, j 2012, ‘social media’, in: n kersting (ed.), electronic democracy, barbara budrich, opladen, pp. 77–102. appadurai, a 2011, ‘cosmopolitanism from below: some ethical lessons from the slums of mumbai’, the johannesburg salon, no. 4, pp. 32–43. appiah, a 2005, the ethics of identity, princeton university press, princeton. appiah, a 2007, ‘cosmopolitanism: ethics in a world of strangers (issues of our time)’, w. w. norton, new york.. 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acknowledgements this article was written as part of the redico (researching digital interculturality cooperatively) project funded by the german federal ministry of education and research (bmbf, germany), grant number 01ul2002a roman lietz university of mainz and fergal lenehan university of jena abstract key words cosmopolitanism in the twitterverse cosmopolitanism on and outside twitter twitter engagement: motivation and values cosmopolitan twitter as an affirmation of identity methodology results motivations values bleak optimism exceptionality and non-conformism mediated reach and effects of resonance discussion conclusion and outlook works cited acknowledgements mcdonald 54 responsible management of online academic reputations sharyn mcdonald abstract online professional persona creation in academia provides individuals and their employing institutions a range of positive reputational benefits. however, not all academics are equipped to keep pace with the speed and dynamism of the new media environment. this paper examines the challenges experienced by academics who are communicating with multiple audiences across several online platforms, some mandated by their institutions. some academics are vulnerable to the negative consequences of heightened exposure and need additional protection and support. this paper outlines a set of recommendations that centres on the need for universities to accept greater social responsibility in managing this emerging issue. key words professional persona, work-life balance, responsibility, academics, social media, online introduction universities assume two core roles in society: on the one hand, they are centres of knowledge production disseminating research across a variety of disciplines. on the other hand, universities are also centres of learning where pedagogy is a key function. to fulfil these dual objectives these institutions seek employees who can competently balance the demands of research and teaching while emulating the core values and missions of the institution. according to dorothy smith, universities are organised by a mission that would have them “act as the critic and the conscience of society and for academics as scholarly citizens to foster intellectual insight, contribute to the struggle for justice, take up a level of social responsibility, be passionate about learning and be vocal of our times” (254). implicit in this summary is the expectation that academic institutions and their academic employees should lead responsible practice. universities may be well positioned to demonstrate best practice in social responsibility (torrado, bonilla and clarke; vallaeys; wigmore-álvarez and ruiz-lozano) but, as part of a holistic approach to social responsibility, universities should consider the needs of a key internal stakeholder—the academic. while academia is often represented as a noble vocation, there are many pressures and expectations facing the academic that may remain unseen or un-detected to the outside observer. the tertiary landscape is constantly evolving and universities are described as complex, challenging, dynamic, and volatile (pennington and smith 434). for those employed in academic roles the constant need to keep pace with changing demands and expectations can be overwhelming. as a consequence, academics are attempting to perform those duties identified personal studies 2015, 1.2 55 within position descriptions—research, teaching, and service—while trying to meet the hidden demands of the role—to engage in professional development and keep abreast of technological advancements (weller). one area of concern is the expectation that academics will seamlessly and continually incorporate evolving social media into their research and pedagogy. in the race for universities to seize opportunities and be seen to embrace technological advancements, academics have been caught up in what could be described as an uncontrolled work practice that is increasingly difficult to sustain. the weight of expectations in terms of research outputs and teaching quality is already a difficult combination to manage, particularly for academics trying to preserve an appropriate work-life balance (weller). maintaining a professional persona through social media further increases the pressure on these workers. undeniably, social media can be useful in developing a professional persona, yet there are several consequences that need to be examined. this paper begins by summarising the benefits of using social media to create a professional online persona. this is followed by a review of relevant literature to show that academic industry issue management has been inadequate over these matters, particularly with regard to personal well-being and the social responsibility universities should assume. it will conclude with recommendations for ways to ameliorate these conditions. social media tools and the benefits of increased online visibility social media can bring a host of reputational advantages to academics and the tertiary institutions that employ them. the tertiary education sector can include various forms of postsecondary education options, but this paper looks exclusively at universities and the unique expectations and prestige that emanate from such institutions. universities are presented with an opportunity to use social media to assemble the outputs and best practices generated/demonstrated by academics and leverage this opportunity to curate “brand identity and marketing purposes” (liebler and chaney 399). institutions have traditionally benefited from the visibility of their more prominent academics whose presence may carry influence and prestige (barbour and marshall). prestigious academics are regarded as “public intellectuals” because they “write and speak” about their specialist knowledge to audiences beyond their professional colleagues (lightman) and “become well-known to the general public for a willingness to comment on current affairs” (“public intellectual”). over time, this visible recognition has meant that public intellectuals are publicised in news or “representational media” including newspapers, magazines, radio, and television (marshall, “persona studies”). to cultivate a visible, vibrant public persona in academia, some academics are successfully combining traditional publications and speaking engagements with representational and new media. as cassandra atherton notes, with the functionality new media presents, public intellectuals have been able to further extend their conversations enabling active and accessible communication to online audiences: the immediacy of the blog and social media and the way in which an online presence facilitates immediate communication between the public and the public intellectual through the posting of comments online, allows for a broad recognition of the intellectual in the public arena. (15) this movement into the broader public arena is not solely reserved for the public intellectual. experienced or novice academics can take advantage of the opportunities new media present to highlight their research and utilise social media platforms in order “to create and maintain a professional persona” (liebler and chaney 404). online platforms and social media provide an increasing number of academics, regardless of discipline, the opportunity to communicate directly with both academic and non-academic publics. academics seek to build bridges between their theoretical work and their practice (boyer 16). derek barker views this “scholarship of engagement” as a way to communicate with public audiences in creative ways mcdonald 56 and “generate knowledge with public participation” (123). academics have adopted a variety of new media to facilitate this exchange with multiple audiences. sidneyeve matrix notes that there is an increase in academics across disciplines “venturing into the realms of social, mobile, and web 2.0 technologies to experiment with digital tools for research and professionalization.” academics utilise a variety of social media tools and platforms including facebook, linkedin, academia.edu, twitter, youtube, instagram, pinterest, skype, i-tunes, webinars and blogs alongside internally available platforms such as moodle or blackboard (barbour and marshall; liebler and chaney; matrix). furthermore, matrix acknowledges that social media adoption by academics is not linked to a specific generation: early career researchers through to senior professors are adopting new forms of media. with the development of online platforms and repositories where individuals or collectives can take control of assembling and exhibiting structured content or media, there has been new emphasis on the role of “presentational media” (marshall, “persona studies”) in tertiary institutions. it is now quite common to see a tabulation of publications, conferences, keynote speeches, and media coverage on the profile pages of an academic, particularly on the pages hosted by the institution that employs them. these profiles also commonly harbour additional information such as current research projects, teaching interests, and awards. in addition to such tangible outputs, academics have begun to incorporate new media with links to private blogs, linkedin profiles, twitter feeds or web pages on their profile pages. through adopting these various new media, academics have begun to take control of the “publicisation of the self” (marshall, “persona studies” 154) and to construct a persona (marshall, “personifying agency”) representing their professional identity that not only promotes their identity and careers, but also differentiates them from other academics. the diverse forms of new media allow academics to promote forthcoming publications and public speaking engagements, expand and enhance networks, and diversify their teaching and approach to student engagement. student audiences have an interest in acquiring more and timely information from academics. an academic with teaching responsibilities may utilise new media to enhance his or her teaching and extend levels of engagement with students. while universities often provide some technical assistance for online courses and course components, some degree of digital competency is necessary for academics to teach through online learning platforms. some academics have the technological capacity to excel in their use of online learning platforms and provide an engaging, innovative online learning experience. teaching resources found on an online learning platform may include recorded video lectures, podcasts, and discussion boards supplemented with links to private blogs and a twitter feed. as noted by kim barbour and p. david marshall, some academics also use platforms such as facebook and linkedin to facilitate staff/student dialogue. academics can incorporate new media to diversify the learning experience, which subsequently presents student audiences with the opportunity to communicate in up-to-date discussions and participate in a more personalised, engaging experience. using social media allows an academic to communicate with audiences already engaged or invested in academic debate alongside those who were previously unaware. an example where academics are utilising new media to extend their reach is through the use of twitter at conferences. content dissemination is no longer limited to those physically present: tweets extend the reach of content to current and potential new audiences. twitter usage at conferences can generate interest in forthcoming conferences, and facilitates conversations during and after the present conference (reinhardt et al.; veletsianos). one advantage to the 140-character limitation (and other structural limits often embedded in micro-blogging) is that this condensed format can present content in a more palatable arrangement for broader audiences. david smith supports the use of twitter; he notes that it is “a way of engaging with communities who normally would not give ‘academics’ the time of day.” in addition to reaching personal studies 2015, 1.2 57 a wider audience, twitter also bridges the gap between the time new work is produced and the time it is published which can take months or even years (björk and solomon) and alerts audiences to forthcoming research findings. given the considerable time spent preparing and refining academic papers for publication and the further delays in having work recognised or cited, sharing ideas through dedicated scholarly online forums has provided academics with a new platform for presenting the professional self. academics are utilising social media platforms to engage with other academics, present scholarly information and bypass the traditional, highly competitive and restrictive peer-reviewed journal process (barbour and marshall). one online opportunity academics have begun to utilise is the conversation, an online forum that provides “an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public” (the conversation). the conversation targets an interdisciplinary academic audience and expands the reach of academic research at an accelerated pace. this platform has also become entwined with traditional media, for content generated through the conversation “have also become an indispensable media resource: providing free content, ideas and talent to follow up for press, web, radio or tv” (the conversation). such a platform thus not only allows academics to move their research into the public sphere in a timely manner, but the comments function embedded in the site also facilitates timely feedback and a two-way dialogue between the author and audience. the goal for academics may be a free-flow of information resulting in two-way dialogue or, as observed by barbour and marshall, some academics may choose to control their online persona utilising social media platforms to broadcast one-way. while some individuals are comfortable with the concept of the presentation of self via new media tools and online portfolios (marshall, “persona studies”), there are others that may harbour concerns or face barriers that prevent them from doing so. barbour and marshall raise the concern that those who do not take control of their own online academic persona by purposefully engaging with new media risk persona creation at the hands of others who may seek to “criticize or defame”. this paper has acknowledged the benefits and rationale for taking control of one’s own professional online persona and has illustrated how this is being achieved in universities, yet it is also important to explore the challenges and implications of social media use in academia. the next section explores the complexities and consequences and may help explain why some academics are reluctant to adopt new media to create an online professional persona. challenges involved in maintaining an online professional persona taking control of the public discourse that surrounds an individual can be incredibly complex particularly when it involves various forms of communication media. as academic persona production moves from the regulated traditional measures of value, esteem, and inherent visibility publications attract (barbour and marshall), towards the complex navigation of external platforms, there are disadvantages and potential issues that can arise that are worth considering. maintaining and monitoring an online professional persona requires time and the immediacy of social media can create undue pressure. even individuals with a minimal online presence experience time management difficulties as they seek to address this multifaceted vocation. with mounting pressures to keep pace with the evolving technologies and media used within and by universities, academics are at risk of extending their accessibility beyond personal limits. matrix identifies several concerns including “accelerating expectations for faculty to be always on, connected, available to respond to email queries and provide instant feedback, 24/7” with the additional risk of a “loss of privacy and downtime,” a compulsion to remain connected, and “pressure to keep up with the flow of information”. institutions mandate aspects such as the time is should take academics to respond to student emails and online posts, but care must be taken to ensure the replies are well-considered and within the mcdonald 58 various guidelines and policies that structure the professional’s relationship to the student. in deborah lupton’s research of 711 international academics and their use of social media she found, related to the problem of time pressure is the concern that academics may become obliged to use social media as yet another dimension of their work. several people remarked that universities may be adding digital public engagement to the already long list of tasks demanded of their academic staff. (27) this increasing inability to manage an appropriate work-life balance has been highlighted in research conducted by gail kinman and siobhan wray. in their sample of over 24,000 higher education union members they found alarmingly high levels of stress and poor work-life balance, highlighting those “employed in teaching-and-research roles tended to report lower levels of well-being relating to demands, control and peer support, and higher levels of work-life conflict and stress, than those employed in teaching or research jobs” (33). an individual’s ability to cope was a concern that emerged from john rowe’s research. his article, “student use of social media: when should the university intervene?,” considers the perceived consequences an individual may face if an institution failed to provide support, and whether academics were labeled as overly sensitive to criticism. rowe states: what is considered harmful and damaging to one individual may be considered relatively trivial to another […] many staff indicated that they understood the need for students to vent and that they, as individuals, and the university should be ‘big enough’ to tolerate a fairly high level of criticism without intervening in any way. (251) criticism through social media is a challenge faced by academics, yet are these individuals prepared or equipped to cope with unexpected or unwarranted commentary (barbour, marshall and moore), criticism, or publicity? social media adds another layer of critique to the traditional avenues embedded in academia. traditional outputs produced by an academic are subject to challenge and critique by the academy (dorothy smith). very few journals adopt an “open peer review” such as that used by the british medical journal (bmj) wherein reviewers are identified and all reviewer comments are published with the completed research paper (bmj). the common approach to the submission of research for publication is a system of blind peer review where reviewers are anonymous and feedback is private. should academics receive negative criticism about their research, the private nature of the blind peer review process may allow an individual to seek appropriate support or guidance enabling them to cope with the feedback in a timely manner. conversely, the visibility and immediacy of criticism via new media can form a public attack on the credibility of an academic’s research or ideas. new media enables academics to extend twoway dialogue with new and existing audiences, but this also presents the risk of outright rejection of ideas and the potential for public ridicule. in a public forum, the academic must be prepared to defend, reject, or ignore criticism. many social media platforms have terms and conditions in place to generate respectful communication; academics are reliant on the enforcement of such rules to ensure offensive, illegal, or abusive posts are moderated and deleted. yet even in forums such as the conversation, the speed and vitriol of the critics may be overwhelming. earlier this year simon chapman, a professor of public health at university of sydney, openly discussed in the conversation his recent experience of trolls using social media platforms: “one troll actually went to the trouble of opening 16 different accounts, populating them with random followings and then firing off venom to me in his or her first tweet each time, hoping i wouldn’t guess it was the same person” (chapman). to help others in dealing with trolls, he converted his personal studies 2015, 1.2 59 experience into a discussion piece. the first post received in response to chapman’s article was negative – the subsequent post duly pointed out this irony. of the 65 comments relating to chapman’s article, approximately 25 were negative and critical of simon chapman, his research, or his article. within these comments, some questioned chapman’s distinction between what constituted a “troll” or “trolling behaviour” as compared to simple disagreement. a further 12 posts were removed by the moderator. this illustrates the potential disadvantages of engaging in online platforms and how they can also compromise both the time and space for discussion of intellectual content. sharing academic insights through such public forums can be turbulent, particularly for an under-prepared or self-conscious academic. the link between academic freedom and institutional censorship has also been raised as a challenge to online public discourse (gruzd, staves, and wilk). some institutions have taken action against academics who have drawn negative attention to their employing university through their social media discourse. there are examples where academics have had their employment terminated for blog content deemed inappropriate (horwedel), where they have been subjected to suspension for provocative tweets (thompson), overlooked for employment due to strongly worded tweets (thomason), and others have been threatened with legal action (gruzd, staves and wilk). academics engaging in both academic and non-academic public discussions through blogs and social media have some levels of control over the content they create, yet as has been demonstrated by public figures within other sectors such as politics, such comments can be readily taken out of context or misinterpreted. the emergence of censorship, whereby institutions are seen to distance themselves from reputational damage, presents a challenge to engaging in online public discussions and creates fears such as losing institutional or collegial support and jeopardising career opportunities (gruzd, staves and wilk; lupton). as raizel liebler and keidra chaney argue in “here we are now, entertain us: defining the line between personal and professional context on social media,” social media policies are often more aligned with the interests of an organisation rather than those of the individual. liebler and chaney investigate the challenges surrounding the private/professional boundary from a legal perspective. they note that individuals engage in social media to connect with friends and families, yet there is a level of crossover when the same platforms are utilised in a professional environment. in this environment where the technology and usage patterns are continually evolving, it is important to re-evaluate existing regulations and draw from organisations exhibiting best practice (liebler and chaney). barbour and marshall reinforce the need for improved policy within universities and suggest a process of collaboration between academics and their employing institution to ensure an effective outcome for all. the fluid nature of social media platforms has presented complexities for individuals attempting to cultivate and manage an online professional persona distinct from their private self. this blurred boundary between the private and professional self was a common concern raised in deborah lupton’s research: the most commonly raised concern for the respondents was that of privacy, and related to this, the blurring of boundaries between an individual’s private life and her professional persona that takes place on social media. respondents observed that it can be difficult to delimit and maintain these boundaries (22). academics that have adapted their technological skills and social media know-how from their private use of social media may find it difficult to retain information about the private self from information that represents the professional self, and information may inadvertently emerge from private networks or social spheres. for some, this may humanise the professional persona (david smith), for others this may negatively affect their professional work persona. academics must balance two-way dialogue with a variety of stakeholders and audiences, both internal and external: all have very specific needs and variable expectations. the academic also faces the new challenge of persona production by others through external sites. sites such as rate my professor or student-run forums that provide students with mcdonald 60 the opportunity to praise academics when they have experienced a positive teaching encounter or, conversely, vent if they feel begrudged. these sites provide students with the opportunity to discuss academics in a way that can shift the professional narrative from a persona assembled around research toward a student’s perspective of their personal learning experience. there has been considerable debate about whether, and how, to monitor and manage this negative discourse and what constitutes inappropriate content. in john rowe’s study, he found that both students and staff generally agree that “threats of violence, racist and sexist comments, admissions of cheating or offers to cheat on academic work” should be followed up with a response by the institution (250). some valid logistical difficulties are identified by rowe such as the cost of actively monitoring social media sites and the potential consequences of overregulation, whereby students will post comments on “non-university student-run sites diluting the value of the feedback provided through formal mechanisms” (255). rowe’s argument was clear that institutions should take full responsibility for monitoring and regulating official university forums yet only respond to alerts or complaints raised about postings on external sites (255). such a strategy leaves the academic exposed to unmonitored content that can have widespread reputational consequences if unchecked. the enormity of the issue facing academics as they try to navigate, maintain, and problem solve their way through various communication platforms and scenarios should not be ignored nor understated. the benefits of using social media and online forums to assemble a professional persona are marred by a lack of control over content and the time-consuming nature of content creation, maintenance, monitoring, and continued engagement (gruzd, staves and wilk; lupton). a concurrent theme has emerged surrounding the well-being of the academic, drawing in factors of time management and the inability to personally manage externally created content. the next section acknowledges these challenges and provides some recommendations for further consideration. recommendations for higher education institutions the development, maintenance, and monitoring of a professional persona has become an issue in need of management. academics are not necessarily well equipped for dealing with issues that arise through engaging in social media and other online platforms mandated (or encouraged) by their institutions. if the institution responds by ignoring comments or, in extreme cases, condemns the academic for stating strong views, this communicates a strong message to those already engaged with new media as well as those yet to cross the threshold and present their online professional persona. academics, as stakeholders of universities, have unfulfilled needs and expectations that, without attention, could lead to poor internal relationships, attrition, and reputational damage for the employing institution. at present there are a series of reactive approaches, where “short-term defensive reactions” (porter and kramer 82) have been reported (horwedel; thomason; thompson; gruzd, staves and wilk). social media policies are currently designed to protect institutions (liebler and chaney), but more should be done to protect the individual academic. universities could seize this opportunity to develop a proactive approach. this would provide institutions with a deeper understanding of how to tackle this emerging issue. investment in managing this issue could aid in reducing reputational risk (fombrun, gardberg and barnett) and assert universities as leaders in social responsibility best practice (torrado, bonilla and clarke; vallaeys; wigmore-álvarez and ruizlozano). currently, universities invest in some professional development that caters to the technical needs of its employees: presentations and seminars reinforce the importance of developing an online professional persona to reaffirm one’s place in academia, and technical workshops prepare academics with skills to use new media. mandatory training ensures academics are aware of social media policies and ethical communication. consideration, however, should extend to support an academic’s personal choice as to whether they are personal studies 2015, 1.2 61 willing, or feel able, to connect with extended audiences through social media. if the creation and maintenance of professional personas becomes obligatory, institutions must invest in training and support that extends well beyond technical skills, and adjust workloads to embrace the ever-increasing time it takes for training and interacting online. first, if universities are to address this issue, they must assign value to online professional personas. the time and energy it takes to maintain and monitor social media can be alleviated with more time and resources dedicated to this specific task. social media monitoring, already conducted at institutional level, needs to expand and look beyond the reputational protection of the university and consider the individual. second, professional development should become multi-faceted. training in representational and presentational media should be provided regularly for all academics and not limited to a few high-profile academics that are perceived to have a higher likelihood of media interaction. professional development should also consider the personality and well-being of the academic. universities should take account of an individual’s ability to manage this level of exposure by, a) helping the individual decide on the level of online engagement, b) helping the individual understand and identify the associated risks and, c) guiding individuals through issue management when problems arise. reputation management is an ongoing task and, at times, may require an immediate and considered response to an emerging issue. in the cluttered, time-poor environment academics are working within, more assistance is required in managing such situations. from an emotional standpoint, timely pastoral care should also be extended to all staff requiring assistance. to effectively manage the issues that have emerged from the constantly evolving academic landscape, key recommendations have been proposed. this paper has identified the implicit expectation that academics will develop, maintain, and monitor their professional persona as an additional task in an already over-crowded job description. overall, the two core aspects that should be considered include, 1) work-load or time allocation to achieve this task, and 2) acknowledgement that not all academics have the ability to cope with this form of communication or the handling of criticism. conclusion traditionally, it was the more prominent “public intellectuals” that were visible to external audiences. it could be argued that their experience suitably equips them with the capacity to manage discourse with multiple audiences and cope with any potential criticism. yet a proliferation of social media has presented a host of benefits for both emerging and established academics, and this has created opportunities and obligations for individuals to not only engage in public discourse, but to shape the presentation of their professional self through these media. yet the very nature of enhanced visibility and immediacy can lead to irretrievable professional faux pas, errors, and experiences where internal policies cannot (or will not) protect an academic. within an academic institution, all members of the community are expected to comply with policy and procedure surrounding the type of content deemed appropriate and acceptable when communicating with other members, yet once the academic engages in discourse external to their institution, they potentially become more vulnerable to negative exposure. more support should be offered to manage individual reputations in the public sphere. encouraging academics to present a professional persona to reach internal and external audiences is a valid marketing decision for both the academic and the employing institution. however, institutions must consider the variance in personalities, motives, and aspirations of the individual needs. there are extreme variations as to how individuals cope with public condemnation or even minor criticism. warning signs or triggers are being felt among academics globally; significant pressures are impacting work-life balance and causing associated stress (kinman and wray). universities that seek to leverage credibility or mcdonald 62 reputational gain from the reputational capital available from professional personas need to not only be aware of their social responsibility, but also proactively manage this evolving issue. if an institution seeks to fulfil the totality of its mission, which includes a contribution “to the struggle for justice, take up a level of social responsibility…and be vocal about the issues of our times” (dorothy smith 254), then improvements in social responsibility and issue management for internal stakeholders should be a priority. works cited atherton, cassandra. “wise guys: the changing role of the public intellectual.” 2013 public intellectuals conference. cambridge ma: harvard public intellectual committee, 2013. 16. web. 20 nov. 2014. barbour, kim and p. david marshall. “the academic online: constructing persona through world wide web.” first monday 17.9 (2012). web. 31 aug. 2015. barbour, kim, p. david marshall and chris moore. “persona to persona studies.” m/c journal 17.3 (2014): n. pag. web. 8 feb. 2015. barker, derek. “the scholarship of engagement: a taxonomy of five emerging practices.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 9. 2 (2004): 123 -137. web. 8 feb. 2015. björk, bo-christer and david solomon. “the publishing delay in scholarly peer-reviewed journals.” journal of informetrics 7.4 (2013): 914-923. web. 12 mar. 2015. the bmj. peer review process. 2015. web. 10 sept. 2015. boyer, ernest l. scholarship reconsidered: the priorities of the professoriate. princeton, n.j.: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. 1990. web. 12 mar. 2015. the conversation. who we are. 2015. web. 17 sept. 2015. chapman, simon. “why i block trolls on twitter.” the conversation, 12 jan. 2015. web. 10 apr. 2015. fombrun, charles. j., naomi. a. gardberg and michael, l. barnett. “opportunity platforms and safety nets: corporate citizenship and reputational risk.” business and society review 105.1 (2000): 85-106. web. 15 aug. 2015. gruzd, anatoliy, kathleen staves and amanda wilk. “connected scholars: examining the role of social media in research practices of faculty using the utaut model.” computers in human behavior 28.6 (2012): 2340-2350. web. 12 mar. 2015. horwedel, dina. m. “blogging rights.” diverse issues in higher education 23.2 (2006): 28–31. web. 12 mar. 2015. kinman, gail and siobhan wray. higher stress. a survey of stress and well-being among staff in higher education. university and college union, 2013. web. 12 mar. 2015. liebler, raizel and keidra chaney. “here we are now, entertain us: defining the line between personal and professional context on social media.” pace law review 35.1 (2014): 398 – 57. web. 12 sept. 2015. lightman, alan. “the role of the public intellectual.” mit communications forum n.d. web. 12 mar. 2015. lupton, deborah. “feeling better connected: academics’ use of social media.” canberra: news & media research centre, university of canberra. 2014. web. 8 feb. 2015. marshall, p. david. “persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self.” journalism: theory, practice and criticism 15. 2 (2014): 153-170. web. 8 feb. 2015. ---.“personifying agency: the public-persona-place-issue continuum.” celebrity studies 3. 4 (2013): 369-371. web. 8 feb. 2015. matrix, sidneyeve. “challenges, opportunities, and new expectations.” academic matters, ocufa’s journal of higher education may (2012) web. 12 aug. 2015. pennington, gus and brenda smith. “career-long competence: unattainable ideal or professional requirement?” the effective academic: a handbook for enhanced academic practice. eds personal studies 2015, 1.2 63 heather fry, steve ketteridge and stephanie marshall. london: kogan page , 2002. 254 – 271. web. 15 aug. 2015. porter, michael. e and mark, k. kramer. “strategy and society: the competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy.” harvard business review 84.12 (2006): 78-92. web. 15 aug. 2015. “public intellectual.” collins dictionary. 2015. web. 10 apr. 2015. reinhardt, wolfgang, martin ebner, gunter beham and cristina costa. “how people are using twitter during conferences.” draft version originally published in: creativity and innovation competencies on the web. eds. v. hornung-prähauser and m. luckmann. proceeding of 5. edumedia conference, salzburg, 2009: 145-156, web. 10 apr. 2015. rowe, john. “student use of social media: when should the university intervene?” journal of higher education policy and management 36. 3 (2014): 241-256. web. 10 april 2015. smith, david, k. “academic use of twitter.” storify. 2013. web. 8 feb. 2015. smith, dorothy. “on the production line? academics in modernized universities.” advancing knowledge in higher education: universities in turbulent times. ed. tanya fitzgerald. igi global, 2014. 254 – 264. web. 15 aug. 2015. thomason, andy. “u. of illinois board votes down salaita appointment.” the chronicle of higher education. 11 sept. 2014. web. 8 feb. 2015. thompson, janna. “to tweet or not to tweet: academic freedom and social media.” the conversation 14 oct. 2014. web. 10 april 2015. torrado, nellie, daniel bonilla and linda clarke. “establishing a theoretical framework for university social responsibility: review and synthesis.” the latin american council of management school cladea 2012, poster session 2012, lima, peru, 22 to 24 october 2012. web. 15 aug. 2015. vallaeys, françois. “responsabilidad social universitaria.” programa para la formación en humanidades. d.r.© tecnológico de monterrey, eugenio garza sada 2501, col. tecnológico, monterrey, n.l. mexico, 2007. 1-11. web. 15 aug. 2015. veletsianos, george. “higher education scholars’ participation and practices on twitter.” journal of computer assisted learning 28. 4 (2012): 336-349. web. 8 feb. 2015. weller, jacolyn. “from professional expert to novice academic: challenges and complexities.” advancing knowledge in higher education: universities in turbulent times. ed. tanya fitzgerald. igi global, 2014. 205 – 217. web. 15 aug. 2015. wigmore-álvarez, amber and mercedes ruiz-lozano. “university social responsibility (usr) in the global context: an overview of literature.” business and professional ethics journal 31.3-4 (2012): 475-498. web. 8 feb. 2015. sharyn mcdonald is a lecturer in the school of communication & creative arts at deakin university in melbourne. her research focuses on social responsibility and issue management. persona studies 2015, 1.1. 65 the carer persona: masking individual identities timot hy broa dy abstract according to jungian theory, ‘persona’ is a concept reflecting a compromise between the individual and society. in mediating between a person’s subjective inner world and the external social world, the persona represents a generalised idea of the self which builds up from experiences of interacting with society. such reflections of self-identity can therefore develop across multiple domains of a person’s life, culminating in understandings of self in a variety of specific roles. the existence of multiple personas can be clearly demonstrated in the context of people providing unpaid care for a family member or friend who has a disability, mental illness, chronic condition, or who is frail. carers are likely to possess multiple roles as an individual, existing across various social and personal domains. this paper argues that in caring for loved one, a compromise takes place between individual selves and the social caring role. that is, the ‘carer persona’ can mask a carer’s individual identities and their associated needs. the potential complexity of caring roles is therefore explored, with an emphasis on acknowledging the personal needs and identities of carers beyond their caring roles. this acknowledgment has implications for service delivery and policy development regarding carers and those for whom they care. key words persona, carers, identity, recognition, support persona persona, as defined by jungian psychology, is a compromise between the individual and society (jung “collected works vol. 7” 156). this compromise represents a potential conflict between who a person is and who they believe they ought to appear to be. the persona may therefore be argued to represent a public presentation of an individual that reflects who others think he/she is (and who he/she thinks she is) as opposed to who he/she actually is, i.e., a social face or façade. this serves the simultaneous functions of hiding one’s ‘true self’ and making desired impressions on others, while also enabling a person to avoid the emotional closeness or vulnerability that comes with revealing the entirety of the self (hudson 56). due to its function of hiding the ‘true self’, the concept of ‘persona’ has been likened to a mask – a social role that a person employs to mediate between the inner world of the self and the external social world (hudson 56). as such, jung implies that the persona is largely moulded by society (“collected broady 66 works vol. 7” 41). in likening the persona to a mask, an essence of ‘falsehood’ permeates representations of persona. as opposed to a true representation of the inner self, the persona is thought to be a constructed identity that is built up based on social interactions and expectations of others (jung “collected works vol. 6” 218), enabling people to present themselves to others in a fashion that they believe they should. jung suggests that the persona exists for the convenience of the individual in adapting to his/her broader social environment (“collected works vol. 6” 466). any role a person undertakes brings certain expectations regarding how to behave within that role, that is, a role specific persona. by adapting to these expectations, the persona is the mechanism by which an individual complies with his/her social reality, as opposed to the ‘true’ nature of the self (hudson 57). this compliance with social expectations over the self represents the ‘falsehood’ that underpins the persona. since the persona is constructed through cumulative social experiences, these projections of self can develop across a wide range of domains in a person’s life, such as family, work, and the wider community. as well as originating through these various social interactions, the persona can be seen to develop into a series of specific roles or identities across multiple contexts (hudson 56). while an individual may identify with many different roles in the course of his/her life and social experience, these various identities can each only ever comprise a segment of that person’s overall self, not its entirety. understanding the persona in terms of a relationship with the social world suggests that it is possible to take on new social identities or withdraw from existing ones under changing circumstances and contexts. for example, a person who identifies with a ‘professional’ persona in the workplace may then identify with a ‘parent’ persona upon returning home to the family environment, and will behave accordingly in each situation. the persona can thus be seen as a series of selfconstrued identities or compromises between the ‘true’ self and different contextual environments, developing into multiple specific roles and patterns of behaviour as the individual interacts with and adapts to his/her social world (hudson 56). in this way, the persona may be interpreted as a unified public identity that masks a series of individual identities, each of whom has their own individual needs. while no persona can accurately reflect the full extent of a person’s individuality, it is important that it is flexible enough to allow a person to adapt to the multiple roles played across the breadth of social experience. while useful in directing an individual’s behaviour and interaction with social environments, there can be danger in identifying too closely with a persona, such as losing sight of the ‘true’ self. in doing so, a person is likely to think, feel and do what is expected of the predetermined social role that is represented by the persona to the extent that his/her personality begins to equate to the persona to the exclusion of all other aspects of self (jung “collected works vol. 7” 194; sharp 58). those who identify with their persona do not acknowledge any aspect of themselves beyond their social roles to the detriment of their ‘true’ self’s needs. the persona may then become more than a context-specific role, but overtakes patterns of behaviour in all situations. carers’ multiple identities the existence of multiple roles and identities can be clearly demonstrated in the example of people providing unpaid care and support for a family member or friend who has a disability, mental illness, serious or terminal illness, chronic condition, or who is frail. as will be elaborated in the sections that follow, carers are likely to identify with a vast range of roles throughout the course of their caring and broader life experiences. for example, carers may undertake roles related to their various family relationships, employment situation, or other persona studies 2015, 1.1. 67 aspects of their personal identities. furthermore, depending on the individual caring situation, multiple personas are likely to exist as carers present themselves to the social world in different contexts. carers are not a homogenous group, with significant diversity existing across individual carers, relationships, and the situations in which they care. carers exist in all communities and population subgroups, including aboriginal communities, those of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, amongst gendered and sexually diverse groups, and throughout metropolitan, regional and rural areas. carers’ diversity is therefore evident in terms of cultural background, geographical region, age, socioeconomic status, their relationships with those they care for, and the range of conditions, illness or disabilities experienced by care recipients, to name just a few examples. as will be outlined in the following paragraphs, carers are likely to have different needs across their multiple roles and across the multiple dimensions of their own identities. in what follows, various examples of carers’ roles and identities will be outlined. this will provide insight into carers’ multifaceted experiences and will lead to a discussion of what will be termed the ‘carer persona’ – illustrating the personal compromises and sacrifices that many carers make in fulfilling their vital social roles. these examples are not intended to provide an exhaustive list, but rather aim to highlight several of the possible roles and personas a carer may undertake. carer as woman or carer as man as discussed by ussher and colleagues, caring is not a gender-neutral experience, but is associated with a carers’ expectations of being a woman or a man (ussher et al. 911). gendered stereotypes have been found to play a significant role in carers’ reasons for taking on caring responsibilities, with the social pressure felt by women to assume caring roles contributing to their disproportionate overrepresentation within caring populations (alpass et al. 789; del ríolozano et al. 1510). male carers’ experiences of caring can likewise be viewed through a lens of gender, often reflecting socially constructed ideas of the male role within a family – particularly an expectation to remain a figure of strength (boström and broberg 818). the traditional view of caring responsibilities being a female role within the family can also impact male carers’ experiences. for example, caring may present alternative ways of expressing masculinity, or may assist in re-constructing gender identities (eriksson et al. 244). the gendered identities of carers hold significant ramifications for providing them with appropriate support, particularly in challenging social views that associate caring solely with women (eriksson, sandberg and hellström 164). it is important to acknowledge that carers have specific needs and identities as either men or women, as well as the identities they develop in their caring roles. this is one example of why carers should not be viewed as a homogenous group. rather than being solely conceptualised as a ‘carer’, or even ascribed more gendered titles (e.g., ‘male carer’, ‘mother’, etc.), there is merit in acknowledging that any individual carer is also a man or woman in his/her own right, and consequently experiences the same needs and pressures as any other individual within their broader gender population. carer as employee while supporting loved ones is a major component of carers’ lives, many also retain other significant commitments, such as employment. the degree of their involvement in each of these roles is influenced by the extent to which they identify as a carer or conversely, in terms of their occupation (arksey and glendinning 8). that is, do they consider themselves a carer who has a job, or an employee who has caring responsibilities? employment can represent an integral part of carers’ lives (george et al. 168), and it is therefore important to acknowledge their working identities alongside their needs as carers. working identities are particularly important since caring for a loved one often inhibits workforce participation (alpass et al. 790). engaging in employment can have beneficial outcomes for carers in terms of their finances, broady 68 social connectedness, health, wellbeing, and allowing time away from caring responsibilities. however, combining work and care can also increase stress and fatigue through managing conflicting time demands (arksey 152). carers have been found to endure significant stressors in order to continue working, demonstrating the importance they place on employment (george et al. 173). workplace flexibility, involving a range of supportive practices, has been suggested as an essential approach to enable carers to balance work and care and thus remain in the workforce (arksey and glendinning 3; george et al. 173). flexibility therefore demonstrates the practical benefits of respecting and supporting carers in both caring and employment roles. as well as their carer identity and the needs associated with that role, working carers have the same workplace identity as any other employee in that position would have. in addition, working carers develop a unique identity in balancing these two roles. depending on the individual situation, balancing work and care can result in very specific individual support needs. carer as family member the individual relationships between carers and their family members must also be considered. when support needs are aggregated to a family level, the individual concerns of carers and those they care for may be overlooked, as may relationship-specific issues (ingleton 193). while the term ‘carer’ has been used as a label to describe their supportive role, research also highlights the importance of respecting different interpersonal relationships, and therefore acknowledging that caring comprises part, but not all, of the relationship dynamic (la fontaine and oyebode 1268). as outlined in the following paragraphs, carers’ specific family relationship identities are worthy of individual consideration. carer as spouse/partner caring for a spouse or partner is widely reported as a natural extension of the existing relationship, that is, as an expression of love, commitment, and emotional connection (e.g., del río-lozano et al. 1510). nevertheless, complexities within an intimate relationship and caring role must be negotiated, for example, by separating illness or disability from interpersonal aspects of the relationship (la fontaine and oyebode 1266; lawn and mcmahon 258). this is further emphasised by many spousal carers not identifying themselves as ‘carers’, but rather preferring to label themselves as ‘partners’, ‘husbands’, or ‘wives’. such a viewpoint focuses on the relationship above all else, with their partner seen as a person, wife, or husband first, and a care recipient second (lawn and mcmahon 258). carers’ needs within these relationships can be particularly impacted as care needs change over time and there is a consequent shift in the relationship. for example, carers of spouses with dementia may come to find that over time their partner is no longer able to fulfil the mutually supportive roles they once did, but become more reliant on daily caring activities (savundranayagam 46). under circumstances such as these, the relationship shifts from a mutual status to being characterised by increased dependence on one party. subsequently, each person’s role within the relationship also shifts. regardless of the specific context, carers’ identities as a spouse or partner exist beyond their role within the caring dyad. carer as parent upon receiving a diagnosis of a serious illness or disability for their children, carers’ perceptions of their parental role can be significantly affected (boström and broberg 817). caring for a child after such a diagnosis may be seen as a parent’s duty and moral obligation (del río-lozano et al. 1510). this is reflected in responses to a state-wide survey of carers conducted by carers nsw. when asked why they began their caring role, 36.7% of those caring for a son or daughter reported an emotional obligation, 50.4% indicated it was their family responsibility, and 56.5% reported they wanted to take on the caring role. in addition, approximately 20% of those caring for a son or daughter made a comment about their reasons for beginning their persona studies 2015, 1.1. 69 caring role that highlighted their parental relationship, such as, “because he’s my son”, “she’s my daughter”, and “because i’m mum!” (carers nsw 21). in order to behave in a manner consistent with the identity of a ‘good parent’, carers report undertaking extensive efforts to ensure their child experiences what they would consider to be a ‘normal’ childhood and also making substantial accommodations to family lifestyle as their child’s needs dictate (burton, lethbridge and phipps 1170; seltzer et al. 281). carers’ parental needs and desires may be significantly challenged in light of their child’s disability, illness, mental illness, or other condition. while the individual child’s autonomy, level of functionality, and other personal characteristics must be considered, carers’ initial expectations of raising a child until adulthood are replaced with very different trajectories, as are expectations of how parent-child relationships may develop and function. depending on their child’s level of independence, a carer’s parenting trajectory may also be significantly altered, with many continuing an active parenting role beyond typically expected timeframes. several implications of these particularly long-term parenting responsibilities exist, not least of which relates to carers’ concerns regarding their children’s care when they are too old to adequately provide care themselves (carers nsw 43). parental identity can become a particularly complex issue amongst those caring for an adult child with a disability. these carers face balancing their child’s right to independence and their parental responsibility to protect them from harm (foley 298). the role identity of a parent can therefore be seen to uniquely exist within these caring situations. carer as son or daughter for those caring for a parent, acting as both carer and son or daughter can result in role conflict. as with carers of adult children, carers of elderly parents can face the desire to maintain their parent’s independence alongside a conflicting compulsion to protect them (gill and morgan 715). they are faced with the challenge of considering how to best support their parents at the present time and in the future, which includes facing issues of dependency and potential moving into a residential care facility (gill and morgan 716). these carers experience a shift in the relationship with their parent, from being a dependent child to taking on a supportive, or even parental, role. this process can be confronting for any carer supporting his/her parent, but is particularly likely to be challenging amongst young carers (i.e., those aged 25 years and under) (abraham and stein 609; kavanaugh, noh and studer 21; kiefferkristensen and johansen 1565). nevertheless, despite short-term challenges and burdens, evidence exists to suggest that there are long-term benefits of ‘parentification’ for young carers (stein, rotheram-borus and lester 330; tompkins 120). considering the role and relationship implications of the shift towards ‘parentification’, the needs of carers as sons or daughters of care recipients become apparent. as relationship dynamics shift from being the dependent party to being the source of support, these carers may lose the support, advice and wisdom of older generations. the interpersonal and intergenerational aspects of a child-parent relationship are likely to remain in situations of caring for a parent, further exemplifying the potential complexities that exist within certain caring relationships. carers as service providers in many cases, carers take on a role akin to that of a service provider. the ability of family members to provide care is an inherent assumption in many service policies, as is the expectation that they will take on this caring role (jowsey et al. 382; ward-griffin and mckeever 91). carers may take on a myriad of roles reflective of a service provider, including, but not limited to: service coordination and management, advocacy, protection, monitoring symptoms, psychological support, health promotion, and ensuring treatment adherence (cain, maclean and sellick 267; safe, joosten and molineux 298). with this extensive contribution in mind, the need to recognise carers’ abilities and expertise has been identified (boyd et al. 590). furthermore, although this involvement can broady 70 potentially become burdensome (e.g., safe, joosten and molineux 299), many carers report frustration when they are unable to be heavily involved in treatment plans for those they care for (brobäck and berterö 343). carers are therefore likely to have specific concerns relating to the component of their role that pertains to service provision and treatment. the ‘carer persona’ despite the multitude of roles outlined above (and carers’ specific needs within each context), a great deal of research has found that carers tend to minimise or neglect their own needs in order to focus on the needs of the person they care for (carduff et al. a17; hallé and le dorze 1777; ussher and sandoval 953). this ‘carer persona’ reflects the masking of their own needs in order to present a social identity focused on their caring role. once the carer role has commenced, research suggests that it can dominate and overtake all of an individual’s other roles and responsibilities, particularly the need to care for themselves (e.g., del río-lozano et al. 1516). carers may feel that they cannot justify spending time on themselves if they perceive this as detracting from fulfilling their caring responsibilities (safe, joosten and molineux 299). while jungian theory suggests an inherent ‘falsehood’ surrounding the persona (i.e., what others and the self believe one is, but really is not), the ‘carer persona’ is often a genuinely selfless identity. as discussed previously, the ‘falsehood’ of the persona exists in relation to interacting with the social world in a manner that conforms to behavioural expectations of a given role. in other words, the individual’s prime concern is with how they appear to others. in taking on the ‘carer persona’, however, carers legitimately ignore themselves and their own needs in potentially difficult or stressful circumstances, and often experience significant personal ramifications as a result (ussher and sandoval 954). for example, carers have been widely reported as experiencing particularly low levels of wellbeing in comparison to the wider community (e.g., carers nsw 34; cummins et al. 4). despite this, many carers report that caring is an inherently positive experience, and often emphasise the positive aspects of caring for a loved one over any difficulties or burdens they face in their role (carers nsw 26; mcconnell et al. 39). this demonstrates the genuine nature of the ‘carer persona’ – rather than masking the ‘true’ self to present a more socially desirable face to the social world, the ‘carer persona’ masks carers’ own needs through the sincerity of their primary concern for the wellbeing of those for whom they care. the consuming nature of the caring role can result in carers feeling as though they have lost their wider self-identity, with their lives focusing on their caring role (griffith and hastings 411; lawn and mcmahon 260). this loss of wider identity may be considered a positive experience, with carers embracing their role and the significance of other roles paling in comparison (griffith and hastings 412). that is, the role of supporting and caring for a loved one is simultaneously more important and more personally fulfilling than addressing any of their own needs. therefore, while the ‘carer persona’ may result in neglecting personal wellbeing, identifying as a carer in this way can also provide a sense of personal identity coherence by continually growing further into the ‘carer persona’. a common theme throughout literature is carers’ minimising of their own support needs. this issue of support is complex. while carers readily acknowledge the need for services to support carers, a general reluctance to personally receive assistance is common (cain, maclean and sellick 268; eriksson, sandberg and hellström 163). many carers admit they will need to receive support at some point in the future, but it is often a small minority who believe they have reached this point (carers nsw 43). this is particularly the case when carers emphasise the support needs of those they care for. the tendency to downplay personal support needs is often a function of the ‘carer persona’ and interpreting caring experiences in relation to expectations of others (eriksson, sandberg and hellström 164). through this dedication, many carers demonstrate their social expectations to be capable of coping without much need for persona studies 2015, 1.1. 71 support themselves (ussher and sandoval 954). in this way, the ‘carer persona’ can be seen to reflect the identity that carers believe they should portray to the social world. discussion the concept of the ‘carer persona’ as outlined above has ramifications in terms of recognising carers and their contribution to the wider community, and also in supporting them as they carry out their roles. as described by jung, the persona represents a compromise between who a person truly is and the person they believe their social world expects them to be (jung “collected works vol. 6” 218). this paper has provided specific examples of some identities that carers are likely to hold, namely, female or male, employee, spouse/partner, parent, child, or service provider. while these identities represent certain dimensions of who carers are, research also reflects a persona they often present to the social world, which is characterised by the needs of those for whom they care. just as jung’s persona is likened to a mask that hides the true self, the needs of care recipients can mask the needs of carers and their multiple identities. the masking of carers’ needs across their multiple identities reflects an important aspect of the jungian persona – that it is predominantly formulated by society (jung “collected works vol. 7” 41). social expectations often place carers in a position of focusing on the needs of those they care for, rather than their own. these expectations are particularly significant in discussing the ‘carer persona’, as many health and community services and related policies rely on informal carers and their willingness to maintain a caring role (jowsey et al. 382; wardgriffin and mckeever 91). carers’ identities as they relate to being a ‘service provider’ (as described above) directly relate to this aspect of persona. as well as having personal needs related to a service provider identity, the ‘carer persona’ suggests that these needs are masked by those of the people for whom they care. due to the reliance that many policies place on carers and the role they play, carers’ interactions with service providers can lead to the construction of an identity that focuses on supporting care recipients and neglects their personal support needs – the essence of the ‘carer persona’. the concept of the ‘carer persona’ and its premise of carers’ needs being masked can be understood in relation to the notion of falsehood that strongly permeates the jungian concept of persona. however, this is not to suggest that carers are misleading or untrustworthy. rather, the falsehood that exists within the ‘carer persona’ represents a false attitude that carers do not require care themselves. it must be noted that literature widely demonstrates many carers who exhibit resilience and effective coping strategies, and even flourish in their role with additional caring responsibilities (e.g., broady, sect. 3, par. 1; griffith et al. 243; mcconnell, savage and breitkreuz 843). nevertheless, many carers do require support or assistance in their role to some degree – a fact that the ‘carer persona’ is likely to mask. the masking of carers’ support needs reflects the notion of ‘hidden’ carers – those who do not identify as being a carer. despite providing significant amounts of care and support to loved ones, many carers do not consider themselves ‘carers’ (cass et al. 93; moore and mcarthur 565). this lack of identification often relates to the nature of caring relationships, a greater readiness to identify themselves in terms of that relationship, and societal norms related to caring such as those outlined in this paper (smyth, blaxland and cass 146). furthermore, many carers do not consider their caring responsibilities to be any different from any other ‘typical’ family member (smyth, blaxland and cass 147). the minimising of one’s own needs and responsibilities is indicative of the ‘carer persona’. in such instances, the persona is used a defensive strategy. as a façade to the ‘true’ self, this persona is utilised to avoid confronting the reality of their caring situation, whether in terms of acknowledging the difference between their caring responsibilities and ‘normal’ family relationships, or accepting any special needs demonstrated by their loved ones. ‘hidden’ carers is therefore a key example broady 72 of the ‘carer persona’ in practice, and points towards the importance of this concept. denying the label ‘carer’ represents a significant example of neglecting one’s own needs in order to focus on the person in need of care. those who do not identify with this label are typically less likely to access carer-directed support services (including government financial assistance), often due to not considering their caring responsibilities to be any more significant than typical family duties. by highlighting the nature of the ‘carer persona’ and the related neglect of personal needs in favour of focusing entirely on the needs of those for whom they care, increased efforts in identifying carers and their personal support needs are encouraged (whether or not they willingly identify themselves as such). the concept of the ‘carer persona’ presented in this paper therefore has implications for carer related policy and service provision. in particular, the persona can be a useful tool for communicating and discussing the needs of carers at a population level. as discussed throughout this paper, carers have their own individual needs across different domains of their identity, aligning with the various roles they undertake throughout the course of daily life (e.g., woman or man, employee, spouse/partner, parent, son/daughter, service provider). alongside these various aspects of their individual identities, carers will simultaneously have needs reflective of their caring roles. importantly, the concept of the ‘carer persona’ suggests that carers are likely to downplay or completely neglect these needs in the interests of focussing solely on the needs of those for whom they care. implications for service provision therefore exist around identifying carers and finding ways of effectively supporting them as they continue to care for loved ones. as discussed above, this is particularly important in the context of ‘hidden’ carers, who are not only likely to ignore their own needs, but also do not identify themselves as carers. the concept of the ‘carer persona’ as discussed in this paper highlights the responsibility of service providers in identifying, recognising, valuing and supporting carers in their roles. since the ‘carer persona’ suggests that carers are unlikely to seek support for themselves, those providing services to care recipients are well-placed to not only identify carers, but to provide support or referral pathways to ensure their (neglected) needs can be more effectively met. similarly, any carer-focused policy would benefit from an understanding of the ‘carer persona’ by ensuring that policies are framed and implemented in such a way as to recognise, value and support all carers, regardless of the extent to which they identify as a carer, or the extent to which they seek support for themselves. the concept of the ‘carer persona’ is also useful in terms of communication, particularly in the context of service provision, as the ‘carer persona’ is likely to become the basis for carers’ interpersonal interactions with health professionals and service providers. conversations and interactions between carers and service providers are likely to be influenced by carers’ tendency to minimise their own needs and focus on supporting those they care for. however, by recognising the compromise between carers’ individual personal identities and their social world, greater insight into their support needs may be achieved. regardless of whether or not they identify as carers, or the extent to which their caring responsibilities mask their own needs, carers are likely to possess multiple identities and accordingly have varying support needs. service providers who aim to support carers and those they care for must acknowledge these identities and the specific needs associated with them. in doing so, carers will be recognised and respected for the individuals they are, beyond their caring roles. such individual recognition and support is imperative, and must exist at all levels of policy and practice, if carers are expected to continue providing their valuable contributions within their communities. persona studies 2015, 1.1. 73 works cited abraham, kristen m., and catherine h. stein. 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"relationships between nurses and family caregivers: partners in care?" advances in nursing science 22.3 (2000): 89-103. timothy broady is the senior research and development officer at carers nsw, australia. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 27 “hello ableds, is it vacation yet?”: disability, domesticity, and digital alchemy during covid-19 tori omega ar th ur c o l o r a d o st a t e u n iv e r s i t y abstract when the novel coronavirus began spreading globally in 2020, people within disability communities marked the term ‘social distancing’ as oxymoronic and ignorant of those for whom isolation, quarantine, and limited public life is common. for many, covid-19 did not signal a complete upheaval of their domestic lives; instead, it created opportunities to increase disability visibility in digital spaces and to lament the ways the pandemic further erased their existences. the first few months of quarantine saw the digital rise of prominent disability advocate imani barbarin, known to her social media communities as @crutches_and_spice. barbarin’s persona as a black disabled fat queer woman became distinct subversion to non-disabled people’s frequent social media laments of boredom, loneliness, and/or living in quarantine. drawing upon bailey’s digital alchemy theory situating how black women’s online identity performances combat anti-blackness and sexism (2021), i assert barbarin is a purveyor of ‘disabled digital alchemy’ who employs social media for the “construction, constitution, and production of self through identity play and performance” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2). combining bailey’s framework with disability and persona studies conceptualizations of performance, i use brock’s critical technocultural discourse analysis to examine how barbarin utilizes social media affordances to challenge ableist notions of disabled people’s selfhood while calling out problematic pandemic rhetoric. critically analyzing @crutches_and_spice specifically within tiktok enables a nuanced grasp of disabled people’s digital personas, how they are often ignored, and ways they perform domesticity to mitigate erasure in an ableist body politic. key words covid-19; critical technocultural discourse; disability advocacy; tiktok introduction on march 15, 2020, disability rights advocate imani barbarin began her @crutches_and_spice tiktok account with a double entendre. in the video, barbarin is seated in what looks like a leather chair; she is visible from the mid-chest up. a text-box with white lettering above her head states, “how i plan on surviving quarantine…” (barbarin 2020a). the influencer is looking up and into the distance while her body shakes suggestively. she bites her tongue before coyly looking into the camera. it appears barbarin is masturbating off-camera; however, she deftly pulls one of her crutches into the frame with one hand while holding up a cloth with the other. the text-box switches to the words “clean your mobility devices babes!” (barbarin 2020a). she wipes her crutch and sticks her tongue out in a ‘gotcha’ gesture. arthur 28 this bawdy humor introduced barbarin’s covid-19 tiktok persona where she utilised jocularity and/or ‘spice’—ribald and/or scathing—to critique government and social responses to the pandemic. barbarin’s already established influencer status—her blog crutchesandspice.com launched in december 2004, and she also ran @crutches_and_spice instagram and twitter accounts—rose to greater visibility during the covid-19 pandemic. beginning her tiktok account a few days into distancing mandates enabled barbarin to reach larger audiences; news reports state tiktok received two million downloads during the first weeks of quarantine (jankowski 2020) with two billion global downloads in 2020’s first fiscal quarter (brown & chmielewski 2020). as tolentino argues, tiktok is an “enormous meme factory, compressing the world into pellets of vitality and dispensing those pellets until you get full or fall asleep” (2019). caged rodent reference aside, barbarin’s posts about the ways ableism shapes life for disabled people reach nearly 500,000 followers. as a self-identified black disabled fat queer woman, barbarin employs the platform to show how disabled people have historically been “uniquely inured to the all-encompassing state of emergency” that “gripped entire societies” during the covid-19 pandemic, revealing her “ready insights” about a crisis that has been “overwhelming and flabbergasting to most” (doonan 2021). describing how black women, nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant people as digital content creators resist limited and limiting racist and sexist representations, bailey states these creators are “actively reimagining the world through digital content creation” and challenging misogynoir (the hatred of black women and femmes) in a “form of self-production that disrupts the mainstream narrative” (2021, p. 23). these black creators are “making room for themselves on digital platforms in ways that exceed what was never intended by the engineers and corporations who designed and created these sites” through processes of digital alchemy, a black feminist action to “transform everyday digital media into valuable social justice media” (bailey 2021, pp. 23-24). initially released in 2016 as a video sharing platform in china, tiktok became global in 2018 when it merged with musical.ly, a platform mostly used to share lip sync, comedy, and dance videos. by 2020, tiktok had extended into news and politics. no longer was it a site for lip syncing divas, dance crew battles, and comedic antics; it had also become a site for activism in a “complex social media ecosystem in which earnest activists compete with mocking satirists, playful attention-seekers, and bored time-killers for visibility and clout” (hautea et al. 2021, p. 2). barbarin, as a black woman digital content creator, uses tiktok for social protest, steering a platform once known for low brow entertainment into a force for highlighting how society is oriented toward a non-disabled politic. as the pandemic forced many into unfamiliar modes of being, yielding new conceptualizations of the body, politics, and the body politic’s role in mitigating harm, barbarin became a disabled digital alchemist who maneuvered tiktok for the “construction, constitution, and production” of a disabled self “through identity play and performance” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2). by rendering visible the historic caving of the polis/political into the oikos/domestic for disabled people, barbarin’s digital persona ascended as she called out disabled people’s erasure from the global body politic, one that focalized the boredom, loneliness, and mental and physical challenges of non-disabled people during quarantine. this article situates barbarin as a disabled digital alchemist who utilized her @crutches_and_spice tiktok account to challenge ableist notions of selfhood while exposing harmful pandemic rhetoric. by critically analyzing how barbarin’s digital persona coconstituted “harm reduction strategies” (bailey 2021, p. 23) during a global health crisis, this study establishes her as a purveyor of “moral, intellectual, and political guidance” (doonan 2021) through disability performance and play. employing brock’s critical technocultural persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 29 discourse analysis (ctda) methodological framework to examine barbarin’s use of tiktok’s affordances to perform disability disruption, i explore the distinctions of one guiding question: how does barbarin operationalize tiktok for disabled digital alchemy with a digital persona designed to protest pandemic ableism? i show how her persona exemplified that of a digitally savvy political storyteller who alchemized pandemic ableism into disability justice gold. ultimately, barbarin enables a reconceptualization of how disabled people’s personas function within an non-disabled politic that routinely effaces their experiences and needs, and how disabled domesticity has always been political and never a vacation from public life. the disabled body politic to understand how the @crutches_and_spice tiktok account situates barbarin as a disabled digital alchemist, explicating disability and persona studies theories is imperative. evoking hannah arendt to discuss the digital doings of a black disabled fat queer cisgender woman locates me—as someone who shares several of barbarin’s identities—on a slippery theoretical slope. i employ arendt, acknowledging her “reflections on little rock” (1959) “places public and social concerns on people’s lives in a way that blatantly defends discrimination and not so subtly supports racist ideologies” (humphrey 2021, p. 24), to impart how marginalized communities can affirm resistance to the conjectural boxes within which they are frequently confined. arendt’s ideas of the polis and oikos provide an opportunity to create an intellectual palimpsest, revealing arendt’s ideologies in still legible graphite while writing other, more liberatory theories onto the same parchment with sociocultural ink developed to mitigate conceptual violence. thus, i question arendt’s conceptualization of the polis as historical moments where public spaces were established in communities of equal citizens. she states the polis is the “organization of the people as it arises out of acting and speaking together, and its true space lies between people living together for this purpose, no matter where they happen to be” (1958, p. 198). arendt’s polis is a space of appearance where a persona or public identity is constructed for participation in the political realm. additionally, the polis can be deemed a body politic or a political community with independent parts working together to achieve a common goal. yet, as doonan points out, the body politic has been consistently structured and idealized as nondisabled, associating illness and disability with political crisis; therefore, the disabled body must be nullified or removed from the body politic because it ‘handicaps’ political interdependence (2021). inherent within this situating of the body politic are questions of who else is left out, or who has the power to include and exclude people in and from the political sphere. who possesses the power to participate in the polis with a persona and body deemed capable of independent and interdependent political action? greek theories of the polis relied on equality for some, not all. disabled bodies were considered abject, as were the bodies of non-propertied and/or non-white males. enslaved people, women, and children—especially enslaved people of colour—performed labor within the oikos (household or social life beyond public political life) that freed ‘citizens’ to perform, act, and speak in public (doonan, 2021). fast forward to arendt’s era when the civil rights movement began en masse exposure of the sui generis power of white supremacy in the united states. while arendt presumed power is distinguishable from strength, force, and (physical) violence and embedded in plurality, consent, and rational cogency (1959, 1972), mass mediated diffusion of racist physical violence that had been hidden in plain view for centuries made conspicuous the terror many black citizens had historically experienced in social and private life. one need only look at the history of lynching in the united states to understand the fear arthur 30 black people possessed of being dragged from their homes, convicted of crimes they did not commit, and murdered before a racist white mob. during a time of contemptible ethnocentric violence (which truthfully has not ended as the fear of lynching, police killings and judicial injustice still exists), black people as well as other people of colour, disabled folks, women, lgbtqia+ people, immigrants and other marginalized communities, created their own political bodies to chip away at the power the overarching polis held. as jackson, bailey, and welles note, “much of the discourse related to u.s. progress, from the abolition of slavery to the sexual revolution, was rooted in narratives created on the margins of society” (2020, p. xxxiii). yet, after viewing a photo of an angry white mother accosting a member of the little rock nine attempting to desegregate a public school, arendt wrote, “the question is not how to abolish discrimination, but how to keep it confined to the social sphere, where it is legitimate, and prevent it trespassing on the political and personal sphere, where it is destructive” (1959, p. 51). while i could certainly demolish arendt’s voicing of white supremacy, instead i echo humphrey’s acute observation that: arendt essentially employs the concept of the social realm as a cudgel to batter the fight for equality in all realms of american life that do not fit her definition of public…defending the social realm as a bastion of unapologetic discrimination is to argue that the inequalities forged through history, whether it be to black people, indigenous people, women, or the “outsiders” in any culture, can now remain frozen. it also means the oikos is forever safe for power disparities to play out (pp. 25-26). in arendt’s polis-oikos reading, any public institution or space—from schools to pools to government buildings to local, state, and national parks receiving taxpayer dollars—should not abide integration or agitation for desegregation. this suggests only those deemed worthy of membership within the polis have a natural right to challenge how political action is articulated, negotiated, and revised. she states, “all political institutions are manifestations and materializations of power” (arendt 1972, p. 140). yes, the polis has witnessed incremental power changes thanks to activists seeking to topple hegemonic privilege. yet, fast forward to march 2020 when governments around the world instituted covid-19 distancing mandates. in the u.s., years of sociopolitical protest had secured the civil rights act (1964), the voting rights act (1965), the americans with disabilities act (ada) (1990), and other codes and supreme court rulings related to gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. people who had been historically excluded from the body politic had been given marginal entry into the u.s. polis; “counter-publics, the alternative networks of debate created by marginalized members of the public, thus have always played the important role of highlighting and legitimizing the experiences of those on the margins even as they push for integration and change in mainstream spaces” (jackson, bailey, & welles 2020, p. xxxiii). though illegal in the public sphere, discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, national origin, disability, faith/religion, age and so forth, remains systemically embedded in the u.s. sociocultural foundation. the nation’s overall political scheme of granting power to a few has persisted. this became more evident in the summer of 2020 as u.s. activism against the killings of several black people by police rose along with the pandemic death toll. news reports exposed how local, state, and federal (in)action along with a plethora of misinformation contributed to a disproportionate number of covid-19 deaths within black and brown communities. doonan notes, “during the course of the covid-19 pandemic, the entirety of each ‘body politic’ across the globe has had to grapple with illness collectively” (2021) and face restrictions persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 31 and health measures—such as hand washing, mask wearing, distancing, and staying at home— that are standard for disabled people. as people struggled with the crumbling of their social lives, social media increasingly became a space where pandemic politics were performed. this was not new; social media platforms had become ubiquitous by march 2020. still, the pandemic heightened the visuality of the collapse and also reinterpreted the oikos as a space of political expostulation. the visibility of mass crowds protesting while wearing masks alongside images of sick and dying formally non-disabled people magnified fears; non-disabled people’s cries for distancing and masking to speed up the return to ‘normalcy’ revealed what disabled people had long lamented: that they were considered abnormal. early public health discourse situating it as a respiratory illness that would most impact the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions marked disabled people as expendable. the aforementioned hashtag #highriskcovid19 became a common method for disabled people to voice their concerns with the ableism that erased their bodies, experiences, and instructive intelligence about living with and mitigating illness. this, and other hashtags such as #disabilityinclusion and #disabilityadvocacy used on platforms like twitter, instagram, and tiktok, became rallying cries for disabled people, those most at risk during the pandemic and who have been mostly excluded from the polis and relegated to the oikos where they largely remain invisible. despite thirty years of the ada in the u.s., disabled people found themselves left out of policy considerations, their experiential knowledge ignored, and their lives deemed inessential as health precautions grew progressively political and were frequently flouted. while many non-disabled people were creating social media content—including plays on rappers curtis roach and tyga’s viral tiktok quarantine anthem “bored in the house” where people recorded themselves performing silly stunts with the song in the background—many disabled people posted photos and videos of themselves at home and/or in medical facilities. these posts often included pleas for people to stay home and wear masks in public to avoid flooding health facilities upon which they depend for basic care. additionally, some used social media to eviscerate misinformation that only people with pre-existing illnesses were susceptible to covid-19 death. disability advocate annie segarra wrote in an instagram post: it’s been over a month in lockdown and while i was indeed accustomed to staying at home most of the time…i was not ready for: increased daily exposure to real life trauma, all the eugenicism and ableism…difficulty finding certain needs due to hoarding, the impact of losing the already limited amount of outings i had (segarra 2020). wheelchair user segarra’s post with an image of walking her/their (segarra uses she/they and her/their as pronoun descriptors.) dog while wearing a mask along with this caption and #highriskcovid19 is powerful for three reasons. first, it reveals the oikos of a disabled person highly susceptible to covid-19. segarra’s use of the term ‘eugenicism’ is affecting as it refers to the possibility of ‘improving’ the human species through discouraging disabled people’s reproduction, a call to rid the body politic of those deemed unfit for membership. second, the post highlighted how early pandemic fears placed additional burdens on those whose public and private lives are limited and largely ignored. lastly, the image, caption, and hashtag show that for disabled folks, the public and private have always been political as they negotiate ableist perceptions of their bodies, intellect, and bodily agency. this is “a central tenet of disability studies: that disability is produced as much by environmental and social factors as it is by bodily conditions” (adams, reiss & serlin 2015, p. 5). disability is a social construct rendered through “sociohistorical and sociopolitical arthur 32 assemblages rather than the body” (rodas 2015, 103). thus, the body politic associates disability with a political crisis that must be fixed. if unrepairable, the argument requires the crisis be eradicated through eugenics and/or what imani barbarin called sociocultural killing during the pandemic stating: “we need to stop saying ‘this was preventable’ and start saying ‘this is genocide’” (barbarin 2020b). it is possible arendt would have viewed historical and current ableism as legitimate social discrimination and agitation for disability rights as a public/political nuisance. it is also possible she would have performed simone biles level “mental acrobatics” (humphrey 2021, p. 25) to justify the pandemic non-disabled politic continuing to exclude disabled people from conversations about preventing the virus’s spread. i imagine her viewing disabled people’s social media based social justice performances as outside her vision of the polis/body politic/space of appearance. for disabled people, setting their social media accounts to public for anyone to view further connects their oikos and polis, especially when they call for policies to protect and improve their lives. disabled people’s activism has been a concerted effort to topple public ambivalence about their lives, an ambivalence arendt may have held (despite her father’s prolonged illness, institutionalization in psychiatric hospitals, and death from syphilis). it amuses me to think of arendt, with cigarette in hand, rolling her eyes at all of the “bored in the house” tiktok videos before getting hooked on the ear worm “i’m living my best life minding my business (my business)/and my anti-socials for the win-win” (tyga 2020). however, she may not have appreciated barbarin’s mobility device cleaning masturbation ‘gotcha’ video for its prurient association of sexual pleasure with disabled life, a lapse of the public-private boundary. crutches_and_spice barbarin’s social position is not optional; she does not have the ability to experience a nondisabled body. and, she does not want to. barbarin is just fine with who she is; “it’s important that people see and affirm me as a black disabled woman, because i have to move about in the world as such. by not recognizing those things, people are either isolating me or putting me in danger” (brown 2021). barbarin is a philadelphia, pennsylvania based communications specialist and writer born with cerebral palsy; she holds a masters in global communication from american university of paris, a degree she uses in her job as a communications director for a pennsylvania non-profit. prior to the pandemic, barbarin employed crutchesandspice.com, instagram, and twitter to create and advance multiple hashtags focusing on disability justice including #abledsareweird, #patientsarenotfaking, #thecostofbeingdisabled, and #thingsdisabledpeopleknow. however, tiktok further revealed barbarin’s digital activism and offered prolonged views into disabled life, community formation, and advocacy. digital/hashtag activism has been frequently maligned over the last decade; journalists, political leaders, and ‘boots on the ground’ (an ableist phrase) activists have called it ‘slacktivism’, ‘armchair activism’, ‘clicktivism’, or ‘performative activism’ as it is considered “less valid than direct action and is mistakenly regarded as in competition with it” (jackson, bailey, & welles 2020, p. xxxii). this conceptualization of digital/hashtag activism is inherently ableist as it suggests that the only valid activism takes place in person through physical action beyond a digital device, thus delegitimizing the work of those like barbarin for whom in person or physical action is restricted or impossible. for many disability advocates, a trending hashtag on twitter, instagram, or tiktok is just as powerful as staging a public protest, an act that can create great harm for people with not just physical disabilities, but cognitive/intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses as well, particularly if a peaceful protest leads to outsiders intruding/usurping and instigating violence that marshals police intervention. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 33 despite having nearly 500,000 followers on tiktok and hundreds of thousands more on other platforms, barbarin remains aware of social media’s volatility and the ways her digital persona can be misread. in a 2021 vice interview, she notes that “trolls have doxxed her, harassed her, and called her racial slurs and other sordid names” (brown 2021); the article’s author points out that “[as] a black woman on the [internet] with any visibility, one of the first things we learn is that there are very few safe spaces for us that include anyone who’s not also a black woman” (brown 2021). steele argues, “black american women have a technological capacity built on the legacy of enslavement, rebellion, and resilience in the u.s. context. it was from this legacy that black american women learned the skills to craft intentional discourses of resistance online” (2021, p. 10). this resistance is often developed in black women created online spaces, or metaphorical “virtual beauty shops” where they engage in discourse in opposition to the anti-black sexism they routinely face (steele 2021). generations of black women have deemed the beauty shop as a social space for sociopolitical discourse while having our hair done. virtual beauty shops offer similar spaces and can be sites of community building which leads to potent black women led social justice and inclusion campaigns such as #sayhername (to amplify black girls, women, and femmes killed through police violence), #girlslikeus (to amplify discrimination against black trans women), and #youoksis (originally created to highlight street harassment black women face before being co-opted as an ‘all women’ campaign). though barbarin’s activism is certainly rooted in the idea of the digi-political space of appearance for black girls, women, and femmes specifically, it also moves into the spaces of multiple communities of people, including disabled and abled folks, people of colour, lgbtqia+ individuals, fat identified folks, and women or femme identified people. barbarin’s digital disability activism recognizes that even spaces deemed safe can produce harm; for example, spaces for black women can be ableist, queer-phobic, transphobic, or fat-phobic and spaces for disabled people can be racist, sexist, fat-phobic, queer-phobic. in other words, certain spaces deemed safe often lack the understanding of how life for people bearing several identities can lead to multiple forms of oppression. thus, barbarin employs what bailey (2021) calls digital alchemy, a black feminist process of transforming or alchemizing digital media into social justice media, for disabled people, including those who are also people of colour, queer, or gender variant. she has further alchemized a black feminist focused digital alchemy emphasizing black women, nonbinary, agender, and gender-variant people of various backgrounds to focalize herself as a black disabled fat queer woman. barbarin’s disabled digital alchemy has systematically advanced a politically engaged counter-public of disabled and non-disabled disability advocates performing digital/hashtag activism to challenge millennia old formulations of a non-disabled politic/polis. the covid-19 pandemic proved to be an apt stage for this disabled digital alchemy on tiktok as “[c]reatively manipulating and transforming social media platforms [became] means of harm reduction” for barbarin and other disabled people (bailey 2021, p. 23). her disabled digital alchemy became (and remains) a “praxis designed to create better representations for those most marginalized through the implementation of networks of care beyond the boundaries of the digital from which it springs” (bailey 2021, p. 24). barbarin’s tiktok utilization during the pandemic has recoded failed scripts to challenge the “normative standards of bodily representation and health presented in popular and medical culture” (bailey 2021, p. 24). though barbarin’s disabled digital alchemy existed to a large extent to educate those privileged ‘bored in the house’ non-disabled folks new to life on the margins of public and medical notions of good health, it maintained one foot in the black woman’s virtual beauty shop and continuously affirmed the validity of disabled lives outside the arthur 34 non-disabled polis/political gaze. barbarin’s ‘gotcha’ masturbation post—mostly made for disabled community members at the beginning of the pandemic—exemplified the genesis of her covid-19 related disabled digital alchemy, a digital persona practice/praxis that continued well into 2021. disabled digital alchemy: method and ethics memorial day, may 25, 2020. imani barbarin took to tiktok with this message: hello ableds, good evening. a lot of you like to categorize disabled people staying at home as a vacation. you’ve been in quarantine for over a month. is it vacation yet? (2020c) barbarin appears in the video wearing a blue sweater and black satin cap, common amongst black women seeking to protect their hair from breakage during sleep. the words she speaks are in a basic square text-box for deaf and hard-of-hearing people at the bottom of the screen. beginning with a calm face and speaking in a deep, moderated tone she greets abled people and discusses their association of disabled people’s limited or restricted life with vacation. however, her modulated timbre quickly shifts as she yells into the camera “is it vacation yet?” the caption reads “is it vacation yet?” with hashtags like #quarantine, #vacation, and #disability, the most potent of which is #abledsareweird (2020c). not unlike her ‘gotcha’ video, this clip reveals a side of barbarin’s digital persona. while her ‘gotcha’ post features her in full glamour makeup, this post shows barbarin’s everyday. the video is not glossy and does not include common tiktok affordances such as green screen effects, still or moving graphics, or background music; it is straightforward and highly affective and effective. a tiktok ‘affordance’ is the “multi-faceted relational structure between an object/technology and the user that enables or constrains potential behavioral outcomes in a particular context” (evans et al. 2017, p. 36). steele powerfully notes black women have historically developed a “cadre of tools and technologies to resist domination” (2021, p. 38); within tiktok, these activist tools/technologies are the affordances enabling visibility/shareability, editing, and other structural actions like green screen effects, hashtags, graphics, and user tags (zulli & zulli 2020, p. 3-5). yet, black disabled women’s technology practices have been under-explored in disability and media studies. barbarin is but one example of a black woman utilizing social networking sites’ “capacity for discourse to build out a social, cultural, racial identity” (brock 2020, 1-2). however, her disabled digital alchemy sets her apart from black women who may emphasize the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality with her efforts to digitally discuss and combat ableism, micro and/or macro-aggressions against disabled people. brock contends black folks have used social media that were not created by or for them (and embedded in whiteness) to fashion black digital spaces “whose contours have become visible through socialite and distributed digital practice while also decentering whiteness as the default [internet] identity” (2020, p. 5). he states, “at the intersection of the digital and black culture, black cyberculture offers a transformative cultural philosophy of representation, technoculture, politics, and everyday life” (2020, p. 6). for this reason, i employ brock’s methodological framework critical technocultural discourse analysis (ctda) to explicate barbarin’s disabled digital alchemy, or transformation of existing social media tools to social justice media for disabled people routinely excluded from an ableist body politic. in this section, i expand the definition of disabled digital alchemy and outline its interconnection with ctda starting with an overview of the data pool and including ethical considerations based upon my own identities. brock (2020, p. 7) brilliantly asserts “methodology arises from epistemology, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 35 ontology, and axiology. how we know what we know, how we know what is true, and how we know what is good provide the tools for examining the world around us”. thus, i consider ctda’s methodological impetus to examine artifacts (ontology, the what of a platform including its affordances), practices (the assemblage of the artifact and its practices), and the beliefs users have about a platform and the culture in which the platform exists as key for studying barbarin’s disabled digital alchemy within an able-bodied polis. ctda centers a marginalized consumer’s technology use (tiktok here) within her “own understanding of [herself] rather than unmarked racial and socioeconomic standards of ‘modern’ technology use” (brock 2020, p. 8). the method is designed to bolster any critical cultural theory, such as disabled digital alchemy, as long as it can be used to explain “the semiotics of the information and computer technology (ict) hardware and software under examination as well as the discourses of its users” (brock 2020, p. 8). combining bailey’s concept of digital alchemy with ctda facilitates an understanding of how barbarin employs tiktok to bolster a persona for disability activism. digital alchemy can be either defensive or generative. defensive digital alchemy responds to and recalibrates against misogynoir, the hatred and marginalization of black women and femmes; generative digital alchemy works for new types of representation (bailey 2021, p. 24). i expand these articulations of digital alchemy to assert disabled digital alchemy that is defensive as responses to and recalibrations against ableism and one that is generative offers new renderings of disabled life beyond social and medical associations with abjection and/or lack. thus, my guiding question for the study was: how does barbarin operationalize tiktok for both defensive and generative disabled digital alchemy with a digital persona designed to protest pandemic ableism? tiktok data pool i specifically analyzed barbarin’s @crutches_and_spice tiktok videos from the account’s genesis on march 15, 2020 to march 15, 2021, one full year into the pandemic, which amounted to over 200 videos related to disability and ableism, the pandemic, racism, and/or the 2020 presidential election. i was less concerned with breaking down the quantities of each type of post as well as the numbers of defensive and generative posts and more concerned with how the posts perform, aid barbarin’s digital persona, and explicate the interconnection between her persona and disabled digital alchemy. i looked for the ways in which tiktok’s affordances like graphics, hashtags, and text boxes facilitated cultural beliefs that empowered barbarin’s digital persona and her challenging of the able-bodied politic, the polis-oikos symbiosis, and her right to exist as a black disabled woman online. for example, barbarin’s mobility device masturbation ‘gotcha’ video can be deemed generative disabled digital alchemy as it provides a portrait of a disabled black woman’s sexuality and double entendre personality play. the video subtly mocks societal representations of disabled people as asexual despite research showing that most disabled adult women, including those with physical disabilities, have engaged in sexual relationships and frequently possess the same levels of sexual desire as non-disabled women (payne et al. 2016). barbarin combined her sexuality with humor, ‘spice’ not typically associated with disabled women, to send a light-hearted message to her disabled community. conversely, her “is it vacation yet?” video is decidedly defensive, a weapon to chastise abled people for their aberrant association of staying at or being confined to the home as leisure. ctda’s techno and socio-cultural imperatives to represent underrepresented or marginalized people’s lived experiences, ways of being, and methods of knowing fits this study. the methodological framework was developed to counter epistemological assumptions about arthur 36 the internet and information technology as white, non-disabled, and hetero-androcentric. brock (2020, p. 10) states “people follow the interactions and practices mapped out by the designers and engineers who code the technology, but they also find ways to create additional pathways and practices to represent themselves within that technology”. employing ctda to examine barbarin’s disabled digital alchemy essentially works to reveal the ways a disabled person employs social media to craft and maintain digital personas for those ignorant of disabled life. her personality play did not then and does not now exist within a digital environment representative of inclusive public/political practice. ethics as a black queer disabled larger-bodied woman, i keenly understand the potential ethical quagmires that come with studying the digital persona of a black disabled fat queer woman. not only do i draw upon my institution’s institutional review board template for humanistic qualitative studies, but also the association of internet researchers’ guidelines for ethical pluralism and cross-cultural awareness to mitigate the possible harm that may come from analyzing the persona and work of a person with several intersecting marginalized identities (franzke et al. 2020). data analyzed here were not collected or examined through contact/interaction with barbarin. big data research often muddies the processes of informed consent when a person’s account is public. because the @crutches_and_spice tiktok posts are easily found, have garnered news stories, blog posts, and social media posts from others, and the account is devoid of any personal information beyond which barbarin has explicitly shared, i restrict my work to what has been publicly available since 2020. i do not triangulate tiktok with barbarin’s other social media accounts or crutchesandspice.com to paint a portrait of the advocate as a black disabled fat queer woman. instead, i rely upon what is present in her tiktok account with biographical information from one news profile because they are good tools for understanding the relationship between her digital persona and life during the pandemic. while i do claim the identities barbarin asserts, i do not consider myself an arbiter of knowledge about her. instead, i utilize my understandings of what it means to be black, disabled, queer, large/fat, and a woman to articulate a scholarly rendering of barbarin’s @crutches_and_spice persona and disabled digital alchemy. is my articulation entirely correct? likely not. yet, it is a reference for those within a range of disciplines interested in the intersections of disability, race, gender, sexuality, body type, and technology use within a limited and limiting body politic/polis and oikos. playing defense online defense can be viewed as actions for resisting or countering an attack and can solidify in multiple political environments, including the digi-sphere. social networking platforms are often effective for defensive maneuvers, especially for marginalized people seeking to upend their subjugation. while negative portrayals of black women have existed time immemorial, the internet has allowed many of them to proliferate thanks to algorithms situating our bodies as abject, hyper-sexual, and/or pornographic. black women, agender, nonbinary, and gender variant folks have employed defensive digital alchemy to redress misogynoir, or the hatred of black women and femmes, as a reactionary position that can take the form of one-to-one responses through hashtags, memes, and viral videos (bailey 2021). for example, when a group of black men created the twitter campaign #ruinablackgirlsmonday where they posted photos of women of other races they considered more attractive than black women, black women responded with #ruinaninsecureblackmanstuesday, a twitter photo campaign where they persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 37 posted photos showcasing their individual and collective beauty. the results of this campaign are debatable. however, bailey (2021, p. 25) states, “this tit for tat does not engender the kinds of transformation of misogynoir that leads to long-lasting change, but it does let the offensive content be called out as such”. when barbarin takes to tiktok for defensive disabled digital alchemy, she does not always appear to be concerned with tit-for-tat battles with specific people, but instead debunks stereotypes or false information. in an august 9, 2020 post, barbarin responds to a question from a follower who asks if her asthma counts as a disability. she states, while appearing to hold up screenshots of website information and graphs from news reports on screen with one hand, “…this is the official definition of disability. now, notice one thing; there is no list of disabilities that qualify you or disqualify you” (2020d). the screenshot is from the ada national network training guide website stating a disabled person is one “who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity. this includes people who have a record of such an impairment, even if they do not currently have a disability” (adata, 2022). barbarin goes on to share a screenshot from the u.s. centers for disease control (cdc) articulating that approximately 26 percent (or 1 in 4 of 61 million) of americans have a disability and another from gallup noting that 43 percent of americans have a pre-existing health condition that might not be acknowledged as a disability because of ableism (2020d). she continues with the stark assessment that many more people could consider themselves disabled but capitalism prevents it because of the ableist belief that if one can work one is not disabled (a blatant disregard of employed disabled people). lastly, she states “forty million people are unemployed because of a pandemic they can’t control – like a diagnosis” (2020d). she looks into the camera and says “how is that working?” (2020d). barbarin’s point about covid-19 resulting in 40 million people becoming unemployed is a sharp reminder that the virus systematically disabled millions of people, leaving them unemployed when businesses shut down or unemployable during and potentially after the run of the virus in their bodies. especially effective is her use of the green screen affordance in the video to strengthen this point. tiktok’s platform affordances enable users to incorporate a number of green screens in videos. here, barbarin uses the affordance for photo stickers, one that makes it appear as if she is using her hand to stick and remove photos directly onto and from the camera lens. with these gestures, the viewer sees information they may have dismissed or ignored if solely barbarin appeared talking on screen. the images from the ada national network and cdc websites and the gallup report are seemingly unimpeachable and enhance her ultimate message; claiming or not claiming disability is not a matter of identity politics or playing the disabled card. it is something inherently rooted in the fear of being denied employment and/or financial stability because of a mental or physical impairment, a major concern for many during the pandemic. nowhere in this defensive response does she chastise the person who asked the question; instead, she caustically reprimands the systems forcing the person to ask during a respiratory virus pandemic if their pre-existing respiratory illness is a disability. barbarin’s disabled digital alchemy is keen; tiktok’s affordances aid her defensive play or attempt to challenge the public interrogation of certain conditions as disabilities. this is one of many examples of barbarin skillfully employing tiktok to challenge the ableist body politic/polis. while not all of her posts incorporate graphic affordances, those that do commonly include text-boxes with titles and captions for the deaf or hard-of-hearing, gifs,emojis, different green screens, and including other videos next to her own using the platform’s duet affordance. arthur 38 in an october 2, 2020 post, barbarin appears to be sitting inside a dark vehicle wearing a blue hoodie and black satin cap. above her head is a text-box with a shape commonly seen in comics or print cartoons. as she speaks, her words fill the box; she states that then u.s. president trump had just tested positive for covid-19, but had attended a photo opportunity in protection of people with pre-existing conditions “where he was unmasked around a bunch of medically vulnerable children” (2020e). she ends with a sigh of frustration. here, the artoon style text-box is a moment of digital sarcasm aligning the video with a political cartoon or a comic that should be funny or unreal but is not. instead, it is a defensive indictment of a moment that potentially placed vulnerable children at risk for contracting the coronavirus, further establishing the public political indifference and ableist response to disabled people during the pandemic. what makes barbarin’s sigh and the comic text-box all the more poignant is what is beneath the message, what is unspoken; the children trump appeared with could become sick and die. though it is a simple post, it is a powerful example of defensive disabled digital alchemy from a politically astute activist desiring to highlight ableist ambivalence within the u.s. polis. generating disability visibility speaking about the disabling impact of racism, sexism, and sexual trauma on black women’s mental health, schalk notes “[black] women are challenging the historical and cultural pressure to remain silent and to internalize oppression and trauma…[and healing] requires both stopping the harm from continuing and addressing the harm that has been done” (2020, p. 539). while barbarin’s defensive disabled digital alchemy can be viewed as “addressing the harm that has been done”, her generative disabled digital alchemy can be perceived as attempts to stop harm against disabled people from continuing. by posting creative content with messages that play offense rather than defense, she scores major points for disability visibility within a platform designed for viral content. bailey states generative digital alchemy “moves independently, innovated because it speaks to a desire or want for new types of representation…[it] is born of an interest in creating new media that appeals to the community from which they come” (2021, p. 24-25). barbarin’s generative disability digital alchemy also moves independently and focuses on not only appealing to different disability communities, but to non-disabled people who are allies, interested in unlearning ableism, or wishing to gain knowledge about disabled life. her generative tiktok posts utilize the platform’s video producing affordances to help share accurate information with her audience. these generative videos often show her as scornful in her description of ableism’s impact on disabled and abled people; her digital persona’s ‘spice’ seeks to draw attention to past and ongoing harm. a february 17, 2021 post begins, “we need to talk about what’s happening in texas because a part of it is a direct result of the ableist stereotypes you tell disabled people not to worry about” (barbarin 2021). the video goes on to incorporate tiktok’s green screen affordance to show images of texas governor greg abbott juxtaposed with screenshots of news reports about him. barbarin explains that the republican party uses the fact abbott is a wheelchair user as an example of a person who ‘overcame’ their disability to undermine marginalized communities’ cries for acknowledgment and protection. she explains that abbott’s policy of keeping businesses open exacerbated the covid-19 death toll in texas. at the time, texas was experiencing a winter storm that left many without electricity. barbarin explains that just as abbott’s failed leadership led to thousands of pandemic deaths, him blaming the storms on wind turbines and the green new deal also exemplifies incompetence. she ends, “ableism affects everyone because your health and your life itself is very much so predicated on the stereotypes we tell each other” (barbarin 2021). persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 39 while many in barbarin’s audience likely knew about the storm, some may not have known much about the state’s elected disabled leader. clever use of the platform’s affordances allows barbarin to show images of the governor in a wheelchair and news reports about his policies’ impact on texans. the post is a scathing assessment of how criticism of abbott’s leadership is attacked as ableist. referring to the republican party’s exploitation of disabled politicians like abbott, the post’s caption says “once their [sic] in power they are almost never held accountable because any criticism is blamed on ableism” (2021). the video and its use of platform affordances including hashtags (#texas, #texasblizzard2021, #gregabbott) combine to educate audiences about compounding devastation in texas and how ableist beliefs allow a disabled person to be used to marginalize constituents. powerful politicians deemed abbott worthy of membership in the polis and bolster his leadership. seemingly ‘overcoming’ his disability enables abbott to show his constituents and the wider public that his disability is not one that should be treated as ‘special’ nor should he or other disabled people agitate for potentially life protecting rights. barbarin’s generative disabled digital alchemy in this post ultimately reveals the nature of ableism within public life. the symbiosis of abbott’s disability, routinely deemed unnecessary for public concern, and his political career function to erase the struggles of those without his privilege or access to power. he is often considered an inspirational figure, one arendt would have likely championed. the space of appearance in which abbott exists marks what other disabled people should desire to be, something barbarin argues further complicates the lives of disabled people who do not have the same backing or resources. here, her tiktok persona functions as generative disabled digital alchemy designed to show that her life as a black disabled fat queer woman can never be compared to abbott’s life as a white disabled man who does not champion for disability rights, something arendt likely would have respected. conclusion as i imagine arendt bopping along to “bored in the house” videos, i also imagine her being disgusted with disabled people inserting their struggles into public covid-19 conversations. would arendt have viewed disabled people (or those with pre-existing conditions who may not identify as disabled) as the pandemic’s unfortunate casualties? would she have respected disabled people’s public political engagement as they encouraged people to wear a mask? it is likely arendt would have appreciated non-disabled people’s pleas for basic precautions to hasten a return to pre-pandemic public and social life, while not addressing the underlying ableism in protests over mask wearing. as millions declared that ‘black lives matter’ during summer 2020, barbarin used tiktok to assert that disabled lives matter also. barbarin’s identity performance and play went beyond that of an angry disabled woman seeking personal attention during a global health crisis. her defensive and generative disabled digital alchemy sought to address the institutional harming of disabled people and the further disabling of millions of people who contracted covid and remain ill. though illnesses and deaths have subsided, the pandemic’s impact will be felt for years to come. barbarin recognizes this; the digital persona she built during the height of the pandemic continues. her ‘spice’ remains. what would a conversation between arendt and barbarin look and sound like? i imagine barbarin, after likely seeing her discussions of public and social systemic ableism falling flat with arendt, would soon thereafter post a tiktok video eviscerating arendt’s ableism. arthur 40 works cited adams, r, reiss, b & serlin, d 2015, ‘disability,’ in r adams, b reiss & d serlin (eds.) keywords for disability studies, new york university press, new york, pp. 5-11. ada national network 2022, what is the definition of disability under the americans with disabilities act?, ada national network, retrieved 31 august 2022, <https://adata.org/faq/what-definition-disability-under-ada> arendt, h 1958, the human condition, university of chicago press, chicago. — 1959, ‘reflections on little rock,’ dissent, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 45-56. — 1972, crises of the republic, harcourt brace jovanovich, new york. bailey, m 2021, misogynoir transformed: black women’s digital resistance, new york university press, new york. barbarin, i 2020a, how i plan on surviving quarantine, crutches_and_spice, 15 march, <https://www.tiktok.com/t/ztr57whdu/> — 2020b, we need to stop saying this was preventable, crutches_and_spice, 15 august, <https://www.instagram.com/p/cd6hzypjyoa/?igshid=nmnmnjawnzg=> — 2020c, is it vacation yet?, crutches_and_spice, 25 may, <https://www.tiktok.com/t/ztr577klx/> — 2020d, does asthma qualify?, crutches_and_spice, 9 august, <https://www.tiktok.com/t/ztr5vyjg9/> — 2020e, pre-existing conditions, crutches_and_spice, 2 october, <https://www.tiktok.com/t/ztr5vyk7q/> — 2021, disability stereotypes and greg abbott, crutches_and_spice, 17 february, <https://www.tiktok.com/t/ztr5vfylk/> brock, a 2020, distributed blackness: african american cybercultures, new york university press, new york. brown, a & chmielewski, d 2020, ‘inside the hunt for tiktok’s new ceo – and what’s next for the world’s hottest app, forbes, 20 may, retrieved 1 june 2022, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/05/20/inside-the-hunt-fortiktoks-new-ceo-and-whats-next-for-the-worlds-hottest-app/?sh=4790a801abb4> brown, k 2021, ‘trolls can’t stop this black and disabled activist from taking over tiktok,’ vice, 15 june, retrieved 30 june 2022, <https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7e7mp/trolls-cant-stop-this-black-and-disabledactivist-from-taking-over-tiktok> doonan, c 2021, ‘disabling the body politic,’ disability studies quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3, <https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/8393/6195> evans, s, pearce, k, vitak, j, & treem, j 2017, ‘explicating affordances: a conceptual framework for understanding affordances in communication research,’ journal of computermediated communication, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 35-52. franzke, a, bechmann, a, zimmer, m, ess, c & the association of internet researchers 2020, ‘internet research: ethical guidelines 3.0., retrieved 1 july 2022, <https://aoir.org/reports/ethics3.pdf> hautea, s, parks, p, takahashi, b, & zeng, j 2021, ‘showing they care (or don’t): affective publics and ambivalent climate activism on tiktok,’ social media + society, april-june 2021, pp. 1-14. humphrey, m 2021, ‘the social oikos: examining arendt’s concept of the public-private divide through the lens of a youtube vlog,’ persona studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 20-32. jackson, s, bailey, m, & foucault welles, b 2020, hashtag activism: networks of race and gender justice, the mit press, cambridge. jankowski, p 2020, ‘why instagram reels will beat tiktok especially in the new heartland,’ forbes, 14 august, retrieved 1 june 2022, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauljankowski/2020/08/14/why-instagram-reelswill-beat-tiktok-especially-in-the-new-heartland/?sh=75a7c3ff2d27> persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 41 marshall, pd & barbour, k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective’, persona studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–12. payne, da, hickey, h, nelson, a, rees, k, bollinger, h & hartley, s 2015, ‘physically disabled women and sexual identity: a photovoice study,’ disability & society, vol. 31, no. 8, pp. 1030-1049. rodas, jm 2015, ‘identity,’ in r adams, b reiss & d serlin (eds.) keywords for disability studies, new york university press, new york, pp. 5-11. segarra, a 2020, over a month in lockdown, annieelainey, 27 april, <https://www.instagram.com/p/b_fwdxwdefd/?igshid=nmnmnjawnzg=> steele, ck 2021, digital black feminism, new york university press, new york. tolentino, j 2019, ‘how tiktok holds our attention,’ the new yorker, 23 september, retrieved 1 june 2022, <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/how-tiktok-holdsour-attention> tyga & roach, c 2020, bored in the house, tyga, 26 march, <https://www.tiktok.com/t/ztr5vwkmg/> zulli, d & zulli, dj 2022, ‘extending the internet meme: conceptualizing technological mimesis and imitation publics on the tiktok platform,’ new media & society, vol. 24, no. 8, pp. 1872-1890. tori omega arthur colorado state university abstract key words introduction the disabled body politic crutches_and_spice disabled digital alchemy: method and ethics tiktok data pool ethics playing defense online generating disability visibility conclusion works cited boucaut 6 ‘oscar’: an institutional and contested persona reading of the academy awards robe rt bouc a ut t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f a d e l a i d e abstract this article applies a persona studies approach to the case study of the academy awards. key literature is used to situate an ‘oscar’ persona within existing conceptualisations from the discipline. oscar represents a composite persona that encapsulates an event, its broadcast, an academy of individuals, and a larger discursive industry. it is a non-human persona that is coloured by distinctly human elements; it is collectively constructed on a massive scale, the process of which inviting constant contestation. drawing from these theorisations i conduct a textual analysis to reach a persona reading of oscar. as collective authors of the persona, members of the academy, associated performers, and discursive contributors employ three distinct and consistent persona strategies: the functional, the spiritual, and the ironic. oscar’s taste-making function is enabled by extravagant staging and tempered by expressions of philanthropy yet performed with ironic self-effacement. the cumulative effect of these three performances allows oscar manoeuvrability across the requirements of the different cultural contexts of each year. as well as providing a unique prism for understanding the oscars as an institution, this work demarcates different levels of collective persona construction, challenging notions of central authority in production and performance, and accounting for the ongoing constructive work of publics. key words oscars; awards; taste; meta-collective complex; non-human persona introduction this paper aims to diversify persona studies further towards the inclusion of non-human, institutional persona construction, using the academy awards (or ‘the oscars’) as a case study. examining the oscars through the lens of persona studies, i contend, allows for a demarcation of levels of meaning represented by an ostensibly standalone industry event. we can consider the complexity of a persona construction dictated by not just a central (yet obscure) body – in this case ampas (the academy of motion picture arts and science), or ‘the academy’ – but of the publics that they engage with and are influenced by. establishing ‘oscar’ as a persona unearths several inherent tensions of a mediatised persona developed over nearly a century torn between its broadcast roots and a scattered online audience, a collectively construed nonhuman persona, and a persona at the mercy of its unstable public contests. i will firstly situate the oscar persona within existing persona studies literature in an effort to map how this complex persona comes into being, before moving into a textual analysis persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 7 to identify its impacts. given the longevity of the institution, my work here is by no means an attempt at a definitive, all-encompassing statement on what the oscar persona is, has been, or should be. however, i argue that a) the discrete persona reading attempted for the scope of dates chosen reveals some key characteristics that are consistent across the oscar legacy, and that b) there is potential to map the expansive and layered persona-construction processes at work with oscar and similarly contested and/or non-human personas. background & terms the oscars have historically been understood as the peak film industry awards amongst (western) filmmakers and audiences. they are a formative enterprise for the modern cultural awards systems – what english (2005) calls the “economy of prestige” – whereby their evaluative objective is achieved through applying a veneer of logical objectivity to an inherently subjective practice. as such, they can be understood through bourdieusian frameworks as a gatekeeper of taste – as an institution, they have cultivated a high degree of economic, cultural, and symbolic capital, the last of which they bestow upon “prestige stars” in their awards practice (mcdonald 2013, pp. 215-253). for their taste-making function, they have served as a site of inquiry to academics who scrutinise conceptions and representations of filmic quality (levy 2003; simonton 2011), or for societal representations (such as of age, race, gender, and sexuality) in filmic storytelling (cabosky 2015; levy 2003; markson & taylor 1993; murch 2003; simonton 2004). for their broadcasting legacy they are understood for their contributions to event television staging (pavlounis 2018; kaminsky 2019), and their roles in celebrity culture (haastrup 2008; swiatek 2014; lawson & draper 2021). industrially, they are also considered for tangible impacts that they have on film success in terms of box office and marketing (addis & holbrook 2018; deuchert, adjamah & pauly 2005; kersten & verboord 2014) or for what they indicate about filmmaking practice and standards (mapp 2008; rossman, esparza & bonacich 2010; wang yuen 2017). it is important to clarify the terminology of the oscars going forward. ‘the academy’ is established shorthand for “the academy of motion picture arts and sciences” and refers to the voting body and/or board of governors who administer the awards. as of 2021 there are upwards of 9000 academy members who are organised into branches of professions; these branches vote to nominate achievements for their respective craft-specific categories, with winners from the nominees then decided upon by the entire voting body. the academy awards ceremony (and the broadcast thereof) is the academy’s most public-facing function and their colloquial name of ‘the oscars’ has become institutionalised by the academy as a central part of their brand (e.g., their website address is ‘oscars.org’). the academy awards given out also go by the shorthand of ‘oscars’, but for clarity i will only refer to them as ‘awards’ or by the specific category being looked at. ‘oscar’ is the name i’m giving to the persona under investigation, the form and function of which i will map by reviewing existing persona studies literature. conceptualising ‘oscar’ composite persona for a starting point, the use of the words ‘oscar(s)’ and ‘the academy’ are very much contextdependent and can lack a direct or discrete referent. sedgman grapples with this issue of ambiguity in their development of a theatrical persona, noting that “to talk about ‘theatre’ is boucaut 8 sometimes to speak of a theatre building…sometimes about a theatre company… sometimes about the live performance event itself” (2019, pp. 98-99). they use this example to argue for a “composite persona… one whose cultural value comes from the interplay between these varying layers” (2019, p. 99). this is a useful precedent to consider ‘the oscars’ within persona studies. ‘the academy’ can denote two very different collectives: that of the entire voting body or of the much smaller board of governors. ‘the oscars’ can refer to the awards that are given out (whether specifically for categories, or as a generic concept of film awards, or as the statuette itself), or the academy awards (either as a ceremony or a broadcast). it is also an official branding nickname used by the academy for their website (oscar.com), broadcasts, and in their social media presentations. the connotations are potentially endless, e.g., with “oscar nominated/winning” employed as an intertextual marker for prestige marketing (mcgowan 2017, p. 223), or used in reference to the broader “awards season” (english 2005, p. 85). though these layers of meaning have served as sites of singular interrogations by academics of different disciplines, ‘oscar’ as a composite persona serves to consider these multiple referents in tandem, as their interplay produces a cohesive end result. non-human persona non-human elements are an inherent implication of all personas, given that they are constituted by negotiations between individual action/performance, publics, and digital networks and artefacts (marshall, moore & barbour 2020). although the majority of existing persona analysis either applies this logic to examples of consistent, collective expressions of a persona type (e.g., tomkinson & elliott’s “contemporary gamer persona” [2020]) or to individual exemplars of persona enactment (e.g., culbert’s “posthumous persona” of david bowie [2020]), there are precedents for non-human entities as demonstrating persona construction. the first relevant identifier to contend with is the “attributed persona” (giles 2020, p. 25). in a typology of persona, giles conceives of this broad grouping as when “persona is not attached to an individual, class of individual, or fictional character, but to an inanimate object or concept” (2020, p .25). returning to sedgman (2019), their analysis of the bristol old vic theatre company demonstrates a framework for an “institutional persona” by positing “institutions gain both social and economic capital in much the same way as individuals do, through the creation of a persuasive and cohesive narrative of self. in other words: through the production of persona” (2019, p. 99). sedgman breaks down the precedents of institutional persona into three groupings that oscar fits into. firstly, an institution connotes a sense of space (2019, p. 98). whereas the bristol old vic is spatially rooted in physical building, oscar has historic and inextricable ties to hollywood as a filmmaking hub (english 2005, p. 33). secondly, institutions institutionalise (sedgman 2019, p. 99), whereby those who operate within the institution contribute to the construction and maintenance of its persona. just glancing at any ceremony’s list of celebrity nominees, presenters, and attendees is evidence of institutionalised celebrity. lastly, an institution develops a persona through its public-facing dimension (2019, p. 99), whereby the visibility of its service operations contributes to its branding. beyond its traditional broadcast model, oscar is also partially made up of digitised networks to extend its presentational reach. a non-human persona reading of oscar is useful because it provides a framework to distinguish ‘the oscars’ as a site of persona construction – most notably for its cast of hollywood elites who participate in the public contest and acceptance of awards – from ‘oscar’ itself as an agent of persona construction with its own stakes in the game. as sedgman argues, an persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 9 institutional persona framework magnifies the production of the self that takes place even in the absence of a human self, and also “facilitates analysis of who is doing the work of producing an institution’s identity, and how this process is managed” (2019, p. 101), i.e., it invites scrutiny into what constructive work is done by the academy (both the large cohort and small decisionmaking board) and by other celebrity performances in their broadcasts. it also illuminates the duality of individual contributions to a persona that they simultaneously draw from and reconstruct, e.g., both jimmy kimmel hosting the ceremony and frances mcdormand accepting an award are maintaining their own star personas while simultaneously contributing to the institutional persona of oscar a peculiarity of this example is that oscar comes complete with a) a recognisably human name, b) a masculine human representation built into its visual iconography, and c) a nearcentury of historical baggage. none of these should be seen as necessary factors to consider the validity of a non-human persona generally, but they nevertheless colour this particular example in interesting ways. as of 2021, oscar is 93 years old, meaning its persona construction has long outlasted the professional life of a comparable human person. over such a lifespan oscar has inevitably been understood in terms of peaks and troughs of relevance and impact but having already established institutional longevity works to perpetuate its justification for continued existence. for today’s hollywood, having an oscars ceremony is the default position rather than a justified eventuality. meta-collective complex (& contest) the next point of clarification is of how to consider persona as collectively performed. on one hand, sedgman’s analysis of the institutional persona covers a lot of ground to consider the work that institutionalised human actors perform in the service of a non-human persona. beyond the roles of academy members and board members in putting on the show and dictating filmic taste, the broadcasted ceremony itself is performed by a revolving cast of hollywood elites, all of whom contribute to the impression of oscar. but beyond this literal interpretation of collective construction, persona studies as a discipline is uniquely able to speak to the collective component of all public-facing performances, and the active role of publics (and micro-publics) in their maintenance. marshall, moore and barbour state that persona is not an individual, nor is it a collective – instead persona is a strategic and organised public expression of individuality aimed at collective publics (2020, p. 3). moore, barbour & lee argue the case of persona as representing a “metacollective complex”, whereby the public consumption, perception, and replication of different personas are inextricable from their ongoing viability (2017, p.6, emphasis removed). the implication is that all personas are collectively construed, and that publics and micro-publics play an active and engaged role in how personas develop. there are parallels to richard dyer’s conceptualisations of stardom to be noted (1998; 2004): a persona and a star image can both be understood as textual/contextual ingredients that form a cohesive narrative in a public’s collective imagination. however, with the meta-collective complex of persona, we are able to view this interpretive work of audience as also constructive, inherently contributing to its ongoing development. oscar represents a crucial case study to demonstrate this in practice. compounded by its long institutional history and thus varied iterations of strategic selfexpression, it could potentially demonstrate the active negotiating and influencing work of its publics more starkly than a comparable human persona might. this element of persona responsiveness has been usefully explored through some celebrity examples. qyll (2020) has applied persona construction principles to the practice of “person branding”, through which an individual literal person (madonna) leverages their boucaut 10 platform for commercial salience and community identification, rendering their persona a site of audience contestation. this framing specifically complicates the element of individual agency as central to persona construction, as the potential for a person brand comes in its ability to negotiate and integrate the interpretations offered by audiences at large. further, culbert (2020) has considered the potential of “posthumous personas” in the case of david bowie. the machinations of persona construction through his final album, blackstar (2016), were put in place by bowie with the private knowledge of his deteriorating health but remained obscured until his death eventuated only days after the album’s release. the reception and maintenance of the persona was, instead, done in the wake of his life by his audiences in spaces like reddit, among others; culbert asserts “the narratives offered by the users both allows us to mourn the loss of the body but also establish the role of the persona as a separate and semi-autonomous entity” (2020, p. 51). this case study lays groundwork to consider the movement of persona authorship from bowie himself to his fans/consumers, whereby the collective persona interpretations necessarily shape its overall impact and narrative. crucially, oscar also represents a contested persona. with its extreme visibility, the oscars as an event has long been the grounds for widespread cultural discourse amongst critics, industry publications, commentators, and fans. the advent of networked digital media and participatory cultures of production have exacerbated this: websites are dedicated to collating statistics and predicting outcomes of awards races; there are oscars-dedicated podcasts, blogs, and youtube channels hosted by fans and critics; industrial publications have oscar’s-dedicated content; tangentially related publications exploit oscars hype to create celebrity-based content. this network of co-dependent but hierarchical publics speaks to tomkinson & elliott’s exploration of a generic contemporary gamer persona (2020); they examine the way that a preexisting and publicly recognisable persona can be co-opted (in their case by an energy drink), and how that co-option continues to mould the generic persona going forward. with oscar, the mass of para-textual materials is vast and parasitic, appropriating the cultural import that the event has amassed; the sheer noise created inevitably feeds right back into the original persona in conflicting ways. this dynamic also demonstrates oscar’s unique positioning in networked celebrity culture (marshall 2010). the oscars broadcasts and red carpets, although legacy media operations, are presentational to oscar in that it constructs and (mostly) controls its own intentional performance. without a specific spokesperson or consistent single human referent, discursive coverage of these events is entirely representational, interpreted by those with vested interests for wider consumption. duncan uses the contested persona in her study on judi dench’s ever-evolving persona (2019), exploring how the actor negotiates the many publicly constructed persona narratives that she has accumulated. some, such as her elevation to the realm (that “forgotten old cupboard” [cochrane 2009 in duncan 2019, p. 29]) of “national treasures” (duncan 2019, p. 29), she continuously and conspicuously negates as a strategy for ongoing employment and creative exploration. this, in turn, reinforces her seemingly preferred persona readings of authentic trustworthiness and ordinariness. as a contested persona, cultural dialogues steeped in film culture like #metoo and #oscarssowhite demand recognition by the academy, which discernibly impacts the ongoing oscar persona performances (which i will expand upon in my textual analysis). so conceptualising oscar as a collectively construed and contested persona impacts the ways that we can read it. academy-authored textual presentations, such as the oscars broadcast or twitter profile, must be recognised as influenced by and dependent upon the deeply polysemic readings and representations offered by its highly engaged audiences. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 11 the oscar persona: a textual analysis accepting that an institutional brand can engage in persona construction through the various avenues that humans use and manage, namely strategic multi-mediated messaging aimed at collective audiences, we can analyse ‘oscar’ through the aesthetic and thematic choices of its ceremony broadcast, its self-promotion via legacy and social media, and its anointed place in hollywood culture. i have analysed textual data with an explorative approach, not aiming for an exhaustive account of the oscar persona, but one comprehensive enough to display its nuance and variability. the scope explored is the years 2016-2021 (although complemented by examples from earlier years in parts). rossman & schilke (2014) identify the oscars ceremony in terms of bourdieusian taste-making cycles and propose that they are best understood as responsive to a five-year window of cultural feedback. thus, while any single year can be a useful site of analysis for various readings, here a grouping of five years demonstrates the manoeuvrability of the persona within an observable and focussed timeframe. years 2017 and 2018 were hosted by television personality jimmy kimmel, while the 2019, 2020, and 2021 ceremonies forwent a host in favour of a parade of celebrity presenters. for this non-human persona, although hosts and presenters are ostensibly endorsed voices to represent oscar, the persona construction work extends so far as to include nominees, winners, and attendees who contribute to the broadcast in discernible ways. i pay particular attention to the enactment of the oscars ceremony and accompanying broadcast (from the choices of nominations and winners to the individual performance beats hit throughout), as well as the para-textual materials present in terms of commentary and discourse, the institutional social media presence, and the academy’s efforts undertaken outside of the purview of the awards. because oscar is collectively constructed, it is worth noting that excerpts used as textual evidence often serve a dual function of contributing to the oscar persona as well as to the individual star’s persona performance. three distinct persona performances emerge, each of which contributes to the overall impression of oscar. firstly, a functional persona of ‘taste adjudicator’, employing codes of eventfulness and prestige to imply and perpetuate its hierarchical standing to judge film arts. secondly, a spiritual persona of ‘community leader’, that fosters its continued relevance to filmmaking more broadly through mentorship efforts, film preservation, and appeals to morality. lastly, an ironic persona of ‘hollywood man’, performed through the contributions of presenters and commentators so as to skewer filmmaking culture from an insider’s perspective. ‘functional’, ‘spiritual’ and ‘ironic’ serve as descriptive markers for the performance type that could be generalised to comparable persona readings in future studies; ‘taste adjudicator’, ‘community leader’ and ‘hollywood man’ are names given to the specific incarnations for the case of oscar. taste adjudicator although something of an afterthought in the inception of the academy, the process and ceremony of awarding film arts has become its central function (levy 2003, p. 41). the construction and the maintenance of its authority to wield such symbolic capital gives rise to oscar’s functional persona of ‘taste adjudicator’, wherein the taste-making purpose is justified with a strategy of spectacle. oscar performing eventfulness itself is an inherited and consistent trait; in the prebroadcast era it was foundational to the illusory, aspirational glamour of film stardom production, and from the ceremony’s initial shifts to televised broadcast has been a continued strategy for positioning both oscar and hollywood in a cultural hierarchy (pavlounis 2018). boucaut 12 ‘eventfulness’ permeates each aesthetic choice made in the production: the red-carpet for spectacular arrivals, unattainable beauty standards, and celebrity coverage (lawson & draper 2021); the extravagant stage in front of a collection of film stars who congregate for hollywood’s biggest night; the deifying of the chosen winners to the upper echelons of cultural impact. the cultivated ‘meaning’ of academy awards night is reiterated throughout the ceremony performance, with hosts and presenters reminding nominees of the potential career impacts that come with success, and with frequent references to winners past. in 2018 presenter viola davis introduces her segment with: some of the most memorable and legendary performances in film history came from those who won the oscar in the category of supporting actor. each of the icons of the past set a daunting standard of excellence, one that each of tonight’s nominees met with his performance. (oscars 2018) the suspense of competition is heightened by framing nominees’ faces collectively on screen in the lead up to the announcement (see figure 1), aesthetically appropriating a television game show (kaminsky 2019). eventual winners perpetuate oscar’s myth-making with emphatic gratitude towards the taste-makers who chose them – “i’d like to thank the academy”. the effect is compounded by the poignancy most aim for if they are victorious: best supporting actor of 2017 mahershala ali pays tribute to teachers; best actress1 of 2020 renée zellweger honours heroes from all walks of life; best supporting actress of 2017 viola davis dedicates her award and her artistic life to the stories buried in the graveyard, “[the] one place that all the people with the greatest potential are gathered” (oscars 2017). the traditions of gravitas in awards acceptance necessitates an austere, artful script. figure 1: framing of nominees as contestants (oscars 2019) the taste adjudicator is formed and performed with a conscious understanding of oscar’s position in a film awards hierarchy being key to its functionality. english (2005) maps an “economy of prestige” in the practice of cultural awards; if we consider filmmaking as a field of cultural production, and the academy awards as the first important, long-standing, and visible awards show conceived of, each subsequent awards show has to articulate a point of difference. the new york critics film circle established in 1935 protested the hollywoodcentric studio influence over the academy awards; the golden globes aim(ed) for greater persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 13 international representation; the sag awards perform the acting profession as a unionised collective; the golden raspberries satirically honour the worst movies of the year (simonton 2011, p. 10). the existence of these alternatives is borne from a degree of opposition to what the academy awards are in terms of process and ideology. although they stand alone, they remain inextricably tied to the academy awards (and oscar), which sit atop the hierarchy in terms of prominence and prestige, as evidenced by the season’s ordering. when the academy postponed the 2021 academy awards due to the disruptions of the covid19 pandemic, the orbiting awards promptly announced their own date shifts; their acts of cooperation directly feed back into the functional performance of oscar, as it retains its grandiosity and authority as the grand finale of the awards season overall. however, this persona construction that relies on extravagance has proven risky and fallible. concessions have been made to deemphasise spectacle in social moments when flaunting wealth and privilege is unacceptable, such as the cancelling of the red-carpet arrivals in 2003 after the announcement of america’s invasion of iraq (swiatek 2014, p. 3), or the pandemic-set intimate but socially distanced staging of the 2021 ceremony. overtly artificial attempts at creating impactful moments have also backfired, such as when the 2021 ceremony switched the usual order of category presentations. rather than ending on best picture as the show’s finale, producers instead moved best actor to the slot, anticipating a widely predicted posthumous win for chadwick boseman, and thus a poignant (and shareable) acceptance speech from his widow, simone boseman. when anthony hopkins, who was not present, was announced as the surprise winner, the broadcast abruptly ended on an anticlimactic and awkward note that became the central focus of negative critiques (shoard 2021). the elements explored operate in the performance of spectacle and eventfulness, which affords the taste adjudicator its elevated position as a gatekeeper of taste for film art. in other words, the function of constructing and performing extravagance is to justify and maintain the symbolic capital that oscar connotes (and therefore wields). this strategy of exceptionalising stardom and manufacturing competition helped extend the broadcast to being one of the most watched television events globally at its peak (real 1989, pp. 80-81). this reach is a source of authority for the academy, as its decisions had tangible impacts on both individual career trajectories and wider perceptions of quality in film. the taste adjudicator’s unstable grounds of constructed spectacle are strategically tempered by the spiritual persona performance to achieve more consistent viability. community leader if the functional persona performs grandiose entertainment for the sake of artistic gatekeeping, then oscar also maintains a spiritual persona that speaks to a more consistent sense of morality. the ‘community leader’ recognises the privilege represented and held by oscar, and with strategically performed acts of charity and cultural leadership works to prove itself worthy of continuing in such a position. although the televised awards show is clearly the most conspicuous case of oscar’s persona performance, the academy’s often less-publicised efforts throughout the rest of the calendar year represent a sense of giving back to its community. the student academy awards, for example, are a forum for international film students to present work within the prescribed modes of competitive arts; beyond the economic capital up for grabs in cash grants, the academy notes that past winners have gone on to legitimate oscars success, implying social and symbolic capital as added incentives. beyond engaging with filmmaking practice, the academy also awards grants to film scholars, thus endorsing the generation of new knowledge for the field. boucaut 14 the community leader also acts as a custodian of film history; the academy has long been promoting its los angeles film museum through its many delays (finally opening in september 2021). through twitter, broader and more generalised film-based discussions help to foster connections to a film-enthusiast culture, allowing oscar’s profile to become itself a site of discourse amongst followers. connections between the academy and individual filmmakers are promoted, either through announcements of new members (often then retweeted by the subject), paratextual materials such as video interviews, or in-memoriam tributes. this use of social media thus promotes an image of oscar as connected to its professional community, and, indeed, a leader within it – not so much participating in the dialogue as attempting to set it. beyond the targeted academy-led initiatives that contribute to the community leader performance, its sentiments seep into the academy awards broadcast itself in the form of politically conscious speeches. consider host jimmy kimmel’s 2017 opening monologue: i don’t want to get too serious, but there are millions and millions of people watching right now. and if every one of you took a minute to reach out to one person you disagree with – someone you like – and have a positive, considerate conversation – not as liberals or conservatives, as americans. if we could do that, we could make america great again. we really could. it starts with us. (jimmy kimmel live 2017) this excerpt reinforces a cultural imperialist perspective of america and hollywood as being centres of the world’s attention, both for entertainment and morality. it also came in the wake of donald trump’s election in 2016, where hollywood’s elitist liberalism was a source of sustained attack from trump and his supporters (although wang yuen has previously noted how the academy awards ceremony will often present a progressive face while perpetuating systemically racist and exclusionary practices [2017, pp. 49-50]). kimmel’s appropriation of trump’s campaign slogan points directly to the societal moment, yet he individualises vast and volatile political divides into an achievable gesture of good faith; he therefore positions oscar as a platform to address societal tensions and to lead by example. this is reinforced again in his 2018 opening monologue as host, which was in the wake of #metoo: “but what happened with harvey [weinstein], and what’s happening all over is long overdue. we can’t let bad behaviour slide anymore. the world is watching us. we need to set an example” (jimmy kimmel live 2018). these examples, performed by essentially oscar’s chosen face and voice for these years in the ceremony host, express the community leader’s responsibility to engage with social issues. oscar can be understood here as a synecdoche for hollywood itself as a locus of power, and thus attracts the spotlight of scrutiny. this perceived duty extends beyond the host, both with presenters in hosted and host-less ceremonies, and with award recipients; the politically declaratory awards speech (levy 2003, pp. 345-355) is now entrenched to the point of cliché, but is inevitable each year. presenter regina king recognises this in her opening monologue for the 2021 ceremony, which took place shortly after a guilty verdict was handed down in the derek chauvin murder trial: i have to be honest, if things had gone differently this past week in minneapolis, i may have traded in my heels for marching boots. now, i know that a lot of you people at home want to reach for your remote when you feel like hollywood is preaching to you. but as a mother of a black son, i know the fear that so many live with, and no amount of fame or fortune changes that. (entertainment tonight 2021) persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 15 on points of representation, we can clearly see the community leader performance being undermined and influenced by the meta-collectives of oscar discourse. online movements like #oscarssowhite challenge oscar’s claims of morality and holiness. on the morning of the 2015 academy award nominations announcement where actors of colour were excluded from all categories (for what would be the first of two consecutive years), black twitter user april reign created the hashtag that upon going viral demanded reflexive action from the academy (ugwu 2020). this contribution would become a definitive element of understanding and navigating oscar in the years that followed. the academy, under cheryl boone isaacs’ presidency, instigated a recruitment drive towards a more diverse membership, which in 2016 was 94 percent white and 77 percent male (boone isaacs in ugwu 2020). the discourse spawned by the hashtag grew and enrichened with each year; the shortcomings of oscar regarding race were an entry point into understanding issues of diversity and representation across the entire filmmaking process; scrutiny was cast over the exclusion of other groups such as non-english language filmmakers, non-male directors, and identifiably disabled actors. mapp (2008) has previously explored african american representation at the academy awards, noting that resistance and protest efforts have historically been ignored or ridiculed. although still a persona primarily enacted through the legacy media of broadcast television, the contemporary age of online discourse through digital communication has emboldened metacollective persona construction that is pushing oscar further in line with broader social progress. today, the community leader persona has to engage to remain viable. as filmmaker peter ramsey put it, there’s too many other ways to get entertainment now than the tiny number of movies that get official academy [sic] recognition each year. #oscarsowhite is an alarm bell. it’s saying, “keep with us, or we’re going to leave you behind.” (in ugwu 2020) the negotiated dialogue of persona construction can be seen across the recent acting nominations, where 2020’s exclusion of actors of colour apart from a single nominee compelled a resurgence of #oscarssowhite, which was then implicitly acknowledged by oscar delivering the “most diverse acting slate ever” a year later (vary 2021). the functional and spiritual personas should be read as symbiotic, working together to maintain oscar’s standing within the filmmaking field by expressing and perpetuating authority. the community leader is only affordable (literally and figuratively) by the money and notoriety generated by the taste adjudicator, and the privilege of holding such an authoritative position in taste-making culture is fortified by field-specific philanthropy and broader advocacy – a palatable spirit. hollywood man a by-product of the enactment of the two performances just explored is a self-reflexive sense of humour, one that leans into the anthropomorphising of ‘the academy award/s’ into oscar as a human representative of hollywood culture. in this consistent approach to conceptualising ‘oscar’ as a character, i posit a third performance of ‘hollywood man’ as an ironic persona. consider this excerpt from host jimmy kimmel’s opening monologue for the 2018 oscars broadcast: our friend oscar oscar is 90-years-old tonight, which means he’s probably at home right now watching fox news. of course, no, oscar is with us. after all the years – after all the awards given for achievements in show business, oscar is still number one, no question about it. oscar is the most beloved and respected man boucaut 16 in hollywood, and there’s a very good reason why. just look at him – keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word, and most importantly no penis at all. he is literally a statue of limitations. and that’s the kind of men we need more of in this town. (jimmy kimmel live 2018) in this we not only see a literal interpretation of the name and figure of ‘oscar’, but also several fundamentally human features attributed to oscar as an imagined character: gender, age, and positioning. delivered in the context of #metoo, this joke sets up the inanimate oscar image as the counterpoint to the old, white, power-broking men against who the mass reckoning was hoped to be imminent. to reiterate, having a human name and a masculine-human visual iconography attached to oscar should not be seen as necessary factors for non-human persona construction. however, in the performance of ‘hollywood man’ we can see where these impacts are most strongly felt. having such tangibly human characteristics within close reach has allowed for oscar to parody the humanity of its position. the jokes offered only make sense because of a shared understanding amongst audiences of the general structure, impacts, and problems of hollywood for the home viewer, and the knowledge of this perception from the crowd in the room. the above kimmel joke has an ironic sting in the #metoo context for those with an understanding of the harvey weinstein case beyond his predatory behaviour, because of how clearly his reputation for oscars success afforded him protection within this elite hollywood community (farrow 2019): oscar as an anthropomorphised idea of a human man may be an ideal in the specific cultural moment of the joke, but in practice was a part of the problem. in contrast to oscar’s posturing of responsibility in its community leader performance, ‘hollywood man’ clearly offers no pretence of oscar being an admirable or reparative voice for the issues invoked. consider this exchange from 2020 presenters steve martin and chris rock: rock: i dunno, steve, i’m a little conflicted. you know i was driving here tonight and seeing the terrible homeless problem in l.a. and – martin: thank you chris, so many stars! oh my god there’s brad pitt. (92nd academy awards 2020) the purpose of this joke is not to draw attention to a real-world issue facing the los angeles community – let alone an issue that oscar could ostensibly be a positive advocate of change for given the inextricable ties between the academy and los angeles as a location (english 2005, p. 33). rather, the joke parodies celebrity exceptionalism and narcissism, and ties into notions of celebrity as frivolous and distracting. oscar offers no antidote to this societal woe; indeed, its existence can be read as a symptom of it. while the functional and spiritual personas work symbiotically to position oscar towards high artistic and moral standing, the ironic persona casts a shadow of hypocrisy over the entire enterprise. the hollywood man performance consistently forms its jokes within the endless scrutiny that the academy faces, a satirical, tacit acknowledgement of the discourse without reparative commitments. conclusion applying a persona reading to all that is ‘the academy awards’ allows for a mappable performance of ‘oscar’. the resultant characteristics of the functional ‘taste adjudicator’, the spiritual ‘community leader’, and the ironic ‘hollywood man’ appear consistently visible across persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 17 each surveyed year’s iteration of oscar. yet how the performance eventuates is responsive to the specific requirements of the given year of its enactment. this malleability is crucial to a persona of extreme longevity such as oscar, and strategically perpetuates its own institutional standing in the filmmaking field. as the scope of this article necessarily limited the number of years investigated, further work can be done to track this persona’s flexibility historically, perhaps with an eye to definitive moments that have had lasting influence on its construction and impact. such a reading diversifies persona studies in its push for massively contested and nonhuman persona construction, theoretical threads that are surely present in the discipline but require further unpacking. as a generalisable case study, the oscar persona is a useful demonstration of sedgman’s composite and institutional personas. it explores the extremities of collective persona construction in its longevity and adaptability, its revolving cast of presentational performers for its central text, and its negotiation with related industry agents and dialogue with its vocal publics. end notes 1. the oscars (and many other awards) retain gendered categories of ‘actor’ and ‘actress’, despite the suffix ‘-ess’ often connoting inferiority or trivialisation (simonton 2004, p. 783; dyer 1998, p. 9) and the structure’s exclusion of non-binary people. works cited 92nd academy awards 2020, television broadcast, abc, california, 9 february. addis, m & holbrook, m b 2018, ‘is movie success a judgement device? when more is not better’, psychology and marketing, vol. 35. no. 12, pp. 881-890. blackstar 2016 [cd-rom], david bowie, rca. 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moore, c, barbour, k & lee, k 2017, ‘five dimensions of online persona’, persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-11. murch, d 2003, ‘the prison of popular culture: rethinking the seventy-fourth annual academy awards’, the black scholar, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 25-32. oscars 2017, viola davis wins best supporting actress, youtube, 3 april, <https://youtu.be/xbo9gvmv87y>. —2018, sam rockwell wins best supporting actor, youtube, 17 april, <https://youtu.be/fdy3bijy0sa>. —2019, olivia colman wins best actress, youtube, 26 march, <https://youtu.be/yuytvag_he4>. pavlounis, d 2018, ‘oscar’s close-up: producing the live television broadcast of the 25th academy awards’, historical journal of film, radio and television, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 378-397. qyll, n 2020, ‘persona as key component in (cultural) person branding’, persona studies, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 56-71. real, m 1989, super media, sage publications inc., california. rossman, g & schilke, o 2014, ‘close, but no cigar: the bimodal rewards to 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elliott, j 2020, ‘hype source: g fuel’s contemporary gamer persona and its navigation of prestige and diversity’, persona studies, vol 6, no. 2, pp. 22-37. ugwu, r 2020, ‘the hashtag that changed the oscars: an oral history’, the new york times, 6 february, <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/movies/oscarssowhitehistory.html>. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 19 vary, a b 2021, ‘oscars nominate most diverse acting slate ever, including first asian american best actor’, variety, 15 march, <https://variety.com/2021/film/news/oscarsdiversity-steven-yeun-riz-ahmed-1234928862/>. wang yuen, n 2017, reel inequality: hollywood actors and racism, rutgers university press, new jersey. munro 40 assange and wikileaks: secrets, personas and the ethopoetics of digital leaking andre w munr o abstract this article suggests a rhetorical orientation for future work in persona studies. in this paper, i maintain that persona studies can usefully contribute to the close description of complexes of discursive events. in particular, i contend that persona studies can enhance efforts in the humanities to describe discursive events involving public figures who have achieved a degree of fame or notoriety. the descriptive purchase of persona studies is maximised, i argue, when we foreground its rhetorical and semiotic postulates. to make this case, i read the figure of julian assange rhetorically. by focussing on questions of ethos and ethopoesis – the performative, discursive construction of full human character – i show that julian assange can be usefully read as a particular, digitally inflected instantiation of the persona of the information activist. in this instance, persona studies helps us to read the constitutive relation between digital leaking and issues of secrecy and publicity, and to understand the fortunes of the figure of julian assange in terms of assange’s particular performance of the persona of the digital information activist. key words assange; wikileaks; secrecy; leaking; whistleblowing; rhetoric; genre; semiotics; information activism; persona; persona studies this article aims to indicate one orientation for future work in ‘persona studies’. i want to suggest herein that this emerging field of inquiry can usefully contribute to efforts in the humanities to closely describe complexes of discursive events, particularly those involving public figures who have achieved some fame or notoriety. i hope to show that the descriptive purchase of persona studies is maximised when we foreground its rhetorical and semiotic postulates. to do so, i will focus on questions of ethos and ethopoesis, the performative, discursive construction of full human character. in order to make this case, i will take as an example the rich object of analysis that is julian assange and the secure and anonymous whistleblowing organisation and website he cofounded in 2006 and edits, wikileaks. i will construe the figure of assange as a performance or persona studies 2015, 1.1 41 instantiation of a particular contemporary persona, that of the digital information activist. i will argue that in the case of assange, the persona of the information activist is both constituted and complicated—compromised, even—by the ethopoetics of digital leaking, which is inextricably tied to questions of character capital, of publicity and of secrecy. before addressing these last, however, allow me some qualifying remarks about persona and persona studies, and a couple of comments about secrets and secrecy. evidently, “persona” is a sign that has long stood for a range of objects. from a mask to differentiate characters on the classical stage to a heuristic device in intellectual history (see hunter), the term persona has been mobilised in a range of disciplines and spheres of activity. in this paper, i will not rehearse these varied uses of persona. i will, however, touch on some of the themes that tend to recur when notions of persona are put to work: the dramaturgical analogies; the entanglements of figures of the public and the private; the intrications of achieved and attributed celebrity (rojek celebrity; drake & miah; turner); the interrelations of the topoi of self-present, voluntaristic subjects and socially constructed agency. while none of these themes maps fully onto its others, i take it that all bear substantive relations to ethopoesis. ethopoeia, carolyn miller reminds us, is the ancient greek term for the creation of character. this term focuses directly on the constructions we make from the least clue that suggests the presence of another mind; it also reminds us that these attributions are not of rationality alone but of full human character (miller 268). persona studies is as multifarious as the diverse uses to which persona has been put. as the inaugural issue of this journal attests, persona studies is an emerging set of inquiries that draws on the methods and attends to the objects of cultural and sociological analyses from media to celebrity studies. in what follows, i will neither trace a genealogy of this nascent field nor try to review its burgeoning range of analyses. i will, however, take it as given that many of the interdisciplinary moves to which persona studies has recourse are either eminently rhetorical and semiotic, or germane to semio-rhetorical inquiry. what, for example, is erving goffman’s (1959) sociological construct of the presentation of self—wherein a person by means of her actions projects a definition of a situation with a view to determining in her interlocutors a particular responsive conduct—if not a semio-rhetorical construal of character or persona as critical to determining discursive uptake? (put in the distinctly rhetorical terms of peircean semiosis, the person qua interpreter participates in the translative process whereby signs “displace one another and are transformed” [freadman xxvi]: her actions constitute a sign [representamen] which takes up or represents a previous sign [object] and in so doing works to determine a further sign [the first sign’s uptake or interpretant effect in this case, the interlocutor’s particular responsive conduct].) rhetorical postulates similarly subtend issues of exposure management and achieved and attributed celebrity, which are live questions for persona studies. with these rhetorical and semiotic presuppositions in mind—and recalling that assange construes leaking as necessarily corrective of governmental-corporate corruption and productive of transparency—let us canvass some issues concerning secrets and secrecy. in a practical sense, we are all experts on secrets. we all interpret information and the blockings and branchings—the concealings and revealings—of information flows. we are all involved in confidences entrusted, kept, forgotten, and betrayed. my point here is a simple one—an open secret if you will—a point familiar to semiotics and rhetoric, to public relations and folk psychology, namely that chains of interpretants entail chains of interpreters,1 that the spoken presumes a postulate of the speaker, and that we value information in relation to the ethos—the character capital, the credibility or authority—that we assign to the information’s source. in this paper, i hope to show that this is clearly the case in respect of assange and wikileaks. munro 42 for many of us, questions of secrecy are tied to our sense of the “structure of feeling” (williams 1977) of the present: the fourth estate today fairly “pulses with invocations of the secret” (dean 2002, 1). arguably, secrecy’s particular currency now is due, at least in part, to events involving assange and wikileaks. as a whistleblowing platform, wikileaks is enabled and constrained by its ability to take, to keep, to break, or to leak secrets. a significant precondition of this ability is the technical capacity of its infrastructure precisely to separate information received from the information’s source. but an ability to leak—and to do so under political and financial pressure, transnationally (shirky)—in no way determines the efficacy of the leaking’s uptake. leaking requires the postulate of a leaker, the ethopoetical appraisal of whom inflects our evaluations of the information leaked. arguably, the first question asked of a gunship video, purportedly from an ah-64 apache helicopter in iraq, is that of its authenticity. however, issues of legitimacy soon sort with those of authenticity as characterological questions—concerning motive, office and credibility—are posed of the persons and platforms publishing the footage. plainly, leaking is more than a mechanical process. in the case of assange and wikileaks, the human hues of leaking are equally apparent if we turn in the semiosic chain of secret spilling to the whistleblower as nominal origin or source. a constitutive tension for assange here goes unsaid: materially dependent on submissions, wikileaks is legally reliant on the separation of the submission from its all too human source. the architecture per se is not at issue here: wikileaks’ submission system would appear to be technically secure. rather, the concern is one of ethos: of trust, discernment, and reputation. this last was famously compromised when the neglected source, former u.s. soldier private first class chelsea (then bradley) manning, acted on what georg simmel calls the temptation that “accompanies the psychical life of the secret” (466): she confessed her document dump to ex-hacker adrian lamo. notoriously, lamo betrayed manning’s confidence by leaking in turn to u.s. federal authorities and to the press.2 in this sense, then, the sociability of secrets cannot be contained by building a better secret-spilling machine. evidently, the case of assange and wikileaks is perfused with questions of character capital, publicity and secrecy. in this article, however, i can only touch on a few of the entanglements of person, persona and project by reading the figure of assange in terms of the ethopoetics of digital leaking. to do so, i ask the question—time-worn since at least 2010—of who is julian assange? 3 at first blush, this query elicits a straightforward biographical or psychological response. to take it up in terms of the semio-rhetorical problem of ethos, however, is to attend to the situations and occasions in relation to which the question arises, and the partisan uses to which the question is put. for our purposes, i note two things in this respect. first, the question of who is assange? invites an interrogation of the formation of a particular type of discursive persona. second, interventions in the various biographical genres—or rather, in biographical mode— provide a privileged site off which to read the constitution of this persona of the digital information activist. to be clear, i take “biographical” here broadly to denote the representation of the life or the interpretation of the actions of an individual, where an “individual” is an intentional, responsible agent subsisting over discursive spheres, time and space (rorty). similarly, i take “mode” adjectivally as “a thematic and tonal qualification or ‘colouring’ of genre” (frow 67). on this construal, a report of assange’s actions or utterances, a profile piece in the mainstream press, a biopic or—perhaps more controversially—a fictionalised spy-thriller loosely taking assange as subject, are so many interventions in this capacious “biographical mode”. certainly, a dizzying array of partisan interests invests in these interventions. but from a focus on assange’s threadbare socks and crumpled suits to the charges of having blood on his hands, from his epic wanderings through milnet and exploits as a young hacker to his infamous attempts to gag his persona studies 2015, 1.1 43 own colleagues, from the fabulations to the disabusing commentaries, this agonistic process reads as so many moments in the contested and ongoing contouring of a persona: so many moments shaping the reception of assange’s performance of the digital information activist. who, then, is the man who spilled the secrets?4 before essaying a response, a further word is in order about how we take secrets, given the constitutive relation i am positing between secrecy and assange’s performance of the persona of the digital information activist. from sociology (simmel) to cultural studies and literary theory (birchall; derrida & ferraris), various human sciences have attended, periodically, to secrecy. i take it, however, that an intervention from moral philosophy—sissela bok’s secrets on the ethics of concealment and revelation—neatly synthesises and anticipates much of the substantive work on secrecy to date. just as simmel describes secrecy as “consciously willed concealment” (449), so bok notes that “anything can be a secret, so long as it is kept intentionally hidden, set apart in the mind of its keeper and requiring concealment” (5). broadly, she takes concealment, or hiding, to be the defining trait of secrecy. it presupposes separation, a setting apart of the secret from the non-secret, and of keepers of a secret from those excluded. the latin secretum carries this meaning of something hidden, set apart. it derives from secernere, which originally meant to sift apart, to separate as with a sieve. it bespeaks discernment, the ability to make distinctions, to sort out and draw lines … the separation between insider and outsider is inherent in secrecy; and to think something secret is already to envisage potential conflict between what insiders conceal and outsiders want to inspect or lay bare (bok 6). bok uses the topic of secrets to make an intradisciplinary point about the position of ethics within philosophy. i take her equally to be making a semio-rhetorical one: that questions of concealment and revelation, of exclusion and inclusion, of borders, tact, and discernment, are the stuff of both mediated information flow and of ethopoesis, the performative, discursive construction of full human character. significantly, neither bok nor simmel loads secrecy with ethically negative, pathogenic connotations: because concealment is multiply productive, secrecy per se “has nothing to do with the moral valuations of its contents” (simmel 463). correlatively, transparency is not always or necessarily good. the achievement of the good at which some actions aim can require a modicum of concealment, albeit temporarily—take, for example, a digital whistleblowing start-up like wikileaks which in its embryonic stages could hardly afford to show its hand or raise its head. so who is julian assange? “information messiah or cyber-terrorist? freedom fighter or sociopath? moral crusader or deluded narcissist?” ask david leigh and luke harding (14) in their “insider” account of their time as journalists at the guardian collaborating with assange and wikileaks. the characterisations are countless, but the problem is hardly a wicked one: how we take up the question and its dichotomies depends on our situated and situating standpoints. to the metropolitan police staked out at the ecuadorian embassy, for example, assange is at the time of writing a beneficiary of political asylum, but not of diplomatic immunity. to the disgruntled executive editor of the new york times, whose collaboration with wikileaks—like that of the guardian and of so many others—ended acrimoniously, assange was always and only a source (keller 4). to assange’s legal counsel in the united states, by contrast, assange must be a journalist, editor, or downstream publisher if he is to avail himself of state shield laws or mount a first amendment defence (allen; bencher; thebes). but the question of who is assange? is raised in other rhetorical spheres of activity— in the highly mediatised courts of public opinion, for instance, where the achieving and attribution munro 44 of celebrity are faced with different, sometimes more diffuse, structural constraints. assange himself, of course, promotes a manifest-destiny line of response: following his fabled persecuted youth, he is assigned a millennial mission, a “duty to history” which he sets about discharging via wikileaks, that rising “new star in the political firmament of humanity”.5 such overwrought pronouncements are in fact matched by some of the partisan hyperbole: think andrew fowler’s (2011) the most dangerous man in the world (the explosive true story of julian assange and the lies, cover-ups, and conspiracies he exposed). echoing henry kissinger’s epithet for daniel ellsberg, fowler adds the strapline—well before the publication of edward snowden’s trove of national security agency leaks—“how one hacker ended corporate and government secrecy forever.” messianic rhetorics aside, the question of who is assange? admittedly makes for compelling copy. on the facts, it is blessed with “all the earmarks of the greatest journalism story since watergate”: it is one, notes john cook on reviewing a raft of assange-wikileaks memoirs, “that ought to make for a few good books and a film adaptation or two.” from his youthful hacker exploits in the “veiled world” of the 1990s computer underground “populated by characters slipping in and out of the half-darkness” (dreyfus 42) to his trip to ellingham hall disguised as an old lady (leigh & harding 13), from the unsubstantiated claims of the ambushing of a wikileaks staffer in a luxembourg carpark (wikileaks transcript) to having the bushes swept for assassins (o’hagan), from the speaking in hushed tones and recourse to cryptophones to the intermittent use of bulletproof vests, the cloak and dagger and techno-spy thriller genres—with their tropes of paranoia, surveillance and conspiracy—fairly impose themselves. but aside from creating copy, the question of who is assange? matters heuristically if we allow for its role in the constitution of a persona: to us, at this juncture, the figure of assange is first and foremost an instantiation of a type. let us briefly recall here one of assange’s less contentious epithets: the designator “julian assange” sits easily with the descriptor of digital “information activist.” indeed, assange uncontroversially self-identifies as such (moss). for our purposes, the term information activist denotes a particular persona, where we take persona to be somewhat akin to what elizabeth fowler (1992; 2003) calls a “social person”—a personification of a social paradigm, a speaking position grown out of a series of social practices; put otherwise, a character established through repeated discursive use. we could equally consider a persona to resemble a “kind of person,” in the sense in which ian hacking’s analyses of the constitution of human kinds put the term to work. as such, the persona of the information activist is never really settled, an abstracted type emergent from and responsive to a complexus of institutional, technical, sociopolitical, historical, rhetorical and personal determinants. if we take up the figure of assange as a particular digitally-inflected variant or instantiation of the type of persona that is the information activist, then it follows that to read assange ethopoetically is to attend to the commonalities and points of distinction between the figure of assange and other tokens of the information activist. this follows because, as anne freadman’s reading of charles sanders peirce’s type/token distinction makes plain, a token is a sign—an interpretation or representation—of a type. as the “outcome of a translation,” a type is an ideal object inferred or yielded “by abstraction from a series of particular occurrences” (freadman 157-58). these particular occurrences or tokens necessarily share some formal properties, but differ in their local particularities. tokens, in other words, work as contingent translations of types. let me, then, signal some broad commonalities before identifying a couple of particularities or exemplary points at which assange’s performance negatively distinguishes persona studies 2015, 1.1 45 itself from that of other instantiations of the information activist. briefly, we could describe the persona of the information activist as exercised by a version or versions of information freedom; it voices commitments of various liberal stripes to access and transparency, more often than not subscribing to a hacker ethos of information wanting to be free. in the case of assange, this is qualified, problematically, by the cypherpunk watchword of “privacy for the weak, transparency for the powerful” (assange cypherpunks 7), and combined with a scientistic, information-theoretic conception of social interaction, information flow and agency.6 many things, situations and circumstances go to make up the persona of the digital information activist. in the case of assange, some of these more salient elements range from a commodore 64 to the hacking subculture of the 1980s and 1990s, from the fibre optic underpinnings of the internet to the cypherpunk movement, remailers and the affordances of public-key cryptography, from a post-9/11 environment of expanding secrecy and sharing to jurisdictional difference, the legal instruments and diplomatic protocols mobilised by state actors in performances of national sovereignty, and so on. the digital information activist claims lineages in analogue whistleblowing and anti-censorship activities; in the case of assange, it achieves a certain fame by combining some high-profile document leaks with the assumption of a parrhesiastic, truth-telling position in relation to government and corporate entities, which it subsumes in the figure of the colluding, corrupted state. one characteristic of this persona as performed or personified by assange is precisely its constitutive but contradictory relation to the topoi of secrecy; another is that it is peculiarly structured by its relation to wikileaks, of which assange becomes the face. one could, of course, object that the question of who is assange? will be answered in due course by something called posterity: that the measure of the man will lie in his long-term impact, and that speculation is all too premature at this point. however, in a pragmatic, semiorhetorical sense, part of assange’s legacy concerns precisely the ethopoetical issues foregrounded by his performance of the persona of the digital information activist, in particular by the compromising conflations effected therein between person, persona, and transparency project. undoubtedly, the interventions of assange and wikileaks have helped to refashion rhetorical public spheres, to overhaul the dynamics of whistleblowing, and to provoke reflection on the situation, functions and operations of an increasingly networked fourth estate. a tentative appraisal of assange’s journalistic and activist legacies, however, is beyond our present remit. for now, my point is simply that such assessments, much like the talk of wikileaks’ flatlining or being “on life support” (greenberg 4), are haunted by the spectre of assange. such are the entanglements of questions of actions and of character in the case of assange; such are the conflations of the public and the private in his respect. such, in other words, are the rhetorical expectations brought to bear on assange’s performance of the persona of the digital information activist, that assessments of his legacy can hardly prescind from reading the figure of assange ethopoetically: we value information in relation to the character capital that we assign to the information’s source. rhetorically, it is understandable but misguided to lament a media focus on the “personalities of wikileaks.” (it is equally unhelpful to dismiss the focus on assange as the asymmetrical, ad hominem attacks of a vindictive and venal fourth estate doing the bidding of an internationalised, terminally corrupted government-corporate complex.) the exhortation to “separate the man from the cause” (brooke), to “step away from the persons” to see the “broader achievement of wikileaks” (jónsdóttir 4) is admirable, but suffers a peculiar blindness. the elision of particular human actors ignores the pragmatic sense in which munro 46 whistleblowing and secret leaking are constitutively tied to spectacles of personalised publicity, with their attendant imputations of motives and character calls. neither whistleblowing nor leaking is reducible to the mechanics of digital information flows; both are eminently human matters, and their discursive mediation invariably demands a human face. (again, and concomitantly, anonymity in such undertakings is enabling, but only temporarily: sooner or later, the exposure on whistleblowing platforms of corrupt fiduciary relations entrains questions about the trust invested in, and the accountabilities of, the information’s exposing source.) filmed talking to mark davis for his documentary, the whistleblower, while being made up to appear on swedish television, assange explains that wikileaks “needs a face.” back then, sweden was friendly legal and promotional ground for assange. davis provides some context, noting in voiceover that assange is “stepping forward to promote the iraq video.” certainly, collateral murder, the tendentiously titled edit of a classified us apache gunship video released on 5 april 2010, marks the point at which wikileaks went viral, or at least became a household name in the united states. “the public demands,” continues assange, “that wikileaks has [sic] a face. and actually we’d much sort of prefer, i’d prefer it if it didn’t have a face … [but] people just started inventing faces.” with growing exposure, assange concedes that wikileaks needs a character—an ethos, a speaking position, a mask or persona. to act effectively as a mouthpiece, wikileaks needs a face. assange is at pains to appear reluctant to personify the organisation here, but he will later rush to entangle the wikileaks project with his person and persona, thereby risking irreparable damage to his character capital and moral authority. as assange assumes the face of wikileaks, it becomes increasingly apparent that there are some presentational, ethopoetical steps for the secret spiller to take and, correlatively, some to avoid. again, biographical interventions taking up the question of who is assange?, and interventions in biographical mode more broadly, are critically important here. from beansspilling memoirs and ‘insider’ accounts to television documentaries, biopics and fictionalised techno spy-thrillers, from mainstream press profiles to the unauthorised official autobiography, such discursive interventions provide a privileged point from which to read assange’s ethopoetical missteps.7 i will not itemise the moments of outrage, the umbrage taken and the explicit and implicit critiques that these materials—from the vindictive to the hagiographic—level at assange. rather, i will simply point to a couple of interrelated, contentious points in these narratives at which assange’s character capital is compromised, and indicate the suasive inadequacy of assange and wikileaks’ response. these points of contention involve evaluations of assange’s handling of the issues of redaction and of sexual assault; another, for instance, would be that of wikileaks’ lack of organisational transparency. assange’s actions in these respects, i suggest, constitute so many ethopoetical missteps. plainly, these instances of reputation mismanagement are instructive, as they comprise an important moment in the coming into being of the persona of the digital information activist. properly scrutinised, these critical points form part of a feedback loop, informing future inflections or performances of the persona or type of the leaking information activist. (think snowden, whose performance to date, mutatis mutandis, has been decidedly cannier and more astute than that of assange as digital information activist.) plainly, assange is alive to the promotional potential of biographical work; we count among his early autobiographical forays his discontinued blog at iq.org and his contribution to dreyfus’s underground: hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier. (while assange is credited with supplying the research for underground, the anecdotes therein persona studies 2015, 1.1 47 concerning mendax, assange’s online handle in his early hacker days, bear his distinct editorial imprint.) however, while content to have himself “fashioned his life into a fable” (manne), assange notoriously taxes nearly all biographical interventions in his respect as misrepresentative or defamatory. his vociferous objections and attempts to suppress publication are an ineffective counter-messaging; they sit especially uneasily with the figure of assange as radical transparency advocate. take, for example, his unofficial autobiography, ghosted by andrew o’hagan and published by canongate (assange and o’hagan). faced with sexual assault allegations raised in sweden and needing to fund his legal defence, assange eagerly accepted and promptly spent a handsome advance for this project. initially, he appeared enthusiastic, expressing the slightly inflated hope that the work would become “one of the unifying documents of our generation” (abc). however, he later reneged on the contract, objecting that the book “was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. it has turned into something else” (wikileaks statement). noting assange’s conclusion in this regard that ‘all memoir is prostitution’, george brock muses wryly that “this may be the first hint ever dropped by the founder of wikileaks that there can be such a thing as too much publicity. or it could be an oblique acknowledgement that this autobiography does not meet his wish to be respected as a master of the universe”. indeed, tropes of arrogance and of a lack of discernment and empathy recur in anecdotes about assange. plainly, his disregard for collaborators—from his financial supporters to his legal teams to his mainstream media partners, whom he presumes to manipulate like a master puppeteer and with whom relations have invariably turned toxic, to his own wikileaks colleagues, whom he has variously menaced, gagged or summarily dismissed—is legendary (keller; o’hagan; ball; domschiet-berg). in brief, assange’s conduct, his performance of the persona of the digital information activist, is one to which charges of hubris readily stick. it could be urged that charges of hubris be dismissed as merely the ad hominem smears and ravings of rejected and spiteful malcontents. this would neglect the ethopoetical point that the performative intrications of person and persona help to constitute the project of secret leaking. hubris is a damaging charge to level here, and it can be shown to pertain in at least two respects: hubris maps to the issue of redaction in the case of assange, and it is plainly at work in his uptake of the allegations of sexual assault. i will mention each briefly in turn. following collateral murder, assange and wikileaks instigated a series of sensational disclosures based on manning’s trove: the afghan war logs, iraq war logs, and cablegate releases. these leaks marked a major collaboration between assange and wikileaks and selected mainstream media outlets. evidently, the collaboration was notoriously fraught; one of the major sticking points was the issue of redaction, which saw assange’s radical transparency agenda ranged against the institutional constraints, moral imperatives, and the ethopoetical expertise of certain members of the fourth estate who insisted on redacting identifying details not to avoid causing embarrassment, but rather, to try to avoid imperilling human life. as the 2010 disclosures made mainstream headlines and assange achieved rockstar fame, imputations of callousness— of a lack of tact or discernment, a lack of empathetic imagination, what stanley cavell would call a “soul-blindness” (378)—started to stick. redaction—what we withhold, that secret of secrets—emerged as a dilemma of office, a point of professional integrity and discretion, where this last connotes, precisely, the “capacity to exercise judgment about secrecy” (bok 41). on this subject, assange showed himself to be by turns disdainful or equivocal. assange’s initial refusal of, and later ambivalence toward, harm minimisation—bluntly and munro 48 effectively conveyed by the “blood on his hands” topos—play inextricably into the charge of hubris, indelibly marking his performance of the persona of the digital information activist.8 hubris is also a precondition of, and further evinced by, assange’s missteps in relation to the sexual assault claims made in sweden hubris, and assange’s unrelenting cultivation of a paranoid spy logic. as a complexus of discursive events, the sex assault allegations present a constitutive problem for assange’s digital information activist. responding to the allegations with talk of honey traps, assange moves fully to conflate wikileaks with his private and legal persona, attempting to reframe a sex offence case as one of freedom of speech. moreover, he then reacts furiously to the guardian’s publication of confidential information relating to the case. vendetta or not, assange is seen to refuse the responsibilities and accountabilities entailed in personification, the assumption of a face (davies; kahn; leigh and harding; o’hagan). much like his gagging of wikileaks staffers, or the proprietary attitude he adopts towards the information for which he claims to be the conduit, this positioning of his person, his persona, and his project as floating above the law sits ill with the avowed transparency commitments of the digital information activist. by way of a conclusion, i commend to you alex gibney’s we steal secrets: the story of wikileaks for its teasing out of some of the ethopoetical threads comprising the fabric of the case of assange and wikileaks. assange and wikileaks roundly condemned we steal secrets before, during and after its release. on this account, a spiteful gibney, unable to secure an interview with assange, engages in vindictive character assassination, producing a selfindulgent hatchet job comprising defamatory editorial sleights of hand and indefensible ad hominem muckraking. certainly, gibney’s work is not beyond reproach, but neither is it without real merit. detailed discussion of his film, however, will have to be deferred: suffice it for now to note that assange’s objections follow a familiar hyperbolic logic: gibney is cast as spurned lover to assange, who is presumptively framed as everyone’s love object. we steal secrets reads as a documentary with a decidedly tragic narrative arc, at least in its coverage of assange. briefly, and doubtless reductively, we could describe the ethopoetical tale sketched therein as that of an individual whose technical mastery of digital information flows enables him to commodify secrets. in the process, he accrues a certain celebrity capital (driessens). this capital is squandered, however—and the whistleblowing project compromised—as assange’s selective radical transparency agenda, cultivation of rockstar status, swelling hubris, penchant for paranoia and general soul-blindness distract him from attending to the sociability of secrets as integral to digital secret leaking. arguably, julian assange and wikileaks are formed by and under the sign of the secret. assange’s particular personification of the digital information activist, suggests that information flows are not the sole province of informatics; that the spilling of secrets is not merely a question of data packages, onion routers and public-key cryptography: digital leaking concerns the discursive performances of personae, and is a messy, and eminently human, ethopoetical activity. 1 on the importance of attending to purposive interpreters in relation to interpretants in peircean semiosis, see freadman (2004); lyne (1980); munro (2012); short (2007). 2 bracketing out legal considerations, fowler (2011, 137), for example, speculates on the costliness of assange and wikileaks’ distancing of their source, surmising that manning ‘had been pushed to one side by assange and felt increasingly persona studies 2015, 1.1 49 isolated … if manning had not felt so alone he may not have started his internet ‘confession’ to lamo’. see also, e.g., gibney in o’hehir (2013); greenberg (2012, 14-46); leigh & harding (2011, 72-89). 3 2010 was a year of high profile releases for wikileaks: collateral murder, afghan war logs, iraq war logs, cablegate. see, e.g., brevini et al. (2013). 4 like almost everything else here, the ‘secret’ nature of wikileaks’ revelations is contested: luke harding (2014, 146), for example, claims that ‘just 6 per cent’ of the wikileaks 2010 disclosures sourced from manning ‘were classified at the relatively modest level of ‘secret’.’ 5 on assange’s fabled youth, see, e.g., khatchadourian (2010); dreyfus (2001); leigh & harding (2011); assange/o’hagan (2011); on his ‘duty to history’, see, e.g., burns & somaiya (2011, 35); on wikileaks as the ‘new star in the political firmament of humanity’, see manne (2011). 6 plainly, anonymous is significant here. on assange and anonymous as belonging to the ‘same family’ of digitally based politics, and on the need to compare their ‘different faces’, see coleman (2011). such a comparison, however, is beyond the scope of our present paper. for a detailed rhetorico-ethnographic reading of the ‘lulzy’ ethics, politics and aesthetics of anonymous, see coleman (2014). for assange’s appeals to ‘information flow’, see assange (2012; 2014). 7 for ‘insider’ accounts, see, e.g., domscheit-berg (2011); dreyfus (2001); leigh & harding (2011). for documentaries, biopics and films, see, e.g., condon (2013); connolly (2012); davis (2010; 2010); gibney (2013). for profile pieces, see, e.g., cook (2011); ellison (2011); khatchadourian (2010); manne (2011); o’hagan (2014); rourke et al. (2012); wallace-wells (2014). for the unauthorised official autobiography, see assange/o’hagan (2011). 8 letting aside the controversy around the mass unredacted cablegate dump, the afghanistan files proved particularly contentious. on the issue of redaction, note the positioning of nick davies of the guardian in gibney (2013): ‘this problem potential problem had already come up. 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http://nymag.com/ persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 99 “escape to impersonality”: persona in h.g. wells’ experiment in autobiography aar on greenber g sc ho o l o f t he a r t in s t i t u t e o f c h ic a g o abstract this article reads h.g. wells’ experiment in autobiography (1934) through the lens of persona studies to situate life writing in the context of (post) human rights, biopolitics, and surveillance capitalism. carl jung’s concept of persona pervades wells’ writing and life. persona, for wells, is the path towards the “impersonality” that is essential to humanity’s evolution. wells recognized that personas are plural, inconsistent, and evolving performances whose fictional unity, if enacted deliberately without self-delusion, can serve real ends—such as the prolific creative and intellectual work that earned him four nominations for the nobel prize in literature. further, wells presents life writing as a human right: the right to tell our own stories, access our own records, represent the personas which we elect, and enjoy the freedom to evolve from one persona to the next. a persona’s double movement, poised between the personal and the impersonal, the individual and the world, the biological and the historical, represents both the form and content of wells’ experiment in autobiography. if wells gives us reason to hope amidst a global pandemic, the specter of world war iii, the proliferation of nuclear arms, and climate catastrophe, it is that these existential threats help us answer the question, “what will come after man?” to consider the answer is not to give up on humankind. on the contrary, to imagine non/post human lifeforms is essential in defining human rights and securing a human future. key words h.g. wells; experiment in autobiography; multiple personality; biopolitics; surveillance capitalism at the age of sixty-eight, h.g. wells published experiment in autobiography (1934), where he reflects on a life of “personal achievement” while paradoxically attempting an “escape to impersonality”—an escape which, wells believed, should “distinguish the modern civilized man from all former life” (wells 1934, pp. 10; 707). on the one hand, wells unapologetically celebrates vanity and egoism as “unavoidable” in autobiography since, he writes, “our own lives are all the practical material we have for the scientific study of living” (1934, p. 347). however, experiment in autobiography reflects neither wells’ attempt to exalt his personal life nor to neglect it. rather, he tells his life story as a “way to power over that primary life” of “individual immediacies” and “everyday things” that once subsumed the pre-modern personas of “philosophical, artistic, creative, preoccupied men and women” before they could emerge from the waters of primitive survival “to breathe in a new fashion and emancipate ourselves from long accepted and long unquestioned necessities” (wells 1934, p. 2). wells’ experiment maps an emerging “new land” where personas transcend the demands and limits of quotidian life to greenberg 100 travel through personal egos towards an ultimately impersonal “new world” where “individual aims will ultimately be absorbed” (wells 1934, pp. 2-3). a persona, for wells, is the path towards the impersonal that is essential to humanity’s evolution. the concept of persona, which wells’ borrows from the psychoanalyst carl jung, pervades experiment in autobiography—and his life generally. “throughout my life,” wells writes, “a main strand of interest has been the endeavour to anchor personas to a common conception of reality” (1934, p. 532, emphasis original). he cites several of his own works, including the 1915 novel the research magnificent, where “this theme of the floating persona, the dramatized self, recurs at various levels of complexity and self-deception” (1934, p. 532, emphasis original). for wells, personas are dynamic and possibly fictional, although their consequences are real, as they filter perception and motivate certain life paths over others. a persona does not exhaust or comprehend one’s entire being, wells reflects, yet it establishes a “ruling system of effort” (1934, p. 2) that organises a life with purpose that makes it worth living. “my persona may be an exaggeration of one aspect of my being, but i believe that it is a ruling aspect,” he observes: “it may be a magnification but it is not a fantasy. a voluminous mass of work accomplished attests its reality” (wells 1934, pp. 10-11, emphasis original). thus, through creative and intellectual labour, reified in works of science and art, drifting individuals with “floating” performative personas “anchor…to a common conception of reality”. wells’ jungian persona resembles pico della mirandola’s concept of “chameleon” humanity in oration on the dignity of man (1496). considering the human’s place in the great chain of being according to aristotle’s tripartite division between vegetative, sensitive, and rational life, pico orates, whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. if they be vegetative, he will be like a plant. if sensitive, he will become brutish. if rational, he will grow into a heavenly being… who would not admire this our chameleon? (della mirandola 1496, p. 225) pico’s versatile human persona enjoys the freedom of becoming whatever it invests in, even as it remains anchored to what wells calls “a common conception of reality”—in this case, aristotelean ontology syncretised with platonism and other systems. according to wells’ paraphrase, “a persona, as jung uses the word, is the private conception a man has of himself, his idea of what he wants to be and of how he wants other people to take him” (wells 1934, p. 9, emphasis original). complicating the notion of persona as an outward-facing, public performance—“in classical greece, ‘persona’ was…the mask that was to create the actor’s fictitious personality” (carpi 2011, p. 180)—wells’ interpretation of jungian persona is primarily a “private” and inward “standard by which [one] judges what he may do, what he ought to do and what is imperative upon him. everyone has a persona. self conduct and self explanation is impossible without one” (wells 1934, p. 9, emphasis original). like wells, founders of the emergent field of persona studies including marshall and barbour reprise jung to posit persona as a “strategic form of communication” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2) and a “performance of individuality” (marshall et al. 2020, p. 3). however, instead of conceiving a persona’s performativity as social dissimulation, wells represents persona, first, as the key to one’s private relationship with oneself. accordingly, his draft for the rights of man (1940), which set the table for the united nations’ “universal declaration of human rights” (1948), includes prescient protections for personal privacy: all registration and records about citizens shall be open to their personal and private inspection. there shall be no secret dossiers in any administrative persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 101 department. all dossiers shall be accessible to the man concerned and subject to verification and correction at his challenge. (wells 1940, p. 9) wells believed it was a human right to entertain and represent diverse personas; to access, inspect, and correct any public records concerning oneself. in brief, he believed that life writing is a human right: the right to tell our own stories, access our own records, represent the personas which we elect, and enjoy the freedom to evolve from one persona to the next. for, again, “our personas grow and change and age as we do” (wells 1934, p. 9, emphasis original). a decade after publishing experiment in autobiography, while researching for his doctorate in science in 1942, wells, began a sort of memoir of my ideas and impressions of the contemporary world crisis… and i wrote without restriction or limitation. i did this to sustain a certain order and consistency in my mind amidst the wild rush of events, and the only reader i had in mind was myself. from this accumulation i drew material for articles and discussion. (1944, p. 7) besides the resultant articles and discussions, wells eventually refined the accumulated material into '42 to ’44: a contemporary memoir upon human behavior during the crisis of the world revolution (1944). analogous to his claim in experiment “that human life as we know it, is only the dispersed raw material for human life as it might be” (1934, p. 11), in '42 to ’44 wells reflects on the life-writing process of contemporary memoir as an experimental accumulation of material for future revision: “i began to accumulate material; material accumulated upon me, some of it turned itself inside out and ceased to be what it had been, some changed from significance to extreme unimportance” (1944, p. 35). congruous with his persona represented in experiment, wells again makes space for variation alongside consistency: “the persona may of course have its own unconscious phases and variations, but it is at least pervaded by an impulse towards consistency”. '42 to ’44 keeps faith with jung’s concept of persona: “jung…first styled this wabbling working self we imagine for ourselves the ‘persona’, and it remains the best word for it. our personas are what we pretend and intend to be in the sight of our set or society (wells 1944, p. 172, emphasis original). as before, wells seizes persona as a lynchpin fastening personal life to impersonal human rights. recognising that “an extraordinary amount of unhappiness has been and still is caused in the world by the failure to recognize the fluctuating quality of personality” (wells 1944, p. 173), wells “insist[s] upon a man’s right to learn and adapt his conduct to what he did not understand before” (1944, p. 56). more than a matter of personal happiness, allowing personas the right to fluctuate and grow is key to human survival “in this age of adaptation or death” (wells 1944, p. 56). reflecting on the purpose of his experimental autobiography, wells declares, “a biography should be a dissection and demonstration of how a particular human being was made and worked” (1934, p. 10). the passive past tense (“was made and worked”) belies wells’ current persona, the autobiographical experimenter, who is making and working in real time, speaking in the first person in the present and future tense, experimenting with multiple personas to represent truth and attain universal impersonality, even as he “realize[s] how difficult an autobiography that is not an apology for a life but a research into its nature, can become” (wells 1934, p. 348). wells thus anticipated what shoshana zuboff has called our current “age of surveillance capitalism” where big data’s predictive analytics undermine a person’s “right to the future tense as a condition of a fully human life” (2019, p. 331, emphasis original). she asks, greenberg 102 what happens to the right to speak in the first person from and as my self when the swelling frenzy…set into motion by the prediction imperative is trained on cornering my sighs, blinks, and utterances on the way to my very thoughts as a means to others’ ends? (zuboff 2019, p. 29) as in pico’s oration four centuries earlier, for wells human dignity includes the right to represent whatever personas one elects. bearing the right to speak in the first person, wells’ persona is private yet publishable, individual yet pluralistic, and preserved in records yet open to the future. wells observes how the achievement of a coherent persona, necessary to represent oneself in daily life as well as in autobiography, takes time and continuous struggle. and as i turn over old letters, set date against date, and try and determine the true inter-relation of this vivid memory with that, it grows clearer and clearer to me that my personal unity, the consistency of my present persona has been achieved only after a long struggle between distinct strands of motivation, which had no necessary rational relation one to another and that, at the period of which i am writing, this unity was still more apparent than real. (1934, p. 349, emphasis original) unlike his self-deceiving characters with floating personas unanchored to reality, wells recognises how the memories and records of his life complicate and expand rather than dissolve his evolving multiple personas, whose unity may be fictional but which are real nonetheless. the emergence and preservation of moments that contradict or transcend wells’ predominant e pluribus unum persona render his life story more nuanced, yet also more awkward and challenging to narrate from a stable point of view. in his words, the simple attractive story i am half disposed to tell, of myself as an ugly duckling who escaped from the limitations and want of understanding of his… family…to discover itself a swan…is made impossible by two things: an awkward trick my memory has had of stowing away moments of intense feeling and vivid action quite regardless of the mental embarrassment their preservation may ultimately cause my persona, and an analogous disposition already noted, on the part of my friends and family to keep letters i have written. (1934, p. 350-351, emphasis original) memory, records, and letters preserve the persona’s lifelong continuity while paradoxically exposing its apparent unity as fictional performance. wells finds that most “normal” persons delude themselves into preserving “personal unity” by telling themselves “fanciful stories” to “rationalize…inconsistences” (1934, p. 349). still experimenting with this pejorative sense of persona a decade later in ’42 to ’44, wells cites an example: the straying curate comes home insisting on the ‘higher purity’ of nudism and ‘natural’ love, with a deep, if perhaps unpublished, scorn for the meretricious bonds of matrimony. in that way the old persona elbows its way back to recover control and put a moral face on life again. it is rationalization among the ruins after the fact. (1944, p. 173, emphasis original) in contrast to such post-facto moralizing personas, future-facing persons will not force a delusional unity from their many distinct personas but instead “recognize the ultimately persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 103 irreconcilable quality of these inconsistencies…to make a deal between them” (wells 1934, p. 349). what might such a deal look like? perhaps like pico’s dignified human chameleon; or the interdisciplinary imagination that inspired margaret cavendish to cross-pollinate hybrid personas in poetry, philosophy, and science fiction; or walt whitman’s freedom to declare “i contain multitudes”? wells made a “deal” between his own inconsistent personas as rational scientist and intuitive artist. as a poor, hungry undergraduate student, “wells presented the world with a persona which combined aspects of the artist and the scientist” (draper 1987, p. 438). michael draper remarks that each aspect of this interdisciplinary persona represented “distinct social roles” for wells, whose “best works of fiction were written during the period when he was struggling to combine the subject matter of the scientist with the creative response and selfexpression of the artist” (1987, p. 438). wells recognized that personas are plural, inconsistent, and evolving performances whose fictional unity, if enacted deliberately without self-delusion, can serve real ends—such as the prolific creative and intellectual work that earned him four nominations for the nobel prize in literature. he reflects in experiment, a persona may be very stable or it may fluctuate extremely. it may be resolutely honest or it may draw some or all of its elements from the realms of reverie. it may exist with variations in the same mind. we may have single or multiple personas and in the latter case we are charged with inconsistencies and puzzle ourselves and our friends. our personas grow and change and age as we do. and rarely if ever are they the whole even of our conscious mental being. (1934, p. 9, emphasis original) allowing for fluctuation and multiplicity nourished wells’ personal growth as well as his scientific and creative output. if, in the 1930s, wells was still puzzling over inconsistencies of his multiple personas, and indulging the creative struggle between his roles as scientist and artist, ’42 to ’44 is clearer about the limited role of his persona as it emerges alongside, if not from, the social and professional roles open to his abilities and ideological disposition: it is my rôle to observe things and work out their riddles; not to achieve things; the two jobs demand different and almost incompatible qualities; i have little or no ability in managing people and my ideas are averse to the impertinence of ‘getting people to do things’ when they do not fully understand what they are doing. (wells 1944, p. 35) the former tension between scientist and artist has resolved into a clear personal tendency towards the role of the observer/riddle-solver over that of the achiever/people-manager. wells fashioned this persona after nietzsche’s zarathustra, whom he quotes in the epigraph of ’42 to ’44: “and all my thought and striving is to compose and gather into one thing what is a fragment and a riddle and a dismal accident” (wells 1944, front material). for zarathustra, as for wells, the human condition would be unbearable if homo sapiens were “not a poet and a solver of riddles and the saviour of accidents” (wells 1944, front material). as wells’ experimental autobiography and contemporary memoir illustrate, life writing is the genre par excellence for saving accidents and gathering riddling fragments into coherent unities afforded by persona. by the mid-1940s, wells represents a persona who knows himself, his strengths and weaknesses, better than he did a decade prior. this evolution may represent the success of his greenberg 104 interdisciplinary career and the syntheses he achieved through science fiction, as much as it reflects a disillusionment with attempts to apply impersonal world-revolutionary ideas in personal practice. for instance, wells recalls the tragicomic scene of coordinating a group of world leaders in 1939 to draft a declaration of universal human rights: these ten people had embarked upon the most important job human beings have ever attempted. they had, with their eyes open, engaged to draft a fundamental law for the unification of mankind, nothing less. yet, even at our meetings, after an hour or so of discussion, only a novelist could describe how eagerly they adjourned for tea and what urgent engagements demanded early departures and excused late arrivals. (1944, p. 38) beyond an emblem of all-too-human banality of bureaucracy where tea takes precedence over declarations of human rights, wells’ account reveals the inevitable entanglements of biopolitics. a decade prior in experiment, he characterized modern life as a gradual liberation from, or at least de-emphasis of, the existential exigencies of bare life. by the 1940s, he has witnessed world politics threaten his personal survival and that of the species, while leaders put their personal lives before the impersonal species-level survival on which their personal futures depend. in 1934, wells dreamt of achieving “a hitherto undreamt-of fullness, freedom and happiness within reach of our species” or else “perish[ing] within a very limited time” (1934, p. 12). in ’42 to ’44, he writes, “so i remain what i was ten years ago, a world revolutionary, except that the undreamt-of thing has happened and it is all coming true, and more than true” (1944, p. 57). appearing in a chapter entitled “the plain truth about the communist party” in part ii of the memoir, entitled “how we face the future”, the “undreamt-of thing” which has happened and proven true is undefined. certainly, as wells is sheltering from germs, bombs, and bullets in london, he cannot mean that the “undreamt-of thing” is either humanity’s fulfilled happiness or its sealed doom. rather, wells must mean that the existential choice is more imminent—and more personal—than ever: “it has been my luck to be consistently missed by bombs… so that i can still sit in the same study…saying things men, often for excellent reasons, hesitate to say in this age of adaptation or death” (wells 1944, p. 56). he knows his “conceit” is “entirely irrational, as though there was some magical quality, some gift, to account for my immunity”—yet he reasons that such delusion boosts morale: “the germ or the bomb or the bullet or the tottering wall that will finish me may be almost ready for me, but until it really gets me i shall go on in my conceit” (wells 1944, p. 57). in other words, as long as a persona recognises itself as irrational and subject to change, then its drive towards personal consistency can serve humanity’s evolution through an impersonal future. if wells’ persona did not imagine his immunity in the face of germs and bombs, he could not transcend immediate personal danger to focus on the longterm survival of the species. even in the nineteenth century, wells was facing a future where the versatility of the human chameleon’s multiple and rapidly evolving personas was both key to our survival, adaptation, and evolution, as well as a threat to our humane future. that is, while a lack of personal unity threatens to disperse the raw material of human experience beyond comprehension or utility, conversely a persona or species unwilling to imagine lifeforms beyond itself is doomed to perish. thus, the question t.h. huxley’s biology class opened in wells’ mind—“what will come after man?” (wells 1944, p. 9)—paradoxically represents a foundation of human rights, as he recounts on the first page of a contemporary memoir. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 105 accordingly, daniela capri analyzes wells’ science fiction novel the island of doctor moreau (1896) through the lens of “the persona/human being dichotomy” to grasp the bioethical implications of “an ever-changing concept of ‘persona’ that is extended by the new cloning experiments and by the recourse to organ transplantation” (carpi 2011, p. 178). the mad scientist doctor moreau vivisects animals to create human-like chimeras whose ethical and legal status as persons with rights is as ambiguous as their hybrid ontology. the new persona that emerges from moreau’s laboratory should be protected by new rules that recognize their diversity,” carpi argues, “while the only law we perceive in the text is an instrument of the new scientific power on the island” (2011, p. 185). this is a risk and limit of wells’ cultivation of multiple personas: while an openness to the evolving performative dynamism of personas may yield new scientific wonders and interdisciplinary excellence, it may also result in a brave new world where hybrid personas, not subject to human rights, proliferate faster than ethics, law, and humanity can keep up. however, this is not to say that laws could or should constrain the evolution of personas. on dr. moreau’s island, the sayers of the law’s privative bans on undesirable animalistic behaviour are a mockery in place of positive principles for personal growth: not to go on all-fours; that is the law. are we not men? not to suck up drink; that is the law. are we not men? not to eat fish or flesh; that is the law. are we not men? not to claw the bark of trees; that is the law. are we not men? not to chase other men; that is the law. are we not men? (wells 1896, p. 107) conversely, wells’ autobiographical experiment seeks to represent a plurality of personas, preserving their diversity while subordinating them to “the newer ruling system of effort” (wells 1934, p. 2) instituted by his currently predominant persona. experiment in autobiography rejects dictating delusional unity upon a person’s multiple personas, yet wells advocates for the development of a flexible, strategically fictionalized persona to subordinate the multiple, inconsistent “personal affections” and “everyday things of life” that do not—and need not—reconcile with the prevailing persona. a persona need not be true to be effective. it represents more an elective, pluralistic, dynamic system for present and future living than a single story dictated towards a foregone conclusion. it is a principle of selection. wells explains, a persona may be fundamentally false, as is that of many a maniac. it may be a structure of mere compensatory delusions, as is the case with many vain people. but it does not follow that if it is selected by a man out of his moods and motives, it is necessarily a work of self deception. a man who tries to behave as he conceives he should behave, may be satisfactorily honest in restraining, ignoring and disavowing many of his innate motives and dispositions. the mask, the persona, of the happy hypocrite became at last his true faces. (1934, pp. 9-10, emphasis original) the hypothesis of wells’ autobiographical experiment is that the fittest personas of the future will strive through what is personal (and what is more personal than autobiography?) towards what is impersonal: namely, “a racial synthesis” of all humanity that absorbs individual persons into “the greater life of the race as a whole” (wells 1934, p. 3). for wells, prioritising the species is compatible with celebrating individual personas and even indulging in “the pleasures, the very real pleasures, of vanity” (1934, p. 3). the unapologetic—and ultimately altruistic—embrace of vanity in the context of experimental life writing evokes the sixteenth-century essais of michel de montaigne. in the essay entitled “of greenberg 106 vanity” montaigne anticipates wells’ conviction that a persona serves as a “personal criterion” (wells 1934, p. 9), a principle of selection, standard of judgment, and guiding system for self conduct and social accountability. the french essayist writes, i find this unexpected advantage in the publication of my manners, that it in some sort serves me for a rule. i have, at times, some consideration of not betraying the history of my life: this public declaration obliges me to keep my way, and not to give the lie to the image i have drawn of my qualities, commonly less deformed and contradictory than consists with the malignity and infirmity of the judgments of this age. (montaigne 1580, pp. 260-261) further, montaigne predicts wells’ recognition that, while excessive misguided vanity is delusional, nevertheless an egotistical autobiographical persona may be ideal for connecting with others and therefore paradoxically approaching the universal impersonality of the whole human race. montaigne imagines a stranger reading his essais then wanting to meet the author. he is pleased to think that his life-writing persona will have given the stranger a great advantage: for all that he could have, in many years, acquired by close familiarity, he has seen in three days in this memorial, and more surely and exactly. a pleasant fancy: many things that i would not confess to any one in particular, i deliver to the public, and send my best friends to a bookseller’s shop, there to inform themselves concerning my most secret thoughts. (montaigne 1580, p. 262) again, this reflects the negotiation of publishable privacy, the creation of personas who attain an impersonality necessary to realize “that new world, that greater human life, which all art, science and literature have foreshadowed” (wells 1934, pp. 6-7). a generation following montaigne, and three centuries before wells—both of whom personified a monistic, psycho-spiritual-somatic worldview—rené descartes bifurcated the fluid ancient ontology, represented by pico’s dignified human chameleon, into a dualism of mind and body. historicizing the proliferation of rightless personas in wells’ the island of doctor moreau, carpi remarks, “cartesio marks a schism with a well balanced concept of persona through his distinction between ‘res cognitans’ and ‘res extensa’…. with cartesio the persona is reduced to a pure act of self-knowledge: ‘cogito ergo sum’” (2011, p. 180). wells’ rejection of such dualism is key to understanding his autobiographical experiment with the “process of generalization by which the mind seeks an escape from individual vexations and frustrations, from the petty overwhelming pains, anxieties and recriminations of the too acutely ego-centred life” (wells 1934, p. 706). it is not by attempting to transcend one’s sensual, animalistic ego or to outlaw individual vanity and vexation that “a particular human” can attain universal humanity. for that, one must “subordinate” yet “continue to value everyday things, personal affections and material profit and loss, only in so far as they” support one’s current persona—“and to evade or disregard them in so far as they are antagonistic or obstructive to that” (wells 1934, p. 2). again, in accommodating the spirit of the creative science fiction experimenter as well as the “irrelevant necessities” (wells 1934, p. 6) of embodied human life, wells’ experiment in autobiography conditions personal as well as impersonal evolution. on the one hand, wells finds humanity on an unprecedented precipice of danger and opportunity: persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 107 there is a hitherto undreamt-of fullness, freedom and happiness within reach of our species. mankind can pull itself together and take that now. but if mankind fails to apprehend its opportunity, then division, cruelties, delusions and ultimate frustration lie before our kind. the decision to perish or escape has to be made within a very limited time. (wells 1934, pp. 11-12) on the other hand, he observes continuity between traditional worldviews, ontologies, and personas—and modern personas’ journey towards impersonality. he writes, “the idea of creative service to the world-state towards which the modern mind is gravitating…[in] its releasing and enveloping relation to the individual persona is…almost precisely the same” as the “religions and conduct-philosophies of the past”—except “the increasingly monistic quality” of “modern consolation systems” differs from the “matter-spirit dualism, which has haunted human thought for thousands of generations” (1934, p. 706, emphasis original). wells’ modern monistic persona recognises itself as an embodied, vain, vexed individual—the offspring not of a privative law but of an elective “ruling system of effort”— “and the desire to live as fully as possible within the ruling system of effort becomes increasingly conscious and defined” (wells 1934, p. 2). wells intends not to dissolve the bonds between incompatible personas and their ruling systems but rather to satisfy “this powerful desire for disentanglement” which reflects “the common experience” of writers, artists, and researchers whose work prepares “that new world, that greater human life, which all art, science and literature have foreshadowed” (wells 1934, pp. 6-7). wells’ modern persona excels at autobiography and desires to disentangle, without disintegrating, the many personas who constitute “a world state” (wells 1934, p. 556). persona is the “tendency” and “ruling system” that organises human life, and wells represents himself as the paradigmatic arch-persona, one whose lifelong tendency has been to study tendency. from quite an early age i have been predisposed towards one particular sort of work and one particular system of interests. i have found the attempt to disentangle the possible drift of life in general and of human life in particular from the confused stream of events, and the means of controlling that drift, if such are to be found, more important and interesting by far than anything else. i have had, i believe, an aptitude for it. the study and expression of tendency, has been for me what music is for the musician, or the advancement of his special knowledge is to the scientific investigator. my persona may be an exaggeration of one aspect of my being, but i believe that it is a ruling aspect. (wells 1934, p. 10, emphasis original) experiment in autobiography is not the conclusive record of a life but rather its ongoing “study and expression” of personas. metacognitively, wells conceives his present life-writing persona as just another persona, such that it reveals more about his evolving personal desires, judgements, and projects than it does about some unrufflable ego: so that this presentation of a preoccupied mind devoted to…seeking a maximum of detachment from the cares of this world and from baser needs and urgencies that distract it from that task, is not…what i am, but only of what i most like to think i am. it is the plan to which i work, by which i prefer to work, and by which ultimately i want to judge my performance. (wells 1934, p. 9) greenberg 108 by recognising the critical importance—and the futility—of detaching one’s persona from worldly and personal cares, wells achieves two inseparable aims, one personal, the other impersonal: first, “to reassure myself during a phase of fatigue, restlessness and vexation” and, second, to catalyze “world revolution” (wells 1934, p. 705). in other words, for wells, persona is the crux between personal part and impersonal whole. one should disentangle but could never divorce the two: my ruffled persona has been restored and the statement of the idea of the modern world-state has reduced my personal and passing irritations and distractions to their proper insignificance. so long as one lives as an individual, vanities, lassitudes, lapses and inconsistencies will hover about and creep back into the picture, but…this faith and service of constructive world revolution does hold together my mind and will in a prevailing unity, that it makes life continually worth living, transcends and minimizes all momentary and incidental frustrations and takes the sting out of the thought of death. (wells 1934, p. 705, emphasis original) not the achievement of impersonality but its lifelong pursuit is the essence of wells’ persona and his experimental autobiography. experiment thus studies and expresses a double movement, a persona who disentangles individual life from life in general to prepare for their ultimate rapprochement: “the stream of life out of which we rise and to which we return has been restored to dominance in my consciousness, and though the part i play is, i believe, essential, it is significant only through the whole” (wells 1934, p. 705). this persona’s double movement, poised between the personal and the impersonal, the individual and the world, the biological and the historical, represents both the form and content of wells’ experiment in autobiography. as he conceives it, “my story therefore will be at once a very personal one and it will be a history of my sort and my time. an autobiography is the story of the contacts of a mind and a world” (wells 1934, p. 12). four decades later, michel foucault corroborates wells’ historical narrative: that as modern life became disentangled from the exigencies of survival, biological self-preservation, which was “once the whole of life, has become to an increasing extent, merely the background of life” (wells 1934, p. 2). foucault locates the origins of this biopolitical process in the renaissance, which “was nothing less than the entry of life into history…that is, the entry of phenomena peculiar to the life of the human species into the order of knowledge and power, into the sphere of political techniques” (foucault 1978, pp. 264-265). accordingly, wells suggests that life-writing personas do not so much separate the “biological” from the “historical” as they bring these “into closer and more exact relations” (wells 1934, p. 11). such relations are the hypothesis and result of experiment: this work, this jewel in my head for which i take myself seriously enough to be self-scrutinizing and autobiographical, is, it seems to me, a crystallization of ideas. a variety of biological and historical suggestions and generalizations, which, when lying confusedly in the human mind, were cloudy and opaque, have been brought into closer and more exact relations; the once amorphous mixture has fallen into a lucid arrangement and through this new crystalline clearness, a plainer vision of human possibilities and the conditions of their attainment, appears. (wells 1934, p. 11) persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 109 wells thus personifies “the modern escape to impersonality” (1934, pp. 706-707) not by abandoning the embodied, sensual world of personal vanities and vexations, but rather by “power[ing] over that primary life which, though subordinated, remains intact” (1934, p. 3). hence, for example, his focus (again anticipating foucault) on histories of sexuality, which “should be at least the second theme, when it is not the first, in every autobiography, honestly and fully told. [sexuality] insists upon a prominent rôle in the dramatizations of the persona and it will not be denied (wells 1934, p. 348, emphasis original). notwithstanding his desire to foreground sexuality in experiment, wells' persona ironically suppresses its erotic drives, as he admits in a postscript to experiment edited by his son, g.p. wells, and published posthumously half a century later as h.g. wells in love (1984). there, wells writes of “the lovershadow” as “the inseparable correlative to the persona, in the direction of our lives. it may be deprived of all recognition; it may be denied; but it is there” (1984, p. 54, emphasis original). wells planned for the postscript’s posthumous publication to set right the record of his life, fully and honestly, with details that, in 1934, would have been fatal to his public persona as a loyal husband, dispassionate scientist, and moral voice of human rights. this postscript does not tell the main story of my life. it is the story of a broad strand in my life that had to be turned away from the reader in the original experiment in autobiography… all the main lines of my development were given in the autobiography except for one suppression; that the lover-shadow by which my persona was sustained was no longer definitely represented in it after 1900. the careless reader was left to suppose and almost lured to suppose that the loyal support and affection of jane [i.e., wells’ second wife, amy catherine robbins] and my own conceit of myself was sufficient to sustain my nervous and imaginative balance. (1984, p. 112, emphasis original) on the contrary, the carapace of wells’ self-conceit—his predominantly rational, dispassionate, loyal persona—had to crack to accommodate the lover-shadow. the postscript includes what wells’ omitted from experiment and ‘42 to ’44: namely, that he justified his polyamorous affairs by representing them, according to his modern mind-body monism, as one with his world-revolutionary persona in pursuit of impersonality. finding his persona forging a logic between sexual desire, human rights, and world revolution, wells reflects in the postscript how he hungrily sought to sate his “inachieved desire roving involuntarily among the girls and women of my widening acquaintance” (1984, p. 57). with a tinge of self-mocking irony and hindsight that suggests he was misguided to seek transcendent impersonality through lust, wells recounts how “old nature, whispering in my blood,” persuaded him that some girls and women “might have it, must have it, in their power to give me at least a transitory ecstatic physical realization of my persona that i had not yet attained” (1984, p. 57, emphasis original). whether wells posthumously indicts himself as no better than the “straying curate” whose hypocritical persona he mocked in ‘42 to ’44, or whether he continues to believe that extramarital affairs advance the same pursuit of the impersonal on which he hinges universal human rights, the postscript’s inclusion of sexuality illuminates wells’ formation and negotiation of various fluctuating personas as he faces the future. experiment in autobiography finally represents “the modern escape to impersonality”— “an escape from first-hand egoism and immediacy, but…no longer an escape from fact” (wells 1934, pp. 706-707). it is a journey through multiple individual personas towards “the less personal activities now increasing in human society”—activities which have led wells to “a participation in the greater life of the [human] race as a whole” (wells 1934, p. 3). readers of greenberg 110 wells’ experiment will experience with him the uncertain hope of human possibility, the “change from egoism to a larger life [which] is…now entirely a change of perspective” (wells 1934, p. 706). writing in between the first and second world wars, wells was understandably skeptical about humanity’s “will and power” to undertake the changes necessary to avoid civilization-ending catastrophes resulting from delusional egoism: for escape, vast changes in the educational, economic and directive structure of human society are necessary. they are definable. they are practicable. but they demand courage and integrity. they demand a force and concentration of will and a power of adaptation in habits and usages which may or may not be within the compass of mankind. (wells 1934, p. 12) one way to expand “the compass of mankind” is autobiographical experimentation that inspires without prescribing diverse personas, remembering past lives to face the future. in the second chapter of experiment in autobiography, entitled “persona and personality,” wells considers the payoff of his “personal achievement” (1934, p. 10): “i have shown that human life as we know it, is only the dispersed raw material for human life as it might be” (1934, p. 11). he makes no promises, yet entertains some pessimism, about the future personas who might come to shape this raw human material. in the fate of homo sapiens (1939), wells laments, there is no creed, no way of living left in the world at all, that really meets the needs of the time… all the main religions, patriotic, moral and customary systems in which human beings are sheltering today, appear to be in a state of jostling and mutually destructive movement, like the houses and palaces and other buildings of some vast, sprawling city overtaken by a landslide. (1939, p. 291) indeed, the shaping of raw human material in the twenty-first century appears as misguided and dangerous as in any preceding century. zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as “a new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales” (2019, front material). beyond the dilemma that social media companies monetize users’ attention and data without informed consent, zuboff argues that surveillance capitalism seizes “critical human rights” and is as threatening “to human nature in the twenty-first century as industrial capitalism was to the natural world in the nineteenth and twentieth” (2019, front material). to escape the danger and seize the opportunity of shaping raw human material, wells turns to autobiography, since “the directive persona system is of leading importance only when it is sufficiently consistent and developed to be the ruling theme of the story” (wells 1934, p. 10, emphasis original). as we navigate the twenty-first-century proliferation of hybrid personas, increasingly exaggerated and divided by social media that cynically exploits human nature in exchange for impersonal connection with so-called friends, experiment in autobiography lends perspective and hope—hope that it is possible to celebrate our diverse individual personas and to tell our own stories in the first person while also practicing “faith and service of constructive world revolution” (wells 1934, p. 705). in 21 lessons for the 21st century, yuval noah harari considers “people who spend countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect self online, becoming attached to their own creation, and mistaking it for the truth about themselves” (2018, p. 306). through the posturing performance of narrowly cultivated public personas, “a family holiday fraught with traffic jams, petty squabbles, and tense silences becomes a collective of beautiful panoramas, perfect dinners, and smiling faces” (2018, p. 306). persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 111 to be sure, wells would not advocate to include all such “everyday things of life” (wells 1934, p. 2), lest it overwhelm “my personal unity, the consistency of my present persona” (wells 1934, p. 349, emphasis original) and exacerbate the “feeling of being intolerably hampered by irrelevant necessities” (wells 1934, p. 5). however, wells might concede with harari that “99 percent of what we experience never becomes part of the story of the self” (harari 2018, p. 306)—with this caveat: that our present personas, without self-delusion, carefully elect the one percent of our experience that does become part of the story of the self. among the actionable insights of experiment in autobiography is the possibility of representing many personas and narratives under a united “ruling system of effort” (wells 1934, p. 2). the risk of investing in a single system or persona is a descent into nihilism when that system or persona disintegrates. in harari’s words, “to have one story is the most reassuring situation of all. everything is perfectly clear. to be suddenly left without any story is terrifying. nothing makes any sense” (2018, p. 6). wells prepared for this danger by establishing a persona’s freedom and right to “grow and change and age as we do” (wells 1934, p. 9). surveying the failed arch-narratives of previous centuries, harari observes, “we are still in the nihilist moment of disillusionment and anger, after people have lost faith in the old stories but before they have embraced a new one” (2018, p. 18). in such a moment, autobiographical experimentation represents, far more than personal vanity, nothing less than a declaration of human rights. wells presents an alternative to false binary choices between biology and history, science and art, or private individuals and public humanity. to attain a persona at home in the world, a person must begin with their own narrow perspective. essentially this autobiography treats of the steady expansion of the interests and activities of a brain, emerging from what i have called a narrow-scope way of living, to a broader and broader outlook and a consequent longer reach of motive… more and more consciously the individual adventurer, as he disentangles himself from the family associations in which he was engendered, is displayed trying to make himself a citizen of the world. as his persona becomes lucid it takes that form. (wells 1934, pp. 347-348, emphasis original) at the start of experiment in autobiography, wells predicts his persona’s evolution from a confused mortal individual to an “undying” and purposeful collective: “the story will begin in perplexity and… culminate in the attainment of a clear sense of purpose, conviction that the coming great world of order, is real and sure” (1934, p. 13). this attainment of clarity and purpose results not despite but because of wells’ imminent loss of “individual life…with time running out and a thousand entanglements delaying realization. for me maybe—but surely not for us” (1934, p. 14). wells finally achieves his “escape to impersonality” (wells 1934, p. 707), yet far from abandoning his individual persona, his autobiographical experiment concludes with a return to its humble origins: so ends this record of the growth and general adventure of my brain which, first squinted and bubbled at the universe and reached out its feeble little hands to grasp it, eight and sixty years ago, in a shabby bedroom over the china shop that was called atlas house in high street, bromley, kent. the end. (wells 1934, p. 707) reprising his experiment a decade later in '42 to ’44, wells celebrates his personal consistency and the realization of predictions he made in autobiography: “in that book i make certain greenberg 112 criticisms and forecasts, and i see no reason in anything that has happened since to modify them. they might have been written yesterday instead of nine years ago” (wells 1944, p. 59). however, while editing the posthumous postscript, g.p. wells took a page from his father’s book to challenge this consistent persona. the son describes the editorial challenges that surfaced in places where his father had revised “sections written years before and especially when these involved the modification of earlier judgments. in such cases i have generally given priority to the earlier version, written while the events were relatively fresh in his mind” (g.p. wells 1984, p. 20). while the postscript lends fullness and honesty to wells’ life story by publishing what was suppressed, nonetheless editorial discretion demands the suppression of certain personas and personal variations in the name of coherence. for example, to prove his consistency, if not his prophecy, while absolving himself of the need to modify previous statements, wells reiterates in '42 to ’44 that ten years prior in experiment, “i gave reasons for fearing that russia may relapse towards a bigoted oriental despotism if it persists in its exclusive attitude towards western ideas” (1944, p. 59). wells would take no pleasure to learn that such predictions have proven true in the seventy-six years since his passing. nor would he take heart from the anti-scientific politicization of public health that has plagued humanity’s response to the latest pandemic. as the end of '42 to ’44 warns, the germ, the virus, can adapt itself to new occasions within the life span of a single human being. only the hard-thinking man with the microscope, working without haste and without delay, can hope to anticipate and avert that attack upon mankind… knowledge or extinction. there is no other choice for man. (wells 1944, p. 212) beyond performing a consistent yet evolving persona, why did wells consistently revisit patterns and predictions from his life and times across the experimental autobiography, contemporary memoir, and postscript—and why should we revisit his experiences today? according to david c. giles, “recognising a type, or pattern, in what jung calls ‘humanity’s constantly repeated experiences’ is clearly a matter of interpretation, but doing so may be an important task for persona researchers” (2020, p. 23). if wells gives us reason to hope amidst a global pandemic, the specter of world war iii, the proliferation of nuclear arms, and climate catastrophe, it is that these existential threats help us answer the question, “what will come after man?” to consider the answer is not to give up on humankind. on the contrary, to imagine nonhuman lifeforms and forms of life, which “type of persona is not really considered in the foundational persona studies literature” (giles 2020, p. 25)—whether extraterrestrials, posthuman cyborgs, genetic chimeras, or impersonal humanoids who transcend the old personas of “man” as we know them today—is essential in defining human rights and securing a human future. only once we are free from the delusions of personal unity can we unite in an “escape to impersonality”. works cited carpi, daniela. 2011. “the beyond: science and law in the island of doctor moreau by h. g. wells”. in: carpi, d. ed. bioethics and biolaw through literature. berlin, boston: de gruyter, pp. 178-187. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110252859.178 draper, michael. 1987. "wells, jung and the persona”. english literature in transition, 1880-1920 30, no. 4: 437-449. muse.jhu.edu/article/374770. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 113 foucault, michel. 1978. “right of death and power over life,” in the foucault reader, ed. paul rainbow (new york: vintage books, 2010), pp. 258-272. giles, d.c. 2020. “a typology of persona as suggested by jungian theory and the evolving persona studies literature”, persona studies, 6(1), pp. 15–29. doi: 10.21153/psj2020vol6no1art997. harari, yuval noah. 2018. 21 lessons for the 21st century. ireland: random house publishing group. marshall, pd & barbour, k. 2015. “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective”, persona studies 1(1), pp. 1-12. marshall, pd, moore, c. & barbour, k. 2020. persona studies: an introduction. hoboken: wiley blackwell. mirandola, pico della. 1496/1956. “oration on the dignity of man”. in cassirer, e., petrarca, f., kristeller, p. o., & randall, j. h. . the renaissance philosophy of man. chicago: university of chicago press. montaigne, michel de. 1580/1877. essays. united kingdom: reeves and turner. wells, g.p. 1984. h.g. wells in love: postscript to an experiment in autobiography. ed., g.p. wells. boston and toronto: little, brown and company. wells, herbert george. 1896. the island of dr. moreau. united kingdom: garden city publishing company. —. 1934. experiment in autobiography. discoveries and conclusions of a very ordinary brain (since 1866) (1934; republished 1967). philadelphia and new york: j. b. lippincott. —. 1939. the fate of homo sapiens: an unemotional statement of the things that are happening to him now, and of the immediate possibilities confronting him. united kingdom: secker and warburg. —. 1940. the rights of man (republished 2017). new york, vintage. —. 1944. '42 to ’44: a contemporary memoir upon human behavior during the crisis of the world revolution. london: secker & warburg. —. 1984. h.g. wells in love: postscript to an experiment in autobiography. ed., g.p. wells. boston and toronto: little, brown and company. zuboff, shoshana. 2019. the age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. new york: public affairs. aaron greenberg school of the art institute of chicago abstract key words works cited sant 64 a rehearsal for revolution: the hybrid persona of the graduate student teacher andrea sant abstract this mixed-form essay examines the graduate student teacher (gst) by utilizing augusto boal’s concept of the spect-actor. this theatre concept is used to illuminate two distinct aspects of the graduate student-teacher’s persona: first, their initiation into theoretical literacy, and second, their opportunity for vigorous critical, even revolutionary activism. an embedded graduate student essay explores the author’s personal gst experience within a larger frame of current u.s. university employment trends and against the author’s current university experiences and performances. this work asks: what kinds of power do gsts command? what kinds of power are they bound by in their simultaneous, hybrid performance of students and teachers? and, in light of the growing numbers of part-time and temporary faculty teaching at u.s. institutions, what are the ramifications of a shrinking minority of university faculty (the tenured) wielding primacy in institutional policy making and the creation and maintenance of the social and workplace culture? the essay concludes by exploring these issues at the author’s institution, the university of guam. key words academic labour, augusto boal, graduate student teacher, literary theory, spect-actor, united states, university employment trends, university of guam introduction one of the most pervasive ways in which workplace personas are created and replicated in the academic institutions of the united states is through the mechanism of the graduate student teaching apprenticeship. throughout the united states, college and university graduate programmes offer seats in their classrooms and places on their teaching faculty to carefully selected students. in fact, some graduate programmes will not admit a student who is unwilling or unable to simultaneously take up the undergraduate teaching mantle. across the nation, these graduate student teacher (gsts) take on a majority of the teaching workload for the multi-section, lowerlevel, general and foundation courses. persona studies 2015, 1.2 65 according to the american association of university professors (aaup), the trend of employing “contingent” faculty is increasing: “non-tenure-track positions of all types now account for 76 per cent of all instructional staff appointments in american higher education.” these contingent faculty are paid per class and seldom receive cost-of-living wages, family or emergency leave benefits, or health care. further, in their 2015 publication, “background facts on contingent faculty,” the aaup expresses concern that this employment shift “damages student learning, faculty governance, and academic freedom.” they conclude their report with the recommendation “that no more than 15 percent of the total instruction within an institution, and no more than 25 percent of the total instruction within any department, should be provided by faculty with non-tenure-track appointments.” while the aaup article includes graduate student teachers as part of the “contingent faculty” category, gst experiences are cited as indicative of these problems. is it possible though, that gsts are an exception? are they treated more fairly, or receive more training, mentoring, or support than other paid-per-course employees? do they have opportunities to engage in and influence the democratic processes of their employer intuitions? reflections on a gst experience in july of 2001, i was offered a graduate student teacher position at miami university of ohio. i eagerly accepted and began inhabiting that two-headed identity of the student-teacher. this hybrid creature exists in an interstice—a teacher, but one with training wheels: “teaching associates may have full responsibilities for classroom instruction, but they are under the supervision of regular faculty of the department” (the graduate school). they are not fullyempowered, independent teachers, nor are they unrestricted students: “[t]eaching associates with half-time duties must register for a minimum of ten graduate credit hours each semester of appointment, and not more than fourteen” (the graduate school). in this both and neither location, i struggled with how to simultaneously nurture my professional voice and pedagogical philosophies, respond to the needs of my undergraduate students, fulfil my responsibilities to my peers and faculty mentors, and perform successfully in my own writing and research tasks. according to the association of american universities (aau), “graduate students learn to teach and to conduct research by performing these activities under faculty mentorship. apprenticeship teaching experiences […] are extremely effective ways to teach prospective teachers how to teach” (12). i embraced the challenges of my gst position with a hope, shared by each new crop of gsts around the u.s., that the apprenticeship would allow me to successfully compete in the job market upon the completion of my degree. however, not everyone agrees that graduate student teaching programmes are beneficial to the students or the academic departments. critics have pointed out that, like other part-time and contingent faculty, gsts are often “poorly paid, exploited, and ill-trained” (summers). one scholar describes the plight of the graduate teachers using the metaphors of colonial oppression; they are: “children, serfs, prisoners, and slaves” (crowley 127). this language certainly muddies the aau’s shiny picture of the gst experience. acting [a] part while i do not doubt that gsts around the nation experience a spectrum of workplace injustice, my research and writing here reflects on my own experiences and expresses my current optimism that gst programmes can be creative, transformative places in the academy. for me, this begins by asking what kind of power do gsts command and what kind of power are they bound by? part of an answer may be found in acknowledging the scripts from which a gst learns to perform his/her new roles and rehearses for the “real job”—the future, tenure-track professorship. some sant 66 might argue that the gst persona is one that simply imitates the professional and pedagogical practices of academia, memorises and mimics, and thereby remains a passive, disempowered subject. the theoretical and pedagogical ideas of educational innovator and political activist augusto boal offer a way to challenge this limited and limiting perception of the gst experience. in the foreword of his book, theatre of the oppressed (1979), boal explains that aristotle’s definition of mimesis had “nothing to do with copying an exterior model,” but, rather, the “recreation” of that model (1). the book details specific methods to bring theatre to marginalised communities, and for using it as a tool to critically explore oppressive forces and collaboratively envision opportunities for intervention and liberation. integral to this process is disrupting the division between actor and audience. boal alters passive spectators “into subjects, into actors, transformers of the dramatic action” (122). he names these active spectators, “spect-actors.” theatre of the oppressed delineates the participatory theatrical techniques of forum theatre, in which audience members help to select the script to be performed, are invited to stop a performance and make suggestions to alter character interactions, and finally, are encouraged to replace actors and demonstrate their ideas (139). two decades after the publication of theatre of the oppressed, boal continued to explore the transformative potential of his forum theatre. in his book legislative theatre (1998) he writes: “forum theatre is a reflection on reality and a rehearsal for future action. […] the spect-actor comes on stage and rehearses what it might be possible to do in real life” (9). a gst is a spect-actor: a person who both observes and participates in the academic institution. gsts watch the performances of their professors and then choose whether to use those scripts in their own teaching performances, explore alternatives, and/or to rehearse pedagogies they will use in the future. talking the talk & staging the gst experience performance studies scholar, deb margolin asserts, “there is something terribly radical about believing that one’s own experiences and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform […]” (36). trusting margolin’s assertion, what follows here is a piece that i wrote as a graduate student at miami university. borrowing a writing technique used by american writer and academic n. scott momaday in his book the way to rainy mountain (1969), i break the page into two columns, with personal essay on one side and a dramatisation on the other. in splitting the page, i mirror the bi-furcation of the gst persona, forcing the reader to also struggle to find meaning in the middle and across the student-teacher divide. this student paper is also an application of boal’s forum theatre methodology. specifically, my essay practises one of boal’s techniques for transforming a spectator into a spect-actor. boal describes this transformation in stages. in each stage he includes various activities and exercises. one of these exercises is simultaneous dramaturgy, where an “invitation [is] made to the spectator to intervene without necessitating his physical presence on the ‘stage’” (theatre 126). this involves asking the spectator to “‘write’ simultaneously with the acting of the actors” (theatre 132). i wrote this essay for a performance theory seminar. in the essay i exercise boal’s techniques by casting myself as the protagonist and giving voice to what i perceive to be obstacles (antagonists) to my success as a student and as a teacher. i examine two distinct aspects of the gst experience: on the left, my initiation into theoretical literacy as a graduate student, and on the right, my opportunity as a university teacher for vigorous critical activism. boal’s methods offered me a framework to both demonstrate the content of my course, but also identify and articulate some of the anxieties i was experiencing in my hybrid role of student-teacher. persona studies 2015, 1.2 67 scholars, activists, and performers alike understand that certain kinds of literacy(s) are necessary to not only fully participate within one’s own community, but are also needed to travel outside that neighbourhood. for academics in my chosen field, the language of power is literary theory and a competency in this discourse is a prerequisite for full enfranchisement in this academic community; for other scholars, that authoritative discourse might be a legal or medical lexicon, or even the possession of multilingual language skills. scholars and performers agree that in order to earn respect and attract attention to their respective research, scholarship, or activism, they must speak the language of power. one scholar argues, “legitimated theory typically delivers tangible social rewards to those who possess it” (collins xiii). for some activists, the lexical currency is not academic or professional jargon but simply, english. in guillermo gómez-peña book, dangerous border crossers. the artist talks back, he explains, “i choose to write this text in english because in order to fight a hegemonic model i believe we need to know and speak the language of hegemonic control” (255). despite arguments against what i like to call “theoretical nepotism,” most scholars overwhelmingly assert that theory is a power tool. in a written conversation between bell hooks and cornell west, west asserts: theory is inescapable because it is an indispensable weapon in struggle, and it is an indispensable weapon in struggle because it provides certain kinds of understanding, certain kinds of illumination, certain kinds of insights that are requisite if we are to act effectively. (34-35) additionally, one of the first tasks of an emerging field of discipline is to establish itself by distinguishing its methodologies, theories, and scholarship. this often takes the form of policing what is, or is not “x.” what is or is not ecocriticism, for example. “performance is not just about what you say onstage, but about your desperate desire to say it, the quality and mystery of that desire; about your humanity” (margolin 69). cast of characters andrea the radical andrea the liberal andrea the graduate student andrea the teacher andrea the gst – the spect-actor the graduate student: in today’s job market it seems as though theoretical literacy is a necessary form of academic currency. i want to become a competent member of this academic community so i can produce smart and competent publications to eventually secure tenure. the liberal: i realise that one of the most effective means to incite political changes is from the inside out. i will work within the system to slowly modify what counts as knowledge. you must know the rules in order to break them. i will not squander my luck at being born able-bodied and financially comfortable. i will act on my sincere desire to be articulate and useful as i load my tool belt and refine my skills. the teacher: i have a responsibility to the university to teach skills that will provide first-year students with the necessary sant 68 these examples give strong support for graduate curriculums that require substantial mastery of theory, or whatever authoritative knowledge or discourse governs the legitimation of knowledge in that field. some scholars however, have scrutinised this privileging of theory within the academy. in barbara christian’s essay, “the race for theory,” she speaks out against the creation of yet another theoretical model (postmodernism) in what she calls the “race for theory.” christian is suspicious that theory can potentially reify hegemonic normative patriarchal practices. she explains, “i feel that the new emphasis on literary critical theory is as hegemonic as the world it attacks” (71). she argues that this race for theoretical literacy has subsumed the research and scholarship of minority literature and third-world writers at a time when this kind of research is so vital to the goals of multi-culturalism. as a current graduate student who is struggling with the abstractions of theory, i find great comfort in an academic who asserts that i should be doing more than “quoting [theories’] prophets”; i should be putting the text central or grounding any kind of analysis in reality and practice (christian 69). i am also persuaded by her argument that theoretical frames often become prescriptive. i know that i have been guilty of trying to fit a text into a favourite theory rather than exploring a text through an unfamiliar analytical lens. when christian asks, “for whom are we doing what we are doing when we do literary criticism?” i am forced to reflect on my own academic writing: will this work be inaccessible to my family? while i have come to accept that part of an education is an initiation into academic literacy, i can clearly understand christian’s argument that this discourse community is “exclusive [and] elitish” (74). christian is not the only scholar voicing these kinds of concerns about the potential risks of theory. patricia hill collins academic literacy to be successful in this environment. i would not want to pass a student who would potentially fail because they did not have a basic proficiency. am i a kind of social darwinist by helping to weed out students that have insufficient preparation? letting a “clumsy” writer slide through my class would be a disservice to the student and to his/her future teachers. assignment date: sept. 17, 2001 summary writing is a very useful skill that will help you collect information for some of your larger papers. summaries can sometimes be tricky because you have to extract the most salient ideas from often very large texts. summary includes ideas that the author has written and not your personal opinions of the author’s main points or topics. the radical: the university is an institution that controls who gains and is refused access to power. academia continues to reinscribe the same ideological social apparatus (althusser) that sanction the exclusion of individuals who do not possess certain kinds of credentials, which are unequally available and often inadequate measurements. my complicitous critique or consciousness is born out of the apparatus and yet, i do not want the position of border patrol guard. gst-the spect-actor: a teacher needs to not only provide students with rhetorical tools to help them be successful at the university but also help them to recognise the value of expression and poetry within particular contexts. a student will be a more successful writer when they understand the rules well enough to know how far they can bend them before they break. i would consider myself a very successful teacher if i moved beyond the lowest common denominator training to also help students become more conscious writers who understand how to play with those skills to express their own unique perspectives. persona studies 2015, 1.2 69 writes, “[…] elites possess the power to legitimate the knowledge that they define as theory as being universal, normative, and ideal” (xiii). too few scholars seem to wrestle with the problem of how performing academic personas through our speech and writing can be an elitist practice, which effectively polices the boundary of what gets counted as knowledge, who gets acknowledged as knowledge makers, and who has access to this knowledge through their training and educational experiences. a system that seems inherently insular, hierarchical, and nepotistic, and yet here i am, clamouring for a seat at the table. david cowles elucidates: to speak authoritatively on literary matters in america one must possess certain credentials: a ph.d. from a recognizes institution, a tenured professorship, a list of publications from approved journals or university presses, and so on. those not meeting the requirements will not find a receptive audience, no matter how good their ideas. what’s more, only certain kinds of statements about literary texts are taken seriously – generally those that follow “approved” critical approaches. (128) as a gst in miami university’s english department i am expected to gain a proficiency in theory as part of my professional training. miami university, in fact, would be negligent if it did not provide me with the opportunity to gain this vital job skill. however, i was troubled by the potential i had as a spect-actor to participate in a revolution, to challenge and critique the institution, if i was simultaneously complicit in maintaining the integrity of that border. augusto boal’s work in the theatre of the oppressed does not deal with the same kind of issue; the basic literacy that he hopes to teach is not risky; this education will not inadvertently support the controlling, oppressive governmental institutions it wishes to overthrow. perhaps this is where gst-the spect-actor: extra credit date: oct. 1, 2001 in your summary papers, i found myself correcting many of you for putting in your own opinions. i wrote things like: “this sounds like a value judgement” or “interesting analysis but it does not belong in a strict academic summary.” as i wrote these comments i began to question why opinions have not been allowed in this kind of writing. why was i trained to write like this? is this kind of writing just a regurgitation of someone else’s ideas and writing that does not value a reader’s response? in a memo (1.5-2 pages singlespaced), i’d like you to think about the summary paper assignment and whether or not summary writing has any real value. if you think it is, in fact, valuable, i’d like you to present what kind of skills you learn in this kind of assignment and where might you use these skills later in your life. if you think that summary writing is a vestige of an outdated attitude about education, i’d like you to rewrite the assignment criteria and include an analysis as to why you think that you should be allowed to include your own ideas as well as the author’s into a summary. can you think of any examples of this kind of writing to support your claim? i look forward to hearing your feedback on these questions. i will use your input in designing this assignment in the future. the graduate student: when i invited my students to re-write the script for their summary assignment, i invited them to perform as spect-actors with me. sant 70 the metaphor of the spect-actor helps to reveal the limitations of my position in the academy. as a gst who is only teaching foundation course material, i can offer some tools but not everything needed to empower my students to substantively challenge the academy. perhaps this too is another reason to continue to acquire those legitimated credentials. semiologist j.l. austin wrote an influential text documenting the potential of utterances to perform an action. in how to do things with words, austin outlines the criteria for constative and performative utterances. further, scholar della pollock identifies how writing can also function as a rhetoric that acts performatively: “writing that takes up the performativity in language is meant to make a difference, to ‘make things happen’”; she continues, “[…] performative rhetorics […] involve the reader not as the subject/object of persuasion of a given reality claim but as a cowriter, co-constituent of an uncertain, provisional, normative, practice” (95). i wish to create the conditions where you, the reader/audience/participant help to perform this declaration. i invite you to read the “declaration of protest” out loud. feel free to substitute words, gesticulate, assent or disagree. in my participation of this performance, my recognition of the fluid, performative, and playful aspects of my growing academic persona, i commit to the sincerity of these words and will take pleasure in being held accountable to them! gst-the hybrid-the spect-actor: declaration of protest i recognise my precarious location as a nearsighted intellectual with narcissistic fantasies and will walk carefully when i propose new theory or create the next seminal neologism. i recognise the power of institutions to placate and diffuse differences of opinion through the guise of liberal thinking. i believe that there is power in confusion, fractures, gaps, interstices, heteroglossia, the new mestiza, the cyborg, and strategic essentialism. i will not become trapped in the “race for theory”; although i will speak it beautifully, i will speak with a difference. i will strive to be conscious, conscientious, compassionate, and opinionated. i submit, by performing and displaying this declaration, that i am an academic with an attitude! gst: a growing force for change as a gst at miami university of ohio, i was ready to embrace my position as a spect-actor, to the full extent of the metaphor, and place the academy, the controller of my labour, in the crosshairs of my revolutionary zeal. as much as i was enamoured by the idea of putting my beliefs on the line and taking my place in a history of movement-makers, union organisers, and radicals, i discovered that i was not brave enough to jeopardise my dream of that faculty parking sticker and other benefits of being at the top of the academic hierarchy. playing nice earned me rewards: a dissertation fellowship and a great relationship with my faculty mentors and programme administrators. yet, no students i taught have stayed in contact and i have no way to gauge what persona studies 2015, 1.2 71 kind of effect i may have had. at that time, i did not realise how resilient the institutional systems were and how safely or how far i could explore my independence even within the confines of standardised, mandated curriculum. i do not regret the way i protected and invested in my graduate degree by guarding my reading, research, and writing hours; however, i now know i could have risked a bit more, inserted and supplemented the curriculum, and played with transgressive teaching pedagogies. how safe, how open, is the academic environment for active and ambitious critique from the bottom? i doubt that miami university or many other institutions feel threatened by the idea of a graduate student revolution, or in my case, a manifesto performed in a course examining transgressive theatre and a pedagogical challenge to “objective” summary writing. as i reflect on those experiences now, i find i can understand my tempered activism, once again through the work of augusto boal, in particular, a term emerging out of his concept of invisible theatre. this form, which entailed the performance of theatrical scenes in public spaces, but without overtly signalling their scripted nature, emerged in part to hide these risky political expressions from the “cop-in-thestreet,” and protect both the actor and the spectator, who became an unwitting participate in the performance (schutzman and cohen-cruz 3). when applied in contexts where the “oppressor” was not a clearly identifiable person, system, or institution, not a “cop-in-the-street,” but an internalised self-policing materialising out of personal experience, training, and socialisation, the term transformed to “cop-in-the-head.” looking back, i have come to believe that my biggest barrier to more radical challenges in my student-teacher persona, was that internal police presence. many graduate student teachers and contingent faculty have not bowed to either the cop-inthe-streets or the cop-in-the-head. beginning with the formation of the teaching assistants associations (att) at the university of wisconsin in 1966, unions solely invested in graduate student advocacy are increasingly tackling employment contracts and working conditions of gsts around the nation (czitrom). these unions—like the graduate teaching fellows federation (gtff), a university of oregon contingent of 1,500 individuals—have successfully intervened in contract negotiations for job security and medical equity issues (thomason). for at least forty years, some of these vulnerable university employees have been able to safely organise for wage, medical, and leave benefits. challenges to mandated, standarised curriculum are harder to discover as these often happen within committees rather than in more public and transparent venues. i have no doubt though, that many a gst, adjunct, emergency hire, or short-term instructor across the nation is expressing their irritation to this erosion of academic freedom, an erosion by virtue of limitations and controls being placed on their curriculum choices in ways that are not experienced by their tenured colleagues. compliance to a standard curricular seems even more important to a teacher whose employment is contracted by year, semester or only course by course. as u.s. institutions increasingly replace tenure-track professor lines with contingent employees (including gsts, part-time, and full-time, non-tenure track), university workplace culture, and the related personas created within that culture will inevitably shift. young americans pursuing bachelor’s degrees will predictably encounter graduate student teachers or other contingent faculty members in their foundational or lower-level required courses. this shift will have a mixed impact dependent on a variety of factors. in the case of the gsts, sometimes only months after the completion of their own bachelor’s degrees, they may be handed a roster, a textbook, and imbued with borrowed authority to educate and assess. some institutions provide a significant amount of training, mentorship, assessment, intervention, and accountability of their contingent faculty; while others, due to mismanagement, over enrolment, or the low status of lower-level courses, fail to provide adequate support, encouragement, and intervention. sant 72 there are both risks and rewards to the growing percentage of gsts and other contingent faculty in academia. on the one hand, these part-time or temporary employees can be dynamic, dedicated, knowledgeable, and conscientious contributors to their employing institutions; on the other hand though, these same teachers may become quickly discouraged and less generous with their time and talents if they are not recognised and compensated fairly. if more opportunities for meaningful participation, equal representation and voting authority, and some measure of job security are not quick to materialise, universities need to be aware that they are creating a growing under-class, a group who will mobilise and do what they must to be heard. as universities dissolve or replace tenure-track positions with part-time jobs, gsts will have more opportunities to teach high-level, foundation courses. they may also be able to strategically position themselves for future full-time or tenure jobs (if they exist anymore) at those same institutions. perhaps as institutional teaching needs grow and become, ironically, dependent on faculty who are themselves dependent (contingent), gsts will recognise their individual and collective power in a way that i never did. in the graduate students i am able to teach, i will certainly encourage, incite, and advocate in any way i am able. then and now: the spect-actor as tenured professor the performance theory graduate paper i shared earlier, and the reflections and clarity it generated have stayed with me. then and now, these ideas reinforce my sense of wanting to prove something, not only to myself, but also to my current students and colleagues as well as my former academic mentors. augusto boal was right when he wrote, “the practice of these theatrical forms creates a sort of uneasy sense of incompleteness that seeks fulfilment through real action” (theatre 142). what shall i act, enact, in the final stages of this written performance? well, on the other side of the gst experience and tucked cosily into my own tenured university faculty job, i have the chance to reflect on that early gst apprenticeship, my feelings of disenfranchisement as well as my optimism of challenging and changing from the bottom. what happens now that i am a tenured professor and intentionally or not, benefitting from my position as one of the privileged minority? how do i support my own institution’s contingent faculty and graduate student instructors? further, how does my institution’s specific colonial legacy complicate the hierarchy of the institution? the university of guam was founded in 1952 as a teacher’s college. faculty members were imported from the ohio state university with the mission of creating a pool of professional, local teachers to populate the island’s primary and secondary schools. this colonial legacy has had a powerful impact, but one that is conscientiously present in the institution’s contemporary mission, which includes fostering local leaders and prioritising local scholarship. the university of guam has not been immune to u.s. academic employment trends. the creation of tenure-track jobs is not keeping pace with the growth of student enrolment, which leads to a growing percentage of contingent faculty, often classified as “emergency hires.” all of the concerns expressed by the american association of university professors apply to us at uog as well: contingent faculty do not have full access to medical and family leave benefits and many cannot support their families without additional outside employment. these disparities amongst teaching faculty inevitably damage student learning, course quality, and workplace moral. however, the university of guam’s growing use of contingent faculty has an added issue connected to its colonial history. because it is not yet a ph.d. granting institution, more of the tenure-track faculty are imported rather than home-grown or returning guamanians. this means that even faculty with vigilant cultural consciousness and humility are still participants in a continuum of colonisation. tenure-track faculty voices and opinions are given more weight than the contingent faculty, a group persona studies 2015, 1.2 73 with a larger percentage of local and regional people. the imported faculty, like myself, are a minority who are un-democratically privileged with the power of a majority, and in this way the institution re-enacts a measure colonial violence. whether intentionally or not, when the faculty does not mirror the student demographic, especially on an island territory of the united states, the potential for a productive and collegial work environment is diminished. as a university of guam tenured faculty member who regularly teaches and mentors public school teachers and graduate student teachers, i have the opportunity to resist my privilege. by engaging the spect-actor in myself and my students, i place my anxieties and concerns “out there.” when externalising an internal monologue, one must be prepared for the potential for uncomfortable future dialogues. but for now, i will hang my declaration of protest on my office door and i will continue to encourage the graduate students to leave the island for their phds and then return and take the tenure-track job i’m holding for them. works cited althusser, louis. “ideology and ideological state apparatuses.” literary theory: an anthology. ed. julie rivkin and michael ryan. massachusetts: blackwell, 1998. 294-304. print. american association of university professors. “background facts on contingent faculty.” n.dat. web. 1 july 2015. association of american universities. “committee on graduate education: report and recommendations.” oct. 1998. web. 12 dec. 2002. austin, j.l. how to do things with words. 2nd ed. ed. j.o. urmson and marina sbisà. oxford: oxford up, 1975. print. bell hooks and cornell west, eds. “cornell west interviewed by bell hooks.” breaking bread: insurgent black intellectual life. boston: south end, 1991. 27-58. print. boal, augusto. legislative theatre. trans. adrian jackson. new york: routledge, 1998. print. ---. theatre of the oppressed. new york: theatre communications group, 1979. print. collins, patricia hill. fighting words: black women and the search for justice. minneapolis: u minnesota p, 1998. print. cowles, david. the critical experience. 2nd ed. iowa: kendall/hunt, 1994. print. christian, barbara. “the race for theory.” feminist studies 14.1 (1988): 67-79. jstor. web. 22 oct. 2015. crowley, sharon. composition in the university: historical and polemical essays. pittsburgh: u of pittsburgh p, 1998. print. czitrom, daniel. “reeling in the years.” american association of university professors. n.dat. web. 1 aug. 2015. the graduate school miami university. “graduate awards at miami.” oxford, oh: miami up, 2000. print. gómez-peña, guillermo. dangerous border crossers: the artist talks back. london, new york: routledge, 2000. print. margolin, deb. “a perfect theatre for one: teaching performance composition.” the drama review 41.2 (summer 1997). 68-81. print. pollock, della. "performing writing." the ends of performance. ed. peggy phelan and jill lane. new york: new york up, 1998. 73-103. print. schutzman, mady and jan cohen-cruz, eds. playing boal: theatre, therapy, activism. new york: rutledge, 1994. print. summers, john. “writing teachers of america unite! a manifesto.” culturefront online. n.dat. web. 2 dec. 2002. sant 74 thomason, andy. “graduate assistants at u. of oregon walk out.” the chronicle of higher education. 2 dec. 2014. web. 15 july 2015. andrea sant is a tenured associate professor at the university of guam in the division of english and applied linguistics and women and gender studies. her recent sabbatical research projects include professional development in online teaching and research in pacific environmental literatures. mackey 84 persona an old public relations problem? stephe n mac key abstract this essay uses the neologism citizen public relations to express a view of the phenomena examined by persona studies implying that public relations studies might be regarded as an antecedent discipline to the former. it goes on to suggest potentially intriguing differences and similarities to do with political and epistemological problematics. the central theme is that the term identity is simultaneously the key link and the key contrast between the two disciplines. this is because the term identity is usually deployed at the internal, psychological, subjective level by scholars of persona while it is usually applied to external, material objects and events by the public relations industry and its academia. the essay also makes the point that both areas of study can be unified as different species of the genera rhetoric in the traditional sense of that still older field. this coincidence and dissonance may invoke a debate which can lead to theory development in all three fields. the fields are not comprehensively surveyed – a process which would be lengthy and might bring up many contrasting perspectives. instead the work of representative leading authors is presented to make a prima facie case. key words public relations, persona, rhetoric, identity, image introduction in “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective” p. david marshall and kim barbour write that: “something quite extraordinary has shifted over the last twenty years that has led to this intensive focus on constructing strategic masks of identity”. and: “…the construction of a public persona has become pandemic,” (marshall and barbour). the below article takes the view that this something pandemic is the making available to many millions of people of the means of identity promotion swiftly followed by the motivation to use these facilities. hitherto only corporations, governments, churches, political parties and other well-heeled interest groups had access to, and consequently could understand and exploit the full advantages of this exposition. the “strategic masks of identity” and “strategic form of communication” which marshall and barbour discuss in terms of individuals, were overwhelmingly the public relations work of these major organisations. now, as in the advent of citizen journalism, digital media has extended these abilities to the many. there is what we might term a widespread citizen public relations. it is this which has become the phenomenon central to persona studies. in terms of rhetorical theory, scholars of public relations suggest: “a rhetorical rationale of public relations views it as a constructive dialogue, a persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 85 wrangle in the marketplace of ideas, preferences, choices and influence,” (heath, toth and waymer). but this “wrangle” is at core the same sometimes deliberate but often serendipitous process which influences how people think about individuals. similar rhetorical productions and consequences now apply as much to a teenager tweeting from a melbourne tram as to a multinational car giant. definitions and epistemology pivotal to the below discussion will be the epistemological contrast of how both the terms identity and discourse are used in the marshall and barbour article compared to the preferred use of these terms in this critique. discourse is a word which is usually unexplained in academic writing. for the purposes of this article it will be taken as oxford english dictionary definition 4a (dictionary). 4a gives two distinct aspects to the notion. one is thought and the other is the material conveyance of that thought by speech, writing, or other concrete media activity. the term identity is also usually left to the intellectual predilection of the auditor. as will be argued below it is often loosely conceived as a mixture of external appearance, subjective-inflected perception, and inner conception. much of the below will point out that in public relations, and it will be claimed in traditional rhetorical practice, identity is actually something quite different. it is something which is economically and in other ways concretely, objectively constructed. the argument will be that for public relations identity is a concept which should not be allowed to collapse into ideational presumptions. the implication for persona studies of this public relations rubric is that an organisation’s or a person’s identity is not inflected by the enculturated imagination of the observer. anything’s or anyone’s identity is always solid and real at any one time however it is observed. but every identity is observed in countless different enculturated subjective ways. these subjective observations involve images in the minds of the observers. such an approach has the advantage of distinguishing between solid identity and plastic image. it overcomes the confusion which curtails making explicit the material provenance of both public relations and persona constructions and the motivations for these constructions. if how a corporation or person is, is more clearly separated from how they are thought of, more logical and thus potentially clearer political discussion is made possible. for instance consider the personas developing in and around the thousands of uncared for syrian refugee children, some of whom are being trafficked in the sex trade in europe after seeing their families butchered and blown to pieces. (times_editorial), (nelson). it is this history that should be seen as the concrete anchor to the identity of the personas under discussion. people’s image of this situation or indeed young refugees’ imagination of their own situation and thus their grasp on their own persona would be better rooted in reality. what is meant by this concrete material basis of identity can be further illustrated with reference to erving goffman: if they know, or know of, the individual by virtue of experience prior to the interaction, they can rely on assumptions as to the persistence and generality of psychological traits as a means of predicting his present and future behaviour…many crucial facts lie beyond the time and place of interaction or lie concealed within it. (goffman 13) in other words experience and facts are the real basis of identity, not psychology and presumptions, i.e. images and imagination. in a similar vein kath woodward writes: identity matters, but how and why it matters depends on time and place and on specific historical, social and material circumstances. (woodward vii) mackey 86 roland robertson writes about the deeper epistemological implications of how the term identity is employed in sociology in his chapter “aspects of identity and authority”, (robertson). robertson discusses the marxian, freudian and the: “…hegelianised marxist talk of identity, or the ‘identity principle’…” (219). essentially robertson discusses whether identities can be known objectively or whether we always view things subjectively. he makes the point that: the various hegelianised marxisms lie between these two views, in the sense that they tend to focus on the concrete, historical circumstances of the degree of cleavage between the fusion of subjectivity and objectivity and between individual and society. (robertson 220) robertson’s discussion is a bit too highfalutin for the purpose of the present article. but it illustrates the level of complexity surrounding academic use of the word identity. this is a complexity which the present article claims to usefully simplify by explaining public relations studies in a way which might be loaned to persona studies. to summarise: what follows are suggestions that: (1) persona in the sense of ‘strategic masks of identity’ and ‘strategic communication’ has a significant previous literature in public relations; (2) the epistemology of that literature is rather different from that of persona studies; (3) in consequence the older field of study might have something useful to say to the younger. identifying identity the word identity is used 36 times in the marshall and barbour article. before deconstructing the use there this article will summarise the way this term is generally used outside of public relations. the paradigm example of this usage will be taken as that explained in the 2013 book identity: sociological perspectives by reader in sociology at newcastle university (uk) steph lawler. this second edition is endorsed on the back cover by notable scholars in the field: seidman, skeggs, and woodward. seidman suggests: “identity [:sociological perspectives] has established itself as perhaps the key reference point for students and scholars who want a smart and reliable guide through the thickets of identity discourse and analysis.” in the book lawler suggests: “it is not possible to provide a single, overarching definition of what it [identity] is … because what identity means depends on how it is thought about,” (7). lawler is concerned with the indeterminate ways various cultures regard the very notion identity. she points to the fundamental difficulties for scholarship in this area because rational discussion about identities is dependent on some shared understanding of the term identity itself. but lawler’s complex concern contrasts strikingly with a concise definition by doyen of public relations studies james grunig: “image is what audiences perceive of an organization. identity is what an organization chooses to use to shape those perceptions,” (grunig 127). in the essay that follows, i will pursue the logic of grunig’s view and the views of other communication professionals, particularly those who write about corporate identity. we will suggest a treatment of identity which avoids lawler’s problems in favour of grunig’s approach. the below will also point to millennia of rhetorical thinking which supports the argument that the term identity should be seen as a strictly material, external-to-the-mind aspect of the semiotic process. the argument will be that these external consequences are outside the sight, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and taste boundary and that what happens inside the mind with respect to external material factors is not a process of identity. inside the mind a quite different process to do with images, imagery and imagination goes on. by inside-the-mind is meant processes of perception and conception. these are processes which involve an enculturated mental understanding – however useful or persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 87 pathological – of empirical matters, of matters outside of the mind. these mental understandings, perceptions and conceptions are of course subject to discourses of culture and ideology in all sorts of ways. but they are perceptions and conceptions that are different from the things and thus the real identities of the things which are being perceived and conceived. the other point to bear in mind is that, as per o.e.d 4a the ideas in the discourses of culture and ideology which affect perceptions and conceptions are the flip side of material communication processes. what this means is that we must always realise that when external discursive forces and consequences are in lawler’s above words: “thought about” we enter a different domain – an ideational domain. for these reasons we should conceive of thinking as a gateway. it is a transit point between the external material and the internal ideational. this thought-about domain is clearly a second stage phenomenon involving some mysterious spark of the person which cannot be comprehended by simply labelling it as semiotics. it is the domain of the production of complex and difficult to predict images. identity constructions and the discourses they deliberately or inadvertently convey are of course often architectonically the results of deliberate activity within ideational domains. but classifying identity constructions as a different category from images, imagery and imagination, seeing them as discrete external manifestations, has many advantages. this separation assists in efforts to attribute motive, origin, power relations and so on. it makes more concrete the possibility of investigating the manufacture and provenance of actual external entities which end up as significant factors in thinking processes. the separation enhances the possibilities of critical understanding of political and economic power relations; of the resources in time and money which have been expended; of the intricate workings of the technologies used; and so on. these are all material matters which offer themselves for objective analysis such that different ideological production and maintenance initiatives can be better understood. with this separation the finger prints of deliberate ideological work – all the material evidence of style; media budget; phraseology; communication channel; ip address; and so on might be gathered and forensically, as opposed to theoretically, analysed in a way which might identify instigators and their suspected motives, motives which might range from the therapeutic to the pathological. in the simple example of lawler above her book-written narrative published by polity is a material identification of her argument. that is, her own internal images are identified for the world to see via concrete literary production distributed by a publisher of many books of the political left. but our consequent images, what you or i imagine she means, our view of its plausibility, veracity and so on, is purely an internal matter for each of us; thoughts about what she means are the images which may vary considerably within different people. this variation may well be influenced by, but it is not determined by external identity-discursive processes. while we may have differing views of what she means, the words on the page, irrespective of how they are read, demonstrably have a single concrete identity. in a similar way, for public relations and it will be argued for rhetorical processes in general, identity should be considered to be the external material part of any phenomena of communication while image should be seen as the consequent different internal intellectual abstractions which may occur in different people or which may not occur. whatever internal intellectual abstractions arise will be images conjured up in an interplay with the ambient internal and external psychological and communication influences on that particular reader/viewer/listener, (or the detector of smell or taste if it is that sort of thing). the detail of each internal abstraction or thought will usually be hard to totally anticipate and will often have a complex relationship to its external material prompt. for example, just because the present author has presented a written narrative it does not necessarily mean the reader will think about it in the way the author intended. regarded in this way images can be classified as internal and non-material phenomena which are quite different from identities. images can be mackey 88 regarded as the hard to predict affect on the human facility of imagination which identity processes, if they are deliberate as in public relations and traditional rhetoric, deliberately try to effect. prediction of the actual outcomes of the transit between identity and image and the ways image and imagination may then be harnessed, perhaps to create further identities, is very important to commerce and politics. media agencies devote considerable empirical research and sometimes employ semiotic theory in an attempt to predict or monitor such outcomes. if persona is a term to do with how people and organisations are deliberately or serendipitously identified and about how they may, or may not consequently become images in minds, then the above discussion would appear relevant to persona studies. personification of organisations marshall and barbour understandably do not mention the personification of organisations. however the notion of organisational personality and thus the persona of a corporate entity is something which is necessary for the present article. the legitimacy of introducing this personification can be argue in the following manner: corporations are referred to as legal persons in all the major jurisdictions of the globe, cf. as explained critically by joshua barkan in the chapter “personhood” (barkan). furthermore, surely it can be allowed that all organisations are conglomerations of individuals? these may be individuals who are organised to conform to specific company behaviours, but clearly organisations are not inanimate. they are comprised of people. if personification is provisionally accepted the argument follows that, despite rarely using the term, public relations literature, and by implication corporate rhetorical processes generally implicitly deal with personas. and it is this corporate persona which is the subject of discussion when a public relations firm attempts to observe, research, create, and manage an organisation’s identity. but the public relations literature about this activity demands that identity in this sense can only be about identity’s material manifestation. the notion material in this sense does not just refer to signage and architecture. it also refers to that other side of discourse in o.e.d. discourse 4a – i.e. the material communication activity which is the counterpart to the thought. so, for instance thought – what one thinks about an organisation – will be part of the way its sales staff greet customers; the way its spokespeople present; the mission statement; its community responsibility declarations; its labour relations; its government relations; and so on. both the declarations and their consequences – whether the promises of social and environmental responsibility are carried out or not for instance – are all tangible items. when they are recorded, but particularly if they are implemented, they comprise the concrete identity of the organisation at a stage momentarily before the organisation is perceived and images about it are created in the mind. in this way, as grunig says above, identity can be considered the term for anything which an organisation does which may produce a way that it is thought about. public relations identity literature in order to demonstrate the terminological definition in grunig above, this essay now turns to the various uses of the term identity in public relations literature. for instance here is public relations scholar george cheyney from his article “the corporate person (re)presents itself”: … identities refer to the specific identifying aspects of an organisation, such as names, logos, distinctive slogans and architecture and so on. images are the broader impressions that are projected by organisations, the perceptions held by various publics. (cheyney 174) persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 89 kendall sees an important aspect of identity construction in public relations as the effort to create an organisation’s internal ideological and cultural climate. identity construction is the work which affects how people in the organisation think and behave for instance towards customers: a related term, identity, describes efforts by corporations to establish how the public will perceive them … corporate culture – which has been described as a company’s shared values, beliefs and behaviour – in fact flows from and is the consequence of corporate identity. (kendall 18) weaver, motion and roper express identity creation at the level of discourse production: in this context public relations is understood as explicitly concerned with constructing knowledge, identities, and relationships that will work to facilitate particular sociocultural practices – those that will work for the needs and interests of the client organisation. (weaver, motion and roper 18) the above are examples of how the term identity is usually expressed in public relations. there are some examples of conflation of the term identity with image. but in general scholars and experienced practitioners shun the term image. grunig who repeatedly refers to avoiding image in his own writing also says: “bernays (1977) pointed out that ‘image’ suggests that public relations deals with shadows and illusions rather than reality,” (grunig)1. corporate identity consulting we can also look to a public relations speciality–corporate identity consulting–for considerations of image and identity. early in his much cited, illustrated book corporate identity: making business strategy visible through design, globally renowned consultant to many international brands wallace olins (1930-2014) wrote: in order to be effective every organisation needs a clear sense of purpose that people within it understand. they also need a strong sense of belonging. purpose and belonging are the two facets of identity … a further component is how the organisation behaves: to its staff and to everybody with whom it comes into contact. (olins 7) these introductory comments by olins illustrate his view, similar to kendall’s, that how an organisation is perceived by the people who are important to it depends largely on devising and implementing suitable internal ideological/cultural policies and procedures. of course imagination and conjecture of a semiotic nature are involved at the ideational stage of this devising. but olin’s advice illustrates the way that the impressions which people eventually get about an organisation–the images which they hold about it inside their minds – can be affected by an organisational process which is totally external to the eventual viewer. this is a process which is largely material in that it requires a budget, staffing, staff training, and perhaps tendering to external specialists. identity plans are then presented, explained and inculcated ideologically and culturally in ways which involve a great deal of meetings both for research and for perpetration. perpetration involves a great deal of visual symbolism; what we might call ritual such as prize giving and social events; as well as other types of empirical communication activity. the creating and implementation of identity is not a process which is just imagined then simply injected into people’s minds via cleverly chosen words and pictures. olin’s book advises how appropriate people-management structures should be set up to harvest the ideas of all relevant stakeholders so that a viable identity is devised. this should be a whole of organisation process to do with the actual identity of the organisation rather than a fantasy which the ceo mackey 90 and a few of her/his acolytes want instilled into people’s minds. olins’s central message is that names, symbols, logos, awards to personnel, social and professional events, and so on should always represent something real about the organisation. they should be invested with clear and deep meaning for those who use, see, or take part in them. they should not be devised with the wistful hope that the eye will be attracted by startling or intriguing but meaningless colours and patterns; by insincere best worker awards; awkward congratulatory leaving do-s and so on. visuals and rituals sometimes evoke notions about what are judged to be positive aspects of an organisation’s past, for instance heraldic symbols, latin mottos, statues, or pictures of founders. there may be allusions towards noble history in architecture such as we see in some 19th and early 20th century banks and public buildings. olins congratulates eric hobsbawm and terence ranger for their book the invention of tradition. hobsbawm, ranger and colleagues describe the ways social cohesion, the legitimation of authority, and the inculcation of conventions, belief and value systems can be offered to the imagination of people by new symbolic and ritual productions which gestures towards the past (hobsbawm and ranger 9). they are writing at the level of nations and whole societies but olins points out that the cultural and ideological work with they are depicting is in large part the same as the identity work which modern corporations engage in. the invention of tradition includes discussion of inter alia: highlanders’ clan tartans; welsh bardic tradition revival; monarchical pomp and ceremony to cement britons as loyal subjects of the crown; representations aimed at legitimating british colonialism; the ways 20th century european societies were normalised by the promotion of scientific and technological understandings. olins’s chapter on the invention of the identity of the confederate army could have almost slotted into the hobsbawm and ranger book. among other symbolic inventions of the southern states the confederates had to devise a new uniform to give the rebel army an identity. this had to be an identity which evoked loyalty and meaning as americans but it had to look different from the union’s uniform. the result was a uniform which looked similar to that of the north but which was a lighter blue. the last two sections have been about the way the public relations industry has of necessity had to clearly define identity as something different from image. the notion of identity has been discussed in regards to the affinity of managerial and corporate cultural processes, rather than image. we will now turn to the way theorists outside that industry–theorists who have no urgent requirement for that separation–approach relationships between the two terms. steph lawler’s identity as we have seen lawler writes that: “…what identity means depends on how it is thought about” (7) this is of course is true. but equally what an easter egg means depends on how it is thought about; what education means depends on how it is thought about; what global warming means depends on how it is thought about. from the perspective of the public relations and corporate identity industry and its academia there are two main problems with lawler’s approach. the first is lawler’s disregard of the base/superstructure problematic (marx and engels). lawler’s discussion is pitched at an ideational level which neglects concrete activity outside of the mind. secondly she eschews the possibility of legitimate definition. one imagines that this difficulty has parallels to the hegelian – marxism problematic already mentioned in relation to robertson. for instance lawler writes: part of the slipperiness of the term identity derives from the difficulty of defining it adequately. it is not possible to provide a single, overarching definition of what it is, how it is developed and how it works (lawler 7). persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 91 the present essay thus far has provided arguments for a contrary view on all of the assertions and implications expressed in the above two sentences. elsewhere lawler writes: as regina gagnier has wryly observed, “i may feel like a king but i won’t be treated like one at the bank”. it becomes immediately clear that one problem with the term identity is that it can be used to refer to a range of phenomena. my sense of myself, others’ perception of me, my reactions to others’ perceptions, the social categories that attach themselves to me and to which i attach myself – all may be referred to as ‘identity’, yet clearly there are important differences between them. (lawler 7-8) a critique of the above section from lawler might go along the lines: 1) regina gagnier is clearly describing imagination – i.e. an image in her thoughts. this is an image separated from the reality of the material base of her actual identity – a person without lavish financial means. this is a playful delusion. but lawler validates this delusion. thus the notion of identity which is a concrete term in the field of public relations, is instead in lawler’s sociology turned into an image for use in ungrounded discourses. the possibility of the concrete notion that: “identity is what an organization chooses to use to shape … perceptions,” (grunig 127) is not examined. 2) contrary to lawler the four other problematics implicit in this extract, which incidentally are central to persona: a) sense of self; b) others’ perceptions; c) reactions to others’ perceptions; and d) social categories – might best not be referred to as identity. on the contrary a, b, c, and d are clearly images. they are the views which people hold in their minds. they are abstract notions. they are imaginings which can be contemplated in terms of semiosis. they are not concrete outcomes such as those deliberately and materially produced by for instance the market researchers, financiers, designers, and engineers of the new ford mustang car; by the history and hard artistic work of the bolshoi ballet; by the words being laid down as this page is typed. the latter three clearly result in a range of different images in different minds. however the material identity of the products of these three, certainly ideationally inspired, but in the last instance economic or administrative processes, can be seen to be at base actual and material. the identity of a car is shaped in metal, the identity of a ballet resides in its cast and choreography, a thesis, however speculative resides in some sort of visual or audible form, a form which corresponds with grammatical rules, years of study study which has been material financially supported by the wages of the student or the taxpayer. all of these latter three phenomena have a materially produced and a concretely displayed identity irrespective of how they are inflected by the imaginations and other ideational factors which have been deliberately or unconsciously, innovatively or traditionally engaged with during those identities’ design or consumption. david marshall’s and kim barbour’s identity a major theme of this essay is that public relations studies does not subscribe to the conventional way that the term identity is employed in contemporary cultural and sociological academia while persona studies does so subscribe. what follows immediately is an attempt to justify this claim in respect of persona studies by examining a reading of marshall’s and barbour’s overview in the light of steph lawler’s approach. it is hoped that the obvious enthusiasm for the public relation approach will not be judged too harshly. the section after this one will resume the previously introduced argument that public relations studies and persona studies are related species of rhetorical practice. mackey 92 in marshall’s and barbour’s overview there are 36 uses of identity and one only use of image which contrast considerably with how public relations studies might view the same subject matter. their use of the word identity predominately indicates conceptual and perceptual matters which are happening in the mind rather than in the world. an interesting illustration of this is the use of the word mask. mask is used as a strongly reifying metaphor. the term evokes a tangibility which seems to be about something real in the world. it conflates thoughts in minds with activities in the world. this non-separation reflects cultural studies’ and sociology’s conventional use of identity as depicted by lawler who, as we have seen, admits the term’s problematic nature. examples of this indeterminacy include: something quite extraordinary has shifted over the last twenty years that has led to this intensive focus on constructing strategic masks of identity. the catalyst is the development of online culture and its invocation to personalize the expression of a public self—essentially a persona—regularly and incessantly. (marshall and barbour 1) it is later explained that what is meant by “strategic masks of identity” in the present era are largely personas borne by digital technologies. but surely these are material constructions designed to project images in ways which have certain deliberate or serendipitous consequences in the minds of audiences? these may be targeted minds which have been professionally-commercially or amateur-socially pre-analysed for their imagination – their availability or vulnerability to certain flavours of image-implying messages. it is the vast sum of these complex internal mental generations – the varying images and views which are being perpetrated in people’s minds – which considerably affects the “online culture” referred to. the real-world identity construction processes which deliver this imagery are the electronic innovations and the commercial, social, and sometimes egotistical exploitation of these concrete innovations. such a clarification of identity construction as material happenings brought about by powerful forces outside the mind would have the effect of de-sensationalising, demystifying the “something”, “pandemic”. another conflation of image with identity which illustrates adhesion to the same dominant paradigm as that accepted by lawler’s is: baddick summarizes this use of persona in literary criticism: “the assumed identity or fictional ‘i’ ... assumed by a writer in a literary work; thus the speaker in a literary poem, or the narrator in a fictional narrative.” (marshall and barbour 3) in public relations studies terms this extract latently refers to identity work. but the identity work is the intellectual labour which includes literary scholarship and its expression via wordsmithing followed by the publication involved. these are the concrete identity constructing activities which are assumed but not emphasised in this extract. what is written about is the amalgam of áffectual and intellectual insights which are borne by this behind the scenes identity work. the extract is about áffectual and intellectual insights designed with the purpose of harmonising with, or intriguing, or shocking, or otherwise modulating people’s imagination. it is about the imaging and imaginative effects on a book-reading clientele or market. it is to do with the fictional image, or perhaps more accurately the image-fiction by which we as readers conceive the narrator or poet. it is not, as public relations might prefer, about the production of this imagery through the identity constructed by the scholarly, skill and industrial processes all of which had or have actual, concrete material existence. the last example is undeniably about what goes on in the enculturated head rather than, as public relations studies might prefer, more concrete notions of identity and its construction. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 93 from reading jung, persona represents something that needs to be overcome, or at least recognised for its threatening potential for leading to an unbalanced self where this externally driven identity can be mistaken for the whole being and there is “minimal” integration made with “one’s own” inner self or “individuality.” (marshall and barbour 4) public relations studies would certainly agree that identity practices are external practices which result in the inflection or even the creation of the persona of an individual or organisation. but one needs to be clear what one means by persona here. persona in this extract surely means a problematic involving a false or unhelpful conceptualisation of one’s self or some sort of public social or propagandistic slander about who one is or how one thinks or behaves. but, as one would expect when contemplating an authority from psychology, these problematics are matters of the mind, matters of perception and conception. they may involve matters of abnormal psychology as well as matters of normal psychology. but they are not matters which public relations studies would entertain as identity matters or even matters of false-identity. they are matters of imagery and imagination. they are matters of how people think in terms of the effects of, or resistance to propaganda or information. in normal psychology they are the outcomes of the áffect and/or intellection passed on from cognitive contact with the unremarked-on actual real identity of concrete objects and concrete events in the real world. persona an old traditional rhetoric problem in on truth and lies in a non-moral sense friedrich nietzsche writes: what then is truth? a movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. (nietzsche in ansell pearson and large 117) earlier in description of ancient rhetoric nietzsche had written: “the characteristic style is the proper domain of the art of the orator… he is an imitative artist; he speaks like an actor” (nietzsche et al. 35). it is beyond the scope of this article to detail a full argument of how persona studies might link to nietzsche or his postmodern theory heritage. for the purposes of the present article however the increasing interest in nietzsche’s academic roots in the study of rhetoric and his remarks such as those above might be pointed out as relevant to the study of both public relations and persona. both field are to do with using material communication means in order to project images and to respond to the images and the imagination processes in people’s minds. since the advent of print and then electronics this projection and responding has significantly involved those technologies. but the historic underlying processes of forming and influencing viewpoints, as nietzsche points out, have always been that of the public speaker, the orator. so if oratory is taken in an updated wider sense to include modern means of speaking out and projecting character and reputation, then clearly both fields are touched by the above quotations. persona studies in particular often refers to the actual mask of the classical actor which facebook or twitter users might metaphorically don as they represent themselves digitally. similarly in common parlance there is no lack of critique that public relations activity is often an act which tries to put the best face on an organisation. the relationship between rhetoric and persona studies suggested here would need an article in itself. all that will be offered below is conjecture about what this link might mean if the above neologism citizen mackey 94 public relations is considered to have some merit. while confessing that invocation of the neologism makes only a tenuous link, the rest of this section will mostly be an attempt to firm up the relationship between public relations and rhetoric. there will however be some return to persona and rhetoric at the end. translating this discussion from the realm of public relations to the realm of rhetoric is not difficult. the terms rhetor and rhetoric occur throughout public relations textbook and research literature, for instance in the titles of books and chapters by: cheyney and dionisopoulos, coombs, elwood, heath "introduction", heath "wrangle in the marketplace", and ihlen. in a chapter about public relations’ rhetorical role as the contested exchange necessary for democracy, scholar of rhetoric, public relations practitioner and leading theorist of public relations robert heath writes: rhetoric as a social force and process is a dialectic, the ultimate social process by which people learn how to enact society and through which narrative that enactment transpires. all of these criteria are basic to the full functioning of a community. (heath "rhetorical enactment rationale" 49) drug behaviour epidemiologist and critical scholar of public relations william n elwood defines rhetoric as: … the communicative means that citizens use to lend significance to themselves and to extend that significance to others. rhetors or creators of rhetoric, include human and corporate citizens ... public relations is the strategic use of rhetoric to influence specific groups of citizens. (elwood 7-8) aristotle’s rhetoric says: “rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic” and that all people: “furnish explanations both to defend and to prosecute,” (67 [1354a]). in other words when we try to convince someone of something we have to present our argument in a convincing manner which goes beyond simply giving the facts. we also have to be able to counter refutations. one only has to invoke discussions about global warming to understand what aristotle was getting at in both of these statements. the scourge of climate denial has meant that initially environmentalists and now perhaps what we might call all right thinking people have had to constantly go beyond the simple climactic facts. graphic descriptions of looming potential disasters have had to be made verbally explicit in attempts to create sufficient political support so that the bare facts are taken seriously. this process of argumentation conforms to nietzsche’s position that so called public truth emerges from “a movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms […]which, after long [long enough] usage” become “canonical and binding” and settle the debate (117). but surely this is what happens throughout the presentational communication activities both in persona studies and in public relations? how a celebrity is projected into public consciousness is surely similar to how a brand is projected particularly when the former is hired as an endorsee of the latter, see for instance the web site ranker (ranker). it is not enough to say this project is good or this celebrity is glamourous. these facts may be correct. but both need to be clothed in the paint of textual and visual metaphor-rich description if that are to attract credence. a significant publicity campaign to this end would need to be a premeditated material activity by trained and experienced practitioners. practitioners would shape and deliver this rhetorical discourse in a concrete process which has to be motivated and resourced. this concrete sometimes very expensive activity is the flip side of thought in the 4a o.e.d dictionary definition of discourse. in the same vein, the other quote from nietzsche that the orator “speaks like an actor” evokes the notions of actor training, acting, voice projection, and all the other intellectual and presentational skills which are necessary in order for meaning to be imparted in a way that it gives effect to others’ thought and action. the persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 95 necessary training, apprenticeship, and practice to gain this skill is a material financial matter which costs money as the speaker invests in their future concrete professional identity. in the actual here and now performance the identity of the speaker is to do with the personal ethos which she is projecting which reflects on herself and her client. it is also exuded in the pathos which she generates in the communicative interchange with the audiences. these all involve material áffectual effect in the listeners and are at least as important as the logos – the factual part of the interaction. at this level of the characterisation of communication it is difficult to see much difference between what happens in the realm of standard public relations and the realm of citizen public relations. conclusion public relations, particularly when it is understood as the heir to traditional rhetoric, might offer a new slant on that other “strategic form of communication” which is overviewed by marshall and barbour. by requiring the term identity to refer to things concrete, the former field explains the latter field in a way which emphasises the manufacture of persona via material means. for the last 50 years at least the public relations approach has warned against confusing the term identity with the term image on the grounds of perspicacity and the argument that an understanding of and engagement with politics and economics is enhanced by this separate classification. the essay has also suggested that persona activities and public relations activities are different kinds of rhetorical activity. both public relations and persona entities might be analysed and understood better if the identity of rhetorical effects and processes are thought of as concrete while their consequences in terms of how they affect minds are classified as ideational. 1 the long lived edward bernays (1891-1995) is often referred to as the father of public relations. end notes works cited ansell pearson, keith, and duncan large. nietzsche reader. 2006. ebook. aristotle. the art of rhetoric. trans. lawson-tancred, hugh. penguin classics. london: penguin books, 1991. print barkan, joshua. "personhood." corporate sovereignty. ed. barkan, joshua. law and government under capitalism: university of minnesota press, 2013. 65-86. ebook. cheyney, g., and g. dionisopoulos. "public relations? no, relations with publics: a rhetoricalorganisational approach to contemporary corporate public relations." public relations theory. eds. botan, carl and vince hazleton. hillsdale, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum, 1989. 135-58. print cheyney, george. "the corporate person (re)presents itself." rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations. eds. toth, elizabeth and robert heath. hillsdale, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates, 1992. 165-83. print coombs, t. "crisis, crisis communication, reputation, and rhetoric." rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations. eds. heath, robert l., elizabeth l. toth and damion waymer. new york: routledge, 2009. 237-52. print dictionary, oxford english. "discourse, n.". oxford university press. web. mackey 96 elwood, william n. public relations inquiry as rhetorical criticism : case studies of corporate discourse and social influence. praeger series in political communication,. westport, conn.: praeger, 1995. print. goffman, erving. the presentation of self in everyday life. harmondsworth: penguin, 1990. print. grunig, james e. "image and substance: from symbolic to behavioral relationships." public relations review 19 2 (1993): 121-39. web. heath, r. "introduction." rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations. eds. heath, robert, elizabeth toth and damion waymer. new york: routledge, 2009. 1-12. print. ---. "rhetorical enactment rationale." handbook of public relations. eds. heath, r. and g. vasquez. london: sage, 2000. 31-50. print. ---. "wrangle in the marketplace." rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations. eds. toth, e. and r heath. hillsdale, n.j.: lawrence erlbaum associates, 1992. 17-36. print. heath, robert l., elizabeth l. toth, and damion waymer. rhetorical and critical approaches to public relations ii. communication series. new york: routledge, 2009. print. hobsbawm, e, and t ranger. the invention of tradition. cambridge ; new york: cambridge university press, 1992. print. ihlen, o. "rhetorical theory of public relations." the blackwell international encyclopedia of communication. ed. donsbach, w. oxford: blackwell, 2008. 4395-97. print. kendall, robert. public relations campaign strategies : planning for implementation. 2nd ed. new york: harpercolins college publishers, 1996. print. lawler, steph. identity : sociological perspectives. 2nd ed. cambridge, uk ; malden, ma: polity press, 2013. print. marshall, p. david, and kim barbour. "making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousnes and a shifted perspective." persona studies 1.1 (2015). 29 january 2016 web. marx, k., and f. engels. the german ideology. london: lawrence and wishart, 1970. print. nelson, fraser. "sweden shows how not to handle migration." opinion. the age, melbourne 2 february 2016, sec. opinion: 27-27. web. nietzsche, friedrich wilhelm, et al. friedrich nietzsche on rhetoric and language. new york: oxford university press, 1989. print. olins, wally. corporate identity : making business strategy visible through design. london: thames and hudson, 1989. print. ranker. "the most successful celebrity endorsements". 2016. <http://www.ranker.com/list/most-successful-celebrity-endorsements-v1/celebritylists>. web. robertson, roland. "aspects of identity and authority." identity and authority: explorations in the theory of society. eds. robertson, roland and burkart holzner. oxford: basil blackwell, 1980. 218-65. print. seidman, steven. contested knowledge : social theory today. 5th ed. hoboken, n.j.: wileyblackwell, 2013. print. skeggs, beverley. class, self, culture. transformations. london: routledge, 2004. print. times_editorial. "lost generation we should help syrian war orphans." editorial the times 26 january 2016, sec. editorial: 21-21. web. weaver, kay, judy motion, and juliet roper. "from propaganda to discourse (and back again): truth, power, the public interest, and public relations." public relations critical dabates and contemporary practice. eds. l'etang, jacquie and magda pieczka. mahwah, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum, 2006. 7-21. print. woodward, kath. understanding identity. london: arnold, 2002. print. http://www.ranker.com/list/most-successful-celebrity-endorsements-v1/celebrity-lists http://www.ranker.com/list/most-successful-celebrity-endorsements-v1/celebrity-lists persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 9 assembling academic persona and personhood in a digital world li sa ortiz-vi larelle t he c o l l e g e o f n e w je r s e y abstract digital automedia have become a standard mechanism for academics seeking to construct and promote professional personas. through a range of digital platforms, including blogs, facebook, and twitter, social media have replaced the business card. but what about the self-authored personnel narratives that are not shared publicly and serve, nonetheless, as self-portraits of academic life? even tenure and promotion applications, employment letters, and cvs the most often required documents to gain and maintain access to professional opportunity in academia have gone digital. together, they comprise a category of functional life writing that ebony coletu calls “biographic mediation” as they each answer to requests for personal information that “facilitate institutional decision-making about who gets what and why” (2017, p.385). in this essay, i focus on the standardizing software that mediates the representation of academic subjectivity by restricting users to entering details according to parameters set by the standards of the profession, the institutional subscriber, and the operating system. increasing reliance on such systems further reduces academic personhood to chart fields and biodigital data entry that are counter-intuitive to the syncretic processes of making meaning by which individuals experience, remember, and recount their lives inclusive of their careers. i turn to persona studies and narrative life writing theory to assess the impact of digital tools and methods of personnel review on the assemblage and portraiture of academic subjectivity. key words life writing; academic persona; career narrative; automedia introduction while not a fundamentally autobiographical culture, academia continues to rely heavily on selfconstructions of academic personhood.1 on-line professional networks have replaced the business card with the enterprise of online academic branding and self-promotion. three dimensional academic personas are searchable in the self-managed profiles of academia.edu or researchgate.net. academics also curate their own personas on social media platforms, like twitter and instagram. programs like faculty success’s digital measures and interfolio’s faculty 180 are used to document and measure career success. to be sure, the terms of the job search and personnel review are equally prescriptive in print; the paper trails of the personnel file have always played a pivotal role in determining academic careers. however, when digital technology is employed, academics are forced to re-elaborate their career documentation to enable efficient reporting on their life’s work. self-authored career documents, such as tenure ortiz-vilarelle 10 and promotion essays, already highly prescriptive forms of professional self-representation, are apt to become even more so when managed by digital operating systems and their institutional subscribers. both life writing and persona studies illuminate how academic institutions regulate personnel documents, such as promotion dossiers, employment letters, and cvs. together with persona studies and this field’s attention to the importance of retaining autonomy over career self-construction and its products, life writing studies frames growing concern about audit culture in academia and the loss of meaningful self-authored depictions of academics at work in favour of more efficiently processed bio-data particles. the academic persona as life writing life-writing scholars working in digital biomediality have spent two decades illustrating how the construction of lived experience both thrives and languishes with increased reliance on digital technology to document and share about academic lives. for instance, mcneill and zuern (2015) investigated online auto/biographical construction for over a decade, concluding that online career documentation lacks the stylistic and creative devices at our disposal when we live the “online lives.” rak’s work (2015) elucidates an important distinction for career documentation: personnel review is a lived experience that is not experienced “live.” nor is it a simulation of life, but a persona constructed via appeals for career advancement. self-authored personnel documents comprise a transactional category of functional life writing (coletu 2017; 2019). coletu rightfully asserts that applications for opportunity and resources “should be considered a high-stakes genre of life writing that operationalizes access to institutional resources” (coletu 2017, p.384). recognising online personnel review as the biographic mediation of coletu’s definition extends the study of career documentation into life writing where this high-stakes labour and its products can be read as highly autobiographical assemblages of academic persona formed in the intersections of professional data entry and self-expression. “biographic mediation,” says coletu, “refers to any structured request for personal information that facilitates institutional decision-making about who gets what and why” (2017, p.385). an overreliance on software used for standardizing and anonymizing these documents reduces academic career self-construction to a practice of biodigital data entry that is counter-intuitive to the syncretic processes of making meaning by which individuals experience, remember, and recount their lives inclusive of their careers. as katja lee pointed out, “our labour and the products of our labour do persona-work, and when our labour circulates away from us, the ways in which it performs a/our persona can rest in the hands of those interacting with it” (2015, p.3). lee reminds us that persona work is an “inevitable” condition of work lives, integral to “induction, training, evaluation and assessment, surveillance and discipline, promotion” (2015, p. 5). digitizing the performance of personhood may facilitate structural management. therefore, for academics to remain active agents in the construction of their careers in the digital age, it is necessary to insist on regarding the construction of career personas in personnel documents as life writing. according to lee, work personas are “necessary—perhaps even inevitable—identity performances that are a condition of work” (2015, p.3). as “a public identity we mobilize and perform to manage the demands of our labour” for the purposes of gaining and maintaining access to institutional “homes” in which to build our careers” (lee 2015, p.3). academics embody and convey the personas endorsed by the profession and by the mission statements of their institution in their documentation of career performance and are steered by personnel review to brand themselves accordingly. this self-promotion not only satisfies the requirements for successful work performance at the specific institution but determines access to opportunities in the profession at large, regulated, as lee suggests, in a foucauldian system of surveillance and discipline that persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 11 ensures performance in which subjects “actively negotiate, respond, contest, and manage the organizational pressures that shape our work personas” (2015, p.5). unlike constructions of personhood found in memoir and other forms of life writing, personas iterate a type of person, or type of people and not a specific person or group. over time, a persona is socially constructed within the environments in which people operate and from which they receive reinforcement, thereby instructing them on how to behave and self-identify. this behaviour might require, or otherwise compel, an individual to mask aspects of their selfhood deemed unsuitable for specific purposes and environments. in the case of an academic career persona, the private subject is not deemed relevant to the public academic function. the academic career persona is expected to be the same person in real life as in the digital world. ultimately, the persona is a cross between two identities, a negotiation between an actual person and an imagined one fitting an ideal model that serves as a foundation for understanding and regulating human behaviour (nielsen 2018, p. 1). this understanding of persona is important to the way we think about the academic persona and its emergence and application throughout the generation and evaluation of career documents. nielsen draws our attention to personas as vehicles for decision making in their respective contexts making it clear that decisions made in digital career review rely on the subject making the lived experience of their academic career easily accessible, quantifiable, and intelligible in online databases. this requires inhabiting a recognizable persona, a function of compliance with the expectations of the subject’s social environment and the interactions there within (broady 2015). simply put, to “present themselves to others in a fashion that they believe they should” (broady 2015, p. 65). construction of the persona print and online personnel review share similar performative labour in the work of academic careers, the “social condition that makes particular demands on us, and compels and inspires us to craft and perform particular identities” (lee 2015, p.3). personnel documents are created for and shared within the “micro-publics” of the profession, in which the subject is seeking to be known and valued. moore and colleagues (2015) describe micro-publics as networks maintained by primary users who personally “broadcast” on a smaller scale than traditional media institutions. while these quasi-public networks require constant monitoring and identity management often across multiple media there are dividends in the para-textual sharing, commenting, and liking of content that highlight the agency of the primary user. in true academic form, users can anticipate, prepare for, and engage in debate about their content. there is no such network for online personnel review, only the navigation of chart fields and dropdown menus. here, the voluntary author of autobiographical inscription is reduced to an automedial function of compulsory assemblage in which there is increasingly less room for selfreflection on career development. in addition to being compulsory, the self-authored career constructions considered during personnel review are also highly transactional. they are submitted to gain access to opportunity or resources and are required, not voluntary, disclosures of academic subjectivity. rarely are these constructions of academics and their work considered outside of this realm or beyond the fields in which their work circulates. they are products of “visibility labor,” or “the work individuals do when they self-posture and curate their self-presentations so as to be noticeable and positively prominent” (abidin 2016, p. 90). whether in print or online, both selfconstructions are performances of academic personhood required according to the expectations of a “work persona” measured by productivity and quantification. the authors of such personnel documents are seeking a place, or status in their careers that rests on their notability through citations, downloads, invitations, publications, and other measures of visibility in the ortiz-vilarelle 12 academe. in both, the agency of the subject is eclipsed by the efficiency of institutional assessment. personhood is superfluous and distracts from, even diminishes, the value of the subject and their work at the institution by burdening users with what marlene kadar noted is the “too muchness” of self-expressive writing (kadar and perrault 2005, p. 4). in personnel review, the aim is to assess productivity. reviewers are not poised to witness a life – despite the reality that witnessing a life in work is precisely what they do. unlike multimodal social media accounts curated by the subject to promote their careers, the autobiographical constructions submitted for digitized institutional review are not interactive. they hold data and await uses assigned by the institution. the subject does not see reactions to their constructions of academic subjectivity and these institutional platforms do not allow for dialogue between the subject and the user. subjects are also not notified of shares or downloads. “hits” on the digital account where their documents are stored do not raise the profile of the academic as on twitter or facebook. for privacy reasons, there are no hashtags or other forms of tagging, or algorithmdriven recommendations that would connect users across accounts. therefore, networks of interest, collaboration, and affiliation are not supported in this digital architecture and visibility is unidirectional. rob cover asserts that such social media platforms “operate as a space for the continued, ongoing construction of subjectivity – neither a site for identity play nor for static representation of the self, but as an ongoing reflexive performance and articulation of selfhood that utilizes the full range of tools made available” (2014, p. 55). he extends judith butler’s theory of performativity from the bodily into the digital realm of acts that construct identity. social networking sites present selves in which “networking behavior is as performative as ‘real life’ acts, and just as equally implies a stabilized core inner self behind the profile” which must, instead be problematized. the tendency to divide the representation of selfhood into the real and the medial oversimplifies the practice of social networking and self-representation in general by ignoring the instability of identity (2014, p. 56). social media subjecthood is created in the network and not revealed by platforms though a presumed opening of a window on the subject’s inner life. going further, the self-authored career subject created within networks requires constant maintenance: communication technologies, media platforms, and digital services are not isolated objects or discrete entities, but are voraciously incorporated into the lives of individuals as part of the extant identity assemblage that is undergoing continuous revision, updates, and patching as we form connections and exchange information with other people and other systems. (moore et al. 2015, p. 1). academics weigh the benefits and consequences of maintaining an online academic career presence. sharyn mcdonald notes that the demands of the profession and of maintaining a work/life balance are onerous without the additional pressure of becoming literate in digital platforms and performing time-consuming labour necessary for curating social media personas (mc donald 2015, p. 55). while the former bears advantages, such as affording opportunities for networking with other high-profile academics and having more flexibility over selfexpression compared to the more formulaic, static documents required by the university, the challenge lies in becoming overexposed to negative dialogue. the digitization of a career persona requires substantially more investment in transactional forms of institutional selfrepresentation than print narratives following the same guidelines, as well as necessitating labour-intensive and time-consuming data entry required to keep up with the temporality of the career self. this type of mediatization requires the subject to prioritize their searchability in the software algorithms at the expense of the complexity of self-construction and self-reflexivity. meanwhile, the expectation is that academics know how to navigate these systems, and those persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 13 that are either not proficient or choose not to engage in said labour are viewed negatively (mc donald 2015, p. 58). these tools of translating a life’s work into collections of data make it increasingly difficult for academics to step out of the economy in which they are already marketed by what anthropologist and life writing theorist martin danahay calls “the regime of the c.v.” (1996, p. 345). even more than the standard print c.v., these systems limit what is permitted to be quantified and entered as informatic data into the spaces provided by standard format. most importantly, the product generated by using the system is a product of the institutional user and not the academic whose information is stored there. the academic is therefore taken as the output of systems operated by others. the result is that the “others” become co-authors of academic’s career selfconstruction. to do so means the academic must participate in their own surveillance and tacitly waive rights to privacy and power with the understanding that depictions of quantified careers are the product of labour compensated by and conducted in the name of the institution. as part of a faculty, contributions to the profession are claimed by the university along with the right to monitor and report on them, and constructions conveying the salience of the scholar are the business of the institution. the academic cannot consent to specific uses and instances of access use as they would on social networking sites where settings can be made to limit access sharing. once the data is entered, there are no notifications of how and when the data is managed, or in what contexts. profiles can be accessed and assembled into reports on unlimited terms. subjects can only assume that they know who is engaging with their materials and for what purposes, as sidonie smith suspects “a self-curator does not know how the life may be taken up in other archives” (smith 2015, p. 265). the privacy paradox anna poletti explores the privacy paradox of biomediation in her theoretical monograph stories of the self: life writing after the book (2020). in focusing on a range of digital life writing from online dossiers to social media accounts, poletti highlights the material effects of biomediation in academic career construction, and the power wielded by institutions to conduct surveillance, enact discipline, and reduce individuals to datafied informatics even while the subject is unaware. the use of technology processes persons into “data doubles” for the inescapable appropriation of their stories for the benefit of the institution. this is the primary aim of the repository where dossiers “are formed, stored, circulated, and accessed through institutional forms of power, yet invite the reader to consider them as objective material products of observation and recording” (poletti 2020, p. 7). when disclosure is compulsory, faculty risk consequences for non-compliance. as poletti notes, we cannot avoid the need to give an account of ourselves, nor can we escape the ethical ties that stem from the vulnerability inherent in our reliance on others to apprehend us, or the ethical ties that come from our responsibility to apprehend them. yet the scene of apprehension is not purely linguistic or symbolic—it occurs within material conditions. (2020, p. 7) to the life-writing scholar, the tacit assumption is that that the documents reviewed are selfauthored when instead, as poletti observes, “[t]he ‘story’ that results is largely assembled by algorithms or humans seeking patterns” (2020, p. 7). these representations of academic career are, therefore, always already open to as many iterations of career selfhood as desired by the institution to project ideal academic personas for as many purposes as necessary. ortiz-vilarelle 14 as a form of life writing that is required to be recognized and “counted” as part of the currency of the institution, career documentation matters for the same reasons. but engendering readability or intelligibility in digital systems can lead to the obsolescence of the narrative and print forms of career self-expression. as in the use of data collection from social media profiles to consider candidates for employment, data doubles stand in for the vital social interaction gained during the interview (humphrey 2017). if academics are indeed facing the extinction of in-person interviews, narrative documentation, and other professional methods of scholarly review, then what will remain for career self-representation, for the telling of what academic lives are and do beyond the persona? as poletti urges us to remember, “writing and reading personal stories brings us into relation with each other, but it also brings us in relation to matter—we are always also physically copresent with stories we tell and read” (2020, p. 5-6). negotiating the academic self privacy is not the primary issue – it cannot be if seeking recognition is a primary condition of the academic career. anonymity is not a tenet of academic cyberculture. by using various networking profiles, individuals seek to raise their profiles in the profession and be easily identifiable as true and actual scholars connected to true verifiable outcomes of their careers. in this way, the desired outcome relies heavily on continuity of online and offline selves in selective ways. while the cultivation of a presence in digital media often involves a discernment between who and what the scholar is/does and who and how the person is/lives, in blogs and social media accounts, like instagram and facebook where users chronicle their experiences, viewers expect to find not only a continuity between the lived and digitized person, but also a glimpse into other aspects of their lives. in addition to sharing news of publications, grants, and other successes, the use of conference selfies, travel and project status updates, and other representations of the scholar at work offer career documentation outside of their institutions. it is in these spaces where we may also view and read about the scholar’s pets, personal travel, and other ways by which viewers can identify with the user’s personhood in a continuous spectrum of online/offline and insider/outsider, public/private, personal/professional contexts. here, subjects are proven to live in real life. anonymity may not be the goal of the digitally networked scholar, however the concept is useful to understanding how online career sharing exposes the fluidity of selfhood in academic careers and the requirement of equally fluid forms of self-representation. the distinction between being anonymous and feeling anonymous in internet identities begs further focus on why identity and anonymity are fixed as opposites in the way we share about our lives (kennedy 2014, p. 36-37). assumptions about whether or not identities in virtual or lived contexts are continuous overshadow the more productive examination of the “temporality, contingency and fragmentation of the experiencing subject” and how their closer examination can lead the practice of academic career documentation to more empowering uses as a life writing genre (kennedy 2014, p. 37). liz stanley cautions that any focus on the controlling aspects of audit selves overlooks the potential politics of refusal inherent in engaging with performances of ideal persona. stanley adopts the term “audit selves” to refer to the publicly created composites of information by which selves are “recorded and refracted by the regulatory mechanisms of organisational encounters” (2000, p. 41). “audit selves,” stanley asserts, “are quintessentially public selves, publicly created profiles which act as measures and prophecies of what a range of ‘types’ of selves are and can be” (2000, p.56). “[t]he academic cv, employment evaluations and occupational reviews within educational institutions” connect lived experience to processes of evaluation, monitoring, or other form of regulation resulting in a form of functional life writing (stanley 2000, p. 50). through her model of women-made selfhood, she addresses a pattern of persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 15 feminist resistance to the audit model in which women have found opportunities to resist, or refuse, requirements (stanley 2000, p. 56). compared to the “self-made women” whose compliance is rewarded in institutional review, “women’s made selves” retain agency over their representation in organizational encounters by making use of “the gaps, disjunctures, and silences which exist between audit selves and actual lives” (stanley 2000, p. 56). in addition, they expose the reality that the academic is never simply demonstrating a life lived as much as a life aspired to within institutional standards of recognition. stanley notes that encounters with institutional review “eventuate in organisationally created ‘personae’ which are constructed by producing aggregations of auto/biographical exteriorities” (2000, p. 50). collected and organised for the purpose of analysis, the resulting personas are measured by an anticipated outcome, an ideal by which the self is measured. stanley cautions that “the concern is in fact not with recording events, but rather with anticipating types of events and then recording instances of what has already been anticipated as happening” (2000, p. 52). in an aspirational form of life writing, the subject provides self-constructing information “predetermined as relevant or essential for organisational purposes” and self-represents under the constraint to “perform these characteristics of the audit selves with which they are associated” (stanley 2000, p. 54). in this way, the ideal work persona functions more as a template than an academic subjectivity. careers and career documentation is perpetually aspirational. the career is experienced in and shaped by the tension between aspirational and actual selves. after all, “[t]he “self” so often invoked in self-expressive theories of autobiography is not a noun, a thing-in-itself, waiting to be materialized through the text. there is no essential, original, coherent autobiographical self before the moment of self-narrating” (smith 2016). since the process for constructing a cv, for example, is usually considered a measure of work completed, opportunities secured, or credentials acquired, it is thought to represent what the subject has done and how it shapes who they are. the career and its outcomes are both iterative and “intraactive” – co-created in both lived and discursive spaces where lived experience is understood as a journey among other subjects, in specific locations, and under certain circumstances. more than a measurable outcome on a cv, the career self, as in other realms of subjectivity, relies on a “process through which a person becomes a certain kind of subject with certain kinds of identities in the social realm” (smith and watson 2002). when documenting their career personhood, academics are “autobiographical subjects” like any other, “know themselves as subjects of particular kinds of experience attached to social statuses and identities” (smith and watson 2002). yet, the cv, like other narratives, such as the grant application, or the employment letter, introduces the academic as a self in progress toward a yet-to-be accomplished goals of being and doing in the academy. it is written with the aim of projecting a narrative of success and accomplishment. in this, as in other forms of life writing, it is understood that “[t]he living of a life becomes the effect of the life as narrated” (smith 2016). institutional documentation requires an annexing of some parts of selfhood in favour of others in order to achieve and maintain intelligibility in its institutional frame, in a specialized “recitation of identity,” a performance in which smith notes the subject constantly negotiates “the incorporation of certain narrative itineraries and intentionalities, the silencing of others; the adoption of certain autobiographical voices, the muting of others” (smith 2016). aggregated into categories of diminished heterogeneity, the cv of easily identified and managed virtual recitations also performs the academic’s ideal value as a commodity in a neoliberal market. this biocapital is easily quantifiable, in word counts, impact factors, and breadth of awards and publications which feature more prominently in a cv than qualitative descriptions significant to the being and doing associated with accomplishment. lauren berlant draws attention to the problematic nature of the quantified life when she asks “[w]hat does it mean to have a life; is it always to add up to something?” (berlant & prosser, 2015, p.181). ortiz-vilarelle 16 berlant questions more than the normalizing of biocontinuity in the construction of life stories (berlant & prosser 2015, p. 181). she incisively critiques how life itself is measured by sequential and upwardly mobile accomplishments, the very problem with the academic cv as a chronicle of academic life. worse than undercutting of the richness of life story, the cv faces forward into the future, rather than backward, always asking to be seen in the realm of the possible and the potential, the academic’s belonging at the next stage, or inclusion in the pool of eligibility being the self-portrait presented to a particular audience. similarly, phillipe lejeune notes that this representation follows the standard “retrochronology” of academia (lejeune 2014, p. 252). the order of the cv – and the academic life it summarises – begins in the present time of documentation and moves backward in what lejeune wryly describes as “the glorious order of accomplishment but in the disappointing order of dissolution: the applicant ends up in the cradle” (lejeune 2014, p. 252). it is common to see the terms “in progress,” and “under consideration” surrounding academic labour as a subversive, but fairly standard form of prepackaging that signals aspirational accomplishments along with other strategic terms that regulate professional hierarchies and chronologies of production in the profession. within this mode of existence, the subject is unable to fully flesh out (pun intended) their personhood from the position of the data double upon which institutional reports draw. in these systems all faculty are participating in “nobody” life writing in the hopes that they will be recognized as “somebody” – known, credited, or acknowledged for their merits (couser 2009, p. 1). in the case of autobiographical career assemblage, the scholar is known through their work, neither before, or after, but ironically, in tandem with their participation in a process that requires their own decentring and disembodiment. as their lived experience is measured by a series of accomplishments perpetually “floating to the surface only to be pushed down in turn by the next entry” (lejeune 2014, p. 252). danahay refers to this as the “prepackaged narrative” of a persona which confirms and “ensure[s] the reproduction of existing power relations within the institution” (1996, p.352; 252). the cv is also necessarily paratextual – dependent on the actual scholarship and other attendant documentation supporting the veracity of the academic’s self-portrait. indeed, if only paratextual reading can authenticate the claims asserted in the profile, how are academics so easily removed by the deposit/retrieval model of the online cv from their own narratives of career self-construction? in paratexts: thresholds of interpretation, gérard genette focuses on the many forms of text which surround a work “precisely in order to present it” and effectively “ensure the text's presence in the world” (1997, p. 1). genette asserts a truth that applies equally to the relationship between an academic career without its attendant documentation. as “one may doubtless assert that a text without a paratext does not exist and never has existed,” so may one correctly assume that an academic does not exist without their cv and the rite of career review (1997, p. 3). the cv, as “factual paratext” to the performance of academic subjectivity, is the “vestibule” through which the author-text passes to facilitate reception by readers and “offers the world at large the possibility of either stepping inside or turning back” (genette 1997, p. 1;7). this threshold through which the reader is invited, permits the academic subject to be reviewed, or “read” intertextually and intersubjectively alongside an academic persona. the subject and their career are prepackaged by “contextual affiliation” in a category that genette describes as the “please insert,” “[a] printed insert that contains information about a work and is attached to the copies addressed to critics” (1997, p.104; 105). genette considers the “please insert” as a text aimed at readers who are in the position to assess and promote the author and their work (1997, p. 9). in this function, the publicly private audience of authority over review, the designees of the academic institution, reads the cv as a performance of contextual affiliations that takes the form of the academic’s book jacket. in this compact space of the “please insert,” self-construction is secondary to meeting the standard formats of either the persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 17 publishing or personnel review apparatuses. intentionality is limited to what fits within the literal and conceptual space provided for self-construction as their force and function are not exclusively within the domain of the subject. although genette is clear to distinguish between the “please insert” and the biographical note – which he decidedly gives up to other scholars to consider the cv comprises both and functions in the way that genette estimates as “that text in the larger context of a life and an oeuvre” (1997, p. 115). that the text is the performance of the academic within their oeuvre is proof that academic personhood constructed and measured by the persona in the auto/biographical writing of career review. in their essay “virtually me: a toolbox about online self-presentation,” sidonie smith and julia watson estimate that “[b]oth offline and online, the autobiographical subject can be approached as an ensemble or assemblage of subject positions through which selfunderstanding and self-positioning are negotiated” (2014, p.71). while smith and watson limit their approach to online narrative storytelling, i wish to draw attention to my attention to how the software used by academic institutions gathers data for the purpose of assembling searchable individual and aggregate faculty profiles. this assemblage is not entirely selfgenerated, as it is co-constructed with the institutional user. the self is limited in its powers of self-inscription and reduced to templates within which the institution’s re-iterations of biographical detail, and academic careers become read and understood as the product of digital processes of deposit and retrieval rather than by auto/biographical writing practices. life writing allows for a nuanced understanding of the self and its self-construction. digital media scholar janneke adema cautions that the centre of academic career advancement, print scholarship, reflects a problematic anthropocentrism that privileges the “primacy” of the human as a “rational, individual, original, liberal humanist author, perceived as an autonomous agent responsible for knowledge creation” (2021, p. 9). while this erasure of personhood is not the goal of post-humanities advancements, the use of these systems can result in an out with the humanism, out with the human experience for the academic. more than managing information, digitized personnel review creates the conditions for professional subjectivity “remixes” that supplant the “agentic origin” of experiences (adema 2021, p. 79). digital systems for personnel review are not self-generating. they require human use for both input and output. so, the matter at hand is acknowledging where agency over career documentation resides when it is transferred. data alone cannot apply for a promotion; it needs the academic as agent. however, an academic only exists as a candidate if it is recognized in the system, a condition that requires the relinquishment of agency and de-subjectification. although this is not a self-authored narrative, it is a “digital” representation of me as an academic over which my institution retains proprietorial control. the “accountability residue” of rights and responsibilities of being compulsory co-authors (adema 2021, p. 90). an academic’s value in this economy depends on the ability to embrace the reality that in addition to completion and quantity, compliance is also a cornerstone of cv culture in the neoliberal complex of marketability and innovation. if readers are “second-grade” authors of academic scholarship (adema 2021, p. 88), so are the universities who curate and “remix” iterations of our academic selves (adema 2021, p. 86). while these roles are not forged by the same kind of hypertextual engagement, they are both intra-active. this does not guarantee that the relationship between these roles is cohesive or that the academic’s power of selfrepresentation is only partially bound to an essentializing discourse of institutional data and its value. although some systems for career review can be dynamic and hypertextual, they are still highly material in their use, as archives producing data that influences our careers with “instances” of the academic that conform to scripts of institutional persona – each version suits a different purpose that serves efficiency in evaluation or use of my career likeness in public ortiz-vilarelle 18 relations. every use of the system includes and excludes certain bio-data, each an iteration in which nothing is modified but also in which the academic is completely different. if it is generated by the use of the system, it cannot still be my performance, but a portrait of selected features determined by the users understanding of how i might fit the ideal persona for any given institutional purpose. life writing and the creation of the academic self life writing, like the academic, is shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces. its study prepares us to see human agency is a function and concept in which the human can remain a locus of selfhood without being its only, or even primary origin. when our personhood is decentred from our work along with our authority over making meaning about ourselves from within the spaces of our careers – it is de-humanizing rather than post-humanizing. the difference is similar to the relationship between authorship and copyright – one might be the author, yet not retain ownership of the narrative and its uses. the challenge is to retain human agency, not humanist authorship. although adema successfully argues for the post-humanist aims of challenging the authority of a universal being at the centre of our scholarship, and the autobiographical i is widely embraced as a performance of “saying i,” there is no irrefutable barthian “death of the author” for career life writing (barthes 1977, 145). like all life writing, the career document is wholly performative, but it is also person-oriented and its subject is read via occupational outcomes. this performativity is dependent on verifiably “citational” production of “the effect that it names” (butler 2011, p. 2). in generating a reproduction of the institution and the person/a it imposes on academics, the author-subject of the academic career narrative is cornered into a “reiterative [self-]citational practice” that uncritically repeats and reproduces the conditions of power within which it is hailed by the institution (butler 2011, p. 2 annotation and emphasis mine). this performance culture compels the academic to participate in representationalism via documentation to data-fy and quantify. the bio-data entered by faculty can be used to produce outward-facing documents projecting the ideal academic persona with institutional “market value.” sarah ahmed cautions against the normalization of institutions speaking on behalf of the academic, the “institutional isomorphism” that presents lateral, or reciprocal relationships between the academic and the university (2012, p. 206). it is important to clarify that the institution is not the academic and it is not the academic’s agent of self-representation, yet it requires of its scholars a constant stream of digital documentation that enables just that agentic role. in her interviews with university diversity and equity workers in the uk, ahmed shares that many report “document fatigue” from constant exercises in documentation and data management detached from the “doing” the real work of inclusion in the academy (2012, p. 88). their work is reduced to inventorying derivatives – documents that result from documentation. “if documents are the derivative, then their authority can be referred and thus deferred. at the same time, unless documents refer to each other, they do not participate in the documentary world of the institution” (2012, p. 89). ahmed’s study demonstrates what happens to the representation of academic careers when the agency of academics to do so gets transferred and deferred. the process ends in the evaluation of documentation rather than the career of its subject: to treat documents as agents with a life of their own would be to assume that an appearance of agency is an adequate sign of agency. it might even be that giving agency to documents—as if by moving around, they are doing something—allows us not to see how things are stuck. furthermore, if the point of the document is to create a trail, it suggests that in following the trail we are not necessarily getting persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 19 anywhere. all we are following are the signs of where documents have been. (ahmed 2012, p. 206) their value in this economy depends on the ability to add completed projects to the cv as evidence of scholarly productivity – and the more the better. as adema estimates: scholars are still mostly still rewarded on the basis of their publication track record and reputation as individual authors. academic authors on the one hand are turned into commodities while on the other hand they increasingly need to act as entrepreneurs and marketeers of their own “brand.” not the least via social research-sharing websites such as academia.edu and researchgate, which are not arranged around the research that is being shared, to provide just one example, but again, according to author profiles created around publication lists. (2012, p. 82) to this performance-based, competitive persona shaped by a culture of outcomes, the cv “list” is not who an academic is but what an academic does. their existence in the system depends on having contributions to institutional databases the use data in the digitized cv can be problematic. sarah ahmed considers use status and its shaping force on policy and practices governing human lives. in various forms of utility, including misuse, uneven use, and overuse, ahmed examines the extent to which something – or someone – is used and in what ways the object/subject is constructed by and exists within particular uses. all things are shaped by their use but their use is only a partial account of their existence: “even if something is shaped around what it is for, that is not the end of the story […] what happens to those things is not fully decided by what they are for” (2019, p. 24). how does the way that academic institutions use the information entered for career review inform our thinking about academic persona? ahmed’s metaphor of the public restroom stall is helpful to understanding that use and access operate in tandem. just because a stall is vacant, does not mean that it is free for anyone to occupy. access to these spaces is not a matter of their availability but of intended use and one must meet the expectations for intended use. even before access is denied or granted, it is questioned. therefore, “when your use of a facility is questioned, you are questioned” (2019, p. 31). the stall may be reserved exclusively for a certain class of patrons at a business, for families with small children, for access by those needing specific accommodations, or for a designated gender. use does not equal access and neither does availability for use. like the restroom stall, the spaces of academia need not be in use for them to be unavailable. spaces may be off limits for occupation if the individual seeking access does not meet the expectations for a specific category of use. yet, the academic’s electronic dossier is always available for use under the pretence that availability does, in fact, permit access via a constant transactional discourse of eligibility. those who exist in the system are only eligible for access to specific spaces of opportunity. in the case of the academic data double, it exists to be used, but the academic does not. the academic exists, but not solely according to the purposes for which it is used. it might be said that it is used because it exists in the informatic structures within which it is required to make itself intelligible. their data is in a category of availability for use, already “in use” because it is “of use” in the institution’s projection of success (ahmed 2019, p.30). persona, on the other hand, does it exist to be used, or is it used because it exists? if strictly considered for its use, the persona is fashioned by its use in and by the neoliberal institution. it is made to extend and reproduce itself in the subject who must always occupy its sphere of expectation and potential. ahmed notes that those who most benefit the institution by their availability in such spaces are those who are, in fact, furthest from the norm. those who are the most vulnerable academic ortiz-vilarelle 20 subjects are from bipoc communities are used more in an inverse equation of presence, access, and value by which “those who are less represented are used more to represent the organization” (ahmed 2019, p. 150). their emotional labour, more monitored and more often in use, intensifies ahmed’s assessment that life in the institution is about avoiding death in the institution, one brought on by not being discernible for use in the appropriate database (2019, p. 195). this double-bind by which institutions require networked co-authorship of academics’ career subjectivities is maintained by withholding not only opportunity, or threats of noncompliance. it is by declaring subjects no longer in “use.” those who do not comply are rendered invisible in central reporting systems. moreover, those who resist on the grounds of their “over-use” under the rubric of diversity work, forfeit access to the funding, research time, and advancement available to others who do comply. they jeopardize their presence in spaces where they have been historically denied access. academics and the lived experience of their careers are co-emergent, not fixed into the transactional, aspirant, and competitive personas commodified by the university. the password-protected, digital archives marketed to store academic personnel data promise efficiency, recognition, and even protection from misuse. but from whom if not those bearing witness to the lives inscribed in those digital documents, is this data safeguarded? by reading career documentation as acts of autobiographical assemblage, we confront the burdens and benefits of witnessing one another’s academic lives. end notes 1. this work is part of a 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cultures of privacy, winter verlag, heidelberg, pp. 259-271. —2016, ‘performativity, autobiographical practice, resistance’, in s smith & j watson (eds.) life writing in the long run: a smith and watson autobiography studies reader, ann arbor: michigan publishing services, ann arbor, pp. 261-282. smith, s & watson j 2002, ‘introduction: mapping women’s self-representation at visual/textual interfaces,’ in s smith & j watson (eds.) interfaces: women, autobiography, image, performance, university of michigan, ann arbor, pp. 1-48. smith, s & watson j 2014, ‘virtually me: a toolbox about online self-presentation’, in a poletti & j rak (eds.), identity technologies: constructing the self online, university of wisconsin, madison, pp. 70-98. stanley, l 2000, ‘from ‘self-made women’ to ‘women’s made-selves’?: audit selves, simulation and surveillance in the rise of public woman’, in t cosslett, c lury & p summerfield (eds.), feminism and autobiography: texts theories and methods, routledge, new york: pp. 40-60. lisa ortiz-vilarelle the college of new jersey abstract key words introduction the academic persona as life writing construction of the persona the privacy paradox negotiating the academic self life writing and the creation of the academic self end notes works cited persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 33 a commonwealth princess? the instrumentalization of meghan markle’s race to construct her royal persona jessic a car niel u n i v e r s i t y o f s o u t h e r n q u e e n s l a n d abstract prior to the sussexes’ departure from their roles as senior royals, there was a significant attempt to construct for the duchess of sussex a specific royal persona that can be summarized as the “commonwealth princess”. there were two main purposes to this persona. the first was to use both the duke and duchess of sussex and their popularity to leverage a more modern face to monarchy in the commonwealth. the second purpose, stemming from this, was to maintain and strengthen contemporary relations with commonwealth nations. markle’s biracial identity was an important part of this strategy and persona as it became a means to connect to colonised people of colour. key words race; colonialism; celebrity; royal persona introduction in early 2020, the duke and duchess of sussex – known colloquially as prince harry and meghan markle announced that they would be resigning from their roles as senior royals and departing from the united kingdom. after a brief stay in canada (davison 2020), they eventually resettled in the united states, in markle’s home state of california (evans & reslin 2021). a year later, the sussexes gave a televised interview with oprah that set the world gossiping. one of the more salacious revelations was that a member of the british royal family had questioned their union, asking, but what would the children look like (cbs 2021; the sun 2021)?1 meghan markle, after all, is the first person of colour to marry into the british royal family, a lineage complicit in the historical and ongoing colonisation of people of colour worldwide. from the outset, markle’s (bi)racial identity as well as her national identity as an american – presented a core problematic to the firm for constructing her royal persona, in part because the main socio-political register for reading her race was colonial in nature (ducey & feagin 2021; andrews 2021; andrews 2017; lynch 2019). although these “colonial undertones” (lynch 2019) were criticised by the sussexes and their supporters, these undertones were also instrumentalised by both the sussexes and the firm (as the “business” of the british royal family is known). that is, prior to the sussexes’ departure from their roles as senior royals in early 2020, there was an ongoing attempt to carniel 34 instrumentalise the duchess of sussex’s race by the firm as a strategy to construct a legitimate space for meghan markle in the eyes of the british public and the press, and, at a higher symbolic level, to maintain and strengthen contemporary relations with the commonwealth of nations. in this article, i argue that both meghan markle’s celebrity and royal personas each incorporated her racial identity, but the latter instrumentalised it to construct a space for markle that reinforced rather than challenged the royal brand (otnes & maclaran 2015). critical race theory (crt) further illuminates how public personas correspond to social structures and systems, including race relations. personas can be used to disrupt or to challenge the status quo of these relations. crt also offers an understanding of how royal personas are constructed in a manner that is adjacent to but distinct from that of celebrity, as illustrated by markle’s transition between these two persona forms. markle’s racial identity is referred to throughout the article as “biracial” as this is the identification markle herself employs (markle 2016b). she is also referred to throughout the article primarily as meghan markle in recognition of the distinct celebrity persona she had cultivated independently prior to her relationship with prince harry and of the agency she exhibited in that process (marshall & barbour 2015). this also allows us to conceptualise “the duchess of sussex”, and its subset the “commonwealth princess”, as a separate royal persona that drew selectively on elements of the celebrity persona “meghan markle”. we might hypothesise that markle’s current public persona since stepping down from royal duties is now a hybrid of the two, wherein her agency arguably compromised by the rigidity of the royal institution and its publicity mechanisms – has been reinstated. the article opens with a discussion of methodology, celebrity and royal personas as interrelated concepts, and the usefulness of critical race theory in thinking about the racialized british social structure that markle entered. it then explores markle’s celebrity persona prior to her marriage, focusing specifically on the role that racial identity played in her narrativisation of self through her blog and commissioned pieces for other publications. markle’s explicit selfidentification as biracial has been a point of personal agency for markle, but it has also complicated her professional roles as both an actress and as a royal. the cultivation of the “commonwealth princess” by the firm as a specific role for markle’s royal persona sought to carve for her a symbolic function that made sense within the british social order of monarchy and colonialism, but that did not subvert it. methodology we can identify two phases in markle’s persona work prior to her departure from royal duties in 2020: her celebrity phase and her royal phase; her persona work following the sussexes’ departure from their roles as senior royals signals a third phase that is not dealt with in this article. as persona is a mediatized phenomenon, this study focuses on publicly available media texts that contribute to an understanding of how meghan markle’s celebrity and royal personas have been both constructed and received. this includes sources authored by markle herself, such as her blog and commissioned magazine articles, social media accounts, official websites for members of the royal family, print and television interviews, and media commentary. the division between texts that contribute to her celebrity persona and those that contribute to her royal persona are roughly chronological, with the demarcation between the two personas located at the point where markle’s blog and personal social media accounts were closed in 2017. this was widely – and correctly – interpreted as preparation for her new role as a member of the royal family. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 35 markle’s blog, the tig, and her articles are particularly useful for understanding her celebrity persona prior to her marriage. her article for darling, titled “it’s all enough” (markle 2018; originally published 2015) reflects on the relationship between ambition and selffulfilment. the first elle article, “i’m more than an other” (markle 2016b; originally published 2015), articulates her biracial identity. the publication of markle’s second elle article, “with fame comes opportunity, but also a responsibility” (2016a), coincides with prince harry’s first statement admonishing the press’ treatment of his partner (vallance 2016). this second elle article, together with the tig, are particularly useful artefacts to examine in understanding markle’s pre-royal celebrity persona as they are her own public articulations of self, identity, and image. the tig ran from 2014 until 2017. it was self-described as “a hub for the discerning palate those with a hunger for food, travel, fashion & beauty” (the tig 2017). markle (2018) also described it as something that “has given me a space to share my own words, to have my own voice”. in its first year, the tig made “best of the web” lists for both elle and instyle. an article in cosmopolitan later suggested that the tig “was well on its way to becoming the next goop—or at least preserve” (barbour 2020), referring to lifestyle blogs by actresses gwyneth paltrow and blake lively, echoing an earlier assessment by vanity fair (duboff 2017). such blogs, ana jorge (2020) argues, use the narration of everyday lives to assist celebrities in the creation of an authentic persona for their audiences and fans. in an interview with instyle magazine regarding the blog’s launch, markle emphasises this notion of authenticity: “i figured that if i was going to start something that was an extension of me, it really needed to feel organic, so i decided to do it myself—i write all of the content myself in order to keep the content feeling authentic” (meepos 2014). authenticity is, as sarah mcrae (2017, p. 24) has found, carefully monitored by blog audiences who can turn on bloggers whose “authenticity labour becomes too laboured,” as this is interpreted as a marker of inauthenticity. she suggests that although persona studies’ important contribution to cultural studies scholarship is its renewed emphasis on personal agency over “collective configurations of meaning” (moore & barbour 2015, p. 8), the incorporation of feedback from publics “can add productive nuance to considerations of the decisions that go into persona work” (mcrae 2017, p. 15). without an ethnographic engagement with markle’s fans, perceptions of her persona and authenticity labour are gleaned from media responses to her blog. while tabloids scanned the blog for missteps and inauthenticity (see, for example, elser 2021), fashion and culture sites (arguably markle’s most consistent media allies) praised the quality of its content, drawing on notions of authenticity and personal insight. vogue australia, for example, frame it as “partly a hobby in that we didn’t see any evidence of her commercialising the blog and yet it was regularly updated and featured everything from delicious recipes to her latest musings on female empowerment” (gay 2020). duboff’s (2017) analysis of the blog soon after markle’s relationship with prince harry was revealed concludes: “upon analysis, a theme emerges: markle seems pretty low-key! for the most part, markle comes off as a practical (if occasionally quite whimsical), individual”. the second phase of markle’s persona, that of the royal persona and its commonwealth princess iteration, is constructed from media reportage, commentary and the select few interviews she has conducted since her engagement and marriage. while “persona work” (marshall, barbour & moore 2019, p. 3) for high profile individuals is often conducted by teams of professional support staff, such as publicists and managers, for celebrities as much as for royals, the modern british royal family is known for its careful mediation of its public image (chaney 2001). that markle’s blog and social media accounts were closed shortly before her engagement indicates a handing-over of that persona work to her royal staff. with the exception carniel 36 of the handful of interviews markle conducted following her engagement, analysis of this royal persona rests predominantly on media reportage, commentary, and official social media accounts for the sussexes. public persona: from celebrity to royal while there is a substantial body of work in celebrity studies engaged with royalty as a particular iteration of celebrity (see, for example, rojek 2001; turner 2004; bennett 2011; logan, hamilton & hewer 2013; randall-moon 2017), similar work in persona studies is relatively new. meghan markle presents an interesting case to examine from the perspectives of both celebrity studies and persona studies, illustrating at once the slippage between the two areas and the unique critical possibilities each offers. the concept of celebrity rests upon a notion of fame that can be experienced and enacted at varying levels. chris rojek’s (2001) typology of celebrity comprises three categories: celebrity that is achieved through talent and accomplishment, celebrity that is attributed through media manufacturing (such as but not limited to reality television celebrities), and ascribed celebrity, that is, fame achieved through heredity rather than talent, skill, or accomplishment; royals fall into this third category. while this understanding of celebrity might readily apply to prince william and prince harry, its application to their commoner wives is less straightforward. furthermore, unlike kate middleton, meghan markle had attained her own celebrity status prior to her relationship. as a working actress, markle was undoubtedly successful but her “celebrity” was minor; as she herself describes, had “never been part of tabloid culture”, living a “relatively quiet life even though [she] was so focused on [her] job” (messer & rothman 2017). this is also reflected in some dimensions of markle’s public reception. for example, the school-aged girls in yelin and paule’s (2021) study distinguished between achieved and ascribed celebrity. they responded positively to markle precisely because they perceived her to be opposite (hardworking, black, and a successful celebritythrough-accomplishment) to their perceptions of the royal family (white, lazy, and ineffectual). the concept of persona is arguably more useful than celebrity for examining the public selves of the british royal family. persona is not contingent upon fame, but it does share with the concept of celebrity a critical tension between the public and the private, and ideas of mediation and construction. persona is something arguably practiced by most, if not all, members of (post)modern society as they negotiate the presentation of self in an increasingly mediatised society. marshall, barbour, and moore (2019, p. 238) define persona as a “strategic public identity that is neither the true individual nor a false individual…it is a performance of the self for strategies to be used in some public setting”. they emphasise that persona is not synonymous with celebrity, but argue for an understanding of celebrity as a subset of persona (marshall, barbour & moore 2019, p. 4). in addition to how their celebrity is attained, the royal family’s symbolic status in british society necessitates the cultivation of a public identity that serves their symbolic role in a manner that differs from standard celebrity (maclaran & otnes 2020). these public identities are constructed differently for each member of the senior royal ranks, particularly if we consider their assignment of duties as both aligning to and reinforcing their designated persona. perhaps the best equivalent is marshall, barbour, and moore’s (2019, p. 3) example of the politician whose persona might be constructed to strengthen their appeal to the specifics of their constituency. royals, however, differ yet again. unlike politicians, they are not elected to their role so do not have to appeal to constituents in quite the same way. nevertheless, in an era where the institution of the monarchy is frequently questioned and debated, the firm has a vested interest in cultivating and maintaining personas that reinforce persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 37 the monarchy’s significance and relevance to modern british and commonwealth societies (turner 2004; randall-moon 2017; maclaran & otnes 2020). understanding celebrity via its relationship to persona places focus on the practices and processes of constructing and presenting a public self within the particular cultural and economic context of the celebrity industry (turner 2004). similarly, thinking about royal celebrity and royal persona highlights the specific context of the british royal family as its own peculiar industry. the firm (the ‘business’ of the royal family, including the professional support staff that manage their image, among other things) is differentiated from the family (that is, the very human people related to one another), and the institution (the symbolic function of the monarchy that impacts the business decisions made by the firm). royal personas are shaped by the needs and requirements of the firm and the institution. ideally, each individual person should contribute to and be consistent within the royal brand (otnes & maclaran 2015), which maclaran and otnes (2020, p. 14) characterize as “one of the world’s most famous heritage brands”. the entry of markle into the royal family highlighted the ethnoracial dimension of that concept of heritage, necessitating the development of a royal persona that could help align that heritage with the extant brand. examining british society via critical race theory although critical race theory (crt), originating in the united states, has struggled to gain cache in british scholarship (meghji 2020), it is nevertheless useful for analysing the dynamics of race and the social structure of race in british society. this, in turn, illuminates how markle’s racial identity presented a challenge to public perceptions of the monarchy and its heritage. richard delgado, jean stefancic, and angela harris (2017, pp. 8-9) identify three main tenets to crt. first, racism is ordinary: that is, it is part of the everyday fabric of social life and therefore difficult to address as its ordinariness can render it almost invisible to those who do not wish to see it. second, it is driven by material determinism, which means that those that benefit from it both white elites, who benefit materially, and working-class whites, who benefit psychically have little incentive to eradicate it. third, it posits race and racism as the products of social thought and relations. this forms the activist impetus of crt as social thought and relations can be changed, but such change needs to work against both the ordinariness of racism and the unwillingness of those who benefit from it to change the status quo. eduardo bonillasilva’s contribution to crt, the “racialised social system”, is particularly useful for understanding how race and persona intersect. he argues that “racialisation forms a real structure — that racialised groups are hierarchically ordered and ‘social relations’ and ‘practices’ emerge that fit the position of the groups in the racial regime” (bonilla-silva 2015, p. 75). in seeking to find a place for crt in understanding british society, sociologist ali meghji (2020, p. 352; original emphasis) draws specifically on bonilla-silva’s racialised social system to argue that “race is a central principle of vision in british social space”. they highlight several instances of microaggressions against black brits: black politicians mistaken for cleaners in parliament, black celebrities eyed askance in the first-class carriage of a train, and black alumni treated suspiciously when visiting their top tier universities. in addition to illustrating the mundaneness of racism, meghji’s examples all hold something important in common: the black individuals are perceived to be transgressing elite spaces of british society that have been historically constructed as white. the british royal family is such a space par excellence, so it is perhaps unsurprising that meghan markle was perceived as an interloper in that space, particularly in media reportage (see also ducey & feagin 2021). carniel 38 within a week of their courtship being made public in 2016, prince harry felt compelled to release an official statement via his communications secretary condemning both media and public commentary on markle as “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments” and the numerous instances of invasion of privacy and even safety for markle, her family, and her friends (vallance 2016). in their first post-engagement interview with the bbc, markle characterised the fixation on her race by the media as “disheartening” (messer & rothman 2017). despite this public intervention, the vitriol against markle continued. in march 2019, the royal family, clarence house, and kensington palace released a set of social media community guidelines for their social media channels. both the duchess of cornwall and the duchess of sussex in particular had been the subject of sexist and racist comments. in october that year, prince harry yet again made a statement on the british press’ treatment of his wife, connecting it also to the death of his mother, princess diana, as a result of being hounded by paparazzi (windsor 2019). this statement coincided with the beginning of markle’s law suit against the british tabloid, the daily mail, for publishing a letter she had written to her estranged father. a few weeks later, markle admitted to itv’s tom bradby, who is also a friend of prince harry’s, that she had been struggling to cope with the media scrutiny while also adapting to her new roles both as a mother and as member of the royal family (itv 2019). later that month, 72 women british mps signed an open letter to the duchess of sussex to express their solidarity with her in her battle against the british press. they specifically call out “what can only be described as outdated, colonial undertones” to the stories in the press (lynch 2019). markle’s entry into british society coincides with a period of heightened tensions around immigration, xenophobia, and amplified british exceptionalism, of which brexit is arguably a symptom rather than a cause. claire alexander and bridget byrne (2020, p. 9) observe that the last british census in 2011 revealed an ethnically, racially, and religiously diverse britain where “migration and multiculturalism form part of the mundane fabric of everyday life,” yet highlight that a deeper examination of british society reveals how social structures and attitudes have still not yet adjusted to address ongoing issues of racial and ethnic inequality, discrimination, and racism. as paul gilroy (2002, p. xii) observes in the revised introduction to his germinal ain’t no black in the union jack (original 1987), “today, britain’s black and other minority settlers still constitute a problem”. markle’s race certainly seemed to constitute a “problem” for many. rachael mclennan (2021) engages with the metaphor of a “wrinkle”, used in a vanity fair profile of markle, to explore the challenge markle’s biracial identity represented to british society and the royal family. wrinkles, mclennan (2021, p. 1) explains, are “disruptive, and must be ‘resolved’”, yet they are also considered minor issues that are smoothed over. as a result, it: reduces the complexities of the inclusion of a biracial woman in the british royal family to a ‘wrinkle,’ a minor issue that glosses over racism in relation to the royal family as institution, and in relation to british cultural attitudes. (mclennan 2021, p. 2) maria pramaggiore and páraic kerrigan also use the notion of disruption. they argue that markle was branded almost from the outset as a “disruptive duchess” that was furthermore imbued with “a not-so veiled racism through the longstanding trope of angry black women” (pramaggiore & kerrigan 2021, p. 1). the idea of disruption is, of course, not part of the official persona constructed for the duchess of sussex, but it is arguably an element of markle’s preduchess persona. after all, a dedication to social justice and humanitarianism requires an persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 39 element of disruption to social structures and attitudes that perpetuate inequality. importantly, pramaggiore and kerrigan’s (2021, p. 4) analysis extends beyond the idea of markle’s race or even her politics as disruptive to highlight how markle herself is framed as disruptive and centred within royal family drama to “downplay…the ways her intersectional identities and humanitarian work enable her to speak to structural racism and gendered inequality on the global stage”. conversely, markle’s disruptiveness has also be framed positively. yelin and paule (2021, p. 2) suggest that markle “represents an intervention into a ‘princess culture’ that is repressively class, gendered and racialised”. similarly, connor (2021, p. 5) observes that “meghan markle’s entry into the monarchy as a woman of colour and potential ‘disruptor’ represented an important challenge to the status quo”, although she also cautions again reifying her influence too much as markle’s actual (as opposed to symbolic) power in the system is minimal, as also argued by buggs (2021) and andrews (2021). some public commentators optimistically heralded the union as a shift toward a modern british monarchy. for example, british mp david lammy (2018) tweeted of the wedding, “a beautiful service and a beautiful couple. making my beautiful mixed heritage family’s shoulders stand a little taller. against the odds a great new symbol of all that is still possible and hopeful in modern britain”. writing in british vogue before the sussex wedding, afua hirsch describes markle’s experiences growing up biracial as “powerfully resonant with [her] own” (hirsch & croft 2018). she highlights how the royal family function as “a blank canvas on to which we, as british people, paint our feelings, fantasies, fears and identities” (hirsch & croft 2018); the implication is that markle opens up that projection for all brits, not just those who are white. hirsch’s (2018) commentary in time is somewhat more circumspect, observing, “there is discernible weariness among some black british people that the idea of a biracial woman’s joining the royal family would make any discernible difference to race in britain, where the odds remain stacked against people of color”. by the time of their departure from their senior royal roles, hirsch (2020) was “not at all surprised” that “the racism of the british establishment” had driven markle out. the importance of race in their conceptualisation of modernity positions traditional structures that maintain white hierarchies as outdated. more than an other: markle’s articulation of a biracial self writing for elle magazine in 2015, markle articulated the challenges of her biracial identity in american society and as an actress. although it was not her first foray into the topic it regularly surfaced in her personal posts on the tig the essay marks her most in-depth and widely published exploration of her identity. she wrote, “i wasn’t black enough for the black roles and i wasn’t white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn’t book a job” (markle 2016b). early in the essay, markle recalls being told by her seventh-grade teacher to check “caucasian” in a class census “because that is how you look, meghan” (markle 2016b). although her parents were divorced by this stage, markle’s father was incensed to learn of his daughter’s experience: “if that happens again, you draw your own box” (markle 2016b). markle uses “draw[ing her] own box” as an analogy for carving out a post-racial identity and claiming agency in this process. markle identifies quite explicitly as biracial. her mother, doria ragland, is black and her father, thomas markle, from whom she is infamously estranged, is white. as the essay details, this has led to a variety of experiences that illuminate a binary racial politics in america that had not made adequate room for the realities of its people and their history. markle embraces biraciality as a specific identity, rejecting the notion that it relegates her to “other”, whether that carniel 40 is in demographic categorisation or social acceptance. it is only since the 2000 us census several years after markle’s classroom census that americans were able to identify as more than one race. studies have found that denying the option to choose a bior multiracial identity is “associated with lower self-esteem and decreased motivational outcomes” (townsend et al 2012, p. 91). certainly, markle’s (2016b) own narrative of racial identification illustrates this; she leaves the box blank, “a question mark, an absolute incomplete much like how i felt”. the essay then works to detail how markle (2016b) was able to emerge from the “grey area surrounding [her] self-identification” to find agency and empowerment in having “a foot on both sides of the fence”. as buggs (2021, p. 2) observes, markle’s biraciality provides “agency in its ambiguity”. yet as an actress, she was later classed as “ethnically ambiguous” (markle 2016b), which technically opened up both latina and black roles to her but, as the quote above indicates, equally closed off other roles from her because she was never perceived as quite enough one thing or another to fit stereotyped expectations of characters. she credits her eventual success in suits to its colourblind casting process, wherein they sought the character not an ethnic or racial type. the character of rachel zane was then written to be biracial around her, although not all viewers realised this until dark-skinned actor wendell pierce appeared as her father in the second season. markle recalls a variety of racist responses from viewers denying that she or her character were black to others claiming that they found her unattractive now that they knew that she was. she reflected, “the reaction was unexpected, but speaks of the undercurrent of racism that is so prevalent, especially within america” (markle 2016b). despite markle’s characterisation of biraciality as a source of personal empowerment, kehinde andrews (2021, p. 5) cautions against “solidifying the category of mixed race”. he argues that the majority of those descended from the enslaved, such as markle herself, are likely to be mixed to some extent: “designating someone as mixed because they have one white parent reifies the idea of race itself: that the mixing of two different heritages creates something new, different and remarkable” (andrews 2021, p. 5). these concerns are supported by the findings of nikki khanna’s (2011) study of biracial identities and the practice of symbolic ethnicity. participants frequently claimed their white ethnic heritages as a means of differentiating their identities beyond the presumption of what their blackness signified to others. that is, because their blackness is what is initially perceived, claiming their white ethnicities becomes an important practice for articulating the complexities of their identities; the implication of this is that their black identities are homogenous. khanna (2011, p. 1063) concludes that participants’ assertion of biracial identities “do more than navigate the existing american racial hierarchy that relegates blacks to the lowest rung; their actions also reproduce the hierarchy”. in contrast to andrews’ and khanna’s wariness of valorising mixed-race discourse, māori scholar helene connor demonstrates how markle’s embrace of her mixed heritage was actually an important source of connection and kinship in the māori reception of meghan markle. connor identifies intermarriage and its resulting biraciality, characterised within the context of new zealand’s official biculturalism (bell 2006; sibley & liu 2007), as important to māori history and identity. she states, “meghan’s bi-culturalism gives her greater symbolic power, as she is seen to represent an experience of biculturalism that is relatable and, for māori, universal” (connor 2021, p. 2). while connor’s (2021, pp. 3-5) examples from the new zealand reception of markle while on the sussexes’ commonwealth tour in late 2018 certainly support her observation, it is nevertheless important to acknowledge the complexities of new zealand’s colonial and migration history and the operations of race within these. for example, adalgisa giorgio and carla houkamau’s (2021) study of māori italians found that while participants persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 41 embraced hybridity as a source of empowerment, they were still vulnerable to racism and marginalisation from both māori and pakeha (settler) communities. for members of new zealand society who share similar experiences to giorgio and houkamau’s participants they cite several studies about other ethnic groups that reached similar conclusions about biracial and bicultural hybridity in new zealand (cited in giorgio & houkamau 2021) markle may indeed have represented a relatable experience of biraciality, but for others she might have represented marginalisation. whether a source of relatability or marginalisation, markle’s mixed identity was nevertheless perceived as less extraordinary in new zealand than it was in the united kingdom, but also charged with an entirely different politics of race than that of the united states. the differing perspectives of andrews and connor as british and new zealand scholars respectively highlight the specificity of racial politics even within the commonwealth and it is important to emphasise that that these are examples from only two sites. unlike her experience with casting agents, as a member of the british royal family, there was nothing ambiguous about markle’s race. furthermore, she was an american and a divorcee, not a historically strong position to have amongst this particular set of in-laws. markle was thus marked by both her skin colour and her accent as other to that elite context, and her behaviour was scrutinised for evidence of her unsuitability, more so than kate middleton before her, criticisms of whom were primarily (and arguably misguidedly) class-based (lawler 2008; repo & yrjölä 2015). pramaggiore and kerrigan (2021, p. 2) observe that comparisons by the press between markle and wallis simpson, the woman for whom king edward viii abdicated in 1936, worked to present markle “as a threat to the very institution of the monarchy”. given this context, it was important to mitigate the narrative of markle as a threat and instead present her as a potentially unifying figure for the commonwealth. the commonwealth princess: a persona to smooth the “problem” of markle’s race prior to the sussexes’ eventual departure, the firm’s strategy seemed to be to instrumentalise precisely the aspect of markle that was problematic: her race. if markle’s race could not be hidden, it needed to be made useful. in addition to the usefulness of connecting to a racially diverse british public, markle’s race was a potential strategy to maintain and strengthen contemporary relations with commonwealth nations. as a whitehall insider was reported to observe regarding a rumour that markle would attend the 2018 commonwealth heads of government meeting (chogm) in london: the royals pack a formidable soft power punch around the world as it is, but meghan’s presence at the summit would propel chogm coverage to the front pages…which is just what we want when projecting a positive vision of britain overseas. (samhan 2018) as part of the chogm proceedings, held one month before the sussex wedding, it was announced that prince harry and markle would take on the role of commonwealth youth ambassadors (gonzales 2018). in his inaugural speech in this role, prince harry emphasised an image of a youthful, environmentally-conscious, connected and, importantly, diverse commonwealth, and deliberately mentions meghan’s excitement to be joining him in this role (dunn 2018). the sussexes’ role in the commonwealth was cemented with a sixteen-day tour of the commonwealth, as well as taking on the further role of president and vice-president of the queen’s commonwealth trust (sussex royal n.d.), which supports young people’s activities toward change in their communities (queen’s commonwealth trust n.d.) and which was amongst the last of their official duties that they relinquished. markle’s potential and her carniel 42 willingness to take on duties in the commonwealth as a core part of her royal role is indicated by her wedding veil, which was embroidered with the flowers of the commonwealth. this reportedly surprise detail apparently pleased both prince harry and his family (mackelden 2018). in a 2018 hbo documentary, interestingly titled queen of the world, markle stated, “we [the sussexes] understand how important this is for us and the role that we play, and the work that we're going to continue to do within the commonwealth countries” (cited in mackeldan 2018). markle had also spoken enthusiastically about their role in the commonwealth as early as the sussexes’ first interview with the bbc following their engagement (messer & rothman 2017). that this is framed in light of her humanitarianism is, perhaps, telling of how the commonwealth is constructed and perceived by the firm, but these elements were also highlighted in other media coverage of markle’s commonwealth role (gonzales 2018). the optics resulting from the sussexes’ first tour of the commonwealth and their later tour of africa were less problematic than those of the cambridges’ tour in 2012. in both tuvalu and the solomon islands, prince william and kate middleton were carried on thrones; while this can be understood as a traditional interaction, the colonial implications are clear. as holly randall-moon (2017, p. 405) observes, media reporting on prince william’s royal visits to commonwealth nations “focuse[s] on his ability to adapt to local (indigenous) customs while maintaining a curative aura of divine charisma”. she argues that the use of celebrity tropes to frame prince william “displaces the racialised and religious sovereign features of monarchy”, and further legitimises ongoing colonialism (randall-moon 2017, p. 405). although the optics might be better – there were no thrones on the sussexes’ tour – the effect of the sussexes’ presence is not only the same but arguably more problematic because a reading of the duke and duchess of sussex and markle specifically as the more appropriate sovereign representatives in the commonwealth rests upon an essentialised reading of markle’s race. the centrality of the commonwealth to the sussexes’ future role, as planned by the firm, was foreshadowed as early as their first interview with the bbc after their engagement, and resurfaces as part of the interview with oprah in 2021. this interview in particular indicates markle’s willingness to inhabit the commonwealth princess role, and her particular suitability because of her race. she frames herself as a potential role model for young girls of colour and suggests that the firm had lost an advantage in this space: i would meet [young women of colour] in our time in the commonwealth, how much it meant to them to be able to see someone who looks like them . . .  in this position. and i could never understand how it wouldn’t be seen as an added benefit… and a reflection of the world today. at all times, but especially right now, to go — ‘how inclusive is that, that you can see someone who looks like you in this family, much less one who’s born into it?’ (the sun 2021) as andrews (2021, pp. 3-4) argues, the royal family’s “whiteness is not a coincidence, it is the point....celebrating a black princess may make us feel better, but it does not change any of the realities of structural racism”. the idea of the commonwealth princess role for markle – or the “post-racial princess” for andrews (2021, p. 2) – does not solve the problematics of postcolonial race relations in either the uk or other commonwealth nations, but in many ways reinforces them. after all, the argument that, as a princess of colour, she represents something to which young girls of colour can aspire to rests upon the maintenance of the monarchy and the commonwealth as institutions, not their disruption or dismantling. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 43 conclusion meghan markle’s transition from celebrity to royal offers rich material for exploring the slippage between celebrity and persona, and the royal subset of these categories. all personas are strategic public identities (marshall, moore & barbour 2015), but royal personas in particular need to serve the symbolic role and status of the royal family and monarchy in british society. as a celebrity marrying into the british royal family, she brought her achieved celebrity into a context of ascribed celebrity (rojek 2001), but perhaps more importantly, she brought with her an established celebrity persona. while royalty and celebrity might share the concept of fame, a celebrity persona does not immediately adapt into a royal persona because of the significant differences in their socio-cultural and political functions, as well as the specificities of the celebrity industry versus the institution of the monarchy and the business of the firm. royal persona requires a new strategy and a reshaping of public identity to fit the requirements of not just the individual role, but the overarching brand and narrative of the royal family (otnes & maclaran 2015; maclaran & otnes 2020). markle was both a challenge and an opportunity to those working to cultivate the royal brand and its associated personas, such as their publicity and communications staff. she was an opportunity to push a more modern face for the royal family, but she was also a challenge because, fanned by british tabloid culture, her racial identity itself signaled a transgression and disruption of the ‘tradition’ of the monarchy – a tradition built upon race and empire (pramaggiore & kerrigan 2021). the british royal family serves as a blank canvas for the british people to project their “feelings, fantasies, fears, and identities” (hirsch & croft 2018). both fears of the other and change, and fantasies of inclusion and modernity were projected on markle throughout her brief career as a working royal. markle’s otherness her work ethic, her race, her nationality positions her outside the royal family while still being an insider due to her marriage. this insider-outsider tension reflects the dynamics of commonwealth belonging both within the united kingdom and in those nations outside of it. aided in part by the celebrity persona markle had carefully curated prior to her relationship with prince harry, the firm coopted markle’s existing public self, particularly her racial identity, to diffuse criticism of the royal family as outdated in the context of contemporary british society and the modern commonwealth (randall-moon 2017). the commonwealth princess iteration of markle’s royal persona signaled an instrumentalization of markle’s race by the firm to carve for her a symbolic function that made sense within the british social order of monarchy and colonialism. despite its appearance of modernity and progress, this persona functioned to maintain rather than to subvert the status quo. end notes 1 american journalist christopher andersen alleges in an unauthorised biography of the cambridges and the sussexes, released 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elsevier, p.102456.references presented in reference style. hanging format. single spaced. no space after each entry. duplicate names marked with m-dash. follow referencing guide on ps website. https://www.royal.uk/statement-communications-secretary-prince-harry https://www.royal.uk/statement-communications-secretary-prince-harry https://sussexofficial.uk/ kaipainen 22 ‘it’s what i do’: a close reading of lynsey addario’s instagram profile as digital memoir sini kaipai nen a a l t o u n i v e r s i t y sc ho o l o f a r t s , de s ig n a n d a r c h i t e c t u r e abstract this close reading of the public persona outlines how high-profile war photojournalist lynsey addario articulated ‘it’s what i do’ in her public instagram account construed as an ongoing digital memoir. addario’s instagram profile and her formal journalistic memoir, it’s what i do: a photographer’s life of love and war (2015), are fluid continuums of different forms and features that support, authenticate, and promote her public work persona, using various visual and literary techniques to articulate ‘it’s what i do’. through self-life-writing, addario blurs the distinction between public and private and incorporates her personal life into her work. the strategies common to autobiographical journalism, self-lifewriting, and celebrity culture substantiate, authenticate, and promote her brand. yet, complicating the professional life and persona with personal and intimate performances does not happen without critical concerns such as intimisation and celebritisation of conflict photojournalism. findings shed light on public persona work in professional photojournalism through personalised, visual, and branded auto/biographical content on instagram. key words instagram; photojournalism; self-presentation; work persona; professional intimacy; self-lifewriting introduction –the meanings of ‘it’s what i do’ journalism professionals increasingly share aspects of their private lives and themselves within the public, intimate spaces of social media (steensen 2016). journalistic practice may benefit from persona and presentational media forms such as instagram accounts (marshall 2014). professional war photojournalists have begun to seek ways to reform their positions and roles, introducing challenging yet possibly productive hybridisation to their practice (solaroli 2016, 2017; see alper 2014). there is a need to qualitatively investigate the meanings of mixing the professional life and persona with publicly personal performances within an instagram profile. the study takes the perspective of persona studies to extend examinations of photojournalistic persona performances on instagram in professional photojournalism, thus further widening the field of auto/biography studies. in the present paper, i provide a close reading of the high-profile war photojournalist lynsey addario’s public instagram account. in her instagram portfolio, addario uses her private or personal life to authenticate and promote her public photojournalistic persona as both a pulitzer prize-winning photojournalist and author of a journalistic memoir, it’s what i do: a persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 23 photographer’s life of love and war (2015). my contribution to the scholarly dialogue comes from (a) a close reading of how addario creates a public photojournalistic persona and (b) a particular focus on instagram as the platform on which her self-branding through self-lifewriting occurs. addario’s self-branding practices are similar to those of many other public professionals who incorporate their personal life into their work to attract and consolidate interest in their public personas. indeed, the strategy is a well-trodden path for professional individuals who aim to take advantage of their professional life and persona with intimate performances. for example, star politicians showcase their everyday life in self-life-writing media forms as an ideological, rhetorical tool deployed for political purposes, and portray themselves as ‘ordinary’ and ‘approachable’. like a celebrity politician (abidin 2017; lalancette & raynauld 2019; street 2004; wheeler 2013), a high-profile photojournalist can also use the strategies of celebrity culture (driessens 2013; marshall 2010) to present a particular version of themselves by means of personalised, visual, and branded auto/biographical content on instagram. yet, personal and intimate persona performances are a double-edged sword acting both for and against addario’s professional brand and practice. addario’s subjective, constructed, and curated persona performances of her everyday life, personal habits, and intimate emotions may undermine her photojournalism. instagram can be a slippery tightrope for a war photographer to walk between the professional and the personal (cf. steensen 2016). whilst memoir readers and social media audiences expect the use of these strategies to construct intimacy and realness, readers of photojournalism do not necessarily do so. the personal and intimate can undermine a photojournalist and their brand, especially in professional conflictrelated photojournalism. the practice of blurring the distinction between public and private may be viewed within professional photojournalism as de-professionalisation. on instagram, this can lead to credibility issues and more generally a lack of trust in the practitioner’s professional presence or journalistic contributions. one can read these personal and intimate persona performances as evidence of the intimisation and celebritisation of professional photojournalism. on the other hand, navigating between professional, personal, and intimate registers (barbour 2015; marshall et al. 2020), as i will argue, establishes objectivity based on subjectivity. the strategies commonly used in autobiographical journalism, self-life-writing, and celebrity culture can be interpreted as a prerequisite for authenticity, creating the impression of realness and offering transparency to addario’s public persona performances. i suggest that addario’s publicly shared, personal lived and felt experiences and the different roles she shows herself inhabiting inside and outside her profession offer a more truthful expression of herself and her practice. addario’s instagram profile and her book are fluid continuums of different forms and features to support, authenticate, and promote her public work persona articulating ‘it’s what i do’. this article examines how addario performs a professional ‘holistic’ self within her instagram profile and also, to a lesser extent, within her formal written memoir, it’s what i do (2015). i analyse the ways in which addario articulates ‘it’s what i do’ across her self-lifewriting. i investigate what the publicly narrated and performed ‘i’ is trying to demonstrate with this performative argument. the phrase ‘it’s what i do’ refers both to the hashtag and the name of her book. before and after publishing the written memoir, addario started to use the branded hashtag #itswhatido to frame some of her instagram posts. kaipainen 24 reading intimate professional performances my reading distinguishes between the professional, personal, and intimate registers within this photojournalistic celebrity figure’s public performances. to some extent, i echo barbour’s (2015, pp. 57–69) and marshall et al.’s (2020, pp. 65–67) views of these three registers. ‘professional’ refers to the occupational, expert knowledge of a field of work (including its normative models of quality and ethics), and membership of a specific social group(s) (barbour 2015; marshall et al. 2020). ‘personal’ implies hobbies, interests, off-duty events, and activities undertaken outside photojournalism (barbour 2015; marshall et al. 2020). i also connect the personal and intimate to the informal, sensitive, and intense presentation of values, thoughts, and emotions (barbour 2015; marshall et al. 2020). ‘intimate’ encompasses content related to close acquaintances as well as the private and personal that is traditionally shared, for example, in family photo albums (barbour 2015; marshall et al. 2020). in addition, i distinguish between two types of intimacy: the autobiographical and the professional. ‘autobiographical intimacy’ includes the personal and intimate registers from the private sphere outside professional photojournalism. ‘professional intimacy’ refers to the declared emotional or personal commitment and overt devotion of an individual to their professional group, or to a particular topic and subjects in addario’s case, women in regions of conflict. in this close reading, addario’s instagram account constitutes an ongoing digital memoir. i understand the public display of addario’s journalistic self-presentation in her instagram profile as a part of the narration of autobiographical experience (see cardell et al. 2017). here, ‘addario’ is a strategic construction, a visible articulation of this photojournalistic celebrity figure. i observe a public manifestation of addario’s public persona: as a photojournalist and author; as a first-person narrator-memoirist in her autobiographical text; in her text/act; and through the message, ‘it’s what i do’ (see allen 2017). because of its emphasis on the self (or persona), i prefer ‘self-life-writing’ over the term ‘life writing’. i use the word ‘memoir’, but my understanding of ‘autobiographical’ follows the definition of ‘self-life-writing’ from smith and watson (2010, pp. 18–19). their self-life-writing comes close to miller’s understanding of genre (1984, pp. 151–167), which centres on the social action the genre accomplishes instead of seeing, for instance, memoir as a fixed unitary form. as smith and watson state, the self-(re)presentation of autobiographical texts can take many appearances using various features from the novel, biography, and history “as narrators selectively engage their lived experience and situate their social identities through personal storytelling” (2010, p. 18). i add photography, journalism, and photojournalism to smith and watson’s list. i observe the autobiographical texts for what they do rather than what they are (smith & watson 2010). addario’s instagram profile and book are fluid continuums of different forms and features that support, authenticate, and promote her public work persona, using various visual and literary techniques to articulate ‘it’s what i do’. addario highlights her profession publicly in the intimate public sphere of instagram by blurring the distinction between public and private. the themes and content of many of the posts are the same as in her formal journalistic memoir, it’s what i do (2015), but the book was published after she created the instagram profile. according to my data, addario shared the first posts on 1 august 2012 (a total of six posts likely to be taken via hipstamatic, a digital photography application). these initial images are highly personal and private, suggesting that her account was initially private but later changed to be public. on her instagram portfolio, she incorporates her personal life into her work. by alternating the content of posts between the public-and-professional and the private-andpersona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 25 personal, addario sets the rhythm of publishing content from outside her professional life and content specifically related to her public work and profession. she navigates between professional, personal, and intimate registers within her promotional persona performances on instagram. whether the instagram imagery showcases her photojournalism or reveals glimpses of her everyday life behind the public facade, addario employs intimacy, both autobiographical and professional, to create an emotional relationship and social connection with her readers. her public persona work is an intended, framed, and assembled testimony of ‘it’s what i do’ for public consumption. the intimate glimpses of a ’real’ life “i” publicising the private from her public persona are curated versions of her life and herself. whilst some of her experiences, thoughts, and emotions may appear personal and private, addario shares them for public purposes. i have treated addario as a public figure and her instagram account as a publication. the instagram data that i consider covers 807 manually collected visual posts on addario’s account between 1 august 2012 and 30 may 2017.1 i look at the totality of her instagram profile during this period, including the platform’s particular features such as captions and hashtags. i exclude the comments from other users that addario received on her posts. when reading her persona performances on instagram, i rely on what addario has marked in her posts and what i can see and interpret in these visual texts. photojournalist as celebrity-memoirist and western feminist addario is a star photojournalist of the digital visual era. american photo magazine has nominated her as one of the five most influential photographers of the past 25 years, stating that “addario changed the way we saw the world’s conflict” (the international photography hall of fame and museum 2021). as a well-known and prize-winning photojournalist in conflict photojournalism, an influential instagrammer, and author of a journalistic memoir, it’s what i do (2015), addario’s achievements have made her a public figure of interest. she has visibility in the media over and above her photojournalism profession with a public persona created by means of self-life-writing. for these reasons, i consider addario a celebrity. the journalist-as-celebrity who publishes autobiographies to offer interpretations of themselves and their views is not a new phenomenon (russell 1995). war photographer robert capa (1913–1954) is a fine example of a photojournalist who expressed himself through memoir, publishing slightly out of focus: the legendary photojournalist’s illustrated memoir of world war ii in 1947. according to whitlock (2006), a memoir is for those with cultural capital and “who have acquired cultural legitimacy and influence” (p. 20). in this whitlockian sense, addario reinforces and maximises her professional status using the form of memoir to articulate ‘it’s what i do’. capitalising on her existing reputation as one of the most influential war photographers of the twenty-first century, addario uses both her instagram portfolio and her memoir to assert her social and professional status and maintain and promote her brand. journalists and celebrity feminists (among other public figures) build their brands by telling personal stories as their effective self-promotion and marketing strategy (kenny 2018; horwitz & daily 2019). revealing intimate sides of public work and roles is an established technique across self-life-writing by celebrities and public figures. horwitz and daily (2019, p. 90) argue that the glances into the ‘real-life’ of celebrity feminists allow the reader to develop an emotional relationship with them: the repeated positioning of celebrity feminists such as addario as (extra)ordinary is a meaningful strategy to attract attention and use it to the benefit of their political causes. kaipainen 26 focusing on women’s issues, addario has covered conflicts for the new york times, the new york times magazine, newsweek, and national geographic (kaplan 2014). she has earned her reputation as a conflict photographer, according to time, by “witnessing the true human cost of war, particularly for women across the world” (king & laurent 2015). addario continues the western feminist tradition of raising awareness of other women’s intimate life stories in conflict zones (zakaria 2016). so, whilst the fact that a strategy is used by feminists does not necessarily mean that the strategy itself is feminist, i interpret addario’s persona work in professional photojournalism and self-life-writing as an act of western feminism. her self-lifewriting as a feminist is not the same as feminist life writing. however, there are moments and features where her tactics serve particular feminist purposes across her self-life-writing, for example, driving the feminist goals of defining, defending, and establishing equal rights for women, or challenging the normative expectations and representations which constrain women (see figure 6). when addario uses her personal experiences across her self-life-writing in the sense that the personal is political, we can see her participation in western forms of feminism. giving voice and thus value to her subjectivity, she presents the different aspects of her life as a war photojournalist and woman with emotional sensitivity and intensity. addario uses professional, personal, and intimate registers, with autobiographical and professional intimacy, not only in promoting her public persona but also in advocating woman-to-woman solidarity, for instance, by raising issues important to women in conflict zones. addario mixes her life and persona with the intimate stories of other women, yet not without criticism. addario is branding her story using the genre of memoir, but is it always her/story to tell and share? in an article for the nation, zakaria (2016) questions the status of conflict-related reporting as a feminist project. zakaria (2016) criticises western female journalists, naming addario, for the way in which they gain intimate access to the spaces of muslim women in the name of journalism and feminism: the western journalists have built their careers by exposing the lives of other women. the stories may adhere to journalistic ethics yet, their value in promoting woman-to-woman solidarity is, zakaria (2016) argues, questionable. despite its potential for boosting a public persona’s brand or journalistic output, the sharing of such stories by a western photojournalist in their own personal and intimate record is a debatable feminist strategy. we need an ongoing critical discussion about how these stories should be told and shared and by whom in what context. narrating the professional and the personal in a formal memoir addario’s instagram account and book, it’s what i do (2015), function as a continuum of persona work that articulate ‘it’s what i do’ using strategies common to autobiographical journalism, self-life-writing, and celebrity culture. addario’s book presents a grand narrative about “the nature of the work” that “comes before everything else” (addario 2015, p. 107, emphasis hers). addario answers questions about what she is doing in conflict zones, why she works as a photojournalist, and how she does or doesn’t fit into her professional group. social identity derives from the shared knowledge of the group members, in this case photojournalism professionals, together with the value and emotional significance they attach to their membership of the group (tajfel 1982/2010; see also barbour 2015 and marshall et al. 2020). in her memoir, she narrates how she learned to act like a professional, to perform this socially and culturally constructed profession: the truth is that few of us are born into this work. it is something we discover accidentally, something that happens gradually. we get a glimpse of this unusual persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 27 life and this extraordinary profession, and we want to keep doing it, no matter how exhausting, stressful, or dangerous it becomes. it is the way we make a living, but it feels more like a responsibility, or a calling. it makes us happy because it gives us a sense of purpose. we bear witness to history and influence policy. and yet we also pay a steep price for this commitment. (addario 2015, p. 15, emphasis mine) throughout her memoir, addario underlines the importance of collegial relationships for her career. she deploys a plural “we” that situates her firmly within a sphere of like professionals, defining who ”we” are but also telling what ”we” collectively do and why “we” do it. when narrating her professional identity, addario uses discursive triggers of journalistic ideals, phrases such as “as a neutral observer” (2015, p. 99), “i continued documenting the scene” (2015, p. 142), “i witnessed with my own eyes” (2015, p. 242), “be at the right place at the right time” (2015, p. 92), or “in the heart of the story” (2015, p. 255). addario deploys the ideologically loaded words of religion such as “truth”, “obligation”, “commitment”, “mission”, “path”, “responsibility”, “calling”, “purpose”, “passion”, “ambition”, “vision”, “instinct”, and “testimony” when portraying her profession and group membership. she narrates intimate identification with her social and professional identity by talking about the ties, roles, and values within her professional group, creating a sense of connectedness with her fellow professionals. on instagram also, addario emphasises her social identity and profession by posting images of colleagues or sharing posts of herself with colleagues or images of her taken by colleagues. addario’s performative acts confirm her group membership and testify to her trustworthiness, seriousness, and dedication to the field. i connect this to the literary technique of using "we" as the narrative voice in her book. on instagram, the technique promotes not only “it’s what i do” but also “it is who i am, with whom, where, and when”. like the “we” narrated in her book, these acts on instagram demonstrate to the reader addario’s social, professional identity. emphasising her professional membership, she makes herself and her values as a photojournalist visible. as the second half of its title, a photographer’s life of love and war, promises, her book presents the different sides of her life experiences as a war photojournalist and woman. addario builds strategically negotiated ‘authenticity’ by using ‘real-life’ to form an intimacy and connection with her readers (horwitz & daily 2019). she draws attention to the mixed matrix of identity categories whilst positioning herself as a photojournalist who has “the privilege of witnessing things” (addario 2015, p. 22). early in the text, addario narrates her conversion to “this extraordinary profession” (2015, p. 15): until i saw [sebastião] salgado’s exhibition, i wasn’t sure whether i wanted to be a street photographer or a news photographer or whether i could make it as a photographer at all. but when i entered the exhibition space, i was so overcome by his images – the passion, the details, the texture – that i decided to devote myself to photojournalism and documentary photography. something i had perceived until that moment as a simple means of capturing pretty scenes became something altogether different: it was a way to tell a story. it was the marriage of travel and foreign cultures and curiosity and photography. it was photojournalism. until that exhibit, i hadn’t quite known what that was or could be. i hadn’t thought of photography as both art and a kind of journalism. i hadn’t known that kaipainen 28 my hobby could be my life. i knew then that i wanted to tell people’s stories through photos: to do justice to their humanity, as salgado had done; to provoke the kind of empathy for the subjects that i was feeling in that moment. i doubted i would ever be able to capture such pain and beauty in a single frame, but i was impassioned. i walked through the exhibition and cried. (addario 2015, p. 36, emphasis hers) addario narrates her conversion to photojournalism with professional intimacy. therefore, she forms a connection and closeness with her readers. as a side note, on 23 may 2015, addario shared on her instagram profile the image of salgado, expressing her fandom and the excitement of meeting the star. she uses the tags #sebastiaosalgado, @photo_london (an annual photography event in london), and #feellikealittlegirl. in the post, the audience frames the famous photographer signing his books. following familiar traditions of western feminist life writing (see kenny 2018), addario validates her personal experience and agency as a woman in a male-dominated profession. she emphasises the challenges posed by normative expectations and representations of women, revealing intimate sides of her public work and identity roles. the memoir shows her doubts, fears, and the struggle between career and private life as a war photojournalist and woman, in a humanly ‘complete’ presentation of the professional self. addario selectively employs her lived experiences and locates her social identities through personal storytelling (smith & watson 2010). as in her instagram profile, addario uses the roles outside the profession to authenticate and advance her professional persona performance, offering authenticity for her autobiographical narration of ‘it’s what i do’ with autobiographical and professional intimacy. showing private sides of ‘it’s what i do’ on instagram on her instagram profile, addario’s emphasis on the personal and intimate rather than purely professional sides of her work and profession constitutes an effective strategy for self-branding. indeed, as a publication space, instagram favours a certain kind of persona work bringing together the public and the personal by converging public media and personal communication (meikle 2016): to gain visibility, instagram and its users expect a commitment to broadcasting intimacy as a form of testimony (vasey 2013). addario’s ongoing testimony of ‘it’s what i do’ reveals the private and personal sides of her public profession and practice to attract attention to her political causes. to authenticate and promote her professional brand by mixing autobiographical and professional intimacy, addario shares her conflict-related, high-quality images, the result of assignments given by traditional publishers of photojournalism such as time, the new york times, the new york times magazine or national geographic, alongside close-ups taken of snacks during those assignments. she juxtaposes the products of her photojournalism with snapshots from her everyday moments, such as baking saturday morning scones for her family. she attaches her personal opinions and emotions to her photojournalism. thus, her conflictrelated posts become a part of her journalistic self-presentation and ongoing digital self-lifenarration. her ongoing digital self-presentation draws attention, as the different identity roles in her book did, to a multiplicity of identity categories – photojournalist, memoirist, colleague, feminist, presenter, friend, mum, wife, daughter, and grandchild. by doing so, addario supports the performance of a holistic professional ‘i’ who demonstrates ‘it’s what i do’ through the instagram profile. these intertextual instagram posts present recurring photobiographical enactments of her identity-based experiences, tastes, and interests as an ongoing reflexive persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 29 authentication and promotion of her profession and practice. the curated glimpses into identity roles, everyday life, and different interests, both inside and outside the professional register, create the illusion of a fixed and holistic autobiographical subject or public persona when continually repeated. recognition of ‘it’s what i do’ requires repetition to be recognisable. the plot is identifiable when addario repeats these acts and so keeps her performative argument stable. branding #it’swhatido for self-promotion hashtags assist addario’s self-branding by creating frames for her content and defining her instagram persona. the online persona markets the value of self constantly (marshall 2010). the hashtag #itswhatido promotes the self publicly (cf. miller & shepherd 2004). the hashtag #itswhatido is the performative element of her self-marketing to build a brand. it amplifies addario’s agenda by asserting particular versions of her persona in public. this visually curated ongoing status performance with #itswhatido repeated and connected in different contexts capitalises on her reputation and establishes her brand. a few examples of the self-promotional use of the hashtag #itswhatido serve to illustrate this point (figures 1–4). in her post on 10 january 2015 (figure 1), addario started using the hashtag #itswhatido when promoting her new book: “#itswhatido final copies have just arrived @thepenguinpress @penguinpress. release date february 5, 2015”. the post’s image is of the book and its cover, showing the photographer’s silhouette against the sky, taking a picture while standing on the roof of a car. addario’s proof copies of the book have arrived. the caption also reveals the future release date for the memoir. figure 1: embedded image of it’s what i do (2015), posted on 10 january 2015 https://www.instagram.com/p/xrm8t5dmde/?taken-by=lynseyaddario in the next example (figure 2), addario, now nominated for the goodreads choice awards 2015 for memoir and autobiography, encourages the readers to vote for her book, using informal language: “please vote please vote!!!!! so honored to be nominated for a goodreads choice award for memoir & autobiography book of the year! please vote for “it’s what i do” here http://bit.ly/1oov3kq. @penguinpress @penguinusa #itswhatido”. posted on 4 november 2015, this image showcases the book cover, with the addition of a sticker reading ‘goodreads choice awards nominee’. the informality of addario’s caption creates the illusion of authenticity and intimate emotion, aiming to construct a personal connection with the readers. figure 2: book cover of it’s what i do (2015), posted on 4 november 2015 https://www.instagram.com/p/9q_ptcjmpk/?taken-by=lynseyaddario in the following example (figure 3), posted on 25 january 2017 and framed by #itswhatido and #photojournalism, addario demonstrates who has read her book: “thank you, @reesewitherspoon, for including “it’s what i do” on your reading list in @closerweekly! @penguinusa #itswhatido #photojournalism”. this post portrays her and the celebrity actor, https://www.instagram.com/p/xrm8t5dmde/?taken-by=lynseyaddario https://www.instagram.com/p/9q_ptcjmpk/?taken-by=lynseyaddario kaipainen 30 reese witherspoon, smiling toward the camera: as public figures, they benefit from each other's publicity, reputation, and popularity. the book can be seen partly in front of them, clearly showing the title in capital letters: ‘it’s what i do’. addario’s shared image also includes the publisher’s synopsis: war photographer lynsey addario’s memoir is the story of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theatre of war in the twenty-first century, has shaped her life. what she does, with clarity, beauty, and candor, is to document, often in their most extreme moments, the complex lives of others. it’s her work, but it’s much more than that; it’s her singular calling. with its intertextual elements, and the synopsis in particular, this post testifies to the journalistic ideals i referred to addario herself using earlier, discursive triggers such as “truth”, “document”, and “calling”. figure 3: lynsey addario with the celebrity actor reese witherspoon, posted on 25 january 2017 https://www.instagram.com/p/bpsf1bzgqoj/?taken-by=lynseyaddario in the example below (figure 4), addario highlights when, where, and to whom she is talking about her career and memoir, using the hashtags #itswhatido and #photojournalism to identify the topic of the message: “if you’re in southern california next week, i am speaking with the @natgeo live speakers series on may 12 in thousand oaks, and may 13 in santa barbara. more info in the link in bio. #itswhatido @penguinrandomhouse #photojournalism”. posted on 5 may 2017, this post may be a screenshot from the national geographic website advertising the talk event(s) with national geographic live under the title: “a photographer’s life of love and war” and subtitle “lynsey addario, photojournalist”. addario’s photograph (taken while on assignment for national geographic magazine in her photo essay “veiled rebellion”) is of two women in blue burqas standing in a mountain landscape under a bright blue sky in afghanistan. this image from her photojournalistic work is now embedded in a new context as an advertisement. in the instagram post’s caption, addario invites readers to participate in the @natgeo live speakers series on may 12 in thousand oaks, and may 13 in santa barbara, promising more information in the link in her bio. figure 4: screenshot likely from the national geographic website advertising the talk event(s) with national geographic live, posted on 5 may 2017 https://www.instagram.com/p/bttusn2du3u/?taken-by=lynseyaddario to summarise, addario’s self-promotional persona performances framed by the custom branded hashtag #itswhatido illustrate an industrial model of the individual online, which is, according to moore et al. (2017, p. 3), a polished, scheduled, and controlled version of the public self “produced and performed for launches, premieres, speaking engagements, and other live and mediated promotions, appearances, and events”. these instagram posts (figures 1–4) not only boost and maintain addario’s professional and social status by marketing the value of her public, professional self but also hint at her social connections with institutions, people, brands, and locations, which may create credibility and trust in these kinds of promotional persona performances. addario’s persona performances assist in promoting her professional persona to attract interest to herself as a photojournalist. by cultivating her public image and defining her https://www.instagram.com/p/bpsf1bzgqoj/?taken-by=lynseyaddario https://www.instagram.com/p/bttusn2du3u/?taken-by=lynseyaddario persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 31 brand via these self-promotional actions, her communication by means of #itswhatido and other tags performs a self-advertising campaign of ‘it’s what i do’. this campaign, as a selfpromotion project, attracts interest to the benefit of this curated promotional version of the celebrity photojournalist by supporting the brand building. on another level, addario’s tags attach her persona performances to the conversations and interests to which these frames contribute. as barbour et al. (2017, p. 2) argue, different tags signal an instagram user’s willingness to participate and be represented in various conversations and interests, inviting the readers to consider the relationship between the post and the tag – in my reading, also to question this relationship, in the case of #photojournalism in particular. as the next section shows, addario defines her instagram persona by employing hashtags such as #photojournalism, #actlikeapresident, #dresslikeawoman, and #refugees (see figures 5–7) to frame posts that offer professional intimacy. these hashtags may offer a clue about a particular post’s strategic purpose and its genre, along with connecting the public persona to meanings, discussions, and interests already associated with these frames. professional intimacy in #photojournalism since the digital turn, professional photojournalists have sought out new publication channels and audiences for journalistic photography: the elite photojournalists have strategically changed their traditional practices to demonstrate their expertise in the craft amid the rise of digital technologies (solaroli 2017). they have renewed, as solaroli remarks, “traditional practices of production and representational forms, to highlight their distinctive professional status” (2017, pp. 48–49). indeed, instagram offers addario an opportunity to bypass traditional media and the possibility to connect with and impact the public via her photojournalistic contributions with less institutional oversight. addario employs personal and intimate approaches by cultivating professional, personal, and intimate registers for the purposes both of self-promotion and professional communication. she gains attention, reputation, and benefit from these persona performances. to authenticate and support her professional status and value, addario’s acts of self-life-writing on instagram aim to highlight the sincerity and realness of her professional persona and brand by means of professional intimacy (figures 5–7). addario thus expresses personal attitudes and political views when sharing her photojournalism on instagram. in the post below (figure 5), posted on 29 january 2017, the yazidi refugee woman sits on cardboard waste, keeping her eyes down. she holds one child in her arms. the other child lies on the ground, hand in front of mouth and using a travel bag as a pillow. addario exhibits her professional intimacy by giving her personal opinions and feelings in the accompanying caption: terrorists, president trump? no, they are yazidi refugees, fleeing from persecution from the islamic state. iraqi yazidis were among those denied travel to the us after president trump issued an executive order barring refugees from entering the us. photographed on assignment for the @nytimes in 2014. according to the caption, the image was photographed for the new york times in 2014 when president trump issued an executive order barring refugees such as iraqi yazidis from entering the us. not providing location information can protect the subjects of the journalistic image. the gazes of the three refugees are relevant to my interpretation as a scholar-reader. there is no hope in the lowered closed eyes of an adult. the younger child looks to the left, maybe toward kaipainen 32 the setting sun. the covered mouth of the older child, who looks straight at the camera and photojournalist, reinforces a message about these refugees whose voice has been taken away. they are alone in what appears to be a deserted landscape. figure 5: a yazidi refugee woman with two children, posted on 29 january 2017 https://www.instagram.com/p/bp3vg0xakk8/?taken-by=lynseyaddario in her instagram post of 4 february 2017 (figure 6), addario participates in digital hashtag activism linked to broader social, political, and moral issues. in response to a report that president trump wanted women who work for him to dress a certain way, addario performs personal symbolic action and shares her visual interpretation of the dress code as a woman and photojournalist. in the image, addario holds a professional camera in her hands; in the background are a tent, soldiers, and military vehicles. as part of a broader online protest, addario uses the hashtag #dresslikeawoman, linking the image of her in afghanistan to president trump’s @realdonaldtrump instagram profile. according to the caption, this image was taken when addario was embedded with the us army in afghanistan during 2009: “#dresslikeawoman @realdonaldtrump? how’s this? #actlikeapresident #photojournalism embedded with us troops outside kandahar, afghanistan 2009.” addario challenges, via this collective visual act, the normative expectations and representations which constrain women. she gives a personal example to demonstrate that there is no one way to ‘dress like a woman’. the hashtag #photojournalism has been attached to the post as a specific topic, keyword, or category. #photojournalism may confuse the ideological borders of professional photojournalism if it is interpreted as i do, in the millerian sense (miller 1984), as a social clue about the nature of the genre. does the reader believe that what addario frames with the hashtag #photojournalism is, in fact, photojournalism (figure 6)? figure 6: lynsey addario holds a professional camera in her hands in afghanistan, posted on 4 february 2017 https://www.instagram.com/p/bqgp8segh4k/?taken-by=lynseyaddario in the final example (figure 7), posted on 20 november 2015, addario directs her post to the @nytimes and @unrefugees instagram accounts. hence, the caption provides a social clue about her professional status and the genre of the post. addario does not include a geotag that would indicate her location. the post shows a fragment of a love letter on the pavement that addario found after photographing a ship of migrants and refugees disembarking in sicily. she offers the translation: “rana, i wanted to be with you. don’t forget me. i love you very much. […].” again, the content of the caption challenges the ideology of objectivity or neutrality: “[...] refugees are not terrorists; they are fleeing violence at home. there are over four million syrian refugees. welcome them. @nytimes@unrefugees #refugees #itswhatido”. one ideological role of the journalist professional has been that of the passive outsider obligated to bear witness objectively without making a subjective intervention in events (see boudana 2011; schwartz 1992). yet, professional activism, opinion, and emotional or personal commitment to the topics https://www.instagram.com/p/bp3vg0xakk8/?taken-by=lynseyaddario https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/dresslikeawoman/ https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/actlikeapresident/ https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/photojournalism/ https://www.instagram.com/p/bqgp8segh4k/?taken-by=lynseyaddario persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 33 covered often guide the field (steensen 2016). addario’s caption expresses professional intimacy, intimate and emotional interest in the topic, not the traditional journalistic ideals of balance and impartiality. figure 7: fragment of a love letter on the pavement, posted on 20 november 2015 https://www.instagram.com/p/-ttp15dmda/?taken-by=lynseyaddario the narrative of the profession and work in her journalistic self-life-writing breaks, for instance, the ideals of balance and impartiality mentioned. yet, i interpret addario’s publicly shared personal lived and felt experiences and the roles she exposes inside and outside her professional accounts as a communication strategy to seek a more fact-intensive, transparent, and truthful expression of herself and her practice as a photojournalist by showing personal commitments, views, and opinions beyond the journalistic outputs. by doing so, she aims to achieve the impression of sincerity in her performative argument, ‘it’s what i do’. the possible ambiguity of her persona performances is not a weakness but a strength: for a photojournalist, the memoir form offers the possibility to use journalistic imagination, express opinions, and add details to create engaging nonfiction (maguire 2012). i did not interpret the instagram posts where addario’s self-presentation plays with fact and fiction as autofiction, the genre of fictionalised autobiographical text. her caption anchors the post as auto/biographical evidence, even if the visual expression presents more artistic features. in both her instagram profile and her book, addario creates a ‘holistic’ account of her professional persona despite possible ambiguities of auto/biographical testimony. that is to say, there is always an aspect of fiction, non-reality, manipulation, and imagination when dealing with photography, memory, and the subjective perceptions of self (adams 1994; eakin 1985; flohr 2012; jurgenson 2019; lloyd 1986; sontag 1977). autobiographical journalism reveals facts through the writer’s lived and felt experiences and emotions to construct a truth claim (coward 2010, 2014; fowler-watt 2020). i place addario’s self-life-writing under the umbrella of nonfiction, near to, even equal to, subjective and confessional autobiographical journalism. dilemmas and benefits of self-branded instagram professionalism in this paper, i undertook a close reading of lynsey addario’s public instagram profile, using her written memoir it’s what i do (2015) as a supporting text for a close analysis of her public persona. the journalistic self-presentation has shifted between emotional, self-reflexive, and promotional acts (a) when addario recurrently shares professional and non-professional life events, interests, attitudes, and tastes through instagram and (b) when she narrates retrospectively valued memories in her book. via repeated autobiographical acts such as sharing intimate images of her family and everyday life and telling personal stories from inside and behind the professional scenes and inhabiting different roles, she garners attention for the journalistic causes that she wants to keep in the public eye (see horwitz & daily 2019; kenny 2018). by means of these tactics, she establishes her professional brand, creating a sense of emotional connection and intimacy with her as a celebrated photojournalist-feminist (see horwitz & daily 2019; kenny 2018; russell 1995). by cultivating professional, personal, and intimate registers (barbour 2015; marshall et al. 2020), she connects self-promotion with the photojournalism that visualises conflicts. https://www.instagram.com/p/-ttp15dmda/?taken-by=lynseyaddario kaipainen 34 if professional information-oriented conflict image production and its conventions still matter, how do the readers identify and judge something belonging to the practice of photojournalism on instagram? what is needed for a professional testimony to be credible? the reputation of an instagram persona, hashtagging #photojournalism or linking @nytimes instagram account may not be enough for the readers to interpret what they look at as photojournalism. in addition, the pressure to promote content from the private and personal life can escalate on instagram and generate a lack of trust in addario’s professional expertise and practice. hence for addario, the tactics of incorporating private life and personal emotions into the work and presentation of the profession may erode the credibility of ‘it’s what i do’. the repeated personal and intimate self-branding may affect how the readers evaluate photojournalism mediated by instagram. do they believe in the authenticity of the performed work persona articulating in the ways that i have described: ‘it’s what i do’? addario’s professional intimacy demonstrates her emotional, personal commitment and clear devotion both to her professional group, and the topic and subjects of her journalism, focusing on women in regions of conflict. her autobiographical intimacy reveals the personal and intimate sides of her private sphere outside her work and profession in ways that enable readers to develop an emotional connection and feel a closeness to her. i suggest that, at best, her persona performances navigating between professional, personal, and intimate registers seek more fact-intensity and a deeper truth of herself in public work than the professional account that denies the photojournalist’s subjectivity. showcasing lived and felt experiences can be read as authentication of addario’s public, professional self and practice on instagram. performing professional and autobiographical intimacy can increase the professional persona’s public potential by authenticating the professional, offering context to the practice, or gaining interest and awareness for journalistic contributions (among others). jurgenson argues that social photography on instagram can tell new truths about us and our life when “the ‘truth’ of capturing the essence of yourself and others, the mood, what it is like, the quality of experience can depend on expressiveness more than accuracy” (2019, p. 18). by bringing transparency, for example, to the values and ideology on which the work persona presentations are based, the performance seems more authentic than one which does not reveal the photojournalist-author’s subjective and emotional influence on her self-promotional persona performances. end notes 1. as addario’s publications from her private life are available on instagram, i will share only the links to her posts or her profile. but reading the self-presentation of an instagram persona is a moving target. the instagram profile and its content are incomplete, ever-changing, and unstable as an ongoing autobiographical text and act (barbour et al. 2017). my remarks apply only to the time slot studied, from 1 august 2012 to 30 may 2017, and the content remarked on is subject to change. the instagram post may have disappeared, the caption or its hashtags may have been amended, or the instagram bio may have been updated 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international relations, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 435–452, doi 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2004.00149.x. tajfel, h 1982/2010, ‘introduction’, in h tajfel (ed.) social identity and intergroup relations, cambridge university press, new york, pp. i–ii. vasey, g 2013, ‘self 2 selfie’, art monthly, no. 371, pp. 5–8. wheeler, m 2013, celebrity politics, polity press, cambridge. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 1 37 whitlock, g 2006, soft weapons: autobiography in transit, university of chicago press, chicago. zakaria, r 2016, ‘can war reporting be a feminist project?’, the nation, 24 august, viewed 7 december 2021, https://www.thenation.com/article/can-war-reporting-be-a-feministproject/ sini kaipainen aalto university school of arts, design and architecture abstract key words introduction –the meanings of ‘it’s what i do’ reading intimate professional performances photojournalist as celebrity-memoirist and western feminist narrating the professional and the personal in a formal memoir showing private sides of ‘it’s what i do’ on instagram branding #it’swhatido for self-promotion professional intimacy in #photojournalism dilemmas and benefits of self-branded instagram professionalism end notes works cited humphrey 20 the social oikos: examining arendt’s concept of a public-private divide through the lens of a youtube vlog mi cha el humph re y c o l o r a d o s t a t e u n i v e r s i t y abstract in one of the foundational articles of persona studies, marshall and barbour (2015) look to hannah arendt for development of a key concept within the larger persona framework: “arendt saw the need to construct clear and separate public and private identities. what can be discerned from this understanding of the public and the private is a nuanced sense of the significance of persona: the presentation of the self for public comportment and expression” (2015, p. 3). but as far back as the ancient world from which arendt draws her insights, the affordance of persona was not evenly distributed. as gines (2014) argues, the realm of the household, oikos, was a space of subjugation of those who were forced to be “private,” tending to the necessities of life, while others were privileged with life in the public at their expense. to demonstrate the core points of this essay, i use textual analysis of a youtube family vlog, featuring a black mother in the united states, whose persona rapidly changed after she and her white husband divorced. by critically examining arendt’s concepts around public, private, and social, a more nuanced understanding of how personas are formed in unjust cultures can help us theorize persona studies in more egalitarian and robust ways. key words hannah arendt; social; private sphere; youtube; family vlogs; race-based persona disparities introduction in july of 2017, the name of a popular family vlog, nive nulls, was suddenly changed to britt’s space: “if you would have asked me years ago if i saw myself as an almost-31-year-old single mom of three, i probably would have said no. ... so the nive nulls are no more, the nive nulls channel is gone” (null 2017a). in that moment, brittany null’s digital persona suddenly moved from one of a u.s. woman successfully navigating an interracial marriage to one of a single black mother, a role traditionally stigmatized not only for living outside of the normative definition of a “family” (i.e. two parents), but also because in the united states, “... black motherhood has been reinforced by stereotypes that blame black mothers for the problems in the black family ...” (warner 2020, p. 4). the response from viewers in the first video, was overwhelmingly positive and filled with advice, support, and admiration. but over the next year, something changed. laced into the support and praise was advice about both her life and channel that became paternalistic, and even condemning, as if null’s husband had been the only person making the persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 21 decisions behind a channel that grew to more than 350,000 subscribers. complaints about headlines, topics covered, even life choices made, became fodder for conversations about her and directed at her. what britt’s space reveals is the emotional, social, and financial toll of shifting a digital persona, especially when that persona is central to your work. the multiplicities of burden that black women face in western culture is well known to scholars and beyond at this point in history. more than 30 years ago, the legal theorist kimberlé crenshaw demonstrated how in both law and culture the intersection of racism and sexism that, “factors into black women's lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately,” (1991, p. 1244). this is not simply two problems, but rather “racial and sexual subordination are mutually reinforcing” (1991, p.1283). surely, these statements imply a burden on a black woman’s persona as well. for brittany null, the additional intersections of divorcee and single mother only mounted greater pressure to negotiate with a public in highly complex and precarious ways, lest she lose the means of her living as a youtube celebrity. at issue is persona studies’ reliance on a concept developed by the political theorist hannah arendt. the reliance, which revolves around publicness and privacy in modern life, is warranted. both nive nulls and britt’s space reflect a key element of modernity, which arendt outlines in the human condition (1958) as the collapse of public and private life into a single realm. the exigency of persona studies is partially driven by this reality, as marshall and barbour, make clear: “arendt saw the need to construct clear and separate public and private identities. what can be discerned from this understanding of the public and the private is a nuanced sense of the significance of persona: the presentation of the self for public comportment and expression” (2015, p. 3). the intention of this essay is to do two things that involve arendt. first, to deepen the understanding of arendt’s argument about the publicprivate divide in modern society, and especially to examine her concept of social. secondly, to examine a deep flaw that concept of social, one that is revealed in a controversial essay in which she provides intellectual cover for the racist policies of school segregation in the u.s. in the middle of the 20th century. the essay, written in the same era that she wrote the human condition, not only demands we reconsider arendt’s moral positioning when developing her theories, but also what this essay says about applying her theory in general. both considerations have methodological and ethical implications for scholars. it is important to stress that arendt’s central insights around the collapse of public and private spheres remain important and useful in our field. in fact, those insights’ centrality to persona studies is what makes this reckoning so necessary. today, as arendt might have predicted, phenomena like family vlogging have conflated the oikos, or household, with the public sphere. watching the power dynamic of the household, shared for the public to see, allows us to consider important questions about the private realm throughout history. who could actually be private in the household? who shouldered the labour? who was free to enter the public realm, to do the action? these are questions on which arendt did not place enough weight. null’s experience can help us consider those experiences and critique the equity of identity performance in modern times. in this essay, therefore, i will alter the direction of a traditional theory-based empirical study in one fundamental way. rather than using theory to examine data, i will use the learnings i have gathered from nive nulls and britt’s space to consider arendt’s theory about the private, public, and social spheres. to do this, i will begin by describing in some detail arendt’s arguments on how and why the spheres were radically altered by modernity. i then examine her controversial essay, “reflections on little rock” (1959a), as well as contemporary and more humphrey 22 recent critiques of arendt’s troublesome application of social. with arendt’s arguments in mind, i will then use textual analysis of both videos and comments from britt’s space to demonstrate how the public-private line presents unique difficulties for brittany null. her mediated story of loss, survival, and recovery provides a unique opportunity to watch a human being’s persona radically shift, and provides a clear window into why persona negotiation, like most of all of life, is unduly burdensome for historically marginalized people. finally, after examining the theory and the vlog, i will attempt to show a way out from the flaws of arendt’s concept to a new perspective for persona, and persona studies, that considers a much broader and more inclusive approach. this approach will not conclude with a set of answers but rather a set of questions that recentres persona studies into a more pluralistic position. public and private spheres before critiquing arendt, it is important to understand why her description of modernity is so useful in studying persona, in general, and digital persona in particular. imagine arendt was not one of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century, but is a twenty-first-century media scholar, and she is watching britt space’s first episode, “a new journey.” she would certainly have an opinion about whether null appears as a who in public space via this video. when arendt refers to public, she means the world that humans build, one that can be seen and shared by all (arendt 1958, p. 50). in pre-modern times, there was a gulf between the public and the private spheres and the very definition of modernity, in arendt’s estimation, is the loss of that clear distinction: “in the modern world, the two realms indeed constantly flow into each other like waves in the never-resting stream of the life process itself” (arendt 1958, 54). arendt means private in both the sense of a psychological interiority and as a space to live outside of the gaze of the public spectre, within the household, or oikos. arendt argues that human beings were once able to present the who of themselves through public action and speech in the midst of others, even as mere appearance in that realm revealed their what, base attributes and abilities (arendt 1958, p. 181). at the heart of this concept is natality, the condition of being born into the world as something new, unique and unrepeatable, which provides us the ability to appear. it is in these appearances, where we act and speak among each other, that we construct both the story of self and the reality of the world, and enter plurality. arendt might argue that what is missing today, especially in digital connectivity, is a shared experience of space, time, and context—the main ingredients of a public space as arendt conceives it—and this makes “appearing” as a who particularly difficult, which tumbles us toward becoming a mass. for arendt, plurality is defined by the gathering of distinct people who see each other clearly, while mass is a group defined by indistinguishable conformities (1958, p. 175; p. 41). what is common in plurality is concern for building the world that we share, but in a mass we are most concerned with ourselves as labourers, about the business of survival, prosperity, which means tapping into the conformist instincts of others, and thus a shared world vanishes. for one quick example, consider the rapid scrolling through posts on a site like instagram or tiktok, where the individuals referenced in the scene begin to blur together. one could argue that, in digital terms, this loss of shared space of appearance is similar to what wesch (2009) called “context collapse,” in which a myriad of offline spatial, temporal and psychological contexts collapse into a chaotic heap online. in the following quote about a mass of humanity, arendt could very well be explaining how digital life and context collapse make it difficult to appear: persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 23 what makes mass society so difficult to bear is not the number of people involved, or at least not primarily, but the fact that the world between them has lost its power to gather them together, to relate and to separate them. the weirdness of this situation resembles a spiritualistic séance where a number of people gathered around a table might suddenly, through some magic trick, see the table vanish from their midst, so that two persons sitting opposite each other were no longer separated but also would be entirely unrelated to each other by anything tangible. (arendt 1958, p. 74) if one cannot genuinely appear in a public realm, the prospect for persona is bleak indeed. there is no negotiation to be had. in the end, arendt would likely argue, digital spheres such as youtube are nothing more than an intensification of modern life. arendt writes “… mass society not only destroys the public realm but the private as well, deprives men not only of their place in the world but of their private home...” (1958, p. 59). but, of course, we do still appear to one another in some way, both physically and digitally, and something must hold that reality together. what remains is the social sphere, arendt argues, in which the private collapses into the public, with our economic survival becoming a driving concern (1959, p. 42). persona appears in the mire of this collapse today and this is especially intense in digitality. all of the major digital social spaces—twitter, facebook/instagram, tiktok, reddit— market themselves as both public squares and private spaces, but it is nearly impossible to control either sphere completely. on top of that, users such as null are beholden to the company’s decisions about how the gathering will occur, what and who will appear, and how it will be sustained. social media as we know it might be a relationship of pluralities at times, but ultimately it is built for an arendtian mass. this is not a shared public sphere, but rather a platform. burgess and green (2018) specifically consider how youtube has been framed as a platform, a metaphor that implies neutrality and flexibility to users’ interests. but platforms are not neutral, the authors argue, they simply balance more interests than the traditional media channel. compared to traditional media outlets, which balanced interests of advertisers and audience, youtube coordinates and profits from “audiences; amateur, pro-amateur, and professional content creators; media partners; advertisers; new intermediaries like the multichannel networks (mcns); and third-party developers” (burgess & green 2018, p. 17). this collapse of interests onto a series of user interfaces prospers by tracking general trends and conditions, but cannot factor in the unique qualities of each individual. burgess and green ask: “... who gets to participate in the business? under what conditions, with what impacts on culture and society, and in whose interest do they participate?” (2018, p. 20). all of the answers rest within the platform developers. platforms are not freely shared either, but rather operate as property. not only in the sense that a company like google profits from owning the channels, its code, its affordances, but also in the sense that all these texts and their corresponding data are archived not in an actual “cloud”, but in connected servers firmly rooted in terra firma, owned by a company. this is important because arendt argues that how we came to regard property is exactly what radically shifted the paradigm of human life, created the social sphere, and ushered us into the modern world (1958, p. 38). the ownership of property, arendt argues, once was merely a means to an end: to own property meant to be free, and to be free, “to transcend his own life and enter the world all have in common” (1958, p. 65). in modern times, the ownership of property is the end goal of not only our sustenance and prosperity, but the fulfillment of our true nature. arendt focuses on philosopher john locke, so critical to the modern age mindset, who argues that ownership of property is the ownership of the self. the exigency to enter the world from a private to a public space, and to appear as unique and unrepeatable, is replaced by the exigency humphrey 24 to enter the economic space and command it, which means aligning with systems of gains and ownership. as google, apple, amazon, facebook, bytedance, tencent have proven, accumulation rather than distribution of ownership tends to be the result. null’s ownership of her own persona, her most important asset as a social media professional, is precariously placed on property owned by others. this is true of all social media users. to prosper financially in these conditions, she must not only expose her speech and actions, but also her private concerns and needs. arendt’s theory offers trenchant insight into how and why the public-private divide becomes both complicated and commoditized by modern society when the social sphere emerges. which is to say that in many parts of life, and especially in digitality, understanding the social sphere is essential to understanding persona. what arendt missed in her own time is not that inequality negatively impacts a black woman living in american society in particularly pernicious ways. she appears to have known that. what she missed was how to apply her own distinctions of public, private, and social spheres in the most just ways. we can see this best seen in arendt’s application of her own theory to a hotly contested issue about race in america—the integration of schools in little rock, arkansas. because her thinking about this issue is contemporaneous with the human condition’s publication, and because arendt stepped into the discussion in a way that was highly controversial even at the time, it serves as a useful lens for persona studies scholars to critique a key element of our scholarship. arendt and little rock in this section, i will describe the controversy arendt created when she addressed desegregation efforts in the 1950s american south, highlight key arguments against arendt’s application of her theory, and offer my own analysis. “reflections on little rock,” (arendt 1959a) cannot be ignored when making a judgment about arendt’s idea about the publicprivate divide, and how that affects persona studies. what is critical to note here is how arendt places public and social concerns on people’s lives in a way that blatantly defends discrimination and not so subtlely supports racist ideologies. the essay was sparked when arendt saw a photo of a black child confronted by white adults and children, who were screaming at the child trying to enter a public school. arendt believed that such a spectacle was unfair. why? her most pointed argument draws from the concept about public versus private sphere. arendt argues, “for the crucial point to remember is that it is not the social custom of segregation that is unconstitutional, but its legal enforcement” (1959a, p. 49). in other words, she relegates segregation to the social realm, not the public, thus leaving it out of the sphere of our collective concern. she is also making a much bigger point—that the aspiration for equity in general is always a public concern, not a social one, as social life is built on discrimination. we discriminate along all kinds of lines, she argues, from profession, income, ethnic origin (more so in america), as well as class, education, and manners (more so in europe): “at any rate, without discrimination of some sort, society would simply cease to exist and very important possibilities of free association and group formation would disappear” (1959a, p. 51). the point is not to wash society of its discrimination, because discrimination in society is legitimate, she argues, but to confine it there, and not let it drift into the legal-political realm. she argues, “if as a jew i wish to spend my vacations only in the company of jews, i cannot see how anyone can reasonably prevent my doing so; just as i see no reason why other resorts should not cater to a clientele that wishes not to see jews while on a holiday” (1959a, p. 52). it is a different matter when someone wants to sit anywhere they like on a public bus or enter a restaurant that serves the public, she continues, but private life, the oikos, is guided neither by the discrimination of persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 25 society nor the equality of public life, but by exclusiveness, the choices we make about whom we wish to spend our lives: “the question is not how to abolish discrimination, but how to keep it confined to the social sphere, where it is legitimate, and prevent its trespassing on the political and personal sphere, where it is destructive” (1959a, p. 51). this argument stipulates, on its face, that there should be an unequal burden of persona-creation for anyone who is not readily willing to stay in their social strata. that arendt thinks this line between social and public can be managed, based on her own theorization, appears to be wilful naivete. political power, by her own examples, naturally collect into social power as well. it clearly has for generations. she also assumes that social, which is the result of a collapse, has organizing powers that are meaningful, and even helpful, for a society. but her organization of how it should work is chaotic to say the least. a privately owned restaurant must face a public demand for integration, but taxpayerfunded public school systems must not. she writes that education is the point in which all three realms intersect in modern human life. the right of the family is to remain private, and this allows for parents to raise their children as they see fit. yes, she agrees, the government has a right to demand all children attend school. but this demand hits its limit, she argues, at the content of the child’s education, “not the context of association and social life which invariably develops out of his attendance at school” (1959a, p. 55). the rights of the family to choose to stay self-segregated, and the rights of the states to self-govern, is greater than the right for anyone to attend any school they choose. not only is this mental acrobatics, arendt essentially employs the concept of the social realm as a cudgel to batter the fight for equality in all realms of american life that do not fit her definition of public. and that appears to be the great majority of the lived experience. the backlash from american thinkers, black and white, was quick and blistering. in a subsequent edition of dissent, which published some of the criticisms of her essay, arendt doubled down on her argument, writing, “my first question was: what would i do if i were a negro mother? the answer: under no circumstances would i expose my child to conditions which made it appear as though it wanted to push its way into a group where it was not wanted” (1959a, p. 179). the author ralph ellison later replied that arendt had, “absolutely no conception of what goes on in the minds of negro parents when they send their kids through those lines of hostile people” (via warren 2003, p. 159). more recently, kathryn t. gines (2014) in a book titled hannah arendt and the negro question carefully deconstructed arendt’s assertions to understand its philosophical origins. in the critique, gines takes issue with arendt’s private/social distinction and her prioritization of the public realm. gines writes: perhaps this model is not problematic for a white, property-owning male whose women, children, and slaves in the private sphere create the conditions for the possibility of him entering the public sphere (as was the case in the model arendt describes.) however this model, which renders invisible that which is done in the private space and celebrates that which is done in public space, poses numerous problems for women and people of color, especially those who are activists and intellectuals”. (2014, p. 12) gines is correct in saying arendt imagines the pre-modern world through the experiences of powerful greeks whose slaves did the labour, so that the citizens could do the work and action in the public sphere. in arendt’s “thinking about race, slavery, imperialism, totalitarianism, violence, and other dominant themes in her writings” (gines 2014, p. 1), gines argues that arendt’s decision-making is the core problem, meaning that it is possible to misapply the concept of private-public when blinded to a broader social reality. this is a critical point for humphrey 26 persona studies, as it means the core public-private concept could be either useful or dangerous, depending on how it is applied. for example, in one of her most controversial points, arendt places the importance of the right to marry across races over the right to attend desegregated schools. she reasons while comparing the two issues, “… had the court ruled the antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional, it would have hardly have felt compelled to encourage, let alone enforce, mixed marriages” (arendt 1959b, p. 179-80). even if arendt were correct that public schools are not a public concern, the idea that inclusion is vital in public realms, but racebased discrimination is perfectly acceptable in social spheres accepts modernity for its more corrupting power: to separate. and to do this specifically based on race is simply racism. it also places all burdens of separation on the public realm at a time when the social realm was becoming so vital to our identities and the way we see reality. what does this do to the persona? it quite obviously allows for tiered systems of freedom for different personae, so long as it never crosses the line of official political business, which apparently is sometimes legitimate even in publicly owned institutions. and who gets to decide what is public and what is social, especially given the fact that the social is defined by a collapse of realms in the first place? even if we were to accept this, we still would have to ask each time which social realm we mean when we say a persona is being negotiated. we would have to consider whether realms have overlapped and, if so, why? do the overlaps of social realms mean we have entered a public space? where does to the who appear then? this might all read like i am engaging in identity politics and not identity research. maybe so, but gines shows arendt is also engaged in identity politics. gines writes, “she has made herself a representative of white americans, a negative image of blackness that persists in the white imagination, an image that is at the foundation of the white problem” (2014, p. 129). as a white man, i know very well my history is filled with identity politicians, ones who did far more than hurt people’s feelings. the die of identity is most easily cast in the social realm, and reinforced most easily in the oikos, both of which have a pernicious way of deciding who gets to appear in the public realm. defending the social realm as a bastion of unapologetic discrimination is to argue that the inequalities forged through history, whether it be to black people, indigenous people, women, or the “outsiders” in any culture, can now remain frozen. it also means that the oikos is forever safe for power disparities to play out. and, thus, those who have been relegated to the household will never emerge into the public sphere. that conclusion extends from gines’ most critical point. at the end of her book, gines addresses the way arendt judged “the negro question.” it should be required reading for all white scholars as gines helpfully frames the point, which begins with a kantian view on judgment that assumes one can absorb the many perspectives of a plural group. gines writes: while arendt imagines that she has many standpoints present in her mind and that she thinks in the place of the absent others, instead she represents the views only of those allowed in the public realm while misrepresenting (or not making present at all) the views of those confined to the private or social realms. (2014, p. 124) this is the key danger for persona studies. to imagine that the trek from private to public is easily understood in generalized terms would be to undermine our research’s validity. in a moment of pausing to rethink and expand persona studies, it is also useful to re-examine arendt’s core concept of the collapse of the public-private line and its application to the field. after all, the social sphere is conceptualized as a collapse, making the transition from public to private especially difficult. because of this, the social sphere becomes a critical lens through which to see persona studies. arendt’s application of social in her reflections on segregation persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 27 undermine the very notion of plural space, because the social not only reflects the public, as i argued earlier, but also shapes the public by allowing for the reinforcement of stratifications to persist. to evolve the social realm is not a legal or political aim, it is an ethical and moral one, and it is also the far more likely place where reality is constructed. the table that arendt says has vanished was not always in the public realm. as gines argues, it existed most powerfully in the household (2014). today, its most powerful pressures may very well exist in the social realm. to show this, i examined one very clear social sphere: britt’s space on youtube, a clear collapse of oikos. the questions that shaped my analysis were: when the labour of a private life becomes a public artefact, what pressures are placed on the persona that reveal cultural inequities? examining a persona shift from one recognised role to a different, less privileged role, helped me see a path toward a more pluralistic approach to research in our field. method and ethics to analyse and compare the change of digital persona negotiation on the channel once known as nive nulls, and later, britt’s space, i sampled videos from three years before and two years after the video “a new journey” (null 2017a) was made, a date range of between july, 2014 and july, 2020. the analysis was guided by the methodology of norman fairclough, who examines texts as primarily social and “multi-functional,” “ways of acting, ways of representing, ways of being” (2003, p. 27). in analysis, he guides researchers to think in terms of “types of meaning,” and to focus on action, representation, and identification (2003, p. 30). action implies a social relation, which in this data might be a relation between null and another person in her offline life (such as her children, friends, and ex-husband), as well the audience she addresses and those who address her. representation implies a relation between two entities that are apparent in the text, such as the titles of the videos and the video content itself. identification notes the commitment of actors within the text about the representations being made and looks at the strength of the commitment, such as the commitment of advice that commenters make to null in regards to her video titles, the topics she chooses, etc. fairclough stresses that mediation of such events is the movement and networking of social practices, meaning the locus of power is both transferred, and potentially mutated, through actions in the texts (2003, pp. 30-31). in other words, what null experiences in the texts represent the social realities in which her vlog is situated. examining the vlogs from this perspective allows a researcher to view texts as “linking together social events in different social practices, different countries, and different times, facilitating the enhanced capacity for ‘action at a distance’ which has been taken to be a defining feature of contemporary ‘globalization’, and therefore facilitating the exercise of power” (2003, p. 31). to understand the youtube family vlog culture in general, i examined several top channels to get a baseline around common practices and audience expectations. from an ethical perspective, i have chosen to examine britt’s space because the videos are not only public, but the situation that marked the shift in null’s life was mediated beyond her own channel. my university’s institutional review board guides the ethical acceptability of this project by ensuring that the data was neither collected through intervention or interaction with the subject nor by collecting identifiable private information. because these videos have lived in public archives for several years now, their publicness has been well-established. in many instances, the next ethical step would be to anonymize the participants to the extent possible. specifying britt’s space, in this case however, allows for null’s unique, unrepeatable story to be “witnessed” for what it is. by all indications of her channel, she has mastery over what she does and does not share. beyond the privacy considerations, my position as a white male in middle age lends me only so much insight into both the trauma, the work, and the resilience null displays. because of that, i have been very careful to only examine how the texts humphrey 28 relate to one another, and the society in which it is situated. i do not try to read null’s mind, or imagine her experiences and opportunities beyond her own descriptions and the very basic human empathies that loss can be emotionally hard, economic precarity can be frightening, and criticism in the midst of such a paradigm shift might sting. finally, understanding the perspective of crenshaw (1991), gines (2014), and other theorists who have both studied and experienced the realities of black women, i accept as fact the uneven burdens black women experience. with that, i will describe three themes found in the videos that pertain to null’s persona negotiation, and compare those to pre-divorce realities as well as general learnings about family vlogs. null’s oikos with the posting of “a new journey,” (null 2017a), news of the divorce made the rounds of digital channels and gossip circles that focus on digital celebrity. the online news outlet clevver (d’aluisio 2017) reported on a video from austin, britt’s ex-husband, that explained why the divorce was taking place: even in just the early days, i would hurt her with my own pride, or selfishness or something. and then that manifested into me doing other things and not being faithful, and i just can’t keep hurting her anymore. and that’s what recently happened again, is that i continued to hurt her in that way. if youtube family vlogs are collapse of public and private in general terms, breakage within that family, and its vlog, constitutes an invasion. in analysing the early transition from nive nulls to britt’s space, it was clear that her climb was uphill. this was despite the fact that the great majority of comments she received were positive. what was at work was youtube’s software, which elevated negative comments, thanks to large anonymous upvotes of those negative critiques. what differentiates the comments null was getting in comparison to her old persona, as well as other users, was the sharpness, the tone of disrespect, and the threats of departure from the channel. the criticisms revolved around three consistent themes of critiques: the use of clickbait titles (titles that promised dramatic issues that turn out to be innocuous), her openness about youtube vlogging being her business, and her general struggle with recovering from divorce. in all three cases, those critiques of her persona stand in sharp contrast to similar content from her old channel and others like it. clickbait use. the strange thing about negative responses to clickbait is that headlines that promise one thing and deliver another are common on youtube, including with many family vlogs, without nearly the pushback seen on britt’s channel. here are examples: • nive nulls: “this is not working out” (null & null 2016). (76,000+ views) was about a rainout of a planned outing rather than the implication that there were family problems. top comment: “story time lol: when me and my brother were little, we were scared of thunder, so my mom told us that the thunder was god and the angels bowling in heaven and getting strikes and winning.” • the ace family: “the ace family break up” (august 15, 2021). (1+ million views) was about the mother in the family getting her own channel. top comment: “knew it was clickbait but still clicked for some reason,” a tacit acceptance of the video’s message. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 29 the consistent messaging about the headlines was complaints from the audience, which clearly held certain power over null’s decisions. a few days after one set of negative comments, she made a video apologizing for the clickbait and began posting headlines that were more accurate. predictably, her video views went down, which impacted her revenue. when she later posted a video called, “quitting youtube???” (null 2019), the top comment was: “if i had a dollar for every time you used this clickbate title , i would be rich.” the video title is actually accurate, as she goes through the pluses and minuses of being on the platform, and what it costs her emotionally, and strategies for overcoming the pitfall. even though the great majority of comments below praised null for her openness, the most negative comment, because of its vote count, is highlighted as the first among “top comments.” which is to say that non-verbal, anonymous, and powerful upvotes of harsh criticism was shaping the narrative for null’s channels in ways it never did for nive nulls. youtube as a business. a year after britt’s space emerged from the collapse of the nive nulls, britt explained a dilemma about her content. in “drama with my ex” (null 2018), null addresses the tension directly: i hope you watch this one, because yesterday’s did not get watched and it’s a little frustrating, because i’m killing myself putting content up. ... i’m going to be honest with you guys. i’ve struggled a lot with titles and stuff like that. and i know some people are like, “oh you do clickbait,” and things like that, which i try not to do. but yesterday's vlog was very straightforward, the title was very straightforward, it was totally accurate and i feel like unless i name the video something like “drama with my ex” or “divorce bla bla bla” or just something negative that people just don't click on it. (null 2018) many comments ranged from blatantly critical to trying to appear constructively critical. one of the most upvoted comments was defiant against britt: “you legit just click baited this video. that’s why i stopped watching your videos. i don’t think you should try and trick people into watching your videos.” in struggling publicly with this issue, null was regularly opening herself to criticism. for example, a commenter wrote this: hi britney, here's a tip, people love watching inspiring and motivating things. i don't like drama, and watch youtubers who are real with life and show how they get on with it. your situation doesn't define you, showing your strength and independence motivates others too, and keeps them engaged because there's something to look forward to. to boost channel engagement, try making day in the life, what i feed my kids, clean with me, diy furniture change, room tours, what i am working on. be real and share your struggles (if you want to), dilemmas, decisions etc. become relatable. largely missing in the commentary was any recognition that being left by an unfaithful spouse is hard as is being marginalized from the myth of perfect family life. her content was relatable to anyone who knows that struggle or anyone who could imagine how awful it would be. when null made a video that included a product placement, one comment that reflected several across multiple videos stated: “britts can you just go back to way you use to vlog before. i miss seeing your day to day interactions with you children.....good or bad. they do not have to be 10 minutes long i understand you are busy.” while this is not mean-spirited, it represented another kind of pressure—to erase the fact that null’s life had radically changed. again, discussing the economic realities of being a youtube influencer was not met with the same vitriol when nive nulls did it: humphrey 30 • “we bought a new house” (null & null 2016) (90,000+ views) describes a sponsorship deal between the channel and zillow, in which the family seeks and finds their first house to buy. top comment: “kailand is proof that there are actually landscapers out there who genuinely enjoy their job! so if your landscaper has a grumpy attitude, dump him and get yourself a kai!” making the transition transparently performing the self during the recovery phase after a divorce would be difficult for anyone, but the new narrative also undermined the original one of a white man and black woman who were happily married and rearing children. in expressing difficult times around race during the marriage, the nive nulls community was overwhelmingly supportive: • “interracial youtubers unite!!!” (null & null 2014). when nive nulls shared struggles of interracial life, the top response was: “u guys don't live for their approval. keep doing u and keep doing your videos ...” (null & null 2014). in fact, what stabilized the new iteration of the channel for britt’s space was a shift toward ever increasing transparency about her personal pain. videos such as, “breaking my silence” (null 2017b), “single mom life” (null 2017c), “so many emotions” (null 2017d) showed null in vulnerable emotional states and radically honest about her loss and internal struggles. this tactic revealed much more about null’s interior life than before, even if her oikos had been public for years. this strategy gathered a group of highly loyal audience members that supports her consistently, including defending her against critiques. but another trend accelerated at this point—video views stagnated and subscriptions declined, losing as many as 3,000 net subscribers one month and never having a net gain over the past two years (social blade 2021). so what is the cost of null’s transparency? if arendt is correct that mass society invades our private lives, revealing her emotional life was exactly what null had to do to deliver a persona that was not regularly pressured to change, but has also not proven proficient in gaining a larger audience. the invasion of her private life reflects modernity, but the depth of the invasion (what null was forced to reveal versus her former persona) reflects the levels of privilege arendt does not see as a concern, because it exists in the social realm. conclusion: arendt and an equitable persona a youtube vlog is not as momentous as a child’s education, nor are the ramifications as serious and certainly do fall in arendt’s category of social. null is a talented mother and woman and could use those talents to do something other than youtube. why she chooses the entrepreneurial struggle of influencer entertainment is no one’s concern. so why choose this example? partially because persona is so important to the makeup of null’s life and, thus, reveals the inner workings of that negotiation between public and private through both repetition and change. i was studying family vlogs through the perspective of arendt at the time of the nive nulls’ break up. later, when i learned about “reflections on little rock,” it became clear to me that arendt would see null’s extra burdens as only a social issue, not one that weighs heavily on all of shared life in america. arendt might have even placed herself in null’s shoes and determined what she must do to escape her dilemma. as it turns out, null has done that for herself. while her channel has not grown, it has remained consistent and her audience is now highly loyal and not overly critical. but extrapolate this to larger, and more dangerous, social structures and one can see the crack in arendt’s logic becoming highly alarming. while arendt would certainly admit that police treatment of black people in america is certainly a public concern, she would not be concerned persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 31 by the shared biases among police and citizens that underlie such disparities. to deny identity is an important part of the public sphere is to deny realism. null’s what, especially when it changed from wife to single mother, was a clear impediment to seeing her who. only by opening herself to greater and greater exposure not of her public life, but her private life, does null survive. that arendt’s concern for the private seems to have been contained to only those who might appear in the public, as gines (2014) argues, is a tragic flaw in the theory of modernity. to put it another way, for the silent many, the public always invaded the private, even in ancient times. for slaves, for women, children, those who would have been considered corrupted by illnesses or simply differences, there never was a public life. only until those cracks in the human condition have been repaired could arendt’s arguments be completely germane to life as we know it. so this reality must be applied to persona studies as well. scholars in this vital field—and i emphasize the demand on white scholars such as myself—must consider a set of questions to help resist the assumptions arendt made about the social realm’s legitimate use of discrimination. to do this first is vital to better understand the debilitating role that social discrimination plays in equal opportunity for all who have been historically marginalized, most notably black women and men in the western world, but also all colonized and oppressed people around the globe. to start with the recognition that persona cannot easily flow evenly from such a history is a first step. if we reject arendt’s assertion about the social, and reflect on our previous acceptance, we could then derive a set of foundational questions to start our studies: what does this mask weigh? meaning, how much socially constructed burden is placed on certain personas before they even get to act or speak? how much can this mask hide? meaning, how much privilege to privacy does this mask afford, based on the what of the personas before us? how far can this mask go? meaning, what limitations are placed on the mask to negotiate with the public? if we treat all personas as equally burdened, equally filled with potential, equally masking interiorities, we run the risk of obscuring the very phenomena we seek to understand. works cited arendt, h 1958, the human condition, university of chicago press, chicago. —1959a, ‘reflections on little rock, dissent, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 45-56. —1959b, ‘a reply to critics’ dissent, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 179-181. burgess, j, green, j 2018, youtube, online video and participatory culture, polity press, cambridge. crenshaw, k 1991, ‘mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color’, stanford law review, vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 1241-1299. d’aluisio, a 2017, ‘austin, brittany null divorce, nive nulls cheating’, clevver. weblog post, 21 july, retrieved 31 august 2018. fairclough, n 2003, analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research. routledge, milton park. gines, kt 2014, hannah arendt and the negro question, indiana university press, bloomington. marshall, pd & barbour, k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective’, persona studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–12. n.a. 2021, britt’s space, social blade, retrieved 31 october 2021, https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/thenivenulls. null, a &, null, b 2014 interracial youtubers unite!!!, nive nulls, 26 january, , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcwm-3-hkgi&t=7s. —2016a this is not working out, nive nulls, 27 may, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s318y8cmpp4&t=231s. —2016b, we bought a new house, nive nulls, 30 november, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5ruh41n3qi&t=50s. https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/thenivenulls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcwm-3-hkgi&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s318y8cmpp4&t=231s humphrey 32 null, b 2017, britt’s space, https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucdd0ghs1f9u1suw6ahgfh5g. warner, cc 2020, raising him: testaments of five black single mothers and how they perceive their experiences of raising theirs son(s) in contemporary urban america contemporary urban america, ed.d. dissertation, depaul university, chicago. warren, kw 2003, ‘ralph ellison and the problem of cultural authority,’ boundary 2, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 157–174. wesch, m 2009, ‘youtube and you: experiences of self-awareness in the context collapse of the recording webcam,’ explorations in media ecology, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 19–34. https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucdd0ghs1f9u1suw6ahgfh5g persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 97 bringing personas to life: user experience design through interactive coupled open innovation lynn coor ev its, dimitr i sch uurma n, kathy oel br a ndt, and sa ra logghe abstract a frequently used technique to enable user involvement during the course of a software design project is the development of personas. modeling personas helps developers to establish a stronger user focus and act as a constant reminder for whom one is and is not designing. within this paper we propose coupled interactive open innovation through iterative user involvement, such as in a living lab approach, as a way to improve the effectiveness of personas and scenarios. interactive coupled open innovation addresses user needs and creates new opportunities by using a trial-error learning process. this increases efficiency, augments stakeholders’ collaboration and facilitates co-creation. by involving real users who mirror the constructed personas in subsequent development steps, traditional persona development is enriched. this iterative process elicits new understandings and meanings of domain specific and market knowledge by positioning the development project in a ‘real-life’ context. the input of each step in the process translates towards and provides the technical team with potential input to develop iterations of the design. in this paper we provide a framework, based on interactive coupled open innovation, for persona development that will allow an optimized user experience by bringing personas and their scenarios to life in the design project. key words interactive coupled open innovation; user experience; persona; innovation; living lab methodology introduction the front end of design in new software development is a critical phase in which careful consideration of the decisions is necessary (sanders and stappers 3). personas and their scenarios can play an important role in design orientation, especially when the project consists of a large team of developers or a diverse set of users (matthews, judge, and whittaker 1219). the scenarios predict how certain types of users, represented by personas, will interact with the system in a given situation in order to complete a certain goal. this enables teams to understand user needs, and shifts the focus towards the accompanying software requirements which makes communication to the different stakeholders in the project easier (markensten and artman 14). coorevits et al. 98 the added value of personas has been demonstrated in various settings, but strategies for effectively using personas diverge in several ways (pruitt and grudin 314). researchers and practitioners find the creation process challenging and the existing guidelines are open to interpretation (matthews, judge, and whittaker 1219). furthermore effective use remains elusive because the persona is often perceived as too abstract, the information as irrelevant and underlying data as untrustworthy. matthews, judge and wittaker suggest that if persona development is linked to user study data it could improve their effectiveness by helping developers to decide upon “critical” information for the design (1227). also chapman and milham as well as pruitt and grudin argue the importance of reconciling personas and their scenarios with other data. to accomplish this, pruitt and grudin suggest that a combination of qualitative and quantitative user data can provide the underlying information needed for persona creation. this in turn will make them less subjective and more credible for developers because they can verify how they are being constructed (324). there is some disagreement however on how to create personas and which approach would be most useful to developers (matthews, judge, and whittaker 1221). within this paper, we will integrate an “interactive coupled open innovation approach” (piller and west) to support the development of personas. it is assumed that user-driven methodologies, such as a living lab methodology, can enhance the outcomes of design methods because personas in themselves cannot provide input on “product answers relating to usability and usefulness” (dotan et al. 3). adopting a living lab methodology should “blur the lines between technology users and producers by including (future) users of technologies from the start of technology development” (sauer 16). researchers using this methodology can mediate the innovation process, “by aligning the different stakeholders and articulating product characteristics and requirements” (coenen and robijt 1). the “iterative nature” of this type of persona development allows for trial and error and the introduction of variations that produce different results (trimi and berbegal-mirabent 459). in the literature there are currently no studies available that have combined persona creation with an interactive coupled open innovation approach. therefore this paper will examine by means of a single case study how iterative immersion in user data and working with real end-users, in a design project via the living lab methodology, can improve the effective usage and outcomes of applying personas in user experience research and design. personas in user experience research, personas are an established “interaction design technique” for software applications (pruitt and grudin 313) because they help developers decide upon product requirements, interaction patterns, and presentational design. personas are fictional characters that embody typical characteristics of the different (potential) user groups of the innovation under development. they are a good starting point for user experience design work (johansson and messeter; floyd, cameron jones, and twidale), because they explain the end users’ “attitudes towards technology” in relation to their daily life (dotan et al. 4), which makes the persona “more vivid” and “memorable” (floyd, cameron jones, and twidale 8). their accompanying scenarios explain how personas would interact with the new system, eliciting key requirements for the developers (long). envisioning real users in the form of a persona rather than abstract groups of people makes it easier for developers to focus on the user. personas have also proved their effectiveness as a communication medium between project participants (grudin and pruitt 326). despite these promising features, the designer's’ willingness to use personas in practice varies tremendously (matthews, judge, and whittaker). sometimes they are considered as too subjective (floyd, cameron jones, and twidale), “abstract”, and “impersonal” (matthews, judge, and whittaker 1220). additionally it is too persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 99 difficult for developers to verify whether and how well they reflect user data (dotan et al. 4). even experienced user centered design practitioners are confronted with challenges while using personas (matthews, judge, and whittaker 1226). in order to deal with those challenges it is critical to “immerse in user data” to make more accurate reflections of the user population (matthews, judge, and whittaker 1227). in other words personas can no longer be seen as a standalone technique to understand users and their needs. interactive coupled open innovation such as the living lab methodology can provide structure to this process by performing user research and bringing personas to life as real users or participants in the development process. interactive coupled open innovation piller and west suggest “interactive coupled open innovation” as a model where organizations and users jointly create “new knowledge and input for the innovation process” (39). this process consists of the following stages: defining, finding participants, collaborating, and leveraging. piller and west regard co-creation as the dominant activity during this process and see this as a link between both the open and user innovation paradigms. nevertheless, they also notice a lack of research into co-creation as a process and a lack of management frameworks for implementing interactive coupled open innovation. within this paper, we perceive living labs as multi-facetted phenomena embodying both open and user innovation. building further on the argument of piller and west, schuurman suggests living labs as “infrastructures facilitating and enabling interactive coupled open innovation” (319). living labs function as “experimental platforms” where end-users are studied in their everyday context (eriksson, niitamo, and kulkki 7). however, in the literature, living labs are interchangeably used to refer to innovation systems, organisations, user involvement methodologies, real-life monitoring and the european movement (dutilleul, birrer, and mensink). therefore, schuurman distinguishes three levels of analysis for living labs: an organisational layer, a project layer and an individual user research methods layer (184-185). co-creation is facilitated at the project layer by introducing a specific living lab methodology. regarding this methodology, pierson and lievens identified the following five consecutive stages in the “process configuration” of a living lab project (117) (see table 1), all of which are tailored towards users and their characteristics. johansson and messeter suggest that the process of creating personas should be “a continuous process of reconstructing the user” (240). therefore, we can state that during every living lab research stage we can collect data to enrich personas and their scenarios that will drive the system requirements. the living lab methodology serves the purpose of:  identifying and modeling personas and their scenarios.  refining and validating persona and scenario assumptions based on quantitative and qualitative user data.  driving product requirement specification based on personas and scenarios a main question in the literature that should be answered is: ‘how can personas can co-exist with this continuous need for immersion in user data?’ our study suggests living lab methodology as a way to structure this process. each of the five living lab project stages aim to develop, validate, and refine the product's target user personas, its key scenarios and product development. considering living lab methodology takes an iterative approach, this will also allow designers to evaluate product requirements in an agile way. coorevits et al. 100 consecutive living lab stage what? impact on persona development impact on technological development contextualizati on obtain insights regarding the product's background context. draw justified selection criteria and profiles for the product's intended end-users. determine relevant parameters of the persona and scenarios such as identity, goals, behavior, motivation and system interaction. first insights on the user needs and goals. developers can deduce ways to fulfill these from the personas and scenarios. selection identification and selection of users that will be involved in the living lab research. first validation of persona and scenario parameters based on real data by linking them to foundational documents which include user study data to back up the persona. this solves the credibility problem of the initial developed personas. concretization modelling specific characteristics of the targeted users, such as their behavior and perception on the introduced technology. quantitatively refine the initial persona and scenario assumptions using the user cluster information. the refined personas and scenarios serve as a first interface between the user study component and the agile development process. implementatio n the actual user tests test users matching the intended personas' characteristics are recruited to use and evaluate a working product prototype. initial evaluation can be done on the assumed requirements feedback an ex-post measurement, aiming to detect evolutions in users' perception and attitudes towards the introduced product or service. persona and scenario evaluation and optimization technological improvements and recommendations for future requirements are deduced table 1: living lab research stages (based on pierson and lievens), persona, and system development methodology given the exploratory nature of this research, this paper describes an in-depth single case study by means of participatory action research. the purpose of the research was to understand how living lab methodology could function as an intermediary between personas and developers by continuous immersion in user data. the case in this study is a european union funded research project focusing on the enablement of portable and multi-device applications via open-source software. the objective in designing the software was to enable web applications and services to be used and shared consistently and securely over a broad spectrum of converged and connected devices (cross-platform and cross-domain), including mobile, pc, home media (tv) and in-car units. the resulting package, webinostv, is a persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 101 ubiquitous application for multi-screen media discovery and playback, built to enable a connection between several home devices (e.g. computer, tablet and smartphone) to access and play media files such as movies, music and pictures from any home device on any other device connected to the system. this case study is interesting because personas were created early in the webinostv project and no longer used by developers once the first prototype was made. we wanted to investigate whether the effective use of personas during the platform development (upper half of figure 1) of webinostv could be raised by introducing the living lab methodology and constantly refining and optimizing the personas (lower half of figure 1). figure 1: research flow as discussed earlier, the creation of seven personas and their four scenarios occurred prior to before the authors becoming involved in this project. the initial design was completed by academics that approached the technique qualitatively; however, the software developers stopped using the personas after the first prototype was created. to re-engage the design team with the personas, the existing personas were enriched with market data analysed by the authors team during the contextualization phase. some researchers also suggest combining qualitative and quantitative techniques to improve the effectiveness of personas (mcginn and kotamraju; pruitt, adlin, and quesenbery). therefore based on the personas and user scenarios from the first user study phase, the selection phase approaches the problem quantitatively. it does so by using datasets containing real test users' profiles and by clustering this information based on relevant parameters. during the user study's subsequent concretization step, the user cluster information is used to refine the team's initial persona and scenario assumptions. the refined personas and scenarios serve as a first interface between the user study component and the agile development process. based on these models, the targeted product's key requirements and their assigned priorities are drawn. in turn, the development team can start its agile development iterations in order to deliver a first series of working prototypes, which can be validated in the user study's implementation step (i.e., the fourth living lab methodology phase, figure 1). during this step, test users matching the intended personas' characteristics are recruited to use and evaluate a working product prototype. the testing is performed in a controlled setting. this test setup aims to mimic a domestic and natural coorevits et al. 102 environment in which the product will eventually be used (e.g., a living room). in a last user study phase, i.e. its feedback phase, interviews are performed with each of the participants, asking for evaluation input and improvement recommendations for the tested product. moreover, participants are confronted with the previously modeled personas and scenarios and asked to evaluate and/or optimize them. this data is in turn used to qualitatively update the persona and scenario models. the product evaluation results serve as input to the development team via a series of additional product requirements for the user interface. the application was developed using the scrum framework (sutherland) of which every iteration consists of the following steps:  preparation: the architecture and user interface of the application are designed  prioritization: the issues for both the application and the underlying platform are given a ranking based on their priority.  development iteration: this step entails fixing bugs and adding features based on the prioritization done during the previous step. bugs are fixed based on their priority.  technical evaluation: at the end of each sprint, the application and platform are evaluated again, from a technical perspective. to do this, the personas, scenarios and quality attributes that were put forward after each step of the living lab methodology are used. all issues encountered are used as input for the prioritization phase of the next sprint. by following this proposed approach, the persona and scenario development and the immersion in user study data becomes a continuous, iterative process in parallel with prototype development. the data of each step was gathered via extensive monitoring (recordings, realtime observations and field notes), which indicates that the results are mainly based on the author’s first experiences of project participation. to complement this, the researchers also interviewed the system developers that were involved in the project. the data was analyzed via open coding and triangulated with the input from the interview. results contextualization phase as indicated earlier, the webinostv developers used seven qualitative user personas when working on their first prototype. however, these personas quickly became irrelevant to the design process and we were asked to assist.i to solve the issues at hand we followed the recommendations of pruit and grudin to collect “as much existing research as possible” to enhance credibility (318), especially because the description of the initial personas and the scenarios was very technical. we gathered further insights in users’ media consumption behaviour from the digimeter (iminds). this yearly survey assembles detailed information on media possession and usage for people living in the flemish region of belgium. the study provided some useful insights for the developers such as number of flemish users multitasking whilst watching tv (87%) and the type of device they use, namely mobile phone (50%), laptop (48%) and tablet (20%). the data also provided more insights on the digital literacy of flemish consumers. this enriched the personas and allowed the developers to use them in the creation of a product vision board (see table 2). persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 103 product statement: the webinostv application offers users the possibility to discover media content on any personal computing device and to remotely control this content's playback. target group: media consumers who own one or more personal computing devices such as smartphones, tablets and tv’s and want to play media across devices seamlessly. moreover, there should be no user restrictions based on age, country, etc. needs: users would like to control media playback with just one device (e.g., their phone), so they can playback media on any other device without being in physical proximity (e.g., playing music on the desktop computer while cleaning the room). moreover, users want to allow friends to share media (e.g., show pictures) on their devices (e.g., the tv in the living room). product: webinostv is a software application, which provides the cross-device; cross-location; cross-user functionality. the app allows for playing back media across devices, e.g. displaying pictures from the smartphone on the tv. moreover, the app enables rendering media content synchronized on multiple devices at the same time. each device can act as a media source; playback target; or remote controller. value: using webinostv results in less frustration when trying to get media playback working across devices and locations. it works across all types of devices. it allows you to play media on other devices seamlessly, and doesn't require any physical connection. no more fussing about with incompatible devices. moreover, the app is not restricted to one user. hence, webinostv makes it easy to allow friends to use your devices for media playback. competitors and alternatives: airplay by apple: proprietary solution only works with apple products. other vendor-specific combinations: again not fully cross-device. using usbsticks or other media storage cards: requires hooking devices up physically. upnp/dlna: limited set of supported devices and setting up cross-location access support is cumbersome and frustrating. table 2: product vision board: multi-device media consumption application selection to increase the personas’ accuracy (=representativeness) even more, it is recommended to “couple user research and persona development tighter” by using quantitative techniques (sinha 1). therefore we performed a principal component analysisii. we used the most relevant variables of the digimeter study, which also occur in the application's persona and scenario assumptions and the product’s vision board (with kmo = 0.87, p < 0.001). three matching factors were found: the variety of media usage (crohnbach’s α = 0.90), the frequency of media usage (crohnbach’s α = 0.60) and the user's multi-device usage (crohnbach’s α = 0.90). based on a comparison of these primary factors with the application's assumption personas and scenarios, these deemed consistent factors for clustering. hierarchical clustering suggested a three-cluster solution and they were established with a k-means clustering algorithm. each cluster covers a distinct user type, which we named: basic user, technology addict, and pleasure seeker (see table 3). coorevits et al. 104 basic user (n=1260) technology addict (n=526) pleasure seeker (n=870) media usage frequency 2.60 3.92 4.03 media variety usage 2.37 5.85 5.04 multi-device usage 0.18 5.05 0.14 table 3: clusters deduced from digimeter database (factors mean matching score) to make the link between the persona and the supporting data explicit, we created a “foundational document” (grudin and pruitt 319). during a meeting with the developers, relevant data points and facts were linked to the personas. the following picture depicts an example of how the results of the clustering were communicated to the developers: figure 2: cluster information as communicated with development team concretization based on the quantitative user characteristics extracted from the three clusters, the qualitative persona assumptions defined in the contextualization phase were extended and refined. the scenarios of the different personas were completely rewritten based on the possibilities of the webinostv application as well as the input from the digimeter data. the description of georg for example was expanded tremendously. his aptitudes, motivations and privacy concerns were extended towards his desire for comfort and the level of experience that new technologies offer him. multitasking, time saving and using whichever persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 105 device is closest to him defines georg’s behaviour in every step of the way. following picture shows how georg was represented in a persona poster to the developers: figure 3: poster version of persona 'georg'111 there also was a text foreseen in the foundational document explaining the persona and the accompanying scenario of georg more in depth. the scenario looked as following: watching a movie on the tv, while streaming it from smartphone/tablet overview: georg wants to show a movie taken from his phone to a group of friends. description: georg’s weeks are filled with client visits, meetings and travel. it is friday evening and some friends are coming over he haven’t seen in a while. they sit on the sofa and talk about what has changed in their lives during the past couple of weeks. they relax with a drink, some finger food, and get comfortable. all of the sudden, georg wants to show some videos of his crazy pet and its behaviour during the last couple of weeks. he takes out his tablet/phone and streams the movie to the tv. afterwards, one of his friends takes out his phone and shares a recent video he shot during the performance of his favorite artist. it doesn’t take long before everybody is sharing content. issues: georg wants to show a video to all of his friends. benefits: webinos provides an easy to browse system, where you can search your content via different devices. the overview you get, makes it easy to choose the content you want. usability breakdown: persona – georg; duration – minutes; frequency – monthly; demands – low; goal conflict – low. coorevits et al. 106 the refined personas and application scenarios from the selection and concretization phase were used to drive the agile development of webinostv. the product's main requirements and priorities (i.e., product backlog) were set based on the knowledge acquired from the user study. because the personas have varied technical skills, and users expect applications to “just work”, the user experience needed to be optimized. in the preparation phase, there were several problems that needed to be fixed:  the layout was based on a purely left-to-right workflow  on mobile, there was no general overview, so the user did not grasp the application’s workflow.  the concept of distributed media playback was new to most users and was something they didn’t understand without an additional explanation. based on the outlined problems, some general interface design patterns were discussed and chosen. the prototype resulting from this phase looks as following: figure 4: testable prototype the identified issues were prioritized and the main drivers for the scrum calls were threefold. first, the user interface was redesigned and the interface for tablet and mobile was developed separately from the interface for tv. second, the persona and scenario concretization served as input for the user interface redesign, and for the evaluation and testing rounds that happened before every scrum call. by using the refined personas and scenarios as input, testing from a user perspective was made a lot easier, thus providing more concrete feedback. third, stability and performance testing was carried out as preparation for the actual user testing. the output of these tests was given back to the platform development team, accelerating the stabilization of the platform. implementation cluster characteristics of the previous steps predicted pleasure seekers and technology addicts to be the main innovators and early adopters of the platform. therefore the remainder of the study we focused on these two groups. all test users were selected from the digimeter persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 107 database. during eight test sessions, a total of 18 users evaluated webinostv. eight users were recruited based on their characteristics matching either the pleasure seeker (n=4) or technology addict (n=4) personas. each of these users was asked to invite one or two friends to jointly try out and evaluate the product. the eight test sessions were held at a lab reflecting a living room. living lab methodology focuses on testing with “real users” reflecting “real daily use” (sauer 48). the ‘real’ dimension of the users being present during the test is obvious, but the ‘real daily life’ dimension is open for discussion. living lab methodology suggests a ‘real daily life’ environment to learn from the “unexpected ideas of users and their unexpected interactions with the technology” (sauer 24). to align with this vision, we provided the users with a minimal introduction to webinostv's concepts. moreover, the matching personas' pre-modeled application scenarios were suggested as a potential starting point to familiarise with the product. nevertheless, after the introduction, users were given complete liberty to use the application however they wanted. by giving them this freedom and letting them bring a friend, we tried to replicate a ‘real daily life’ dimension to uncover unexpected events as would be possible in a non-lab environment. all participants were observed during the entire test session. this already distinctively confirmed previous persona assumptions from the digimeter clustering. test subjects with characteristics matching the georg and justin personas (i.e., technology addicts), immediately explored the product and did not follow the suggested application scenario. the majority of these users only enacted the proposed scenario at the very end of the testing session, as they first tried out all available functionalities. this observation confirms the assumption that technology addicts are multifunctional users when it comes to technology and they like variation in their usage patterns. compared to other users, technology addicts appeared faster at grasping the concepts of webinostv's multi-device technology. additionally, technology addicts were observed to be more self-centered when interacting with a technological product. these users tend to test out the product without involving or interacting with other people (i.e., the friends they invited to the session). the technology addicts, e.g., regularly interfered with other users' playlists by overriding their actions and individually selecting another movie or song for playback. the test was also organized to identify potential usability problems with webinostv. usability refers to the ease of using a new application. six quality attributes were researched during the usability testing:  learnability: how easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?  efficiency: once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?  memorability: when users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they work with the application the next time?  errors: what and how many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?  satisfaction: how pleasant is it to use the application and its design?  utility: does the application provide the user with the wanted features? although the designers tested the application in advance by using the personas and scenarios as guided test scripts, the test phase indicated the platform was not as intuitive as initially anticipated. most participants had difficulties getting familiarized with webinostv's multidevice functionality. the observations during the testing phase showed users tend to get into a virtual cocoon with the personal computing device in front of them. due to this single-device focus, many external stimuli were ignored. users often did not notice actions on one device coorevits et al. 108 triggering an event on a remote device. for example, based on the devices' configuration, clicking the “play media'' button might result in a remote device starting the actual playback. although the remote media playback was always clearly audible and/or visible, these events did often go unnoticed. for some participants, it took a moment to grasp this core concept. nevertheless, once they had the hang of the application, all users started enjoying it and were visibly amazed by its potential. these results indicate that personas and usability tests are complementary and can enhance the outcomes for designers. the developers received new perspectives on the user logic flow of the application, providing them with extra input to optimize the users experience design. feedback each testing session was concluded with a feedback interview. supported by an interviewer, the test users were asked about their experience and the usability of the application. two additional questions were asked in order to obtain feedback concerning webinostv's assumption personas and application scenarios. after being presented with these models, the test users are asked the following questions: q1: would you expect these people to actually use the application? why (not)? which characteristics would you change? do you recognize yourself in any description? q2: would you expect these scenarios to be typical user stories for webinostv? why (not)? how would you adapt them to better map to the targeted users? would you use webinostv similarly to the described scenarios? why (not)? how would you use it? based on these interviews, a swot analysis to improve different requirements was compiled, along with a final qualitative refinement of the key user personas and their application scenarios. a swot analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) consists of four evaluation categories and aims to identify both the internal and external factors that influence a particular objective (both positive as well as negative influences). the strengths and weaknesses aspects focus on internal characteristics. the opportunities and threats, on the other hand, aim to identify and evaluate externally originating elements. strengths.  one access point multiple device connection (comfort)  speed of actions  common playlist  ability to use it outside your own network  content sharing: e.g. work  fun: entertainment and social weaknesses.  usability: interface too complex and not intuitive  limited media options (only 15 items in playlist possible)  no option to choose content in playlist (ranking, changing, selecting, shuffle, etc.)  look and feel  too many clicks to perform actions opportunities.  expand potential: third party content such as spotify access  extra content options: e.g. create your own music quiz  collaboration options e.g. making a playlist together persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 109 threats.  competitors integrate more: e.g. appletv  fast changing technology market  technological dependencies when looking at the overall usability of the application, it appears most (70%) target groups experience difficulties with the learnability of the application and problems the first time they performed basic tasks. once they knew how the design worked, they were satisfied with the speed of their performed actions (100%). the memorability aspect was evaluated poorly. especially in regard to the older users, the participants were convinced they would have to explain the actions over and over again because it is perceived as being too complex. the main error made by the users was not clicking on the plus button to add items to the queue of the playlist. this is a major issue, because without this action they cannot succeed their goals, namely playing media files. almost none (90%) of the users were capable of solving this error on their own without input from the developers. all the other errors users made were minor and easy to solve. after the evaluation of the application, participants were also asked to assess the different personas based on their potential usage of the application and the contexts in which they would use it. this provided us with the opportunity to further optimize webinostv's modeled personas and application scenarios. particularly the application scenarios did require major changes, while the input on the user personas was rather limited. the users also recognized themselves in the persona they were matched to. georg for example required a minor update in the need for quality time with his daughter in the persona description, which impacted the suggested scenario towards using the application with his daughter instead of his friends. scenario: watching a movie on the tv, while streaming it from smartphone/tablet overview: georg wants to show a movie to his child after she is finished doing her homework. description: georg’s weeks are filled with client visits, meetings and travelling from one place to another. once home he helps his daughter with her homework. as a reward for finishing up her homework, she can watch a movie. georges has several movies on his computer and grabs the device closest to him to select the movie she can watch. his daughter seems not satisfied with the selected movie and requests a new one. georges browses his laptop and decides to show another one she seems in the mood for. issues: georg wants to show a video to his daughter. with the ability to select from a wider variety of suitable catalogue entries benefits: webinostv provides an easy to browse system where you can search your content via different devices. the overview you get, makes it easy to choose the content you want stored on any device connected. usability breakdown: persona – georg; duration – minutes; frequency – daily; demands – low; goal conflict low coorevits et al. 110 the findings of the implementation and evaluation allowed the agile development team to drive the end-of-iteration validation of their potentially shippable product. the developers primarily focused on the weaknesses of the swot to enhance user experience of webinostv. initially the user logic flow (observed during the test) of the application was optimized to create a more stable and user-friendly version of webinostv. the requirements coming from the revised scenarios served as input for future improvements of webinostv. discussion the principle aim of this study was to assess whether using the living lab methodology could provide structure and improve the effective use and impact of personas in the product development process by merging user data with personas. the results indicate that there are positive benefits associated with this approach in a design project. personas strengthen the focus on the end user, their tasks, goals and motivation. the continuous (re)construction of personas served as a constant reminder for the developers of for whom they were creating the platform. the merit of this approach lies in the combination of personas with user study data: this makes the personas less abstract, the underlying data is seen as trustworthy, and the resulting information is perceived as relevant to the design process. the input from the quantitative study, for example, provided the developers with additional test scenarios and made them aware of the fact that their application was not intuitive enough for ‘regular users’. this in turn made them revise the user interface of the application. user experience researchers recognize the difficulty of predicting future use contexts without any previous product experience. this is also reflected in the adjustments made to the scenarios over time. by bringing personas ‘to life’, and inviting designers to participate in a semi-real-life test, new understandings of the market and domain specific knowledge can be brought to light. this ‘real life’ testing provides insights into the usefulness and usability of an application which is not possible with fictional characters such as personas. these additional insights on user experience then provide the developers with new assessments of necessary requirements to ensure market acceptance (for example, raise the number of items in the playlist queue, or guide the user away from the single device focus). in other words, personas can communicate user needs without additional user study data in the initial stages of the project, but a combination of both improves the decision making throughout the entire development process. by combining these two approaches, personas are no longer purely used as a tool for communication, but also help to determine priorities in design requirements or test scripts. table four provides a framework, based on the living lab methodology, to continuously develop personas in combination with user study data, and demonstrates the added value realized for developers at each stage in the project. the table indicates that a one off creation of personas and their scenarios only has limited effect. therefore it is important to continuously develop personas and scenarios quantitatively and qualitatively. living lab methodology allows personas to become a dynamic given, evolving through the different research steps and bringing them to life for the developers. if all the data being gathered is delivered to the development team, it can serve as feedback for adjusting the requirements and priorities for future iterations. this in turn enhances the overall quality of the design. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 111 consecutive stage persona & scenario refinement added value for developer contextualization initial persona and scenario enrichment with additional market data need information ability to develop vision board selection validation of existing personas and scenarios via clustering prioritization of features that will be developed in the prototype based on input. this in turn drove the team to better meet internal deadlines. improves quality norms by guiding test scripts concretization making personas and scenarios more accurate with a focus on: identity roles motivations interactions implementation bringing personas and scenarios to life solution and evaluative information: usability input, optimization of functional, personal and social requirements feedback optimization of scenarios for future usage solution and evaluative information: input on usability, personal, social and contextual requirements table 4: consecutive research steps, personas and added value for development the empathy towards the personas increased over time, and in turn this allowed the developers to focus more on the end-user during all the stages of the development process. the developers also confirmed that because the real users selected their associated persona as ‘the one’ matching their own characteristics, this made the personas more ‘real’ and ‘vivid’ for developers, which boosted their belief in the added value of personas as a tool to develop. this study shows that the living lab methodology structures the triangulation of user data with the personas and their accompanying scenarios. as such, more realistic and accurate assessments of users are created and their impact on design in every step of the process is noticeable for developers. by bringing the personas to life via the living lab approach, more detailed design solutions can be deduced because the ‘real’ personas provide input on ‘real’ scenarios. this provides more input on requirements that will influence the product’s use in the field and user experience can be optimized accordingly. overall, the results show that this approach prevents developers from perceiving users purely as objects that have to fit in their design and emphasizes the user, its needs and potential interactions with the design. during stability tests for example, the personas and their scenarios allowed the developers to think about new test scenarios and find extra bugs in the system. introducing ‘real’ users’ to the design allowed the developers to observe ‘real interactions’ such as overriding someone’s playlist and provided them with feedback to prioritize the next steps in the development process. although these results favour a living lab methodology to bridge the gap between personas, users, their data and the development team, one should not underestimate the resources needed to implement this technique. these resources include expertise in preparing the usability test, having access to a lab in which the tests can be performed, and incentives for potential users to partake in the test. therefore this approach might not be suited for every coorevits et al. 112 development process, and in particular budgetary constraints may render the use of this method invalid. personas are sometimes used as an alternative method when living lab methodology is not possible. in such cases, the results of our study may not apply. yet despite these limitations, we want to emphasize the importance of the living lab methodology to increase product acceptance. not combining persona and scenario development with user studies can have severe effects on the development process. in this single case study the scenarios changed over time, and even towards the end of the project they were still undergoing change. if users were not confronted with the technology and asked to think about scenarios of use, the developers might have imagined an incorrect scenario when developing extra features for the platform, leading to a product that only has limited market acceptance. additionally, the input from the testing phase on user experience and usability allowed the developers to create a more intuitive and stable product. this study also has limitations beyond those of the methodology explored above. the results are based on a single case study and although the triangulation of the data should control for the impact of the context, the results can only be seen as an indication and not be generalized to wider populations. future research should try to replicate and validate the results of this study in order to make the findings more generalizable. replication provides some challenges because most user experience researchers will not have access to a panel of potential participants and a database to deduce characteristics of personas. conclusion this article presented a framework to enhance the effective use of personas via interactive coupled open innovation, and optimize user experience accordingly. we have demonstrated in a single case study that users' assumption personas and their scenarios can be iteratively validated and refined, and as such increase efficiency of the development process. despite personas being advocated for design and communication activities, their usage in practice is often limited. even in the webinostv case the personas were initially only used to discover needs. by introducing the living lab methodology linking persona development and user data to the development process, the effectiveness of the personas was improved. the living lab methodology complements the initial developer-based ux point of view by introducing new unaddressed user experience focal points into the scope of the development process, which otherwise go unnoticed. quantitatively and qualitatively refining personas and their scenarios drove the key product requirements and priorities. the methodology allows designers to focus on prioritization in the development process allowing them to gain time and tailor the product towards ‘real’ future use scenarios. for webinostv, assumption personas were quantitatively clustered and refined via the digimeter profile database. the refined personas were used for driving the application's agile development iterations. moreover, 18 test users and their friends, recruited from the digimeter database by matching the targeted personas, validated the delivered potentially shippable products. user tests were performed in a lab aiming to mimic a domestic environment. evaluation results were gathered through observations and interviews with test participants. their input was used for assessing the tested product's strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities (swot analysis). participants were asked to qualitatively evaluate the application's assumption personas and user scenarios. by bringing the personas to life in this phase the developers were able to create a viable product with an optimized user experience design. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 113 i for a more elaborate description of these initial persona and application scenario assumptions, we refer the interested reader to the deliverable in reference list (paul). ii for more information about the use of pca we advise you to consult jolliffe. iiii image robin 2008: http://blog.litcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/image/tablet%20 man.jpg end notes works cited chapman, c. n., and r. p. milham. “the personas’ new clothes: methodological and practical arguments against a popular method.” proceedings of the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting 50.5 (2006): 634–636. web. coenen, tanguy, and sarie robijt. “towards fall: a framework for agile living lab projects.” 2 (2015): n. pag. print. dotan, amir et al. “designing with only four people in mind? a case study of using personas to redesign a work-integrated learning support system.” hci. n.p., 2009. 497–509. web. dutilleul, benoît, frans a j birrer, and wouter mensink. “unpacking european living labs : analysing innovation ’ s social dimensions.” central european journal of public policy 4 (2010): 60–85. web. eriksson, mats, veli-pekka niitamo, and seija kulkki. state-of-the-art in utilizing living labs approach to usercentric ict innovation a european approach. sweden: n.p., 2005. print. floyd, ingbert r., m. cameron jones, and michael b. twidale. “resolving incommensurable debates: a preliminary identification of persona kinds, attributes, and characteristics.” artifact 2.1 (2008): 12–26. web. fowler, martin, and jim highsmith. “the agile manifesto.” software development 9.august (2001): 28–35. web. grudin, jonathan, and john pruitt. “personas . participatory design and product development: an infrastructure for engagement.” proceedings of the participatory design conference. palo alto: n.p., 2002. 144–152. web. iminds. digimeter: adoption and usage of media & ict in flanders. n.p., 2013. print. johansson, martin, and jörn messeter. “present-ing the user: constructing the persona.” digital creativity 16.4 (2005): 231–243. web. jolliffe, ian. principal component analysis. john wiley & sons, ltd, 2002. long, frank. “real or imaginary: the effectiveness of using personas in product design.” proceedings of the irish ergonomics society annual conference. n.p., 2009. 1–10. print. markensten, e., and h. artman. “procuring a usable system using unemployed personas.” acm international conference proceeding series. vol. 82. n.p., 2004. 13–22. web. matthews, tara, tejinder judge, and steve whittaker. “how do designers and user experience professional actually perceive and use personas?” conference of human factors in computing systems. austin, texas: n.p., 2012. 1219–1228. web. mcginn, jennifer jen, and nalini kotamraju. “data-driven persona development.” proceeding of the twentysixth annual chi conference on human factors in computing systems chi 08 (2008): 1521. web. chi ’08. paul, a. updates on scenario and use cases. n.p., 2012. web. pierson, jo, and bram lievens. “configuring living labs for a ‘thick’ understanding of innovation.” ethnographic praxis in industry conference. vol. 1. redmond, wa: n.p., 2005. 114–127. print. piller, frank, and joel west. “firms, users, and innovation: an interactive model of coupled open innovation.” new frontiers in open innovation. n.p., 2014. 1–33. print. http://blog.litcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/image/tablet%20%20man.jpg http://blog.litcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/image/tablet%20%20man.jpg coorevits et al. 114 pruitt, john, and jonathan grudin. “personas: theory and practice.” proceedings of the 2003 conference on designing for user experiences dux ’03. n.p., 2003. 1. web. pruitt, john s., tamara adlin, and whitney quesenbery. the persona lifecycle. n.p., 2006. web. sanders, elizabeth b, and pieter jan stappers. “co-creation and the new landscapes of design.” codesign 4.1 (2008): 5–18. print. sauer, sabrina. “user innovativeness in living laboratories: everyday user improvisations with icts as a source of innovation.” universiteit twente, 2013. web. schuurman, dimitri. “bridging the gap between open and user innovation? exploring the value of living labs as a means to structure user contribution and manage distributed innovation.” ugent/vub, 2015. print. sein, maung k et al. “action design research.” mis quarterly 35 (2011): 37–56. print. sinha, rashmi. “persona development for information-rich domains.” chi ’03: chi '03 extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems (2003): 830–831. web. sutherland, jeff. scrum handbook. n.p., 2010. web. trimi, silvana, and jasmina berbegal-mirabent. “business model innovation in entrepreneurship.” international entrepreneurship and management journal 8.4 (2012): 449–465. web. 11 nov. 2013. persona studies 2015, 1.2 75 depraved, distracted, disabled, or just “pack rats”? workplace hoarding personas in physical and virtual realms jo ann ora vec abstract this article provides some potential directions in exploring the construction of the persona of the “hoarder” and addresses how such a persona can move to the foreground of an individual’s set of workplace-related personas. hoarding throws into relief some critical concerns about the social standings of individuals in workplaces and the extent to which they have autonomous expression. the article frames hoarding in terms of its capacity to externalize particular social issues (such as environmental problems) and generate public discourse, and examines both physical hoardings (books and papers in academic and office settings, for example) and hoardings of virtual goods (such as digital music, video files, and pornographic images). virtual hoardings have been constructed as problematic as they create barriers to the free flow of information in the workplace and can challenge organizational interests related to intellectual property concerns. hoarding as a whole is becoming more tightly circumscribed as a workplace and community condition, in part because the ability to manage physical and virtual items in confined settings is considered central to many forms of competent societal functioning. an assortment of human resource management initiatives to mitigate hoarding concerns has developed, including the consideration of hoarding as a disability. however, hoarding behavior is increasing creating problems for those who are searching for simple definitions or straightforward diagnostic criteria. this article also provides some structures for analysis of the class-related and economic dimensions of workplace hoarding personas, and explores potential implications of lifelogging initiatives and hoarding acceptance approaches. key words hoarding, persona, workplace disability, anxiety, popular culture, virtual goods, class, lifelogging introduction a number of individuals openly claim to be “pack rats” and exhibit some level of disorganization in workplaces (diekema and olsen 2261), and they often express sympathy for those similarly afflicted. however, those who are considered hoarders can receive highly negative treatment in workplace organizations, often damaging their well-being and careers (mataix-cols 2023; ronan 249). this article analyzes how individuals in the workplace can acquire a hoarder persona among their other personas, and explores how this persona can take oravec 76 on a predominant status. as related in the article, treatments of hoarding in popular culture along with recent psychological research have served to shape workplace discourse on hoarding as well as expand the implications of hoarding personas, especially in relation to disability and other workplace considerations. as critics have noted, individuals are associated with more than one persona (see broady); however, the “hoarder” persona frequently moves to the foreground of the personas with which individuals couple themselves and are coupled in workplace contexts. the hoarding persona has, in recent years, been so overwhelming in its influence as to shift identities like “creative employee” or “kind friend” into the background. in the past decade, the notion of hoarding has expanded its place in public discourse in the us and uk with an assortment of news accounts, self-help books, and television “reality shows” (lepselter 919; weinman 77). oft-times this workplace hoarder identity is framed in terms of general notions of disability. if hoarding is, indeed, framed as a disability in organizations, the impact of being characterized as a hoarder could be considerable and may require the introduction of mental health and organizational accommodation. hoarding contexts and histories hoarding can elicit deep emotional connections in many of us, especially those who have considerable experience working with large collections of artifacts, papers, and books. it can be difficult to part with items one has a personal connection, such as items owned by a deceased relative or colleague. many individuals with academic connections know stories about a staff or faculty member who has been personally affected by hoarding. for example, the widelydiscussed case of the late margaret mary vojtko of duquesne university in the us, a french language instructor (discussed in ellis), made many academics reconsider their own situations. vojtko was an adjunct member of the faculty who accumulated many materials related to the accomplishments of her students (as well as her own intellectual products) in storage garages and various spaces granted to her by friends and colleagues. the collyer brothers, collectors of more than 140 tons of material (including many books and newspapers) in a manhattan apartment building in the 1940s, have attracted the interest of psychological researchers for decades (weiss 251). the collyer brothers’ story did not end well: they were both found dead among their possessions. hoarding is also becoming an international concern and studies in the european union (eu) and us demonstrate that it is a growing phenomenon (mueller et al. 709). an article in the australian and new zealand journal of psychiatry by paul fitzgerald characterizes cases of severe hoarding as “the bowerbird symptom,” reflecting the tendencies of the animal mentioned to hoard (597). other social scientists and commentators have referred to a “hoarding instinct” (conniff 92) and hoarding behavior has been studied in animals and humans that are facing certain resource stresses (bergstrom 10860), however, research on hoarding has been relatively slow to emerge despite the “significant distress and impairment” often associated with the condition (coles et al., 180). virtual hoarding issues have been even slower to gain attention from researchers. the overall relationship of modern society to physical goods has been problematic, so it is not surprising that hoarding is often portrayed as harmful to personal well-being at home and at work. books such as should the u.s. reduce its consumption? (2011) and the story of stuff: the impact of overconsumption on the planet, our communities, and our healthand how we can make it better (2010) remind us that overconsumption is a critical problem, even threatening, and related to global climate and energy change. individuals are informed from many sources that one of the solutions to society’s economic and ecological problems involves smaller buildings with less “stuff” in them. despite these anti-consumption initiatives, individuals also face an onslaught of marketing messages and advertising materials tempting them to buy even more items; they are also advised by public safety and survivalist groups about the prospects of impending shortages or dramatically increased prices for goods and persona studies 2015, 1.2 77 services. in hoarders, doomsday preppers, and the culture of apocalypse (2014), foster explores how individuals deal with projected disasters and crises through hoarding certain kinds of personal possessions. hoarding is often the result of chronic shortages during extended periods of disaster and war (solnit p2), so new forms of hoarding associated with the recent economic austerity crises in the us and europe may emerge. the result of these conflicting messages is often cognitive dissonance and confusion (thomas and mora 1). the notion that possessions can somehow own or control their owners in dysfunctional ways has been a persistent theme in western cultures for some time now. as american author henry david thoreau noted in 1845: “most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of [hu]mankind” (8). in 1917, british philosopher bertrand russell also argued that, “it is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men [and women] from living freely and nobly” (154). today, “voluntary simplifiers” extol the political as well as personal benefits of reducing one’s physical belongings (zamwel, sasson-levy, and ben-porat 199), and frame personal accumulations in terms of larger environmental problems. platitudes about the positive aspects of living with fewer and/or well-organized belongings are, indeed, lofty and inspiring, but they often fail to recognize the societal demands for competent interactions with material goods. for example, in order competently to interact with government bureaucracy, maintain one’s medications and medical apparatus, and arrange for adequate nutrition, one must acquire and organize substantial quantities of material items. however, navigating the narrow straits of proper societal functioning in terms of these items can be difficult: how many things should a normally-functioning employee or household member accumulate? how should these entities be organized and maintained? american author mark twain (samuel clemens) reportedly hoarded the letters of his many correspondents, an activity that may have appeared eccentric at the time, but which has given his biographers an incredible wealth of information (rasmussen xiii). contested terrains: hoarding and the workplace efforts to characterize “hoarding” can lead to complex and contentious discussions. in 2013, after lengthy debate, “hoarding disorder” was included in the dsm-5 (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, published by the american psychiatric association). the label is reportedly intended to cover cases in which hoarding occurs independently from, or in the absence of, other kinds of mental conditions. the dsm-5 defines hoarding disorder as “persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value” (american psychiatric association 236), a behavior that can also be linked with various forms of anxiety. an often-cited characterization of hoarding is an “excessive form of collectionism” (pertusa et al. 372), in which possessions take on extended levels of value and significance. distinctions between collectionism (intense focuses on the part of individuals on organizing and completing assemblages of certain kinds of items) and hoarding (which is generally perceived as disorganized) are complex and statusor class-related differences often play a role in how collecting behavior is constructed. those who have the means to live with considerable, well-organized possessions are generally not considered “hoarders” but “collectors.” nicely-stocked offices, closets, or pantries are considered the result of diligence; the piles of materials associated with hoarding are construed in less appreciative terms. the fact that physical possessions often have monetary dimensions can introduce class-related aspects: individuals who are less well positioned in relation to their organizational or neighborhood standards can be construed as a hoarder for retaining a relatively-small number of possessions in the restrictive spaces in which they work oravec 78 or live. in contrast, those who can afford large houses and storage garages, or in workplace contexts, larger offices and efficient secretarial help, can amass much more before such an identity moves to the foreground. in fact, almost a third of those surveyed in a number of western nations state that they are, indeed, “collectors” of some particular items (pearce 1). belk et al. distinguish between “hoardings” and “collections” in characterizations of how possessions relate to the construction of self. collections may be of the same size as hoardings, but have more specific structures and meanings: “we take collecting to be the selective, active, and longitudinal acquisition, possession and disposition of an interrelated set of differentiated objects (material things, ideas, beings or experiences)” (181). those who collect items are often driven to add to their accumulations, but at the same time might worry that their newest acquisitions will somehow “complete” their collections and thus an aspect of their motivation for continuing to collect may be diminished. the performativity of hoarding behavior, in contrast, seldom has such specific patterns and motivations, either in terms of the kinds of items involved or in how they are organized, stored, and acquired. in an effort to determine possible patterns, some researchers have recently attempted to map the connections between hoarding and compulsive buying (lawrence et al. 1137; mueller et al. 709). workplaces are scenes for many kinds of struggles for resources and social standing between and among individuals, conflicts that can intensify as economic conditions place strains on organizations. attention to hoarding in many workplaces has expanded as office space and other resources become more expensive and the everyday surveillance and oversight of employees escalates. the workplace has increasingly become “contested terrain” (edwards and edwards vii), with employees and management often perceiving their interests to differ. part of this contested terrain notion involves the basic characterization of employees: are they to be considered autonomous individuals or as entities under the strict control of supervisors? office and shop floor décor can play a role in fostering individuality and giving individuals more leeway in their expressions (elsbach 99). when employees alter their workspaces through hoarding they may enter into larger contests and struggles concerning how individuals are construed and how the scope of activity of supervisors is determined. a hoarding persona in workplace contexts is performed and expressed by individuals through various kinds of behavior in relation to physical or virtual items. some of these performances may involve the accumulation and stockpiling of particular entities. other hoarding performances may enact the neglect of certain functions: hoarders may be confused about, be unable to replicate, or simply refuse to perform the regular cleaning, arrangement, and disposal behaviors that are the accepted norms for their workplaces. as described in sections to come, these performances are generally enacted within the limited stage and scope of the workplace setting and are circumscribed by the workplace’s economic and cultural setting. individuals may adopt the persona of hoarder despite the relatively small size of the hoardings involved, perhaps because the items in question may appear to lack organization. the amount of material involved in workplace hoarding can be a tiny fraction of the resources associated with the organization, but can still be considered a “hoard” by co-workers or clients (herring hoarders 8). employees who are construed or construe themselves as hoarders are often linked with the appropriation of resources and physical or virtual space, and manifest some kind of deviance from accepted, delimited organizational patterns. many workplaces are also becoming sites of hoardings of virtual goods, which affects the free flow of organizational information and raises questions about the competence and diligence of the individuals involved (gormley and gormley 90). on the other hand, employees who are compliant in terms of physical and virtual resources may be seen as more adaptable: in workplace cultures, employees who are able to shift their relationships with their possessions and other objects persona studies 2015, 1.2 79 appropriately and quickly in order to meet the assumed needs of institutions are preferable to those, such as hoarders, who cannot or will not. hoarding and human resource management and disability studies hoarding narratives are becoming a focus of the business community in the us and uk. for instance, an article in forbes magazine, a widely-read american financial publication, described hoarding as a “real” and “tragic” condition, directly countering some of the more sensationalistic coverage in television and print portrayals (haiken 1). the persona of the hoarder in these contexts is often linked to waste and loss although the economic and social encumbrances that hoarding places on workplaces and communities are difficult to weigh (for example, the opportunity costs associated with the decreases in functional working space and the loss of usable items that are hidden from view) (tolin et al. “the economic” 200). although some workplaces have strict policies about personal belongings or tightly control the amount of organizational resources that employees can access, others provide enough leeway and discretion so as to enable hoarding to become a factor (kim 496; murphy 22). the approach of some organizations to hoarding behaviour has been to frame it as a disability, following the american psychiatric association’s classification of “hoarding disorder” (herring hoarders 3). however, introducing disability-related themes may also increase the complexities of the hoarding persona and, in some situations, its stigma. in a positive light, such a framework could stimulate the allocation of expenditures for counseling or the redesigning of spaces and tasks. unfortunately, this would require employer resources in a job market where resources are often stretched thin and problematic employees more readily dismissed. like many human conditions associated with disability in the workplace, individuals are often labeled as hoarders without professional diagnosis and are managed by concerned others (such as supervisory personel), who lack the proper professional qualificiations to manage this issue (murphy 23): the piles of materials associated with the individual are considered sufficient evidence. considering hoarding as a disability could also involve social interventions in workplace contexts: psychologists are generating a number of narratives pertaining to social anxieties and the social isolation of hoarders. some portray these conditions as self-imposed and others as linked to external triggers (steketee and frost 21; vigne et al. 315). more detailed and systematic strategies for characterizing and diagnosing hoarding are emerging. development of these strategies is made more complex by the vast differences in the situations and demographics (and, possibly, the neural structures) of individuals associated with the persona of “hoarder” (wang et al. 939). for example, hoarding is an activity that affects multiple demographics. it is reportedly making an appearance among college-aged students (coles, frost, heimberg, and steketee 179), who are often present in workplaces for internships and other early employment opportunities. at the same time, as the number of relatively older individuals in workplace and community settings rises, compulsive hoarding cases also seem to be increasing (ayers et al. 741). in the past decade, efforts to develop diagnostic scales for hoarding in workplaces and mental health settings have included the 26-item saving inventoryrevised (coles et al. 179) and the briefer, interview-format hoarding rating scale-interview (hrs-i) (tolin, frost, and steketee 147). another research initiative involves mapping the linkages of some forms of hoarding to obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd) (neal-barnett and mendelson 169). in some workplace settings, hoarding has already been linked with problems akin to those of ocd (santuzzi et al. 204), which raises critical questions concerning disclosure of the conditions involved, potential treatment, and accommodation. some therapists are using images of hoardings to diagnose hoarding cases (de la cruz et al. 61). in one kind of treatment strategy, images of hoardings are also being employed to mitigate its effects; jones and singh oravec 80 have used images of hoarders’ possessions in non-threatening therapy contexts to help desensitize hoarders to related anxieties (41). adding to the complexities of diagnosis and treatment, some theorists have posited that hoarding may in itself serve as a defense mechanism, serving to shield the individual from even more debilitating behaviour (hudson 57). the interpersonal dimensions of hoarding also complicate its construction as a disability (grisham, steketee, and frost e63): the stereotype of hoarders as isolated loners has been modified in recent years because many individuals are highly social but also have hoarding tendencies. many of those who are portrayed or who self-identify as hoarders are highly functional in various aspects of their personal and professional realms, possibly even overcompensating in some areas such as in personal dress and self-maintenance (steketee and frost 21). assisting these highly-functional individuals to find ways to establish control over their physical and virtual possessions as they have over other aspects of their lives (o’connor 101; woody 324) may empower them to maintain the kinds of routines and everyday activities that can mitigate the consequences of hoarding behavior. however, many individuals characterized as hoarders do have considerable difficulties in terms of social interaction (rasmussen et al. 384). in response, some community approaches to hoarding have involved task forces of concerned citizens dedicated to dealing in a sensitive manner with the multifaceted issues of often isolated and frightened individuals (bratiotis). hoarders, heal thyselves: self-help for hoarders? self-help literatures and other simple, low-cost remedies for human maladies have emerged for hoarding, as they have for many other conditions that have been constructed as being problematic (such as weight loss and self-esteem issues). human resource managers (as well as the general public) might be tempted by the notion that reading a book or watching a video can help to change or recharacterize behavior. however, societal stigmas are often reflected in these self-help materials and can muddy attempts to understand hoarding and deal with its consequences. for example, some popular non-fiction accounts of compulsive buying (shulman) can place some kinds of hoarding in the light of avarice and pleasure rather than as a struggle with serious medical conditions such as ocd (as portrayed in frost et al. “compulsive buying” 201). many individuals who are characterized as “overweight” have comparable issues involving how their situation is construed. some books have even linked hoarding with weight issues, such as breininger’s stuff your face or face your stuff: the organized approach to lose weight by decluttering your life (2013). discrimination against those who weigh more than a certain amount in relation to their heights is rampant in many workplace contexts whatever the roots of their conditions (magallares, morales, and rubio 255) and their physiques are often openly mocked rather than treated with respect. those who are labele d as “hoarders” face comparably negative conditions, although the amount of discrimination in workplaces against hoarders has yet to be determined (bratiotis, schmalisch, and steketee 10). a large number of books have emerged that outline specific “how to” steps and selftherapy strategies for individuals associated with hoarding. books such as overcoming compulsive hoarding: why you save and how you can stop (bubrick et al.) attempt to deliver strategies for individuals to overcome their perceived problems. other approaches incorporate greater levels of critical self-examination and reproach: cluttered lives, empty souls: compulsive stealing, spending, and hoarding (shulman) links the hoarding of possessions with various character faults and even crimes. “tell all” books such as dirty secret: a daughter comes clean about her mother’s hoarding (sholl) and diary of a hoarder's daughter (winter) are designed to assist individuals through the supposed true-life confessionals of others. many of the us persona studies 2015, 1.2 81 nationally-syndicated talk shows (including the us television show dr. phil) have covered hoarding issues multiple times (lepselter 919). given the widespread dissemination of these books and television shows, hoarding narratives rooted in workplace and community contexts apparently have substantial voyeuristic value, particularly in an era of unsettling economic changes. individuals who are linked to hoarding behaviours often produce coherent narratives and arguments about their situation and can articulate why specific items are retained. the hoarders themselves have some control over these narratives, but other accounts (such as reports of health inspectors or other officials) are largely out of their direct spheres of influence. in the hoarding handbook: a guide for human service professionals, bratiotis, schmalisch, and steketee state that people are “simultaneously appalled and drawn to the stories of hoarding” (11), making these narratives attractive yet controversial matter for popular treatment in media. moreover, these media narratives are often produced and disseminated by those who have little personal connection with the hoarders involved. television series have provided many amateur workplace diagnosticians with basic knowledge of hoarding. for example, the learning channel (tlc) in the us premiered a documentary series hoarding: buried alive on march 14, 2010 that served to make its viewers more aware of the condition. the series provided detailed case studies of individuals who accepted the label of “hoarders” and agreed (at least at first) to work with both an organizational expert and a psychologist on their conditions. in these reality tv shows and documentaries, economic conditions are often connected to hoarding activities . for instance, some individuals rationalize hoarding by explaining that they had few possessions as children and now do not know how to handle abundance; others construe the hoarding of everyday items as related to the fear of current or future economic losses. in patterson, hogan, and willis (5), the authors provide an account of how hoarding tendences are related to childhood deficiencies in material items caused by poverty. issues of virtual hoarding and workplace redesign the“virtual hoarder” is a relatively new aspect of hoarding behaviour and its relation to physical hoarding is uncertain. i virtual hoarding has some correlation to physical hoarding in terms of organization and stewardship practices: many individuals are effectively misplacing or damaging digital files through not providing sufficient tags and by not updating files from out-of-date formats (gormley and gormley 22). this behavior can result in losses to organizations that are comparable to those of physical resource losses as information needed for organizational operations is taken out of circulation (“is it workplace hoarding?” 3). virtual items that are hoarded have evolved from simple e-mail address rosters to collections of highly detailed avatars and complex online game strategies (ng and höpfl 751; oravec virtual 47). kirk and sellen, as well as good, have categorized an assortment of the personal media archives that are often collected and maintained by individuals and households, assemblages that include digital images associated with vacations and other family events. in terms of its immediate physical footprint, however, the collection of digital books that can be stored on even a modest computer system is tiny in relation to a comparable assortment of physical, pulp-based books. while physical workplace and community hoardings can provide substantial safety and public health issues, the accumulation of virtual goods has fairly little physical impact. moreover, the hoarding of virtual items has not yet been shown to be a direct substitute (or object of transference) for the hoarding of physical items; some hoarders of physical goods are not hoarders of virtual goods, and vice versa (fried). oravec 82 identifying individuals who violate workplace sharing norms in physical or virtual realms as “hoarders” can serve to identify and possibly isolate them. as the hoarding persona moves to the foreground, other personas of these individuals that could make them appear as valuable to the organization can be diminished. gormley and gormley discuss how data hoarding is manifested in employee behavior, stating that “hoarding data can create a false sense of uncertainty avoidance” (90). as individuals accumulate organizational information, but do not process and share it, they remove certain information resources out of the hands of colleagues in strategic ways (evans, hendron, and oldroyd 494). the possibility that certain individuals would take it upon themselves to collect and store workplace-owned digital resources that are not made available to other organizational members could be seen as parallel to the concerns of many employers about the hoarding of physical goods. the model of the employee as existing as part of a system controlled by others in the organization, and not as an autonomous entity, reflects persistent workplace conflicts between the individual and the collective. hoarders of virtual goods may be unable to decipher the accepted organizational standards concerning the organization and storage of digital entities, or have increased anxieties linked to the standards’ complexities or contradictions. some organizations do not have clear distinctions between what is retained because of organizational needs and what is indeed “hoarded” ("is it workplace hoarding?" 3). managerial determinations here are often based on perceived institutional needs but can have considerable personal impacts as they affect how managers and co-workers deal with the behavior of individuals. for example, virtual files retained over time need to be managed by employees: changes in file formats through the years can make archived documents either useless or very costly to decipher. the orderliness of the physical and virtual assets of organizations often increases their perceived value by managers (kim 496), so hoarding behavior related to the organization’s virtual and physical goods can have economic dimensions and thus attract more of the attention of managers. legal issues can arise as documents relating to product defects or other unfortunate workplace matters are buried in the files of employees or as copyright infringement issues emerge. in the workplace, the hoarding of pornographic images in organization-owned computers and online networks has also become a problem, one that is especially curious because of the fact that the individuals involved could readily download and store the materials on their own digital devices rather than endanger their careers by using organizational resources (oravec “ethics” 137). when employees use the computer equipment provided in their workplace for such activity (rather than their own smartphone or computer tablet), it may reveal a great deal about the individuals’ judgment. aggressive managerial efforts to detect and diagnose hoarding behavior in the virtual realm either for economic or legal purposes could increase the surveillance of employees and magnify workplace privacy issues, which are already substantial concerns in many organizational contexts (sprague 83). some conclusions and reflections research on the persona of the hoarder in workplace contexts is just beginning and researchers are unclear as to its dimensions, especially in virtual realms. for individuals whose hoarding behavior has some linkages to concerns about memory losses, the digital recording of everyday events may eventually provide some relief and perhaps serve to reframe hoarding behaviors. some individuals are already engaged in experiments in which their entire lives are being taped (“lifelogging”) so that any slippage in memory could be compensated (lupton 77; wolf et al. 8). as proposed by baraniuk and others, missing items could be replaced through 3d printing on demand (46). perhaps these dramatic ways of supplementing and even enhancing persona studies 2015, 1.2 83 individuals’ memories and memorabilia may eventually serve to alter some of the dysfunctional patterns that lead to hoarding. however, lifelogging practices could also engender new forms of dysfunction as individuals are called upon to be responsible for more (real or virtual) artifacts, narratives, and memories. workplace demands for detailed decision-making on the disposition of countless physical as well as virtual items could increase with the enhanced capabilities for detailed recall that lifelogging provides. providing basic support and empowerment for all individuals in organizations is part of establishing a just society (campbell and oliver 125). designing workplace environments in which the management of organizational resources and personal possessions can be performed in a more humane, less stressful, and less time-consuming manner can aid organizations as well as individuals. rather than framing individuals as “hoarders” (which has overwhelming negative implications), employers can enable employees to deal with problems in terms of organization and retention of physical and virtual items. sets of clearly-stated policies concerning how much and what kinds of personalization of the workplace is acceptable may be helpful (brandes and erlhoff 16), relieving the stress of interpreting complex and changing workplace standards. these environmental and social accommodations would probably also lift the decision-making burdens of many individuals in the workplace, not just those who are labeled as “hoarders.” after such changes, the persona of the hoarder might still be one of many that are associated with an individual, but its implications could be less severe and its placement less in the foreground. for individuals who are currently or will soon be participating in organizational decision making, becoming aware of hoarding behavior issues can help to catalyze positive change. discussing hoarding in workplace contexts may help employees and management become sensitive to the situations of the individuals involved and, perhaps, displace the hoarder persona from its prominent (and frequently dominant) position. the opportunistic use of images of hoardings by organizations to individuate and control individuals (despite the pain these efforts may cause the individuals involved), also raises issues about autonomy, respect, privacy, and human rights. in dealing with hoarding issues, it is important to remember that human beings with feelings and needs are involved. the shame associated with hoarding can be painful and may certainly be reinforced by the use of insensitive approaches. as “mad pride,” disability acceptance, and comparable initiatives clear a path for the expression of the voices of those who are associated with varied psychological conditions, there indeed may be hope for those whose lives are somehow linked with hoarding (see campbell and oliver 62). instead of placing the onus primarily on individuals to deal with hoarding behavior, organizations and communities can work to provide accommodations, possibly by moderating their considerable demands on individuals in terms of the management and storage of possessions. understanding and acceptance on the part of all involved, along with the generation and analyses of creative approaches, may go a substantial distance toward mitigating these concerns. end notes i it bears pointing out that the computer equipment that is utilized by hoarders for the collection of these virtual items raises another workplace issue: the often horrifying working conditions of those who manufacture these technologies (mayer 19). oravec 84 works cited american psychiatric association. diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 5th ed. washington, d.c.: american psychiatric association, 2013. print. ayers, catherine r., princeton ly, ian howard, tina mayes, ben porter, and yasmeen iqbal. “hoarding severity predicts functional disability in latelife hoarding disorder patients.” international journal of geriatric psychiatry 29.7 (2014): 741-746. print. baraniuk, chris. “things to come.” new scientist 221.2962 (2014): 46-47. print. belk, russell w., melanie wallendorf, john f. sherry, and morris b. holbrook. “collecting in a consumer culture.” highways and buyways: naturalistic research from the consumer behavior odyssey. 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clinical psychology review 34.4 (2014): 324-336. print. zamwel, einat, orna sasson-levy, and guy ben-porat. “voluntary simplifiers as political consumers: individuals practicing politics through reduced consumption.” journal of consumer culture 14.2 (2014): 199-217. print. jo ann oravec is a professor of information technology in the college of business and economics at the university of wisconsin at whitewater. she has chaired the privacy council of the state of wisconsin and has written extensively on privacy, american studies, artificial intelligence, futurism, online reputational systems, and emerging technologies. http://www.psy-journal.com/issues?issue_key=s0165-1781(10)x0006-3 http://www.amazon.com/izabelle-winter/e/b00ke2ir40/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 colby 14 staging nancy cunard: the question of persona in dramatizing her life and work sasha colby abstract nancy cunard presents us with one of modernism’s most concentrated examples of the role of persona in shaping the reception of a literary figure. a writer, publisher, and activist, cunard was firmly entrenched in the working world, an attachment that she makes clear in her varied autobiographical writings. by contrast, the tabloid press, other modernists, and critics have deployed various versions of cunard—a series of personas marked by their variety (racist vs. race reformer; dilettante vs. pioneering intellectual); the intensity of the debate as to which one constitutes the “real” nancy cunard; and, frequently, the marked exclusion of many of cunard’s working activities. in this process-based account, the author considers the range and scope of the personas that have circulated around cunard, cunard’s establishment of a working counter-persona in her autobiographical writing, and the processes of working with these competing iterations in her play about cunard’s life and work, these were the hours. key words nancy cunard, research-creation, persona, press, authorship, work critical introduction to nancy cunard nancy cunard (1896-1965) was a british writer, activist, and publisher. as this list suggests, cunard was heavily invested in the realm of work. and yet, as the one-time heiress to the cunard shipping fortune, a press icon in her early twenties, and later, a society scandal as a result of her involvement in race activism, the personas that circulated in her own time and those that continue to circulate are intriguingly detached from the realm of labour. undoubtedly some of this had to do with cunard’s class position and the perception that she did not need to work; her family’s money, though later threatened by a tumultuous relationship with her mother, made her a part of the leisure class, a distinction which on many counts undercut the perceived need—and, as a result the perceived value—of the work itself. moreover, cunard’s involvement in race activism—both her strident engagements with black causes and more questionable performances of black aesthetics through her wardrobe and photographs by man ray and barbara ker-seymer—were controversial and sensational in ways that occluded and have continued to occlude more mundane acts of writing, editing, and publishing. throughout her life, cunard was acutely conscious of this omission: images created for her through and by the press, and subsequently in thinly-veiled literary depictions and autobiographical accounts by her contemporaries, eclipsed the work that was central to her own sense of identity. the fact that cunard’s own memoirs are largely accounts of her work— running the hours press in paris and normandy, editing the controversial 800-page negro persona studies 2015, 1.2 15 anthology, and on-the-ground reporting during the spanish civil war for the manchester guardian—could well be read as a response to this perceived omission. the result is that almost any critical work on cunard creates an awareness of personas, both those that surround cunard and can be variously counted as “party-girl,” “eccentric bohemian,” “race trouble-maker,” and a variety of sexualized derivations, as well as cunard’s counter-persona, the careful, thoughtful, working woman who appears in her memoirs, these were the hours: memories of my hours press réanville and paris 1928-1931 (1969), gm: memories of george moore (1956), and grand man: memories of norman douglas (1954). as susan stanford-friedman writes, issues of persona have been key to critical assessments of cunard’s credibility and importance as “[i]t has been difficult for critics to sort out the serious writer and political organizer from the legends of her life fed by publicity and personality” (64). in working on a dramatization of cunard’s life and work, these were the hours, in my research-creation book, staging modernist lives: h.d, mina loy, nancy cunard (currently under university press review), the question of persona as it attaches itself to cunard has become particularly concentrated. as p. david marshall and kim barbour note in the inaugural issue of this journal, the word “persona” is at once conceptually appropriate to the “strategic masks of identity” applied to complex expressions of personality and is etymologically connected to the masks of the greek theatre (1-2). in staging cunard, both are at play: the masks applied to cunard and the strategic masks she adopted in response, and, in the course of writing the script, the processes of dramatic characterization emblematized by the theatrical mask. in this sense, the space between the theatrical and identity-based definitions of persona in many ways encapsulates the central tension in dramatizing cunard, a schism which i will here use as pressure point for a process-based consideration of researching and writing these were the hours. in analyzing cunard’s press-made personas, it is the arc of the characterization which is the most startling. as an attractive young woman from a prominent family, cunard was a press darling, particularly when, at age twenty, she unexpectedly married australian army officer, sydney fairbairn. as lois gordon notes in her biography of cunard, at least twenty-seven items appeared about the engagement and still more about the marriage itself, with reports including commentary on “the brave deserving the fair” and miss cunard as “‘an exquisite specimen of english girlhood’ … her hobby in life will probably be dogs” (63). when the marriage to fairbairn ended after only twenty months and cunard moved to paris and went on to publish outlaws, sublunary, and parallax, influenced by both english and french avant-garde movements, the british press continued to focus on her clothes and speculate on when she might return to london. the clippings cunard kept (in her voluminous scrapbooks, currently housed at the harry ransom research center in austin, texas), were for occasional reviews of her poetry, including an evening standard comment on the “dignified intellectual quality” of outlaws. press coverage of cunard’s early paris years are largely studded with amused commentary on cunard’s bohemian proclivities. however, when the press became aware of cunard’s relationship with the black, american musician henry crowder, the tide turned significantly. it was a reporter who asked nancy cunard’s mother if she had heard of her daughter’s black “friend,” “the negro musician, henry crowder,” to which lady cunard famously responded: “do you mean to say my daughter actually knows a negro?” (qtd. in gordon 157). but this incident also marked the beginning of a press campaign deriding cunard’s character and her politics, and culminated in a series of articles in both british and american newspapers suggesting cunard’s 1932 visit to harlem (to collect materials for negro) was undertaken primarily in order to participate in sexual escapades, notably with actor and activist paul robeson. the trajectory of cunard’s relationship with the press is indicative not only of the ways in which pressuring social limits can lead to tabloid creation of a negative public image, but also, in a larger sense, of the intricate relationship between modernism and celebrity. as christine geraghty suggests: “celebrity indicates someone whose fame rests overwhelmingly on colby 16 what happens outside the sphere of their work and who is famous for having a lifestyle. the celebrity is thus constructed through gossip, press and television reports, magazine articles and public relations” (99). constructed and understood as a celebrity, cunard and her venture into highly politicized activities may not only have been perceived as transgressive from the point of view of race and class (which it definitively was), but also destabilizing to the nature of the celebrity for which she was known. as franco alberoni has argued: a phenomenon like ‘stardom’ does not exist unless certain systems of action are institutionally considered as unimportant from a political point or view. in other words ‘stars’ exist in that measure to which their activities are not mainly evaluated according to the consequences which they involve for the collectivity. there is a social mechanism of separation which, put schematically, holds that the ‘stars’ do not occupy institutional positions of power. (109) certainly this is true in cunard’s case where the venture into the political sphere—and the politics of race in particular—considerably altered the nature of her coverage by the press. from the time cunard married fairbairn in 1916 to the trip to harlem in 1932, the narrative had changed from “princess-gets-her-prince” to “charming-but-errant-heiress” to “sex-crazedpolitical-trouble-maker.” contributing to but distinct from cunard’s celebrity is the way in which her persona has been deployed in literature. cunard was the model for several literary heroines, perhaps most famously iris march in michael arlen’s the green hat (1924). subsequently adapted into the 1928 oscar-nominated silent film, a woman of affairs, starring greta garbo, the green hat paints cunard as a fashionable femme fatale and literary dilettante. as a condemnation of cunard’s seriousness, one of the more damning indictments comes when the narrator describes march as violently defending imagist poems, though it turns out “she hadn’t read any, and wasn’t at all sure what they were” (24). another former lover, aldous huxley, dramatized cunard in the novel antic hay (1923), where she is the model for myra viveash, a witty, intelligent and self-assured woman who attracts and consumes men and then rejects them, a scenario that recurs in huxley’s subsequent characterizations of cunard in those barren leaves (1925) and point counter point (1928). a pervasive theme in these portraits is the vivacious party-girl who pursues her causes with great vigour but doesn’t understand them very well. descriptions of cunard by other associates and friends—including robert mcalmon, kay boyle and solita solano—evoke a passionate, intelligent woman, similar to william carlos williams’ description: “if there was anything that was not in that courteous, cultured, and fearless mind, i have yet to discover it” (56). mina loy’s poem “nancy cunard” intriguingly focuses on cunard’s body, betraying, perhaps, loy’s exposure to the plethora of photographs and paintings that emphasized cunard’s physical presence: “the vermillion wall/ receding as a sin/ beyond your moonstone whiteness” (6-8). visual depictions of cunard’s body circulated through paintings, sketches and sculptures by wyndham lewis, john banting, eugene maccown, oskar kokoschka, and constantin brancusi among many others. perhaps most famous of these were the photographs taken by man ray in 1926 which emphasize cunard’s signature bracelets, blackrimmed eyes, and stark silhouette in a way that suggests glamour, aggression, and an ambiguous, though certainly exoticized, relationship with african culture. many of cunard’s contemporaries—as well as subsequent critics and biographers—first encountered cunard through the man ray photographs, and their impact is such that they condition a particular type of reception “exalting,” as leo braudy suggests, “a momentary state of physical being” (554). in addition to these representations in art and fiction, cunard and cunard-based figures also appear in several of her contemporaries’ accounts. critic hugh ford, who spent a significant amount of time with cunard in the later part of her life reported that while cunard came to “loathe and […] fear” the “maliciousness” of the press, she was particularly put out by “remarks she found about herself in chronicles of the twenties and thirties, nearly all of which persona studies 2015, 1.2 17 were written by friends” (viii). while these accounts might be merely annoying for someone with an established literary reputation, for cunard they represented another series of moving, acting images which exceeded and defined her in the public imagination. these types of accounts include a posthumous passage about cunard’s later-life descent into alcoholism and mental illness by friend and screenwriter anthony thorne, whose scripted reminiscence of cunard very much evokes the conventions of film. this lends his account, “a slice of nancy,” a particular vividness which has been transcribed, including its filmic qualities, into subsequent biographies of cunard (notably gordon’s). thorne, who writes that cunard returned to england from a late trip to spain with “a cracked hip and a damaged mind,” begins with a scene narrated to him by his wife: the bell rang after midnight and there was nancy having a violent argument with a taximan. she had lost her money somewhere and her baggage too – suitcases full of valuable ivories scattered over the stations of london. it was a weekend, and my wife had just enough money to pay the fare, but no tip. “no tip anyway,” shouted nancy. “he tried to have an affair with me, he even pushed my head under the wheel.” she came in with a paper bag full of ham sandwiches which, refusing the offer of other food, she then ate, hurling the crusts into the empty fireplace. at one point she picked up a fornasetti ashtray, demanding: “is this supposed to be pretty?” and was about to hurl it after the crusts when my wife stopped her. she had to get nancy to bed before they were both out of their minds. “no sheets!” protested nancy as clean ones were produced. “if you sleep in this bed,” my wife said firmly, “you will have sheets.” nancy gave way. restless in another bedroom my wife contemplated the possibility of the house being burnt down over her head. (it could have happened, for not long afterwards nancy showed the familiar and expected signs of incendiarism, and on one occasion, in another flat, set fire to her clothes, declaring: “i shan’t need these any more!”) in the morning nancy telephoned to ask who else would give her a room, intending to make a round of visits in london – and it is interesting to remember the distinguished friends who found reasons why they could not see her. from here, thorne segues into a second scene, describing his own interaction with cunard after she had been committed at st. clements hospital in 1960, from which, after ten days, and officially certified, she was transferred to holloway sanatorium in surrey: when i came back to england she was already in an asylum, “certified insane.” it was a dismal place in the east end, doors firmly kept open (why do they have doors anyway?) and a shuffling procession of people who giggled momentarily, staring at one another. there was nancy, lying on the coverlet of her bed, fully dressed and with the usual bandeau across her forehead. instinctively you looked for the little altar of ivories and beads spread on a bright cloth, and then was thankful that it was missing: for this room, this cubicle in this place, she must never make her own. there was a negro with her, a young man just arrived from ghana. hearing somehow that nancy was in this hospital he had come to see her for the first time, bringing flowers and a photograph of himself. it was gradually beginning to dawn on him what kind of hospital this was, and i admired the coolness and good sense with which he came to accept the situation. but alas, when she demanded some matches he gave them to her and she tucked them away one by one into the hem of her skirt, like a refugee hiding jewels, and with an expression of cunning that i had never seen on her face before. (306) colby 18 here, the narration suggests the filming cues: a shot of the inside of the asylum and the “shuffling,” “giggling,” patients, a cut to cunard lying on the bed, a pan-shot mirroring the narrator’s looking for “the alter of ivories,” a return to the bedside and the somber young man from ghana and the exchange that leads to a close-up of cunard’s expression of “cunning.” on one level the description provides insight into the final phase of cunard’s life. on another, it seems gratuitous, the kind of biography that john updike characterizes as seeking “to expose the writer in his or her fallible, or downright woeful, humanity” (12). the image of cunard wandering the streets of paris, railing against the fascists, in the days before her death is one that has attached itself to her reputation, providing the irresistible arc of greek tragedy to the story of her life, the tale of greatness brought low by some form of hubris or over-zealous pursuit. in cunard’s case, the performance as “filmed” and delivered by thorne has tended to confirm for her critics something unhinged in her all along, as though her activism presaged the fall and, dramatically speaking, was the only possible end for someone who had pressed her causes too ardently and for the wrong reasons. despite the vividness of the characterizations deployed in tabloid and literary accounts, some of the most divergent personas emerge in the academic realm, where critics have tended to either celebrate the progressiveness of her racial causes or deride the underlying naïve white liberalism that is seen to have motivated them. these differences of critical opinion have led to two distinctly different cultural personas: cunard as race-reformer, a pioneer of transatlantic black studies (see marcus and joannou) or cunard as primitivist racist who essentializes and performs a misguided and degrading caricature of blackness (see lemke and archer-straw). in arguing for the persona of civil-rights activist, critics have pointed to the monumental four-year project of editing negro anthology (1934), to cunard’s fundraising and activism, and to her journalism for papers including the associated negro press. in unpacking the romantic misapprehension that may have informed these activities, critics tend to rely on the man-ray and key-seymer photographs, the latter of which includes solarized prints of cunard with a black face, lynched by a string of pearls. my interest in writing a play about cunard was not to reconcile the contradictions in her various representations or even within her own life and work. rather, there is something intriguing about the surplus of images and associations attached to cunard and something at once compelling and flawed about her activism. perhaps the most interesting element of working on cunard, however, is the way in which there is seldom a meeting—and here gordon’s biography is an exception—between the representations of identity that circulate around cunard and her own autobiographical writing, notably in these were the hours: memories of my hours press, réanville and paris, 1928-1931, as well as in self-referential commentary in grand man: memories of norman douglas and gm: memories of george moore. the persona that cunard performs in these works is serious, diligent, hard-working, professional, and balanced. she is careful, articulate, and discrete. this passage, which describes her work at the hours press in her memoir, these were the hours, is typical both of the tone and content of her autobiographical writing: the smell of printer’s ink pleased me greatly, as did the beautiful freshness of the glistening pigment. there is no other black or red like it. after a rinse in petrol and a good scrub with soap and hot water, my fingers again became perfectly presentable; the right thumb, however, began to acquire a slight ingrain of grey, due to the leaden composition. i soon learned that greasy black hands do not matter when one is at the proofing stage, but an immaculate touch is most important in handling the fair sheet when one has reached the pulling stage. this is part of the craft; to achieve impeccably clean things with fingers grease-laden – else there will be a distressing “printer’s thumb” in ink on the finished article. (9) persona studies 2015, 1.2 19 here, cunard’s persona is crafted out of the work she has undertaken, an illustration of mastery anchored in the accumulation of knowledgeable detail. similarly, in her writing about crowder, it is the work they undertook together that is stressed, with very little of the glamour and excessiveness with which she is normally connected. in sum, in writing herself, cunard deliberately chooses a form of professional, working self-presentation in deliberate contrast with the images in media and literature which so often focus on the sensational. this does not exculpate cunard from the critique of romanticism or more endemic forms of prejudice, but my work to date has shown that cunard’s autobiographical articulations do need to be addressed as they substantially modify the debate and amplify our ability to understand ideological diversity within the attitudes and behaviours of the 1930’s.i in an early draft of my play, these were the hours, it was cunard’s working persona that i aimed to bring forward, crafting a performance script out of cunard’s autobiographical writing. this was a one-person show, set at cunard’s home in la chapelle réanville in 1945, in the moment where she returned home after years abroad to find her home and what was left of the press destroyed, first by german soldiers and french reservists, and then by her neighbours who were let in by the mayor who opposed cunard’s politics and activities. in the end, however, this draft proved too claustrophobic, providing only cunard’s perspective and eliminating most of the drama that was to be derived from her multiple collisions with the outside. in later drafts, i incorporated this autobiographical “sub-script” into a more realized version with multiple characters. nonetheless, cunard’s autobiographical account—and her working persona— remain the stable constant and the most steady source of quotation throughout the play. this has been brought into dialogue with other characters, images, and events from the time cunard began the press in 1928 to her post-second world war return. in what follows, i have included an excerpt of the early draft in order to provide a sense of cunard’s working persona as she expressed it in her autobiographical writing. i have also included an excerpt from a later version which dramatizes cunard’s account, drawing her autobiographical voice into dialogue with other characters. in so doing, i hope to reveal the voice and the persona that cunard herself perceived as central to her own sense of being, the one that is so often elided in accounts of her life and work. at the same time, the later draft shows how this voice can be drawn into some kind of dialogue or confrontation with other personas or circulating versions of cunard. in presenting a portrait of the working process of research-creation, i am interested in providing an account of both process and labour to make visible some of the structures of production, and perhaps, like cunard, to provide some insight into the work itself. working draft of these were the hours: cunard’s race-activism, editorship, and relationship with henry crowder in the early draft of this scene, when the production was still conceptualized as a onewoman show, cunard’s monologue is woven out of autobiographical sources detailing her relationship with henry crowder. in this sense, it gives a strong sense of the voice and persona that cunard creates within her own writing. nancy henry, always a thoughtful, serious-minded man (although on occasion in a rhapsodically rollicking mood) was sick to death of night hours, of all the drinks sent to him at his piano, of the fatigue attendant on the adulation of montmartreii and those interminable “crap-games” at dawn he and the other coloured musicians would be playing in the “flea-pit”, too weary to go home and sleep. i got him away from all of that and we hired a piano for réanville. now he and monsieur lévy and i pulled the press together on printing-day.iii the photograph fades and nancy drifts back to the press. colby 20 we had become very good … friends … and i was intensely interested – amazed too – at what i learned from him about the life of the american negro. … henry himself became a great turningpoint in my own. of course my feeling for things african had begun years go with sculpture, and something of these anonymous old statues had now, it seemed, materialized in the personality of a man partly of that race.iv sometimes i would ask henry to be more african and he would say “i’m not african, i’m american!” people always accuse me of confusing the person with the cause. but those two things are rather confused anyway, don’t you think?v eventually rumours reached england and my mother’s vicious circle. “well, maud, what is it now?” one of her rivalsvi asked at a party, “drink, drugs, or niggers?”vii when a reporter asked her if the rumours were true my mother responded: “do you mean to say my daughter actually knows a negro?”viii even when i asked my good friend george moore if he had any friends of colour he said: “no, i think none, but the subject has never come my way. you see, i’ve never known anyone of color, not even an indian. i have met neither a brown man, nor yet a black man. i do not believe i could get on well with a black man, my dear. i think the best i could manage would perhaps be a yellow man.”ix that’s how it was in england. my mother hired a private detective to prowl around our rooms when henry and i were in paris, and tried to keep henry from entering england at all. i suppose that’s what broke things – that and the pamphlet. was it wise, in the end, to enumerate all of her flaws, publicly, all of her snobbisms, race and class? to publish and distribute it to all her friends and foes? but it was for a cause! to break down those barriers in england as well as america! well, i had absorbed with so much interest and indignation henry’s account of the horrible strife between black and white in the united states, but it was not this alone which led me to make my negro anthology,x a thousand pages of writing by negro people and the negro experience around the world! no one had ever seen anything like it. poetry, fiction and nonfiction, mostly by negro writers and sympathizers. langston hughes.xi zora neale hurston.xii so mother and her friends, so everyone could see the real conditions of darker people. so they could understand … in the end, henry made me,xiii though i could never have anticipated the outrage, the violence. a black man and a white woman! it was bad enough in london, but in harlem. the letters i received! …. finalized version of these were the hours cunard in harlem, race-activism, editorship of negro anthology and relationship with henry crowder in working on the play script—and in receiving honest and helpful commentary from both theatre professionals and academics—it became clear that staging cunard’s selfpresentation and self-constructed persona was not nearly enough to bring about a complete, complex, and dramatically satisfying portrait. as a result, the play was turned into a 18character ensemble production which contrasts cunard’s autobiographical persona with other voices and perspectives. the monologue above, which addresses cunard’s relationship with crowder, her fall-out with her mother over black man and white ladyship (1931), the beginning of the editorship of negro anthology, and cunard’s experience in harlem was divided, in the final version, into three discrete scenes.xiv the scene below is the depiction of cunard’s experience in harlem, which contrasts her own writing and journalism with other journalistic transcripts, cunard’s writing on the infamous scottsboro case, and dialogue grounded in the auto/biographical accounts of cunard and crowder. persona studies 2015, 1.2 21 scene 8. a hotel in harlem, april 1932. the front of the hotel is projected onto an of s.r. on what amounts to the fourth floor, there is a platform which represents nancy’s hotel room. nancy hurries past at stage level, and is accosted by the reporters who are standing in the front row the audience. reporter 1 nancy! nancy! what’s an heiress doing in harlem anyway? reporter 2 miss cunard, what about these reports of negro men coming and going from your hotel at all hours? reporter 3 hey – miss cunard, what’s your mother think about you seeing a negro movie star? is that why you’re both staying at this hotel? nancy looks as though she is going to flee into the hotel, but then turns to make a statement. nancy i have one thing to say, and that is to deny the printed allegation about my involvement with paul robeson.xv he is a very fine actor. i admire his work. beyond that, i have only met him once at a club in paris, le boeuf sur le toit, in 1926. that is all. reporter 1 nancy! are you saying your affair with robeson started back in paris? reporter 3 what other bohemian activities can you tell us about? nancy and now after your interest in my private affairs (i hope i have sufficiently satisfied this) i want something in return. [...] why are you americans so uneasy of the negro race? this question is the epitome of the whole colour question as it strikes a plain english person such as myself. who'll write me the best answer to this? i'll print it in my book on colour.xvi reporter 1 nancy – is the book a pretext for coming to america? reporter 2 nancy! hey, nancy. reporter 3 are you planning to star in a film with mr. robeson? colby 22 nancy exits stage into the hotel and reemerges on the fourth floor platform. books and papers are scattered on the desk and the beds. langston hughes’xvii poem “i, too” is projected on the wall of the hotel room as she enters. as the neon hotel sign flashes, so too do we see flashes from the pages of negro anthology – photographs, text, music scores. the red light and the images play on the room and on nancy. nancy removes her coat and scarf and sits down at the desk. nancy (taking a breath) right. back to work. scottsboro. nancy begins to write and then looks up as she narrates her article. during her description, we see photographs and film footage from the scottsboro case on the wall of the hotel. on march 25, 1931, black and white hoboes were “riding the rails,” hidden up and down the length of a freight train going from chattanooga to memphis, tennessee. no money, no fares, setting out to look for work. travelling in this manner is a frequent occurrence in america. but such is the race hatred that white tramps even will object to the presence of negro hoboes in the same wagon. not for nothing has the white ruling class for decades been teaching the “poor white” that he can always look down on the negro worker, no matter how wretched his own economic condition may be. so the white boys started a row and tried to throw the “niggers” off. the negroes resisted them, and the whites did not get the best of it. all but one jumped off and telephoned the station-master at stephenson to arrest the “niggers” who’d dared to fight with them. the train had already gone through this station, so was stopped at paint rock. here sheriffs and excited citizens took 9 negro boys and 3 white boys out of separate parts of the train. at first all were charged with vagrancy and told to get out of that county as quick as possible. and then suddenly, while all were being searched, two of the white boys were discovered to be girls in men’s overalls. so the sheriff got an idea; it wasn’t possible for negroes and white girls to be on the same train, in the same car maybe, without the question of rape coming in. the boys protested they had not even seen any girls; some of them had seen a fight, that was all. but some of the crowd were for an immediate lynching; authorities assured them the “niggers” would be properly dealt with and should not escape “justice.” all were promptly locked up, the negroes to be brutally beaten, the girls to be put through the third degree and forced into saying they had been repeatedly raped by the boys. both girls were known to be prostitutes; victoria price had a prison record and impressed on ruby bates the utter necessity, now, of falling in with the authorities’ views so that they might themselves escape the law’s punishment. the phone rings. nancy answers it abstractedly. persona studies 2015, 1.2 23 male american (voice) i don't know what they call your kind in england but here in america they call them plain nigger fuckers or prostitutes of the lowest kind . . . xviii nancy is startled and hangs up phone. she walks over to the bar and pours herself a drink. she takes a drink, steadies herself, then returns to her narration with projections. nancy the trial date was first of all fixed for april 1, but postponed till april 6, a fair-day in scottsboro, one which would assure the largest crowd possible and enable the mob to witness the condemnation of what the local papers called “the negro fiends.” scottsboro is described as a sleepy little town of some 10,000 inhabitants in the northern part of alabama, but on trial day the presence of the military who had been called in to make a show of quelling the lynch spirit made it look like an armed camp. the authorities had deemed it necessary to send 118 soldiers to bring the nine boys in to the town from gadsden jail, where they had been held since arrest. armed soldiers were on guard inside and outside the court house, to which only persons holding special permits were allowed entry after having been searched. already by 8 a.m. thousands had gathered from all over the neighbourhood, and by 10 o’clock the crowd was estimated at 10,000. the lynch spirit had been whipped up to such a point by the authorities that statements were going around saying that the “horrible black brutes had chewed off one of the girl’s breasts.” the doctor’s evidence – and this is the most important part – on his examination of the girls immediately after they were taken from the train, showing they were unscathed, and which was public knowledge, meant nothing to the people of scottsboro. the local newspapers tried to whitewash the presence of the agitated mob by saying the crowd was “curious, not furious,” and maintained it had gathered out of mere curiosity. the trial began on the 6th and was all over on the 8th of april, 1931 – three days to convict and sentence to death 9 negro boys all under 20 years old, two of them 13 and 14 respectively, one boy with a sexually transmitted infection so severe he could not possibly have participated in any rape. there were no workers on this jury, not white nor black. it was composed of local business men and neighbouring well-to-do farmers. just before the proceedings began, wembley, the legal advisor to the scottsboro electric company, which controls the town, had walked through the mob and told them that “everything would be alright in a few days,” and that his company had enough power to “burn up the niggers.” in court, the boys had a lawyer who had not, on his own statement, studied nor prepared the case, and told them to plead guilty. the boys were tried without having been allowed to communicate with parents, relatives, or friends, yet maintained their innocence. henry hurries by the reporters his way into the hotel. reporter 1 hey, henry! give us a quote. reporter 2 mr. crowder, what’s it like sharing miss cunard’s attention? henry enters the hotel room with a handful of letters. he throws off his hat and puts the mail on the desk colby 24 henry those reporters – nancy i know. they won’t give up. it’s sordid. why won’t they get behind our cause instead? they could be shedding light on the cultural accomplishments of a people. what could be a better use of journalism than that? henry (taking off his coat) that’s the fabric of this place, nancy. there’s a lot of hate. nancy what’s come in the mail then? henry picks up the letters and sits down on the bed, sorting through the mail. henry oh the usual, more threats. damn if those people aren’t crazy enough to follow through. nancy you can’t listen to them. henry can’t afford not listen. this press storm’s gone berserk. someone’s going to do something. nancy we can’t quit, henry. we already have over five hundred pages collected. and the additions on harlem will add a whole new dimension. i’ve been writing notes on the vitality of the children here … what else? henry letter from a scottsboro mother, thanking you for the money. henry hands nancy the letter. she skims it. nancy i’m working on that article now – henry opens another envelope and looks at the enclosed photographs. henry lord knows those boys need all the help they can get. here’s a contribution from lawrence gellertxix called “negro songs of protest” nancy i’ve been waiting for that. persona studies 2015, 1.2 25 henry and micheletxx has sent a draft of “african empires and civilisations” nancy wonderful. henry huh. prints from barbara ker-seymer.xxi (checks the postage) guess they’ve been following us around in the mail. nancy oh! how do they look? henry (sorting through the photographs) some are real good. this one with you in the veil. the solarized photograph of cunard appears on the screen. henry but this one where the negative’s been used to make your skin look black nancy, what were you thinking? nancy (taking the photograph and admiring it) it was barbara’s idea. it’s a new technique called solarization. really quite remarkable. henry but it looks like your skin’s black and those pearls around your throat are choking you. like you’re being lynched. don’t you have any idea what this looks like to a black man? nancy henry, you of all people should know. it’s an identification. an expression of solidarity. photo fades. henry it’s two little girls playing with film. nancy playing! henry bright young things.xxii is that what they called you? the corrupt coterie?xxiii you think because these photographs make your skin look black that you know? what kind of danger you’ve put me in here? nancy (taking a breath) henry, i realize the pressures are extreme – colby 26 henry you play at lynching, but this is real life for me, nancy. it’s not a cause or a …. a romantic infatuation. nancy is that what you think it is for me? after all of the work, the hours … reporter 1 (yelling up) nancy. hey – nancy – just yell something down. is it true or ain’t it? nancy calms herself, steps over to the window and looks down. nancy they think i slept with paul robeson – they’ve printed it. henry is silent. nancy oh, come on. the accusation is ludicrous. henry i know you are infinitely capable of living three or four lives at once. nancy i belong to you, henry. you’ve made me. all of my ambitions. henry if you belong to me you also belong to a whole hell of a lot of others. the danger i’m in here – the phone rings. henry looks at it suspiciously, nancy with trepidation. henry’s look challenges nancy to answer it. she does, slowly. nancy hello. male american (voice) mrs. nancy cunard take this as a solemn warning, your number is up. you’re going for a ride shortly. you are a disgrace to the white race. you can’t carry on in this country. we will give you until may 15th. either give up sleeping with a nigger or take the consequences. that is final. p.s. – we will not only take you but we’ll take your nigger lover with you. xxiv nancy hangs up the phone. henry who was that? nancy i don’t know. men have been calling. persona studies 2015, 1.2 27 henry (sarcastically) have they? henry grabs his coat and hat. nancy henry – henry exits, slamming the door. nancy stares a moment, then slowly sits at her desk and continues her narration with projections. nancy in appeal upon appeal those boys were convicted and sentenced to death or life imprisonment, even when ruby bates came out and repudiated the rape lie. victoria price’s testimony was full of gaps and contradictions but that did not matter to the juries. and so they remain imprisoned, most waiting to die, for a lie, for a terrible lie, for a crime the evidence itself says they did not commit. such is justice for the american negro today.xxv blackout except for the flashing neon images from negro. …. conclusion the effect, in workshopping this scene, has been to attach the discourse around cunard to a representation of the site from which it emerged: the thinking, speaking, moving body, the fluctuating human mind, the variegations of human motives and behaviour. what the dramatization of cunard’s personas has added, in my view, is a dynamism to the fixedness of analysis, a mobility and variation which will only increase as the unpredictable element of live audience is introduced. in this sense, the play—and researched biographical drama more gen1erally—at once relies on autobiographical sources and, to a certain extent, challenges the presentations contained with them by exploring the complexly human dimensions and motivations that have led to the creation of the personas that surround cunard. now that the play is complete, production will be the next step, to put this coalescence of personas on the public stage through the feeling, speaking body of the actor and to see what larger audiences, many previously unfamiliar with cunard, will make of her. this, in turn, will at once enrich and complicate the relationship of autobiography to stage and persona, as both actors and audiences bring their own sense of cunard to the theatre. to the extent that the processes at play in live drama are multiple and complex, they seem uniquely suited to cunard and the variegated, contradictory impulses and representations that have attached themselves to her image. end notes i while cunard is frequently hailed a both racist and race reformer, it is clear that neither applies neatly or precisely. cunard’s views on equality are too clear cut to really bear colby 28 out claims of racial prejudice. at the same time, her romanticism and her essentializing are problematic for contemporary audiences, in particular. it is likely more productive to study cunard’s comments anthropologically and within their social and historical contexts in order to understand the complex emergence of early civil rights rhetoric of britain in the 1930’s. ii right-bank paris neighbourhood popular with artists and musicians during la belle époque and modernist periods. iii cunard, grand man: memories of norman douglas, 85-6. iv adapted from grand man 85 v extrapolated from descriptions in gordon. vi margot asquith, lady oxford (1864-1945). vii “black man and white ladyship” 181. viii qtd. in gordon, 157. ix ibid. x hours, 152. xi langston hughes (1902-1967). american writer. xii zola neale hurston (1891-1960). american writer. xiii “henry made me” letter to a friend on learning of crowder’s death, qtd. in gordon, 173. xiv as a “political pamphlet” black man and white ladyship is a particularly interesting example of the ways in which cunard positions herself in the media, notably in her attempt to differentiate herself from her mother’s views on race, which cunard considers to be primarily a manifestation of class prejudice. in this sense, the pamphlet is highly illustrative of the ways in which cunard at once rejected her class position yet also used its privilege and associated media spotlight in order to further her causes. the blurring of the personal and the political within the pamphlet is also revelatory of the complications of separating out the “work” of cunard’s activism from the family-life that made her famous. xv paul robeson (1898-1976). american actor and civil rights activist. xvi quoted in anne chisholm, nancy cunard: a biography, 195. xvii langston hughes (1902-1967). american writer. xviii anon. letter to cunard, qtd. in winkiel, 512. xix lawrence gellert b. laslow grünbaum (1898-1978). hungarian-american writer and music collector. xx raymond michelet, cunard’s collaborator on negro: an anthology. xxi barbara ker-seymer (1905-1993). british photographer. xxii tabloid nickname for a group of bohemian young people in london during the 1920’s, including barbara key-seymer. while peripherally associated with the group, cunard spent most of the twenties in paris. persona studies 2015, 1.2 29 xxiii group of aristocratic young people in london during the 1910’s, including cunard, known for their extravagant parties. xxiv quoted in nancy cunard, “the american moron and the american of sense – letters on the negro” in negro: an anthology, 121. xxv adapted from “scottsboro – and other scottsboros” ibid, 155-174. works cited alberoni, franceso. “the powerless ‘elite’: theory and sociological research on the phenomenon of the stars.” the celebrity culture reader. ed. p. david marshall. new york and london: routledge, 2006. print. archer-straw, petrine. negrophilia: avant-garde paris and black culture in the 1920’s. london and new york: thames and hudson, 2000. print. arlen, michael. the green hat. london: collins, 1924. print. braudy, leo. the frenzy of renown. new york: vintage, 1986. print. brown, clarence, dir. a woman of affairs. 1928. dvd. chisholm, anne. nancy cunard: a biography. new york, ny: knopf, 1979. print. cunard, nancy. black man and white ladyship: an anniversary. toulon: privately printed, 1931. print. ---. gm: memories of george moore. london: rupert hart-davis, 1956. print. ---. grand man: memories of norman douglas. london: secker & warburg, 1954. print. ---, ed. negro anthology. london: wishart, 1934. print. ---.outlaws. london : elkin mathews, 1921. print. ---. “scottsboro – and other scottsboros. negro: an anthology. eds. nancy cunard and hugh ford. london and new york, ny: continuum, 2002. print. ---. these were the hours: memories of my hours press réanville and paris 1928-1931. carbondale: south illinois up, 1969. print. cunard, nancy and hugh ford, eds. negro: an anthology. new york and london: continuum, 2002. print. ford, hugh. “foreword.” nancy cunard; brave poet, indomitable rebel 1896-1965. ed. hugh ford. philadelphia, new york, london: chilton book company, 1968. print. geraghty, christine. “re-examining stardom: questions of texts, bodies and performance.” stardom and celebrity: a reader. eds. sean redmond and su holmes. los angeles, london, new delhi, singapore: sage publications, 2007. 98-110. print. gordon, lois. nancy cunard: heiress, muse, political idealist. new york: columbia up, 2007. print. hughes, langston. “i, too.” negro: an anthology. eds. nancy cunard and hugh ford. london and new york, ny: continuum, 2002. print. huxley, aldous. antic hay. hamburg: the albtross, 1932. print. ---. point counter point. leipzig: tauchnitz, 1929. print. ---. those barren leaves. new york: george h. doran, 1925. joannou, maroula. “nancy cunard’s english journey.” feminist review 78 (2004) 141-163. print. lemke, sieglinde. primitivist modernism. oxford and new york: oxford up, 1998. print. loy, mina. lost lunar baedeker. new york, ny: farrar, straus and giroux, 1997. print. marcus, jane. hearts of darkness: white women write race. new brunswick, nj: rutgers up, 2004. print. marshall, p. david and kim barbour. “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective.” persona studies 1.1 (2015): 1-12. web. pound, ezra. the cantos of ezra pound. new york: new directions, 1995. print. colby 30 stanford-friedman, susan. “nancy cunard.” the gender of modernism: a critical anthology. ed. bonnie kime scott. bloomington, in: indiana up, 1990. 63-67. print. thorne, anthony. “a share of nancy.” nancy cunard; brave poet, indomitable rebel 1896-1965. ed. hugh ford. philadelphia, new york, london: chilton book company, 1968. 293-311. print. updike, john. “on literary biography.” due considerations: essays and criticism. new york: alfred a. knopf, 2007. print. williams, william carlos. “nancy cunard.” nancy cunard; brave poet, indomitable rebel 18961965. ed. hugh ford. philadelphia, new york, london: chilton book company, 1968. 56-57. print. winkiel, laura. “nancy cunard’s negro and the transnational politics of race.” modernism/modernity 13.3 (2006): 507-530. print. sasha colby is director of graduate liberal studies at simon fraser university in vancouver. she is the author of stratified modernism: the poetics of excavation from gautier to olson as well as numerous plays focused on engaging communities with political and social issues. the author acknowledges support for this article from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 1 performing the networks of domestic and public persona chr ist ophe r moor e a nd kim barb our introduction in this preamble to the newest collection of contributions to persona studies, we draw on the growing terminology from its initial offerings to consider the co-infiltration of the public and the domestic in the presentation of the online self. we provide two case studies that explore the overlapping of regions of public life that interface with social media and provide individuals with the means to curate persona micro-publics. these very different examples of persona performance are both organised around accounting for the ‘intercommunication’ of selfidentification and presentational media (marshall ‘persona studies’). further, we suggest that the public spaces of social media and the web have been domesticated; that is, they have been made to ‘fit’ into the interpersonal demands of an individual’s many micro-publics of attention. this domestication has occurred via the individualised presentational media strategies of persona formation, such as memes and selfies, involved in the intercommunication of the self across multiple platforms and services to perform different roles. it is the conceptual and material move between the public and the domestic that is of interest in many of the contributions to this volume. as will be discussed below, other contributors attend to the role of objects and audiences in the public/domestic interface that is the experience of networked living. a persona requires an audience, whether actual, physical, virtual, or imagined, and despite rumours of its demise, the audience is still an important description of those involved intentionally or accidently in the networks of individualised public identity. these audiences include both human and non-human participants arranged in their micro-public constellations of connections, making the persona an assemblage of sociotechnical performances that comprises the contemporary experience of the public presentation of the self. we see persona studies, its growing lexicon, and multi-disciplinary contributions, as an expanding and emerging framework for closer understanding of the arrangements, performances, and audiences (as well as the media and communication technologies, platforms, and formats) that constitute the conditions bringing the domestic, the personal, and the private into their contemporary and fragmentary public arrangements. performing domestic public networks this public ‘enclosure’ of the personal, and on occasion the private and intimate, occurs with the regulatory structures of identity management across multiple social media sites and services. at the same time, this enclosure reciprocally but unequally domesticates public zones of industrial, professional, and political influence with activities that were previously inaccessible to audiences of broadcast media formats. the enclosure of the personal operates via the intellectual property rights expressed in the end-user licence agreements and terms of service contracts that ensure the services offered by facebook, twitter, youtube, reddit, google, tumblr, and many others are funded by facilitating state and corporate surveillance, big data farming and other forms information harvesting. this is nothing new, but one of its unintended consequences is the reciprocal, but unequal, reverse movement of domestic spaces into the public sphere: the messy bedroom via youtube, the untidy kitchen via instagram, the unkempt moore and barbour 2 backyard via facebook, the uncleaned toilet via 4chan, the dirty laundry via wordpress, and so on. this taming of the public through social media intimacies domesticates these platforms and unravels previously stable professional identities. the patterns of domestication, too often oversimplified as socio-technically determined ‘disruptive technologies’, are dramatically transforming professional and industrial occupations, from journalism, to hospitality and education, additive manufacturing, public transportation, and beyond. the ride-hiring mobile application uber is perhaps one the most domesticating service apps, as it connects the need for individualised on-demand services with access to the driver’s most domesticated spaces outside the home or office space: the personalised car, which is for many an extension of domestic private space. the concept of the ‘domestic’ here is located within a sphere of anticipated acquaintance, accompanied by a host of social and cultural conditions that are included in the experience of the personally mediated zones of public performance, most typically associated with the being and doing of the everyday. nonetheless, the instagram #nofilter campaigns and similar claims on authenticity of an imaged-based identity performance are extensions of previously well-known media framing and presentational devices and techniques. these now enter regular and mundane practice directly alongside the utterly extraordinary and rare: for example, meteor strikes captured via vehicle dashboard cameras. such domestic formatting carries a range of important implications that serve to illustrate the role of objects, platforms, and devices in the assemblage of an online persona. we acknowledge the movement of the public into the personal or intimate domains of private lives is not always empowering, but invasive. nonetheless, we see a signalling that this allows the domestic to infiltrate, inhabit, and weaken some of the more fragile boundary policing actions and formal notions of the public. weak points in the boundaries between public and private become targets of domination and resistance as social media platforms and new media formats domesticate the commercial, the professional, and the industrial. the technosocial arrangements of social media and the internet permit complex social groupings, connections, and relations that users reformat within individualised ecologies of interest— different micro-publics that might or might not intersect. this produces a massive range of constructed and active audiences located within a hybridised understanding of what constitutes publicness. the domestic opens up the public, permitting the individual to latch on, taking what is needed, making the public persona a “domesticated but wild” construct (latour, 4). as users, we attempt to personalise our smartphones and mobile devices, wrestling with them, attending to them in protective containers, updating, curating their contents, managing their batteries, all to bring them under our control, forcing them to fit into our way of operating. of course, this quickly turns into an endless negotiation between the user, device, operating system, carrier contract, and local quality of connection and so on. personalizing the phone changes its character, however slightly, from being an undetermined public object into a domestic companion. even the act of carrying the device over time creates patterns of wear that are unique to the individual user: in what is called “conversion”, personalized phones become symbolically charged objects that “speak” for their owners. these artefacts tell other people who their owners are, and convey the message that they take care of their “image”. (lammes 93) a warning accompanies this taming, because we have imperfectly, and only recently, domesticated our devices for the purpose of our persona performances, demonstrated by the persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 3 assemblages of digital and material objects. they may be “tangible everyday reminders to their owners that they are in charge of their own lives” (lammes 103-104), but they also remain ‘underdetermined objects’ with a chequered history of potential revelation. when we domesticate social media platforms and convergent media technologies, we treat our micro-publics by extension as a resource to be both consumed and produced according to the industrialised requirements of the public performance of the self. this is a pragmatism and parasitism that allows the public to burrow into the domestic and vice versa, regardless of the unequal flows that occur. the domestic is often overlooked as a political domain for contesting the network of relations that construct and bind it according to the histories of empires, nations, and the “colonial will” to control space and make it familiar, comfortable and safe (presner, shepard and kawona, 8). by extension our domesticated objects too easily fail to register their own impact, leading to distributional trends like “destruction” memes where objects like mobile phones, portable devices, and tablet computers are dropped, microwaved, compressed, distressed, and otherwise abused. it is as if the dispossessed labour, environmental impact, and other costs for the objects assembly (and spiralling costs of its appropriate disposal) are equally ignored in this purest expression of affluence. how individuals use these technologies, whether physical, digital, or a combination of the two, to engage with the domestic in public was an emergent theme in this issue of persona studies. many points along the spectrum of performance in the different assemblages of persona will be explored in this edition as its authors address issues of personality, celebrity, audience and knowledge formation, while engaging with the commercial, the personal, and the political. in the following case studies we draw on key persona studies terms in order to propose alternative ways of thinking about how different scales, arrangements, and networks of objects, performances, and platforms come together to form personas. celebrity persona and the networks of domestic selves arnold lois schwarzenegger is an austrian-born professional bodybuilder, actor, american politician, and prolific social media user and self-promoter. schwarzenegger has demonstrated a long-term propensity for the creation of multiple professional and public roles, identities, and celebrity personas with the ability to move successfully between them. his translation from professional actor to governor of california (2003 2011) and back again, with durations of clear overlap, involves a highly sought after competency in negotiating the presentational modal shift in the production and management of public identity that can be understood in terms of domestication. schwarzenegger, like many celebrities, has embraced the changes to the conditions of celebrity that have incorporated convergence culture and enjoyed direct access to the economics of participatory media culture. one of his official websites, schwarzenegger.com, presents a specifically nuanced and individualised persona management strategy that is less comparable to other genre actors of the same vintage such as sylvester stallone, whose own web site links to a password-protected fan community site. rather, schwarzenegger.com is equivalent to heavier social media users and recent action movie stars vin diesel or dwayne johnson. the ‘official’ site is contemporaneously arranged, with links to similarly authentic twitter, facebook, youtube, instagram, and google+ accounts prominently featured at the top of the page. this locates he site as one among many different locations of an intercommunicated online persona. each is effectively a digital object, a node in a network, and each is complete with their own (frequently overlapping) micro-publics, and their own part in the collective identity experience. http://www.sylvesterstallone.com/ http://www.sylvesterstallone.com/ http://www.vindiesel.com/ http://www.vindiesel.com/ https://www.facebook.com/dwaynejohnson https://www.facebook.com/dwaynejohnson moore and barbour 4 the site includes banner links and advertising for the political, non-government organisations and associations connected to various public identity iterations, which sit atop advertising for arnold.com, a different site for the entrepreneurial persona which reproduces black and white images from his undefeated seven-year history as world body building champion to sell sports foods and dietary products. both ‘official’ websites present recognisable elements of the hollywood ‘star’, and this multi-faceted celebrity persona is further organised around the perceived value of the individual as an actor, politician, and entrepreneur. the visual and technical intercommunication between sites, roles, and activities encourages and directs visitors and fans to adopt similar investment across the other sites in which ‘arnold’ is a presence. this approach works to encourage a deeply affective investment of a personal and direct engagement that is evidenced on sites like reddit, through activity including the popular ‘ask me anything’ ama session on the site, where it is schwarzenegger’s ongoing participation in the ‘sub-reddit’ forum r/fitness which indexically domesticates and authenticates this activity. part of the maintenance of his appeal is the curation of an audience that is predominately familiar with his broadcast media performances. this audience attention is maintained using social media to actively subvert the former restrictions and representational rules of media stardom through his interpersonal approach to the online performance of the public self. the deliberate lack of clear boundaries between his professional and personal selves, both during and after his time in political office, involved the strategic remediation of prominent identity features. these identity features include the celebrity history through the physicality of his body (vartanian, grant and passino 2001) and its presence and familiarity on the screen (boyle 2010). there has been gradual shift from the representational modes of broadcast media industries to the presentational media experience of many-to-many distribution and the individualised content aggregation of social media. this shift has produced a new set of claims to authentic selection and framing of events relevant to the ongoing management and presentation of online identity to personally curated audiences. presentational media are mediatised digital objects with subject forming properties that allow for intercommunication between audiences, technologies, and platforms. intercommunication is an elaborate layering and re-transmission of types and forms of personal mediated communication objects that are filtered, directed, and engaged with by particular individuals in interpersonal ways (marshall “intercommunication”). this intercommunication could be the sharing of a link to a music video, which moves from blog, to tweet, to facebook status update; or the movement of a single meme across 4chan, to reddit, 9gag, and similar websites. marshall (“intercommunication”) uses the concept of intercommunication as a way of understanding of the changed nature of subject and object in contemporary culture that involves a strategic negotiation of the intersections between public and personal categories of the self across digitally mediated and networked communication technologies. the dynamic movements of content and meaning between different identity performances are not contradictory. we can understand the ‘mr olympia’ bodybuilding character of pumping iron (fiore and butler, 1977); the ‘arnie/arnold’ action hero of the 1980’s and 1990’s; the republican ‘governator’ of the 2000’s; even the post-2011 regretful cheating husband star persona (perhaps best adopted previously by tiger woods). (the latter emerged with news of marital betrayal and a secret child.) all are part of a network of identity performance that involves the movement of the public into the personal, and the domestication of the familiar in public. http://www.reddit.com/comments/16mq0g persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 5 the celebrity performance matrix, which anticipates a specular approach to the selfaware ‘beingness’ of celebrities in everyday life (marshall ‘specular’) is useful for considering the domestication involved in the online public presentation of the self. film, boyle argues has been the most powerful promotional tool for arnold schwarzenegger in his political persona, and while it is certainly the case that film is the representational medium inhabited by multiple culturally significant screen identities from the terminator to the kindergarten cop, these were appropriated to symbolically represent specific political values during his campaigning. political representation, suggests street (2004: 446-7) drawing on marshall (celebrity), is aligned to the logic and practices of ‘show business’ in the sense that the embodiment of ‘sentiment’ is as familiar to the politician as it is to the actor. the web became an important publicity tool during schwarzenegger’s governorship, and the mobile devices and the convergent services it provides are now his primary and most powerful promotional tools. the celebrification of politics and the politics of celebrities was previously dominated by the representational limitations of the legacy broadcast model, which mediates the embodiment of values as sentiment coordinated along parallel formats for actors and politicians. the screen, with its compression of time, space, perspective, and framing, along with the production of narratives, dramas, and characters, the promotional and electoral campaigns, news media interviews, and embedded placement in public events, all require a voting or consuming audience that was previously considered to be largely passive. this expectation of passivity and one-way communication has been overturned by the domestication and personalisation of the internet through portable computational devices, mobile telephony, and convergent technologies. schwarzenegger’s use of facebook, instagram, twitter, reddit, and other social media platforms, responding directly to fan-requests and incorporating his on-screen personas, commits to the domestication of his identity. this occurs both in the break down in the professional presentation of the characters associated with his identity, and the more informal and personal setting of their presentation. his fundraising via reddit, for example, where he is highly celebrated as ‘govschwarzenegger’, includes the filming of fan-sponsored movie quotes remediated in short videos recorded with a mobile device in an intriguing mix of everyday and celebrity environments of private jets, golf courses, dressing rooms, and roadside driveways. the ‘revisualisation’ of politics by technologies of mass communication, identified by meyer and drawing on myth, history, narratives, and popular contemporary legends, are exponentially expanded through social and digital media, and the affordances of digital technologies are propelled by the dynamics of participatory media culture. schwarzenegger’s reddit videos are evidence of this trend. social media is no guarantee of success, and despite the expertise involved in its production, schwarzenegger’s public identity has not been retranslated as an entirely triumphant return as hollywood screen performer. registering the degree of intercommunication between schwarzenegger’s characters, roles, politics, and performances across multiple media platforms and formats assists in expanding attention to the new, old, and hybridised configurations of the online public self. the intercommunicative self involves the appropriation of the affective dimensions of media content and its strategic dissemination in the service of persona assembly management across multiple public and private micro-publics. the interconnections in the many-to-many experience of content distributed via social media and the web provides many conduits for the selective transmission of the individual’s creative appropriation. the remix and reassembly of popular culture, public and private information, and other media in the processes of assembling personal networks of connections that intersects in dynamic and challenging ways are just a few options for this production of persona. moore and barbour 6 the act of sharing media messages not previously associated with the broadcast entertainment industries is now a fundamental part of the translation of representational political identity as participatory and presentational media politics (marshall “promotion”), which has contributed to the changing aesthetics of political imagery. schwarzenegger is one among many celebrities, politicians, and public figures to have tamed the precarious public interfaces of social media through the everyday blending of interpersonal communication, mobile photography, memes, online video, microblogging, text, and social recommendations. the successful communication and dissemination of highly mediated interpersonal communication across facebook, twitter, youtube, reddit, and other sites and networked locations, is evidence that schwarzenegger is adroit in making the most of interpersonal web structures to maintain and expand a following across multiple registers of communication. the ‘official’ website still plays a role, but only as a non-central hub in the inter-networking of the multiple personas and connections to different kinds of information, audiences, and settings. the collapse of the governator as a public figure, and the return of arnie (however tarnished and reformulated), can be understood as the domestication of the public persona of the celebrity politician. this is not a discrete category, but rather an ongoing assembly of the forms of performance from the resources available, such as personal spaces, that were previous unseen or scrubbed clean for public consumption. the domestically scaled persona on public networks as the collected papers in this issue demonstrate, personas that are produced and performed can range drastically in type, scale, and structure. whereas arnold schwarzenegger’s personas reach international audiences numbering in the millions, the personas we produce from a personal sphere radiating outwards from the performance of the self are intended for much smaller, intimate audiences. however, by engaging with these domestically scaled personas, we have a means to examine how the everyday self impacts, and is impacted by, the shift to wholesale access to presentational media. this second case study introduces a comparative study of an online persona unlikely to garner much public attention, due to the desired or imagined audience. through analysis of the persona of rayna fahey (expanding on data collected by barbour), we can show how domestically scaled personas demonstrate the five key components of intercommunication identified by marshall (“intercommunication”): individual, interpersonal, multi-registered, inter-networked, and indexical. in a 2012 research interview, rayna fahey explained that she described herself on her curriculum vitae—an older form of public interface with the professional territories of employment, and part of the persona currency iteration as labourer—as “mother artist crafter gardener lover activist”, but noted that she uses the term ‘artist’ rarely, preferring ‘crafter’ or ‘maker’. since our talk, she has expanded and evolved this description of self to “radical crafter, organiser, mother, activist, gardener, writer and lover” (radicalcrossstich.com). fahey’s craftivist work is based around the tradition of needlework, particularly cross-stitch, which has a long history of being marginalised as a woman’s craft that is ‘decorative’ rather than ‘artistic’ (parker). the pieces that fahey creates, either working solo or as a member of collectives, generally operate in one of two overlapping modes. the first mode connects to the domestic origins of the medium in the home, radicalising the personal domain as an expression of public engagement: fahey creates, hacks, redesigns, and re-purposes cross-stitch samplers and needlework to incorporate political, feminist, environmentalist, or other activist messages. the http://radicalcrossstitch.com/ persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 7 second scale is begins at as a more public arrangement, where she uses cross-stitch techniques to bring the domestic into much larger formats: using chain-link fences and scrap fabric rather than linen or aida fabric and embroidery floss. the two formats bring together the domestic and the public in vastly different scales. the publicly scaled pieces intervene in vacant lots, neighbourhood parks or gardens, and other communal or publicly visible spaces. on occasions, these different scales of work come together through gallery shows and artist-in-residence programs: domestically scaled and themed samplers and aprons are exhibited alongside images and representations of fence stitching and other public interventions. fahey differentiates between the types of content she presents in her blog, her facebook page, and other online spaces. by individualising her online persona, fahey domesticates her blog as much any public-private social technical interfaces, such as a smart phone or other mobile device, bringing her blog (radicalcrossstich.com) her own creative work, and the history of political and activist craft together in the personal and public a digital archive of both. through facebook and twitter, she engages with and produces networks of makers, artists, activists, politicians, and business people, and links together varied interests in permaculture, environmental degradation, deforestation, women’s rights, and anti-capitalism to create a diverse, multi-layered activist persona in a diverse micro-public formation. her work building an online history of activist craft does much to link current craftivist practices to their oft-forgotten roots, working to counteract what newmeyer (443) describes as “an ahistorical understanding of crafts as political but also a remarkable ignorance of feminist theory, practice, and indeed crafting”. fahey’s education in women’s studies, her activism, and her political expertise mean that the connections between the traditions of embroidery and marginalised women’s labour, the economies of consumption and making, and the potential to use her chosen craft to register dissent are bound together in her online persona. equally important are her roles as mother, partner, friend, and community member. these overlapping roles anticipate the public enclosure of the personal, and use this osmosis to rupture and domesticate the political potential of the public. the visibility fahey has achieved within her digital networks is something she is able to convert from social value into capital and back to social value of a different order, promoting the wide range of causes in which she is invested. the overlapping philosophical underpinnings of the various groups and causes that fahey supports increases the likelihood that the people involved in her various personal networks will be interested in more than one specific activity. she promotes and facilitates interest in permaculture, environmental protection, animal rights, ‘green’ political causes and groups, and feminist groups along with her role as a craftivist. by posting links along with personal commentary, fahey provides access to a particular position on an event or news item in a multi-registered form, increasing the potential for positive change. fahey promotes cross-community networking in an ‘internetworked movement’ (marshall, 26) by distributing invitations to a range of events where her contacts are points of potential participation. through these networks, she extends the activist activities of her micro-publics beyond the point of initial connection, encouraging a diversity of activism. the interpersonal dimensions of the networked approach to the production of fahey’s online persona are an extension the individualised act of writing in public. fahey distributes her online persona across the overlapping patterns of identity performances of multiple digital platforms. these are locations where content from one site is multi-registered: content is shared, liked, tagged, re-shared, commented on, and moved to another site or users curate micro-publics. boundary management does take place—fahey does not post family photos to her blog, for example—but the domestication of the public via the networks of public presentation of the self demonstrates that the collapse of personal and professional spaces moore and barbour 8 occurs through the sharing of hobbies and the activities of interest groups. these activities add depth and breadth to fahey’s activist and artist personas. in the case of fahey’s focus on environmental, feminist, and left-wing political interests, her artist’s persona draws on expectations associated with bohemianism. fahey’s experience of persona creation directly connects with goffman’s conceptualisation of role-play, where individuals enact different fronts depending on their situation. diversifying her indexical identity in this way works for the multifaceted career she is building, where her activist, artist, and environmentalist priorities feed into and draw from one another. much of fahey’s craftivist work examines the intersections of femininity, motherhood, and production. to address this issue in a 2012 exhibition there’s always time to mend, she created a 6 minute film titled ‘the making and baking of banners and biscuits’ (fahey). the clip features time lapse footage of fahey involved in a diverse range of home based activity, as she works, mothers and entertains over two and a half hours. the audience watches through a static frame of her living room as fahey entertains her children, changes a nappy, feeds the children, cuddles the children, talks on the phone, talks to someone off camera, and returns time and again to continue her embroidery. rather than seeing the creative process as inviolate or sacred, occurring only within the bounds of a studio space, fahey presents a version of artistic production that is haphazard, interrupted, and embodied. encouraging people to consider the labour involved in the production of handmade goods, fahey’s depiction of creative labour “was born out of a desire to contribute to the conversation about the value of handmade” (fahey). although fahey is content to name the products of her labour ‘art’, when describing herself she alternates between the labels crafter, maker, and artist. for this film, she has chosen the latter descriptor. in our discussion of her identification with the different labels, she says that she mostly identifies as a crafter, but also commented “it depends on whether i want to have the conversation or not… ‘i’m an artist’—it’s just quicker.” by describing herself as an artist for the purpose of this clip, shared through a variety of online spaces including her blog, fahey gives legitimacy to the work that she is producing. identifying as an artist—a role that has significantly more social value than that of a crafter or maker—transfers that value to the product of her labours. it might be tempting to assume that the level of activity and interruption seen in the short film was staged for the purpose of making her point more explicit, that the artistness on display was in some sense a theatrical performance for the camera. however, in our interview rayna revealed how little ‘uninterrupted creative time’ she is able to have as a mother of three young children. describing a day full of stops and starts, child care, visits from friends and neighbours, and household management, she says there are only two periods of time she can work in a focused, continuing manner: firstly during quiet time after lunch, and secondly after 11pm, when the children are in bed and the house has been readied for the next day. this experience of making art is at a different end of the spectrum of creative practice from the stereotype of an artist in a paint splattered studio space, working furiously for days or weeks on end, or for as long as the spark of creative inspiration lasts. in sharing the domesticated normality of this type of creative labour through her digital networks, rayna brought together her interrelated commitments to gender equality and feminism, conservation and environmentalism, labour, and creative practice for her networked micro-publics. in this issue through the movement in and between the public and the personal, the domestic and the distant, these two case studies have described two very different personas, one that works on a commercial scale with a massive audience, the other scaled and targeted to a more intimate https://vimeo.com/40087211 persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 9 audience. this discussion is designed to offer a way to think about the range of persona studies projects that are included in this issue. this collection registers new, old, and refashioned connections between the domestic and the public, the commercial and personal, the unpopular and the massively well-known, with the domains of a performance of persona that are new and familiar, unknown and welcome. this complexity is not as uncertain as it may appear, but exists as the result of the interface between the various elements and modes of contemporary persona performance. take, for example, the first creative practice contribution to the present volume by xtine burrough, whose uses a twitterbot to create a “wordhoard”. we see a network enacted between the public display of the artist’s public identity and their personal vocabulary, one that domesticates the publicly accessible bot, an interface that is so often used to promote products, show off technical skill, or troll other users. by embedding a live twitter widget into the journal, this artwork will continue to grow as both the artist and the bot tweet. even xtine’s account of her work in this collection creates a new node in the micro-publics of attention that are attracted and linked to the wordhoard from elsewhere. xtine performs a domesticated publicness in the assembly of a vocabulary that is both deeply personal and intimate, as well as impersonal and entirely a practical and automated extension of her persona as artist. in mata haggis’s piece, the second creative practice contribution, we see quite explicitly the domestication of the typically public spaces and stories of digital video games. in the documentation, and in the accompanying embedded video, we encounter highly successful attempts to involve the player in deeply personal stories, to create experiences that border on the autobiographical, and tend to be grounded in conveying notions of an authentic encounter. in the game, fragments of him, haggis has retained control over the story and design, establishing a new personal order in the game world, ultimately an encounter assembled out of multiple impressions, memories, and objects copied from the tangible world. the public space of haggis’s game world is domesticated by paintings of his grandfather and friends, where we experience the translation of the product designed for an audience, and a user that encounters explicitly and purposefully directed narrative constraints. the traditional articles in the collection likewise chart new connections and relations between the public, commercial, and political, and the domestic, private, and intimate. belinda morrissey and susan yell demonstrate the way that online trolls work to diminish the public persona of powerful or influential women by criticising their private or intimate selves, an action made more coherent by the traditional patriarchal narrative reducing women's lives and influence firmly to the domestic sphere. morrissey and yell chart the connections between the public and the personal in the speech utterances of internet trolls by considering three instances involving a former australian prime minister, celebrity comedian, and reality television judge which demonstrates a spectrum of trolling as disruption. the experience of disruption through trolling is a common one online, and morrissey and yell use these case studies to represent a peak period of public interrogation of character and clear harassment by individuals in the public of the in australia’s social media sphere. casey schmitt looks at how the public persona of clint eastwood worked to influence audience interpretations of two 2012 performances: firstly in a super bowl xlvi advertisement for chrysler group, and secondly as a speaker at the republican national convention. the persona and the person worked to create two performances that received radically different receptions from the public, one lauded as embodying the american spirit, the other dismissed as confusing and disjointed. the public character of eastwood is recognised and celebrated, while his domestic, personal self disappoints his audience. kate warren’s article also looks at a projection of a different kind of persona into the public realm: the parafictional persona. warren’s account suggests the parafictional is a moore and barbour 10 phenomenon shared between performers and artists who enact “versions” of their public identities in the process of entertaining and creating the potential for creative and critical strategies public self-presentation. parafictional personas, warren argues, are a specific iteration of persona that are characterised by interconnecting self-reflexive moments and the appropriation of their own “proper name” to construe a fictionalised double. the focus moves between israeli-american omer fast, and lebanese walid raad, both artists whose public personas are performances of themselves. the public’s encounter with parafictional personas involved the authentic and the fiction, which is playfully rendered in the contextual collapse between dimensions of identity that would be otherwise distinguished between the fictional and real, the historical and the contemporary. paul smith examines the quasi-subjective properties of commodities that permit the emergence of persona and imagined subject-hood as part of the transformation of artistic practice. smith incorporates two theories for understanding artworks as quasi-subjects, and investigates the role of artworks as distinguished, unique, and special objects emerging from a specific understanding of minimalist critics of the sixties. he considers the capacities and characteristics of artworks to function as potentially ethical objects, and commodities and subjects of artwork: not as fetishised consumer items, but as prostheses for communities and ethical objects for societies of art. this journal has always been intended to be interdisciplinary, reaching beyond the disciplinary backgrounds of the founding editorial team. joining the range of approaches that have been assembled in the two issues of volume one, this issue includes a response to marshall and barbour’s (2015) initial editorial drawing on the positivist direction in public relations. stephen mackey’s exploration of alternative conceptualisations of persona is a welcome expansion on the preliminary advance, connecting it to structural divisions between image and identity, offering some ways in which less constructivist or critical scholars than ourselves could engage with persona studies. equally distinct from prior articles in this publication is coorevits, schuurman, oelbrandt, and logghe’s exploration of persona from a user experience design perspective. the authors introduce a methodology for designing, testing, and evaluating effective personas for use in software design, and this form of persona—a fictional character designed to embody the end user of a product—provides an interesting contrast to the work of qualitative researchers theorising mediated personas. in a sense, the personas developed in this final piece are domestic, as they represent people using technology in their own homes, while also being commercial objects, created for the purpose of testing a piece of software. collectively, the following articles expand our understanding of the spectrum of persona performances in both legacy media and through new media forms, through physical performances, parafictional portrayals, and theoretical constructions. we look forward to the conversations that result. works cited barbour, kim. finding the edge: online persona creation by fringe artists. diss. deakin university, 2014. print. boyle, ellexis. “the intertextual terminator: the role of film in branding ‘arnold schwarzenegger’”. journal of communication inquiry 34.1 (2010): 42—60. print. fahey, rayna. “the making and baking of banners and biscuits”. online video clip. vimeo. vimeo, 10 apr. 2012. web. 9 may 2016. goffman, erving. the presentation of self in everyday life. united states of america: anchor books, 1959. print. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 11 lammes, sybille. digital cartographies as playful practices. contemporary culture new directions in arts and humanities research. ed. judith thissen, robert zwijnenberg and kitty zijlmans. amsterdam university press. 2013. print. latour, bruno. “a door must be either open or shut: a little philosophy of techniques”. technology, and the politics of knowledge. ed. andrew feenberg and alastair hannaway. bloomington: indiana university press, 1995. chapter 16. print marshall, p. david. celebrity and power: fame in contemporary culture. london: university of minnesota press, 1997. print. ---. “intercommunication and persona: the intercommunicative public self.” the international journal of interdisciplinary studies in communication 10.1 (2015): 23—31. print. ---. “persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self.” journalism 15.2 (2013): 153—170. jou.sagepub.com. web. ---. “the promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media.” celebrity studies 1.1 (2010): 35—48. ebscohost. web. ---. “the specular economy.” society 47.6 (2010): 498—502. crossref. web. marshall, p. david, christopher moore, and kim barbour. “persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies.” celebrity studies 6.3 (2015): 288—305. crossref. web. meyer, thomas. media democracy: how the media colonise politics. cambridge: polity, 2002. print. street, john. “celebrity politicians: popular culture and political representation”. the british journal of politics & international relations 6.4 (2004): 435 — 452. print. newmeyer, trent s. “knit one, stitch two, protest three! examining the historical and contemporary politics of crafting.” leisure/loisir: journal of the canadian association for leisure studies 32.2 (2008): 437—460. print. parker, rozsika. the subversive stitch: embroidery and the making of the feminine. new ed. london: i. b. tauris, 2010. print. presner, todd. shepard, david. and kawona, yoh. hypercities: thick mapping in the digital humanities. new york: harvard university press. 2014. print. vartanian, lesa rae. grant, carrie l. and passino, rhonda m. “ally mcbeal vs. arnold schwarzenegger: comparing mass media, interpersonal feedback and gender as predictors of satisfaction with body thinness and muscularity.” social behaviour and personality 29.7 (2001): 711-724. print. persona studies 2015, 1.1 53 learning to circumvent the limitations of the written-self: the rhetorical benefits of poetic fragmentation and internet “catfishing” me gh an puns ch ke nola n abstract one of the most complex relationships we have to convey as humans is the written identification of that which we call the self. despite the fact that we are multifaceted beings, contemporary lingual limitations often force the perception of the individual as a definitive entity through three fundamental normative communication standards: authority, authenticity and moral accountability. this essay examines the resulting paradoxes of writerly identity in relation to these constructs, and simultaneously proposes that the way to rectify such issues is to embrace disparate identity performances of writings past and present. using research from multiple disciplines, including sociolinguistics, literary theory, and composition studies, this essay asserts that there is a great deal to be learned from the practices of two unlikely genres of written communication— specifically, it draws a parallel between current internet culture and poetics, as the phenomenon of “catfishing” (or creating and portraying complex fictional identities through online profiles) parallels earlier modernist acts of fragmentation through poetry. therefore, this paper argues that although their motives may differ considerably, both endeavours are useful rhetorical performances in that they provide a practical framework for circumventing common lingual identity traps. ultimately, it suggests that these unconventional perspectives of the “impersonal” in and through writing can help us to (re)approach the methodology of lingual identification and those written performances of the self (professional and everyday) that may not properly serve us. key words modern poets; fragmentation; catfish; self; poetics introduction in the individual, unsupplemented languages, what is meant is never found in relative independence, as in individual words or sentences; rather, it is in a constant state of flux— until it is able to emerge as pure language from the harmony of all the various ways of meaning. walter benjamin (257) the written identification of that which we call the self is one of the most complex relationships we have to convey as humans. interestingly, among the many aspects frequently attributed to one’s person, writerly identity is rarely addressed as a factor, as it is a construct nolan 54 believed to be reserved for those who call themselves and/ or are designated by others specifically as “writers.” however, the truth is that anyone who possesses the ability to write in effect demonstrates a written-self. for regardless of the type of composing one does, whether it be everyday communications like texts and emails or more formal missives, the written word plays an important role in shaping and articulating one’s identity. with that said, because the act of writing is often overlooked as a performance of the self by the average person, non-academic discussions focusing on the restrictive nature of such expressions are even scarcer. in this essay, i clarify the primary constraints of self-identification in writing of all kinds, and subsequently examine fragmentation— a rhetorical practice mastered by modern poets, now inadvertently imitated in the virtual sphere by individuals referred to as “catfish”— as this practice deliberately creates tension for these restrictive ideals. poetic fragmentation offers logical context for this mode of analysis, as it is the intentional division of the self in writing in order to interrogate interrelated social conventions such as identity, language, culture, politics, and more. “catfishing,” on the other hand, or the current internet trend of creating and portraying complex fictional identities through online profiles, provides a necessary counterpoint because, although their motives may differ considerably, they are in practice identical demonstrations of the impersonal aesthetic. as sherry turkle has noted, “while in recent years, many psychologists, social theorists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers have argued that the self should be thought of as essentially decentered, the normal requirements of everyday life exert strong pressure on people to take responsibility for their actions and to see themselves as intentional and unitary actors” (15). and so, despite a postmodern viewpoint and internet culture that promote multitudinous performances of fragmentation, the poet and catfish are still oddly bound by the imbedded subconscious tenets of lingual exchange as well. viewing these performances side-by-side not only reveals the intricacies of our slipshod association with the social parameters of lingual identity, especially when it comes to perceptions of morality, but it can also nudge even those who do not necessarily identify as writers toward a better understanding of the sheer possibilities of the written-self. the tacit margins of the written-self before we can retool conceptions of selfhood or begin to appreciate the benefits of modern and contemporary plays of fragmentation, we must first evaluate the subconscious lingual constraints these acts of self-definition grate against. writerly identity is consistently determined through a multifaceted process of lingual regulation in social and institutional ideals in a process sociolinguist and philosopher pierre bourdieu best explains as “habitus,” or the production of normative standards through learned models of speech and writing. written exchanges, as with all aspects of communication (including their verbal and gestural counterparts), are riddled with unspoken guidelines, and each discourse community, speech genre or social group we inhabit has fundamental rules that its members must follow. that is not to say that at some point each of us was formally handed a list of dos and don’ts for our interactions— although i suspect most of us did receive such imperatives throughout our schooling. but rather, as bourdieu contends, these unstated “dispositions generate practices, perceptions and attitudes which are regular without being consciously co-ordinated […]” (12). that is to say, each group of which we are a part (e.g. a specified professional field, discipline, school, culture, family unit, etc.), indoctrinates a set of ever-present lingual standards which are only superficially acknowledged and, author bell hooks notes, these unwritten rules are consistently treated as if they are steadfast universal values that traverse the borders of disciplines, institutions, cultures, generations and more (35). nevertheless, individuals are expected to (and for the most part do) blindly adhere to them. this function of the individual in relation to the tenets of habitus is a cornerstone of power dynamics and thus, writing, one of our most common forms of communication, is essentially a currency governed by three interrelated principles that underpin written conceptions of the self as well. according to my research, these ideologies are best described as: persona studies 2015, 1.1 55 authority, as in the acceptance of one as member or expert in a given speech genre in relation to his1 writing; authenticity, as a social judgment of the sincerity or veracity of a writer’s statements— a collective perception of text not necessarily aligned with the writer’s personal creative approach; and moral accountability, as an appraisal of whether or not those statements are acceptable according to the ethical standards of a given group. in this way, “the habitus also provides individuals with a sense of how to act and respond in the course of their daily lives” (bourdieu 13), and because our personal worth is invariably tied to these abstruse social perceptions of what is considered culturally “valuable” or “acceptable,” it also provides the basis for self-judgment and self-identification in writing and other communiqués. the hidden principles of lingual identification are further convoluted by a common and detrimental misconception wherein the regular practice of normative communications creates the perception of concreteness. western ideals require related identity performances to be perceived as fixed entities through “i am” statements and other indications of permanence. and, while this may feel appropriate in practice, mainly because we are taught to use and view language in this way, it is extremely misleading for several reasons. first, the obvious— no one is static— we all change from moment-to-moment at the cellular level and beyond (whether we like it or not), and this constant transformation coincides with the highly relative function of identity that bourdieu emphasizes. moreover, because all communications of identity are in fact variable, sociologists and philosophers alike question the ability to formally possess a singular sense of self, hence judith butler’s quip: “the ‘i’ has no story of its own— it’s a story of relation” (8), and as writers we often unintentionally perform additional multitudinous acts of identity through our writing practices. most adult writers and many adolescents regularly exhibit simultaneous personalities through their rhetorical choices. for example, one’s professional communications will distinctly differ in tone, content, and terminology from those with friends. the extent to which the majority of us display this fluidity of self through writing is undeniably tied to the very discourse communities of which we are members as well, as every one of them has very different measures for these ideals that additionally complicate the delivery and perception of self. some of us are more dynamic in our lingual performances of identity than others, and so the caveat is that people who are a part of fewer social groups and/ or inhabit multiple communities with less of an expectation for varying performances of identity may not present fluctuating acts of the written-self as habitually or smoothly. i am reminded of roz ivanič’s study in writing and identity (1998), in-where students from low-income neighborhoods exhibit limited adaptability in this skill (sometimes referred to as “code switching”). but, for those who do enact these varying façades of self regularly, they consciously and subconsciously recognize that their decisions produce a desired effect, such as acceptance among colleagues. strangely, they frequently do so without interrogating the numerous roles they actually enact and fulfill through these common communications. another self-related concern emerges in relation to our lingual attachments. westerners particularly are trained to see words as a kind of personal property, almost as if they form a resonating appendage rather than actual demonstrations of selfhood. this is evident in recent changes in intellectual property rights (iprs) and copyright laws, because as economists fagerberg et al. state, “despite their long history, until recently iprs did not occupy a central place in debates over economic policy, national competitiveness, or social welfare” (266). however, this notion of words as property is directly countered in the research of sociolinguist erving goffman: [t]here is the obvious but insufficiently appreciated fact that words we speak are often not our own, at least our current “own.” […] but although who speaks is situationally circumscribed, in whose name words are spoken is certainly not. uttered words have utterers; utterances, however, have subjects (implied or explicit), and although these may designate the utterer, there is nothing in nolan 56 the syntax of utterances to require this coincidence. we can as handily quote another (directly or indirectly) as we can say something in our own name. this embedding capacity is part of something more general: our linguistic ability to speak of events at any remove in time and space from the situated present.) (forms of talk 3) goffman contends that since we each have little-to-no rightful ownership of the words we so frequently use, there exists an even larger issue of identification through language— although we often assume that the person saying the words in a sense possesses them, there is no syntactical rule that requires this to actually be so. by extension, a name, one of the preeminent requirements of identification for humans, is not definitively attached to an utterance in a given instant, nor is a name (or person) truly affixed to the product of writing as it cannot/ does not live within a singular moment of transcription. moreover, through the generative principles of habitus we are almost expected to regularly employ the expressions of others as if they are our own, and it is how we approach this exact endeavor that ultimately decides our relation to a community as either member or outcast. and so, not only do we exceed the relative boundaries of space and time through such appropriations in everyday expressions, but there too exists an integral transcendence of the borders of identity through constant lingual emulation. and, as a result of the customary “ritualization” of language and its associated body language or gestures, we often perform these acts without acknowledgment of the underlying restrictions. unfortunately, these masterfully nuanced theatrics of lingual identity for the most part go unnoticed, as the normative structures force us into a perpetual paradox: individuals must adhere to the desired perception of a self that is a stable entity expressed and defined through presumptions of the “concrete,” despite the fact that identity, through its varied performances, is undeniably fluid in lingual expression. and, while the average person may not be fully aware of his own (re)inscribed contrivances, lingual emulation is a technique that both the modern poet and the internet catfish (as representations of formal and informal genres of writing respectively) often intentionally employ with the skewing of these identification values firmly in mind. social perceptions of the fragmented self in writing humans have an insatiable need to identify themselves linguistically (and otherwise) through commonalities. thus, renowned french theorist, michele foucault notes that up until the end of the sixteenth century, “it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols, made possible the knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them” (17). that is to say, identifying things via similarities— the very heart of that which we call poetic language— was indeed once the conventional mode of lingual communications. and so, for centuries, the poet was hailed as the master of the written word, mostly because of his ability to deftly employ the initial intents at the root of the convention, until a fundamental shift in language usage of the seventeenth century drastically changed the landscape of lingual designation as a whole. things began to be classified as they are today, for the most part according to their perceived differences. as with language, the poet’s esteemed role transformed over time. and, because the poet’s techniques are now viewed as separate from the everyday agendas of written communications, he is no longer positioned as lingual virtuoso to the masses. subsequently, foucault states that it is only the poet and his antithesis, the “madman,” who even dare to intentionally use the original lingual systems of resemblance (or similitude) in order to make connections through written language. and, for that, they must face a curious consequence: the poet brings similitude to the signs that speak it, whereas the madman loads all signs with a resemblance that ultimately erases them. they share, then, on the outer edge of our culture and at the point nearest to its essential divisions, persona studies 2015, 1.1 57 that ‘frontier’ situation – a marginal position and a profoundly archaic silhouette – where their words unceasingly renew the power of their strangeness and the strength of their contestation. between them there has opened up a field of knowledge in which, because of an essential rupture in the western world, what has become important is no longer resemblances but identities and differences. (50) therefore, foucault asserts that in the shift toward the current classification model of languages and away from poetic conventions, the poet and his writerly antithesis are positioned at the outermost poles of what is considered normative language usage through their continued, intentional use of similitude— an ideal foucault further delineates as the written processes of convenientia or those resemblances made via convenience or vicinity; aemulatio which enables us to emulate one another regardless of time or proximity, the very technique that goffman attests everyone unintentionally applies through social protocols, although most often verbally; analogy or metaphorical comparisons through which unlikely things gain contextual similarity, perhaps the most recognized and understood form of similitude as it is commonly practiced outside of poetics; and, sympathy through which the individuality of things seems to disappear within displays of overwhelming and assumed likenesses (17 24). the poet is considered an outsider because his repeated application of all of these methods complicates common ideas to such a degree that he must regularly rectify the tangible with that which is decidedly not in order for his ideas to be communicable at all. poets too are obligated to perform within the parameters of authority, authenticity, and moral accountability. yet, the poet, having extensive knowledge in both forms of communication— the antiquated procedures of similitude, as well as the everyday practices of disparity— has a propensity to evaluate the complexities of such lingual identifications for himself and others. and, this ability is only enhanced according to t.s. eliot, because “the poet has, not a ‘personality’ to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways” (118). thus, many poets have addressed this conception of the self, although with slightly different ambitions. early on the humanists used imitatio as a way to break away from medieval perceptions of the fixed-self, and later the romantics explored written identification through the liminal often intertwining autobiography and mysticism in order to interrogate the relationship of man with the natural and spiritual worlds. it was the modernists, however, who advanced this detailed inquiry of writerly identity, as they mastered the process of poetic fragmentation, or what maud ellmann refers to as the poetics of “impersonality,” through their extensive depersonalization of the self (4 – 7). fragmentation as a rhetorical performance of identity entails an author intentionally writing under alternate personas and/ or altering the normal expectations of identity related discourse, and this has long been thought of as an inherent skill for the poet for several reasons. primarily, the purpose of poetic language via the function of the four similitudes is precisely to blur the barriers of identities through resemblances, but also there is a common belief that the poet operates on divine inspiration. so, in essence, many accede to the idea that “poetry writes itself— and the poet is a mere amanuensis […]”— a meagre recorder, or a sort of hollow vessel through which the divine is expressed— and “the writer [therefore] has the power to decide to overcome himself” whenever he chooses (m. ellmann 4). through this writing process, the poet, unlike any other, is said to possess a “double soul” through which he is able to inhabit varying ways of being simultaneously. the resulting personas, most often either distortions of existing identities or fictional exaggerations of one’s own characteristics, are often described as writerly alter egos or “masks.” it is worth noting, however, that the latter is a misnomer predicated on the aforementioned belief in a primary self, thus coined to make obvious the obscuring of that immovable locus. through their various written personas though, the modernists use the social requirements of language in order to express a more accurate representation of the multitudinous qualities of written identity. nolan 58 the modernist poets who best tackled lingual constraints in relation to the individual through fragmentation were fernando pessoa, t.s. eliot, ezra pound and w.b. yeats. each of these poets consciously embodied elements of the impersonal in his own way: pessoa through his extensive heteronymia2, eliot in his divisions of self in the waste land (1922) and four quartets (1943), pound through his description of “vorticism” (1914) (a concept similar to keats’s negative capability which addresses the poet’s written ability to step “outside of himself”) and relentless appropriation in the cantos (1922 onward), and yeats in his personal diffusion through personae like sherman, howard, robartes, and aherne. and, as scholar robert crawford suggests, these modern poets do this through a combination of the splintering of language itself, as in the waste land or the cantos which both use a smattering of dialects throughout, as well as identity in order to consciously problematize our notions of “native language” and the unified self (64). remarkably, this incredibly high-brow endeavor has found a new purpose on the internet, as catfish use the same techniques, but for very different reasons. in her book, life on screen (1995), sherry turkle discusses how individuals currently construct identity through, and as a result of, interactions in cyberspace. specifically, she suggests that ever-changing platforms and abundance of computer-related communications, particularly those with artificial intelligence (ai) components, are challenging our imbedded lingual conceptions of a centralized self, because in virtual spheres individuals tend to think of themselves as multitudinous: in the story of constructing identity in the culture of simulation, experiences on the internet figure prominently, but these experiences can only be understood as a part of a larger cultural context. that context is the story of the eroding boundaries between the real and virtual, the animate and inanimate, the unitary and multiple self, which is occurring in advanced scientific fields of research and in the patterns of everyday life. […] but it is on the internet that our confrontations with technology as it collides with our sense of human identity are fresh, even raw. in the real-time communities of cyberspace, we are dwellers on the threshold of the real and virtual, unsure of our footing, reinventing ourselves as we go along. (10) turkle states that in light of current internet culture, we are moving away from an investment in a centralized freudian conception of the self (although she is also careful to note that freud himself did not necessarily mean for the “ego” to be used as it often is, as the representation of a concrete entity), and toward the lacanian idea of the individual as “a realm of discourse rather than as a real thing or a permanent structure of the mind” (178)— a change that catfish take full advantage of because their performances of fragmentation are published via the internet as opposed to in print. catfish, much like the modernists, are individuals who write under alternate personas and who also, often times, adjust their written dialects accordingly. yet, these written performances differ greatly from previously printed portrayals of the self. catfish operate online where identities are now commonly crafted by most people through a plethora of social media sites. these sites are designed with editable profiles that make it easy to tailor personas for specific audiences most often instantaneously. following the 2010 documentary, catfish, the act of “catfishing” became specifically synonymous with having relationships with others online under false pretenses, as the subject of the film, nev schulman, discovers that the person he has long considered to be his internet girlfriend is, in fact, an already married middle-aged mother (peterson 2013). this documentary brought attention to the widespread reality of such ploys, which have since been popularized by schulman’s follow-up mtv show of the same name inwhere individuals posing as others on the internet are regularly exposed and confronted by their victims. but, perhaps the most notable catfish disclosure of this kind was in 2012 when notre dame linebacker manti te’o publicly announced that his online love interest, lennay kekua, had died of leukemia only to find out that she never actually existed. instead, he was persona studies 2015, 1.1 59 told that he had been chatting with a male acquaintance, ronaiah tuiasosopo for over a year (“tuiasosopo says” 2013). in all of these instances, the farce is only possible because both the catfish and their victims are participating in online forums, in essence, working toward a common goal— to ultimately meet a partner, for purposes emotional, sexual or otherwise. in the three-part study, “what to tell about me? self-presentation in online communities” (2012), eva schwämmlein and katrin wodzicki differentiate between the communication platforms often used for these types of online interactions as either “commonbond” through which people gather based on interpersonal attraction as in they communicate in order to get to know and like one another, or “common-identity” groups through which social identifications are the primary focus and the attractiveness of the group as a whole is important (388). because of the nature of catfishing, most of the subjects on the mtv series are involved in the aforementioned common-bond groups online, and schwämmlein and wodzicki’s studies revealed that “through individualizing self-presentation [on common-bond sites] people do exactly what is helpful to make acquaintances” (401), frequently picking and choosing those elements which present themselves in the most favorable light. in so doing, they are not only establishing themselves as members according to the unspoken tenets of that discourse community, but they are also enacting a contemporary version of one of two forms of similitude, aemulatio and/ or sympathy, depending on how far they take their written performances. unfortunately, because both parties are willfully participating in the common-bond group, it can almost appear as if the victim is complicit in the deceit or has a willingness believe their online suitor’s presentation despite the fact that they too “fudge” things at times. however, their gullibility may be the result of a strong desire to adhere to previously established cultural cues—the very cues that catfish often use to attract their victims in the first place. in his paper, “interpreting instant messaging: context and meaning in computer-mediated communication” (2007), david jacobson reports on his anthropological study of how people contextualize behaviors through computer-mediated communications (cmcs) such as the instant messaging (im) systems catfish use, and he states that these “dyadic relationships (and their relational cultures) are differentiated by the kind of knowledge each party holds on one another” (362). in other words, even with our current attachment to or dependence on technologically-based communications, most of the context applied to our understanding of online discourse exchanges is, in fact, derived from prior social contact with the person outside of online communications. therefore, in an online-only relationship through a common-bond platform, it is much easier for people to not only misinterpret meaning, but also for them to miss social warning signs altogether. with that said, as strange and infuriating as these online “hoaxes” may seem, the catfish’s rhetorical practice itself essentially mimics that of the modern poet. for instance, catfish, too, use personal experience and the desire to connect with others through it as the basis for the creation of their personas, and so the profiles they build “often contain the experiences, friends, resumes and job titles that they wish were their own” (peterson 2013). truthfully, this could also be said of numerous poetic personas adopted by both pessoa and yeats. but, unlike the modern poet who did this as a means for revealing truths about ourselves and the world in which we live, the catfish does it to deceive and because he presumably thrives on taking control of the way others see him. there remains a significant difference in the intent— the very concept in which the restrictive terms of communication are so often rooted— and, when examining these performances in light of such expectations, catfishing appears to be more like modernist fragmentation’s thoroughly embarrassing cousin than its identical twin. while turkle claims that our postmodern way of thinking readily accepts multitudinous identity performances as standard (180), that is not necessarily true, as we still have drastically different perceptions of these two very similar performances. because of their dissimilar motives, the poet, undeniably an outcast from normative discourse communities, is held in relatively high esteem, whereas the catfish is thought of as a pariah for his interpretation of the nolan 60 impersonal in cmcs. the reason for this dichotomous reaction is two-fold. firstly, as author and literary critic lionel trilling notes, “we are habituated to the idea that society, though necessary for survival, corrupts the life it fosters, and most of us give this idea some degree of assent. but we receive with no such tolerance the idea that literature is an accomplice in the social betrayal” (60 – 61). this betrayal trilling refers to has dual meaning in that we will not tolerate literature that intentionally seeks to mislead us, but we also will not abide literature that does not fulfill its main purpose in terms of genuine experiential connectivity. the latter is a different kind of deceit founded in our expectation that literature is an art form meant to express truths. the poet, who fulfills these needs stands for something “greater” than the catfish simply because his writing is art—his fragmentation is perceived as a technique not intended to deceive, but rather to illuminate. so, as removed as it may be from the norm, poetic fragmentation does not betray us because it realizes its artistic objective. poesy is still primarily regarded as a means of entertainment, “[…] and the pleasure resulting from the manner in which they [poets] express the influence of society or nature upon their own minds, communicates itself to others, and gathers a sort of reduplication from that community” (shelley par. 3). and, while catfishing may also bring people together through the written word, the same credence cannot be given to its product principally because it originates with the selfish intent to swindle. its entertainment value has an expiration as a decidedly short-lived amusement for all concerned. thus, the problem with catfishing is not found in the rhetorical practice itself, but rather that it is situated at the wrong end of the moral compass. the catfish is perceived as having no sense of moral duty in his actions, as if he intentionally seeks to sidestep his ethical responsibilities as community member, and it is this personal awareness of his own corruption through writing that we find so deplorable. morality as a social concept requires us to adhere to our stations in all factions of existence including our written identity performances, and it does not tolerate those who dissent. the catfish’s fraudulent character, then, is analogous to a commonly loathed fictional archetype, the antihero or “villain”: “the villain of plays [verse] and novels is characteristically a person who seeks to rise above the station to which he was born. he is not what he is: this can be said of him both because by his intention he denies and violates his social identity and because he can achieve his unnatural purpose only by covert acts, by guile” (trilling 16). trilling explains that the hallmark of any villain is a blatant contradiction and corruption of his own social identity through surreptitious acts. in this sense, the catfish is a real-life villain— and i mean this as non-sarcastically as possible. today’s usage of the word too often conjures images of a cartoonish fiend laughing maniacally to himself as he methodically plots to dupe others. and, some clearly toe this line, like adam, a compulsive gambler who rigs jackpots for a living and blatantly proclaims himself to be an all-around bad guy and “king of the catfish” who has deceived upwards of 40 people with his online antics for the “fun” of it (schulman 2014). however, most catfish are villains in the victorian vein, as they exhibit characteristics which are deliberately not “true to life.” much like fagin in dickens’s oliver twist (1838) who presents himself regularly as the one in control through his abusive command of his band of child pickpockets, but is himself cowardly and afraid of his criminal associate bill sikes, catfish, too, choose to stretch the truth for personal control or advancement. in hegelian terms, honest aim requires that the self needs to submit to traditional ethics. and, in this regard, a lack of intent is always better than mal intent, for in everyday communications one may not always consciously intend to abide by the lingual rules (as previously noted by goffman and bourdieu’s independent theories), but he equally possess no will to perform to the contrary and therefore means no harm to the community and/ or its other members. the catfish, who regularly deceives in order to exceed his expected place in society and successively injures others with these actions, is thus outwardly spurned for his writerly identity. the second reason for the contradiction in the perception of these very similar acts of fragmentation is that the poet’s authenticity is not and never would be questioned in the same manner as that of the catfish, because the poet’s self-division is intertwined with a long tradition of moral fortitude of which i will endeavor to explain. as far back as the sixteenth persona studies 2015, 1.1 61 century, we find in the work of english poet, sir phillip sidney, documented evidence of the poet weighing in on the pure moral righteousness of that role he must fulfill. (righteous because the word poet literally means “prophet” or “seer” in latin, and “maker” or “creator” in greek.) and, in the defense of poesy otherwise known as an apology for poetry (1579) sidney proclaims that the poet’s purpose is to affirm ethical edicts through his works, and more importantly, it is the way in which the poet does this (through his verse) that makes him unique: now for the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth. for, as i take it, to lie is to affirm that to be true which is false; so as the other artists, and especially the historian, affirming many things, can, in the cloudy knowledge of mankind, hardly escape from many lies. but the poet, as i said before, never affirmeth. (35) according to sidney, the poet is a moral pinnacle who does not lie because he has no need to; the poet merely reports that which is true and does not pretend that a fictionalization is anything more than a product of the imagination. sidney also suggests that poetry itself (and therefore the poet) holds the purest intentions of humans, because through his relationship with the divine it/ he acts as an ethical mirror. this sentiment, of poet as moral figurehead, is echoed repeatedly throughout the years by other poets as well, such as [percy bysshe] shelley, emerson, eliot, and pound to name a few. in the rough notes of one of yeats’s lectures, for example, he describes the poet’s function as that of pure authenticity: “a poet is by the very nature of things a man who lives with entire sincerity, or rather, the better his poetry the more sincere his life” (qtd. in r. ellmann 5). in yeats’s estimation, the poet is the most genuine of all writers in terms of individual intent, as his writing exists with an effortless integrity. this does not mean that the poet is incapable of dishonesty. it is quite the opposite, as many poets have happily staked their claims in the production of intentional artifice with their works. their legitimacy, however, is not called into question because under the guise of art, as sidney indicates, this brand of falsification or insincerity is done so candidly. part of morality is also an assumed honesty of the actual words that the writer produces, and while the poet is seen as either an over-reliable narrator of all that is and/or an artistic mastermind, the same cannot be said of the catfish. the “rhetoric of authenticity,” according to donna lecourt, occurs at the axis of an allegiance to institutional standards and grander collective morals (23). but, that authenticity is hard to come by in a system that seems to devalue individualism at every turn. catfish are automatically vilified regardless of how heart-breaking their personal tales may be. many of them were themselves victims at some point and so they are keenly using the fragmented personas as a way to circumvent those portions of the self that they have been told (or shown) are unacceptable by society. most of the publicly-exposed tricksters have admitted that they find safety in the written performance of self, as it captures aspects of personality that they believe they cannot express in other ways, and so they rely on the perceived anonymity of the virtual sphere. as communications expert, joshua meyrowitz explains, electronic media sever the traditional links between physical location and social situations and “blur the dividing line between private and public behaviors” (71), thus allowing people to “escape” from various aspects of their corporeal identifications (57). examples of this reach far and wide among the catfish, from tuiasosopo who was molested as a child and condemned his homosexuality in public as something to be “recovered from” but was able to carry on an intimate relationship with te’o as a female persona online (mcgraw 2013), to matt who, for ten years, never fabricates a single aspect of his life in his written correspondence with girlfriend kim, but rejects her repeated attempts at in-person contact because he is afraid that his severe obesity will scare her (schulman 2012). so, while the majority of catfish seem to pretend to be something online that they are decidedly not by social standards, there may be an element of truth to their written performances. they are, after all, people enacting feeling through the written word, and those words and emotional displays originate with them regardless of their invented personage. and, when we consider that we all perform written identity variably, nolan 62 especially through our cyber performances of self, perhaps trilling was correct when he stated in his 1971 in his harvard lectures on sincerity and authenticity (1971) that “the truth of the self, at a certain stage of its historical development, consists in its being not true to itself, in there being no self to be true to: the truth for self, for spirit, consists precisely in deceit and shamelessness” (44). so, regardless of motive, the catfish is closer to the genuine article than suspected, and the artifice is really found in those written performances that maintain a false sense of constancy. conclusion writing is more than a means of communication; it is one of the most important methods we use for conveying personal and social perceptions of the self, and concurrently constructs identity through a fluctuating performativity. theresa m. lillis declares that, “‘actively creating’ involves becoming aware of our tacit habits of meaning and making choices about the ways in which we wish to mean. in this process, meaning making is not just about making texts, but also about the making of our selves, in a process of becoming” (48). and so, writerly intent extends far beyond the bounds of crafting physical texts for community buy-in purposes, because through the ever-present social tenets that govern the acceptability of language usage, our written performances are predominantly a process of becoming the self. thankfully, writing also doubles as a valuable tool that can help us to become more aware of these varying rhetorical choices, practices and roles through a reflexivity that, according to pound, is inborn, and thus should be experienced regularly, because the very act of writing transfigures identity (m. ellmann 139). it is important, then, to stress the writerly-self is a major component of personal identification and deserves more attention in non-academic venues. as turkle intimates, it is not that we have more personas now than in centuries past, but rather that online communications allow us to cycle through them more rapidly, as prior to computer-mediated communication, consistent life-long involvement with family and friends directly kept our switching of personas or “masks” under control (179). impersonalized writing, like fragmentation, demonstrates the possibilities of the flexible self, of which we have become more comfortable with in virtual spheres, in all of our writing. it forces the writer to consciously contemplate the various writerly identities he frequently designs and inhabits. and so, perhaps this is a practice we could all benefit from, as crawford suggests: [i]n our postmodern weather the fragment may be the condition of speech, signaling from the english language access to a wider linguistic spectrum. following bakhtin and other theorists we may be happier to accept that one’s “own language is never a single language”; to write in such a way that this is either implicit or explicit may be a good thing.3 (68) crawford indicates that contemporary fragmentation serves a greater purpose than its original inclinations artistic and cunning, as it provides a way to shift the understanding of our language usage from the singular and “concrete” toward a more accurate representation of multiplicity and fluidity. and, in turn, this intentional division of the written-self can help us to (re)approach a methodology of lingual identification that may not properly serve us, and even possibly redefine “individuality” as a construct. however, as the modern poet and the catfish demonstrate, this practice must be carefully approached. despite his position outside of the norm, the poet is socially accepted (and even revered by some discourse communities) because his written identity performances unexpectedly manage to adhere to lingual limitations while simultaneously testing and reshaping their thresholds, and the poet, particularly the modernist poet, seems to operate best within this liminal space between. but, the catfish lacks influence and legitimacy because through his similar, but calculatedly covert, interpretation of the fragmented self, he blatantly disregards the social protocols, conscious and subconscious, of lingual identity. and so, in order for this type of fragmentation to be a successful and/ or practical exercise, the writer’s intent persona studies 2015, 1.1 63 must always be to explore and display sincere, and more importantly, moral evaluations of the self. end notes 1. for ease, i have chosen to address the writer, the poet and the catfish all in the masculine. there is no intended connotation for this choice. 2. portuguese poet, fernando pessoa wrote under 81 different personae referred to as “heteronyms.” each heteronym has its own writing style, background, profession, etc. thus making pessoa one of the strongest examples of this type of modernist fragmentation in action. 3. crawford is sub-referencing a selection from m. m. bakhtin’s the dialogic imagination (1981). p. 66. full details for this text can be found in the works cited. works cited bakhtin, michail michajlovič, and michael holquist. the dialogic imagination: four essays. austin: u. of texas p, 2011. print. benjamin, walter. walter benjamin: selected writings, volume 1: 1913-1926. ed. marcus bullock and michael w. jennings. cambridge: belknap, 2004. print. bourdieu, pierre, and john b thompson. language and symbolic power. cambridge: harvard up, 1991. print. butler, judith. giving an account of oneself. new york: fordham up, 2005. print. catfish. dir. henry joost and ariel schulman. perf. nev schulman, henry joost, ariel schulman, stephen fogarty. relativity media/ rogue pictures, 2010. film. crawford, robert. the modern poet: poetry, academia, and knowledge since the 1750s. oxford: oxford up, 2004. print. dickens, charles, and philip horne. oliver twist. reissue edition. london ; new york: penguin classics, 2003. print. eliot, t. s. the waste land. ed. michael north. 1st edition. new york: w. w. norton, 2000. print. ellmann, maud. the poetics of impersonality: t. s. eliot and ezra pound. new edition. cambridge: harvard up, 1988. print. ellmann, richard. yeats: the man and the masks. first edition. new york: w. w. norton, 2013. print. fagerberg, jan, david c. mowery, and richard r. nelson. the oxford handbook of innovation. oxford handbooks online, 2006. web. 21 mar. 2015. foucault, michel. the order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. new york: vintage, 1994. print. goffman, erving. forms of talk. philadelphia: uof pennsylvania p, 1981. print. ---. the presentation of self in everyday life. new york: doubleday, 1990. print. hooks, bell. teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york: routledge, 1994. print. ivanič, roz. writing and identity the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. amsterdam; philadelphia, pa: john benjamins, 1998. open worldcat. web. 3 oct. 2013. jacobson, david. “interpreting instant messaging: context and meaning in computer-mediated communication.” journal of anthropological research 63.3 (2007): 359–381. print. lecourt, donna. identity matters: schooling the student body in academic discourse. albany: state u of new york p, 2004. print. nolan 64 lillis, theresa m. student writing: access, regulation, desire. routledge, 2002. print. mcgraw, phil, prod. “exclusive: the man behind the manti te’o girlfriend hoax.” dr. phil show. cbs. hollywood, ca, 31 jan. 2013. web. 27 dec. 2014. meyrowitz, joshua. no sense of place: the impact of electronic media on social behavior. oxford up, 1985. print. peterson, hayley. “‘catfishing’: the phenomenon of internet scammers who fabricate online identities and entire social circles to trick people into romantic relationships.” mailonline. associated newspapers ltd. london, u.k. 17 jan. 2013. web. 6 dec. 2014. schulman, nev, and max joseph, dirs. “john & kelsey.” catfish: the tv show. mtv. viacom, new york, ny, 31 aug. 2014. television. transcript. web. 22 jan. 2015. schulman, nev, and max joseph, dirs. “kim & matt.” catfish: the tv show. mtv. viacom, new york, ny, 26 nov. 2012. television. web. 26 jan. 2015. schwämmlein, eva, and katrin wodzicki. “what to tell about me? self-presentation in online communities.” journal of computer-mediated communication 17.4 (2012): 387–407. wiley online library. web. 24 mar. 2015. shelley, percy bysshe. a defense of poetry. english essays: sydney to macaulay. harvard up. print. the harvard classics 1909-14. sidney, sir philip, and albert stanburrough cook. the defense of poesy: otherwise known as an apology for poetry. boston: ginn, 1890. print. trilling, lionel. sincerity and authenticity. cambridge: harvard up, 1972. print. “tuiasosopo says he was in love with te’o.” espn.com. 31 jan. 2013. web. 26 jan. 2015. turkle, sherry. life on the screen. edition 2011. simon and schuster, 1995. print. meghan punschke nolan is a professor of composition and literature at st. john's university and westchester community college. she has an ma in english, an mfa in creative writing poetry, and is currently a doctoral candidate a.b.d. at st. john’s university. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 41 a tale of two eastwoods: iconographic persona and rhetorical ethos in clint eastwood's “halftime in america” and rnc 2012 address casey sc hmitt abstract in 2012, actor-director clint eastwood was twice the special focus of attention in america, not for his acting or directing accomplishments but for a pair of uniquely prominent and instantly memorable televised ideological statements. his scripted appearance in a two-minute super bowl xlvi halftime commercial for the chrysler group was widely lauded while his address to the republican national convention in tampa, florida, later that year remains to this day an object of pointed criticism and widespread ridicule. this essay uses sideby-side rhetorical analyses of the two examples—this tale of two eastwoods—to demonstrate the import of expectation and rhetorical persona in an age of modern, national, and global celebrity. the comparison illustrates how a massively famous speaker whose mediated public image has achieved highly symbolically status may both benefit from and struggle with what i call “iconographic persona.” the essay argues that celebrity speakers and spokespersons in modern societies must seek congruence between iconographic persona and rhetorical ethos. in eastwood's case, the expectations and associations met and solidified by the chrysler ad went unmet in the rnc address, and thus two appeals by the same speaker resulted in two very different receptions. in conversation with amossy, halloran, and butterworth in “connecting” contemporary discussions of rhetoric, celebrity, nationalism, and sport, this essay sheds light on the unique rhetorical position of the celebrity speaker in the political or activist spheres. key words ethos, rhetoric, clint eastwood, iconographic persona, rnc, halftime in america in september 2012, actor-director clint eastwood responded to questions about his august 30th address to the republican national convention in tampa, florida, delivered just moments before united states presidential candidate mitt romney took the stage to accept his party's nomination. “if somebody’s dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something,” eastwood explained “they’re gonna have to take what they get” (“quoted”). it was a grudging yet defiant acknowledgement that the screen icon's extemporaneous 11-minute schmitt 42 prosopopoiea—directed at an imaginary barack obama ostensibly seated in an empty chair stage left of the speaker's podium—had left viewers confused, bemused, and largely underwhelmed. indeed, in the wake of eastwood's infamous performance, satirists reveled in the stammering, seemingly directionless absurdity of the unorthodox address while news writers and pundits were left scratching their heads and asking what those convention organizers who had invited eastwood in the first place had been thinking. yet while we might dismiss eastwood’s rnc address and its rhetorical shortcomings as the mere result of poor planning or incoherent delivery, both can be more fully understood and can provide insight into the role of celebrity rhetoric at large when we consider them alongside eastwood’s proven capacity for rhetorical success. seven months before the rnc address, for instance, over 100 million television viewers had encountered a different side of eastwood, also speaking to them directly and likewise encouraging them as american citizens to re-group, re-gather, and re-direct their country. during the halftime commercial break of super bowl xlvi, the chrysler group premiered a two-minute spot entitled “halftime in america,” narrated by eastwood and highlighting both the plight and determination of everyday americans during economic recession. though not affiliated with any political party, the ad readily echoed the kind of the rallying cries one expects of campaign year convention speeches. eastwood's scripted monologue—played over a video montage of quintessentially american locations, people at work, and close-ups of american faces—utilized an extended american football metaphor to encourage viewers to focus on “what's ahead,” to “come together,” and to “come from behind” as america's “second half” was about to begin. it was a locker room speech in epic terms, soaked in patriotism, competitive spirit, and capitalist ideals, and it must have given campaign organizers on both sides of the political spectrum chills of inspiration. with this essay, i seek to use these two examples—this tale of two eastwoods— to demonstrate the import of expectation and rhetorical persona in an age of modern, national, and global celebrity. the expectations and associations met and solidified by the chrysler ad went unmet in the rnc address, and thus two appeals by the same speaker resulted in two very different receptions. when rnc organizers invited eastwood to speak, they were almost certainly hoping to draw upon the same kind of enthusiasm generated by the super bowl ad, almost certainly hoping for the same assertive, gritty, film icon version of eastwood to take the stage. the audience, too, had been primed to expect the same “tough guy” image, drawn from a career's worth of gunslinging roles like dirty harry callahan, the “man with no name,” and unforgiven's william munny. however else eastwood's address may have failed to inspire audiences or convey a national urgency to vote a straight republican ticket, it faltered first and foremost by defying expectations. in the pages that follow, i use rhetorical criticism as a method to present two close analyses of clint eastwood in 2012 and illustrate how a massively famous speaker whose mediated public image has achieved highly symbolic status may both benefit from and struggle with an “iconographic persona.” first, in a combined textual and audio/visual analysis, i consider the “halftime in america” spot and examine how and why the two-minute ad utilized audiences' pre-established associations with eastwood. next, i consider eastwood's muchmaligned rnc address to uncover how it failed to meet audience expectations in the same way. after reading the two examples in detail beside one another, i use the findings to argue that celebrity rhetors in modern national and global societies counter with a unique constraint in their oratorical ventures—that is, such speakers must seek congruence between iconographic persona and rhetorical ethos. i conclude by highlighting some repercussions of this perspective for rhetorical criticism of celebrities and politics in the future. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 43 ethos and iconographic persona: a theoretical framework the advertiser or politician who calls upon a celebrity to speak for any cause is seeking to build an appeal based on the celebrity’s public image. existing work in celebrity studies and persona has documented that celebrities, as especially public presentations of self, have the potential to direct public attention and encourage audience association with products, causes, or events (brockington; marsh, hart, and tindall; nownes). celebrities may function as “big citizens,” influencing public opinion by stating their own ideas and allegiances for others to follow (rojek) and, as a “presentational model,” they provide a sense of self and selfpresentation that others may mimic and adapt, based upon a feeling of personal intimacy and affiliation with the celebrity's “public private self” (marshall, “promotion” 44-45). in many ways, the appeal of a celebrity who speaks publicly resembles the concept of ethos in aristotelian models of rhetoric and oratory, by which the audience's sense of the speaker contributes to or detracts from the speaker's persuasive power. yet the ethos of the celebrity rhetor also functions in a more unique manner, differently from aristotelian models. modern celebrity speakers ought, of course, to demonstrate wisdom, virtue, and goodwill—the qualities aristotle lists as essential to persuasive ethos—but they must also account for and counter with a pre-established image of themselves already at play in popular understandings and discourse. the ethos of massively popular figures is often already pre-judged when their public images have achieved media saturation and their public personas ascribed iconic or symbolic status. the celebrity speaker persuades not only on ethos, but on performance and maintenance of a more “powerfully visible exemplification of persona” (marshall and barbour) that the audience already anticipates. this understanding of ethos also differs slightly from more contemporary concepts of ethos in rhetorical studies. it differs, for instance, from the ethos described by michael j. hyde, whereby the persuasive ethos of the rhetor is a collaborative outcome of speaker and audience co-habitation—of sharing, assuming, and enacting the same (or, at least, similar) understandings of what the world is like and who the speaker is/should be within it. a speaker, like eastwood, and his/her audience must indeed dwell in the same conceptual spaces, but the modern celebrity rhetor's ethos is often even more solidly pre-determined by the public than is the ethos of other modern speakers. that is, the speaker whose identity has achieved iconographic status may struggle to assert a new or original persona in public rhetoric or performance. graeme turner has identified the special relationship between celebrity and public discourse. celebrity, turner writes, is a “discursive effect,” whereby the individual's particularly prominent persona is actively negotiated through social interaction and representation (13). as holmes and redmond note, celebrity persona “does not reside in the individual: it is constituted discursively, ‘by the way in which the individual is represented’” (holmes and redmond, “journal” 4). such persona is not developed merely through the presentation of self in everyday life but also—and, more potently—through public development and definition of who the celebrity individual is and ought to be. turner argues that “those who have been subject to the representational regime of celebrity are reprocessed and reinvented by it,” and that to be “folded into this representational regime—to be ‘celebritised'—changes how you are consumed and what you can mean” (13). a “celebritised” individual has comparably little control of her/his public persona once the wider community has developed a shared concept of that individual and, turner explains, in order to adhere to persona expectation, the celebrity must often adapt to and enact expectations. there are many potential repercussions but, turner writes, “at the most pragmatic level, for the individual concerned, their celebrity is a schmitt 44 commercial property which is fundamental to their career and must be maintained and strategised if they are to continue to benefit from it” (14). applying this recognition to rhetorical analysis, i propose that the celebrity orator speaks not only with an embodiment of aristotelian or contemporary ethos but also with an embodiment of iconographic persona. iconographic persona is ascribed to celebrities through their portrayal in various media rather than through direct, person-to-person contact with their audiences. it is an extreme form of what john corner terms “mediated persona”—the public image of an individual, setting expectations for that individual's public performances— attributed to only the most widely known and widely represented celebrity speakers. over time, representations of such individuals can achieve a symbolic potency in public discourse, and the mere image of the individual or mention of that individual's name can serve as symbolic allusion to concepts, populations, and values. film celebrities like clint eastwood or john wayne become synecdochic references to american frontier expansion, masculinism, and militarism. actors like james stewart or tom hanks symbolize, for many, wholesome americana and niceness, while others, like james dean, frank sinatra, or samuel l. jackson, signify rebellious swagger and style. these attributes derive, of course, in part from the words, actions, and roles of the celebrities themselves, but they aggregate with fame and mass media repetition into a symbol of the person both distinct from and inseparable from the actual individual. this phenomenon is not limited to film celebrities, as politicians, religious leaders, indeed any mass mediated public figure may accrue iconographic status in time. even as eastwood spoke to the rnc crowd in tampa, for instance, the candidates themselves countered with, accounted for, embraced, and strove to reject aspects of their publicly asserted personas. yet eastwood is a prime case example. one need never have seen an eastwood film to know that eastwood is (supposed to be) rough, gritty, and american. he is the frontiersman, the patriotic soldier, the cop who goes to sometimes violent extremes to enforce justice and get his man. his roles in various western films make his name a reference to frontier expansion, industry, and manifest destiny. his celebrated turns as dirty harry make his image a symbol of hard fought justice and no-nonsense audacity. his success as a director makes him a symbol of glory and ingenuity, and his familiar growling voice and assertive personal conduct into his old age makes him an icon of toughness and persistence. this iconographic persona follows the rhetor eastwood wherever he goes, and eastwood’s rhetoric is at its most effective when it acknowledges this factor and capitalizes on it. the “halftime in america” commercial uses the roughness, grittiness, and americanness of eastwood as a central node for weaving together its metaphors and allusions to nationalism, sport, nostalgia, and industry. these four perhaps disparate ideas are, of course, already linked in the public imaginary (aden; butterworth; von burg and johnson), but placing eastwood in the central position allows the association of patriotism, nostalgia for an imagined american past, physical competition, and tough-as-nails determination to resonate within the persona of the speaker himself. chrysler's approach was not based on extolling a product through logical argument but was instead based almost entirely on gleaning sentiment for the brand from the nostalgic sphere of sport and nationalism encapsulated in the iconographic eastwood persona. “halftime in america” encouraged a collection of identifications, linking viewer anxieties over recession hardships to the civic and financial struggles of detroit, michigan, linking detroit's perseverance following the 2008/2009 auto company bailouts to american exceptionalism, linking this narrative to the nostalgic and politicised realm of competitive sport through both metaphor and placement within the super bowl broadcast, and linking all of this to the central persona of eastwood, whose connection to detroit, american persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 45 identity, gritty determination, and competitive spirit are all emphasized in word and image before the chrysler group logo ever appears onscreen. in this way, eastwood serves as a synecdoche for americans, for football fans, for hard workers, and for chrysler's ideals. eastwood appears as the single representative speaking on behalf of each of these parties and, by extension, the collective whole. after laying out the stakes of “halftime,” for instance, and describing the plight of detroit in third person terms, he shifts markedly to the first person singular, noting, “i've seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life,” before shifting to the plural, using the words “we,” “our,” and “us” seventeen times in the ad's subsequent 70 seconds. the strategic effort to encourage consubstantiality—to imply that viewers, eastwood, americans, and chrysler are already substantially one with each other, with special rapport and communal interests (burke 46)—is plain. this strategy is by no means new to advertising. in fact, as sonja k. foss has noted, chrysler itself used the exact same strategy following its 1980 bailout under president carter. yet even among other advertisements, the “halftime in america” spot remains a particularly rich case for exploring the role of spokesperson persona and rhetorical ethos. its simultaneous presentation of collective national ideals and a single, iconographic individual supports hyde and smith's assertions that persuasive appeals to ethos build not from the qualities, actions, or art of the rhetor alone, but from communally arrived at understandings shared by and developed in discursive exchange. that is, with this case, we can trace how aristotle's persuasion “through character,” the “most authoritative form of persuasion” (1356a), is achieved through the rhetor's embodiment of presupposed audience understandings of the rhetor him/herself. those individuals who have accrued particular fame and celebrity in mass media societies thus face a special rhetorical challenge. whereas rhetors of the classical era or less famed rhetors in the current day may engage their audiences directly and develop their public personas through immediate discourse, modern celebrity rhetors may find their ethos to be always already solidly defined. amossy posits that celebrities simultaneously represent their “authentic” selves and the “well-known patterns” of common representation, that “the image of the star is neither the real person nor a fictive character: it is a hybrid pertaining to both” (“autobiographies” 677). the real person is a continuation of the “fictive character,” the pregnant ideograph that shares the individual's name. thus, the audience who sees and hears clint eastwood also simultaneously hears and sees <clint eastwood>, the iconographic persona associated with dirty harry and spaghetti westerns. the two, as baudrillard would say, are inseparable. all of this is a roundabout way of explaining why the combination of sporting atmosphere, american identity, the chrysler group, and clint eastwood should work rhetorically, and why comedic jabs, partisan politics, and the same celebrity speaker should not. the following close analysis of the two examples side by side helps reveal how eastwood's persona influences the meaning of his rhetoric. “halftime in america:” the guttural “yeah” of rugged authority chrysler's halftime commercial is striking in the way it focuses attention on eastwood in spite of its grand, national scope. yes, it features images of dozens of individual americans, at home and at work, in cities and in towns, but only eastwood speaks during the full two minutes. yes, he uses the term “we” throughout, but his explicit use of the first person singular at the 39second mark places his experience in special privilege, making him a unique representative of schmitt 46 the nation as a whole. the production and direction of the commercial directed attention to eastwood as the central figure, capitalizing on his ethos from beginning to end. this direction of attention to eastwood as an individual begins, in fact, in the advertisement's very first moments. aired immediately after the super bowl halftime show—a musical performance featuring hundreds of dancers and a stadium full of cheering fans— “halftime in america's” first shot features the image of a lone silhouetted figure walking through a dark stadium exit as the roar of the crowd quiets to a hush and the narrator's voice takes over. in the moment of airtime, this figure could be understood to be stepping out from the crowd in the super bowl stadium itself. the figure casts a stark, larger-than-life shadow against a bare brick wall, and the suddenly sombre tone conveys a personal gravity. “it's halftime,” says a voice, and the screen fades to black momentarily. in a split-second of video and audio silence, our attention is directed from a stadium full of revellers to a single individual. this figure is eastwood, of course, but he is kept in darkness, leaving audiences to guess at his identity (though producers were also surely expecting some viewers to quickly recognize the actor's iconic voice). as the ad and its narrative progress, the camera revisits the figure in the exit tunnel as he walks closer and closer to the lens. at the 1-minute, 23-second mark, eastwood's face is revealed as he steps into the light. it is the last in a series of montage close-ups on individuals, and, indeed, his is the only face visible for the remainder of the piece. the video montage climaxes in its longest extended shot, a 14-second close-up of eastwood's face, framed from brow to chin, and filling nearly the entire screen as the music once again quiets to a hush. eastwood is speaking of america, and detroit, and chrysler, perhaps, but it is eastwood, too, who is the focus of attention. this focus allows eastwood himself and the ad's producers to draw from the eastwood persona. it allows for an unspoken association of words and images with those values and ideals already packed into the public concept of the iconographic “clint eastwood.” in particular, the ad focuses on competitive determination (through allusion to sport and auto industry resilience), to americanism, to the city of detroit, and to assertive (if need be, violent) defiance. each of these themes is thoroughly congruent with the popular eastwood image. following the pause after the announcement that “it's halftime,” eastwood's voiceover narration lays out an explicit connection between football, sporting competitiveness, and national struggle. “both teams are in their locker room,” he says, “discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half. it's halftime in america, too.” the image on the screen changes from the figure in the tunnel to an empty porch swing overlooking wooded, rolling hills, and then to a cityscape from above. with the metaphor of sport and nation established, the ad then explicitly likens the struggles of economic recession to the physical strain of athletic competition. eastwood continues, “people are out of work and they're hurting. and they're all wondering what they're going to do to make a comeback.” social, fiscal, and emotional pain are in this moment likened to the noble stress of sport, a “no pain, no gain” arena with decisive victory over adversity clearly and always in sight. yet the stakes are also implied to be higher than those of sport as the ad features intimate images of home and family, and an explicit narrated assertion that “we're all scared, because this isn't a game.” in its first 25 seconds, the ad concretely establishes its metaphor of physical struggle, stress, and competition, all readily tied up in the eastwood persona. eastwood's most celebrated film role characters take on long odds and corruption through literal, agonistic, life-and-death competition. he is “rugged” (woodall) and “unyielding” (“clint”), the “quintessential tough guy” (“'halftime'”) who can “turn vicious if pushed too far” (“clint”). film viewers over the years have seen eastwood suffer pain and strain, grit his teeth, and come out on top. the iconographic persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 47 eastwood is the champion many viewers would want in their corner when threatened and scared. the script and image themes of agonistic metaphor thus align with the rhetor's public persona. next, with the central sporting metaphor established, the ad narrows its focus from “america” at large to the city of detroit. the michigan state flag appears in washed out tones, followed by industrial images of the city's foundries and manufacturing lines. eastwood explains that “the people of detroit know a little something about this. they almost lost everything,” then positions himself as a representative of the city in the first person plural, saying, “but we all pulled together, now motor city is fighting again.” the allusion to physical competition and struggle continues in the words “pulled together” and “fighting.” the symbolically ragged, tough, industrious city of detroit here serves as a clear synecdoche for the nation, and the move anticipates and encourages the synecdochic positioning of the symbolically ragged, tough, and industrious eastwood as the advertisement moves forward. this move is also anticipated and encouraged by a visual return to the single individual in the tunnel, still in shadows. it is also at this very moment that eastwood speaks in first person singular and refers to “downturns in [his own] life.” the individual speaker is emphasized as a representative of detroit, and detroit as a representative of the nation. this move again emphasizes eastwood's ethos and draws from his film career persona. viewers and news outlets around the world acknowledged the import of eastwood's symbolic relationship to detroit, established by his role in the 2008 film gran torino (“clint;” woodall), the story of a retired ford factory worker, war veteran, and silver star recipient living in the run-down detroit neighbourhood of highland park. eastwood both starred in and directed the film, which was shot in detroit near the height of the city's economic woes. though it was eastwood's most financially successful and critically acclaimed role of the 21st century (chemi), it is perhaps most well-known for the iconic scene in which a grizzled eastwood threatens a group of teenage gang members with a rifle and growls, “get off my lawn.” the themes of detroit's plight, american nationalism, the auto industry, eastwood's persona, and aggressive struggle against urban and civic decay were already, for many, bound together in the public imagination. at the advertisement's halfway mark, the words and images shift to a more optimistic, resilient, and forward-looking tone. clouded skies give way to a series of clear skies and sunlit scenes. eastwood's words once again evoke the football coach's locker room speech, as he explains, “after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. because that's what we do. we find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one. all that matters now is what's ahead. how do we come from behind? how do we come together? and, how do we win?” talk of toughness, of making a way for moving ahead (similar to the work of a football team's offensive line), and winning all further cement association of eastwood's tenacity with physical struggle and sporting victory. chrysler cars begin to appear in the video montage, and eastwood's face is finally revealed (at the word “win”). over the image of an auto assembly line, eastwood asserts, “detroit's showing us it can be done. and, what's true about them is true about all of us.” at this point, the audience is primed for eastwood's final, aggressive, singular appeal. stepping from the shadows and finally revealing his face, eastwood builds to a climactic declaration: “this country can't be knocked out with one punch. we get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.” the words rally sport fans and patriots while simultaneously recalling the screen eastwood literally rising from any number of blows in his heroic celluloid exploits, or as grizzled boxing trainer frankie dunn in 2004's schmitt 48 academy award winner for best picture, million dollar baby. the “roar” of engines is an obvious allusion to automobiles but, after a slight pause, it is also embodied in the speaker himself. “yeah,” eastwood growls in a deep, guttural, sandpapery tone, “it's halftime america. and our second half is about to begin.” the “yeah” is neither articulate nor argumentative, but it punctuates all that precedes it. it is assertive and masculine, demanding attention as the speaker scowls directly at the viewer through the television screen. the advertisement’s music swells as if echoing and emulating that roar, or perhaps the roar of a stadium crowd. it symbolizes the roar of literal engines and metaphorical willpower, the nostalgic optimism of sport, and the nonchalant, unwavering confidence of the iconographic eastwood. in two minutes' time, football and athleticism, industrial regeneration and automotive industry, american spirit and determination in the face of adversity were all made manifestly consubstantial in the figure of the speaker. rnc 2012: the good, the bad, and the incongruous by the evening of monday, february 6, chrysler's “halftime in america” ad had over 550,000 views on youtube (monroe). traffic on twitter and other online sites spiked in reference to and discussion of the spot (woodall). it was water cooler talk across the nation, and few had missed the ostensibly non-political ad's social and political overtones. while initially lauded online by liberals and conservatives alike, by monday morning many journalists agreed that the spot read as a celebration of president obama's handling of the auto bailout (“clint;” “'halftime;'” lee; monroe). republican strategist karl rove claimed he was “offended” by the ad and its seemingly partisan message (“clint;” “'halftime'”). on the other side of the aisle, prolabour liberals condemned the ad's manipulation of labour protest footage (nichols; shaw). as the week wore on, chrysler's italian ceo sergio marchionne and eastwood himself maintained that the ad was about america and cars, not politics. in a statement to fox news, eastwood swore, “there is no spin in that ad. on this i am certain.” the new yorker's amy davidson contributed to this sentiment in a february 7 column, writing that the ad was “not about obama or even, mostly, about detroit, but about time—in the life of a man, as much as a nation,” about “the city and the country, and the lines of eastwood’s face.” yet the potential for a politically-charged reading remained. eastwood said to fox, “i am certainly not politically affiliated with mr. obama. it was meant to be a message about job growth and the spirit of america,” but added, “if obama or any other politician wants to run with the spirit of that ad, go for it” (monroe). certainly, in a presidential campaign season, both democrats and republicans likely considered this advice. eastwood's persona had proven to be a powerful one—one that might enhance and promote any number of campaigns. as mike jackson, ceo of the largest u.s. auto dealership group, wrote on twitter, eastwood himself “could get elected president with that ad” (woodall). of course, eastwood's own political history is a bit complex, not fitting easily into a twoparty binary. he is “a fiscal conservative who takes left-leaning stands on social issues (“clint”), including gay marriage and environmental protection. he actively supported republican john mccain in the 2008 u.s. presidential election, but also expressed open admiration for california's democratic governor, jerry brown (“clint”). he served on the california state park commission under republican governor, arnold schwarzenegger, but had supported schwarzenegger's rival, democrat gray davis, during the 2003 recall election (monroe). ultimately, though, eastwood's persona does seem to hold particular potential for the contemporary republican (gop) platform. from the reagan years onward, the gop has often lauded rugged individualism and frontier symbolism. prominent republicans in the postpersona studies 2016, 2 (1) 49 reagan era have often touted their own frontier connections. george w. bush and dick cheney often referenced cowboy ideals and metaphors of texas frontier justice (west and carey). john mccain was branded as a “maverick” and his running mate, sarah palin, made ample reference to her frontier experiences as governor and resident of alaska. reagan himself, just like eastwood, first accrued fame as a hollywood actor, appearing in film westerns and utilizing an ethos of rugged individualism throughout his political career. indeed, reagan acknowledged similarities between himself and eastwood, and often found opportunities in his political rhetoric to directly quote eastwood's celebrated line from the 1983 dirty harry film, sudden impact: “go ahead, make my day,” an aggressive challenge to call any opponent's bluff. during the reagan years, eastwood was a registered republican, and, like reagan, transitioned from acting to politics when he served as mayor of the northern california town of carmel-by-the-sea from 1986 to 1988. according to campaign chairman and secretary of state james baker, eastwood was “even briefly considered to be a vice presidential possibility” under reagan's successor, george h.w. bush (monroe). his roles as frontiersmen, lawmen, and soldiers associated his name and likeness with american martial strength and justice. and as american 2nd amendment firearm rights became a more prominent component of the gop's platform, eastwood's gun-toting characters became even more iconic. reagan's celebration of the no-nonsense, stop-at-nothing justice of dirty harry callahan made “make my day” a conservative rallying cry, particularly when applied as a nickname to a rise in so-called “castle doctrine” laws during the 1980s and 90s, ensuring the legal right of american citizens to use firearms or deadly force against home invaders. for all these reasons, it seems clint eastwood's iconic persona could and would translate to rhetorical potency at the rnc in the same way it had worked to promote american nationalism and cars. eastwood in 2012 was a registered libertarian, but in august had officially endorsed romney for the presidency. in the planning stages—on paper—eastwood's convention rally speech likely made perfect of sense. yet the speech differed significantly from the “halftime in america” commercial. whereas chrysler's ad called upon and affirmed public associations and understandings of eastwood's iconographic persona, the rnc speech defied them. rather than stress physical struggle, defiance and strain in noble competition, or the conduct of a trail-worn cowboy, the eastwood who took the rnc stage was smiling and happy, understated and seemingly, at times, unfocused. he drew not upon a language of grit and tenacity (in fact, at times, actively avoiding this language), but on political philosophy and humour. he mentioned neither reagan nor the frontier west nor the 2nd amendment and thus failed to capitalize rhetorically on existing audience identifications. though pundits criticized the rambling address as ultimately incoherent (“quoted”), the speech was flawed first and foremost because it was incongruent— that is, eastwood's onstage ethos lacked the necessary congruence with the iconographic persona that the celebrity rhetor must always counter with and achieve. if convention and television audiences were not already primed to associate the speaker eastwood with his iconographic persona, convention organizers directed attention (or, in the words drake and higgins, following erving goffman, “keyed” attention) with an enormous video screen display. when eastwood took to the stage, a colossal silhouette of the man with no name appeared on the convention screens behind him, along with the sepia-tone image of a westernstyle ghost town and a few bars of guitar music reminiscent of ennio morricone's spaghetti western themes. then, though the screens reverted to a general red, white, and blue background as the initial applause subsided, a round of convention-goers at stage left greeted eastwood with chants of “make my day!,” perhaps in reference to eastwood's filmic past, and schmitt 50 perhaps in open reference to reaganism or gun rights. eastwood chuckled and opened the speech with a humorous quip, urging the audience to “save a little for mitt.” on viewing video of the speech years later, the address begins fairly unremarkably. eastwood opens with a polite chuckle, a joke, then uses the opportunity to take a few lighthearted jabs at hollywood democrats. it is a fair start with the appropriate tone of partisan boosterism. yet it could have built more from the iconic eastwood persona. this clean-cut, smiling man clashed with the gunslinger the audience has just moments before been reminded to expect. eastwood’s visible age, used in film and the chrysler ad to evoke grit and experience, in tampa signalled, instead, to some, meekness and senility as eastwood audibly searched for words on a bare stage in the spotlight (“quoted”). the scowl, shadows, and strain of “halftime in america” were nowhere in sight. after its initial remarks, though, the speech takes its most infamous and perhaps damning step. turning to an empty chair beside him, eastwood announces he has “mr. obama sitting here” and that he is “going to ask him a couple of questions.” the focus shifts not to competitive vigour, aggression, and grit, but to a general disappointment with obama's first term as president. to another speaker at the convention, this strategy would likely work fine. attacks on obama and his administrative failures were absolutely fair game. yet when the celebrity rhetor fails to invoke the ethos that the celebrity icon already conveys, there is communicative dissonance. the two conceptions of the rhetor do not cooperate—do not reinforce and build upon one another—but rather enact an internal struggle within the discursive exchange. speaking to the rnc crowd, eastwood refers to televised images of obama's 2008 election night victory speech in grant park, chicago. he recalls oprah winfrey's televised reaction, crying onscreen, and admits that he was, in fact, crying, too. again, for another speaker, without a rigidly established public persona built up over decades of direct and indirect representation, this would not be a problem, but for eastwood, it defies expectations. there is something incongruous about the idea of the man with no name shedding tears with oprah. also missing from the speech is the confidence and certainty of the “halftime” eastwood ethos. in the rnc address, eastwood uses qualifiers and halting speech. he says, of obama, “i was not a big supporter,” and of the obama administration, “i think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along.” his tone throughout is comparably mellow and restrained. there is no assertive glare, no guttural “yeah.” when, at three and a half minutes into the address, eastwood turns to the empty chair and speaks to the imaginary obama, the performance begins to resemble an improvised comedy routine. eastwood stammers, perhaps miming interruption from his imaginary addressee and perhaps just pausing while he thinks of something to say. either way, the confident aggression of the iconographic eastwood is not on display. he is either being exceedingly reserved toward the imaginary president, struggling to talk over an invisible opponent, or ineptly bumbling on the national stage. the bit inspires some laughter from the crowd, but the dissonance remains. as the bit plays on, eastwood feigns interruption and allows his imaginary obama to take the offensive. at one point stammering back against his imaginary guest, eastwood exclaims, “what? what do you want me to tell romney? i can’t tell him to do that. [he] can’t do that to himself! you’re crazy, you’re absolutely crazy!” again, laughter ensues at the suggestions that the imaginary obama would resort to foul language, rudeness, and personal attacks, but the rhetor eastwood is behaving in a way almost diametrically opposed to the iconic one. in film and in popular imagination, it is eastwood who acts aggressively, even when fighting on the side persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 51 of right. it is eastwood who is called “crazy,” and threatens “punks” to make his day and get off his lawn. yet on the rnc stage, eastwood smirks slightly as he apologizes, “all right, i’m sorry. i can’t do that to myself either.” once the humorous tone is set, the speech functions as a partisan celebration of republican ideals. when eastwood turns from the chair and states, more solemnly, “we own this country. we own it. [and it's not] politicians owning it. politicians are employees of ours,” the applause is great and some audience members break into chants of “usa!” it is a rally speech that certainly succeeds in rallying its crowd. but again, and unfortunately, before the speech's conclusion, the dissonance between the humorous, partisan eastwood and the aggressive, gritty iconographic persona emerges once more. as the crowd takes to its feet, sensing the address is coming to its end, an audience member shouts, “clint! you made my day!” eastwood stops midsentence, looks in the shout's direction and, then, turning back to the crowd, explains, “i do not say that word anymore.” it is an explicit rejection of his popular persona, and as the crowd becomes more audible, he wavers. he smirks and says, “well, maybe one last time,” but then attempts to steer his focus back to voting matters. the crowd continues to murmur and remains on its feet. eastwood stops once more and concedes, turning again toward the direction of the shout, and asks, “okay. you want to make my day?” the crowd applauds heartily and eastwood presents the phrase for which he may, indeed, be best known, the phrase that has also become a conservative rallying cry in varying situations, as a kind of compromise: “all right,” he announces, “i'll start it, you finish it: go ahead . . .” the crowd shouts, “. . . make my day!” and eastwood takes his bow, but the dissonance is palpable. even when explicitly referencing his screen persona for the first time in the entire address, eastwood actively resists embodying the presupposed image of himself entirely. this resistance hinders the address’ rhetorical potential. conclusions the special case of celebrities in politics is not a new point of discussion nor a new development in the political sphere (marshall, celebrity; drake & higgins), but recognizing the special constraint of ideographic persona does change the approach of rhetorical criticism when analysing celebrity orators in political spaces—especially as celebrity political statements remain one of the most prominent and most widely circulated forms of traditional oratory for rhetorical critics to analyse. drake and higgins, for instance, have noted that celebrity and political performance overlap in various ways, but even in their appraisals of varied rhetorical performances by u2 front man and activist bono and actor-turned-politician-turned-actor-again arnold schwarzenegger, they note that the successful celebrity rhetor “keys” audiences to grant them authority on their subject through the frame of their famed public image and capitalizes on intertextual reference to their non-political careers (97). public acceptance or public scrutiny of such a speaker is not merely a matter of content, delivery, or political allegiances—it is crucially linked to persona and performance that adheres to (rather than contradicts) popular expectations. while rhetorical criticism may generally avoid damning a speaker for the things s/he did not do, the case of eastwood's rnc speech makes certain rhetorical elements and strategies palpably absent—especially when considered alongside the chrysler commercial. the modern rhetor whose image saturates the popular media sphere, whose name and face serve as shorthand for associations and ideas both before and during all of their public actions, must account for this other representation of the self. when the individual aspects of rhetorical ethos of any given discursive moment and those of the intertextual hauntings of iconographic persona schmitt 52 are compatible, or congruent, they can support one another. the celebrity rhetor can encourage persuasion through the pre-existing identifications of the audience. conversely, when the ethos of the moment fails to resemble, build from, or fully acknowledge the iconographic persona, the incongruence leads to dissonance and the dissonance opens the speech to potential communicative failure. where “halftime in america” succeeded in incorporating eastwood's existing persona, the rnc address fell short. i do not mean to suggest that a rhetor with a well-established public image is entirely incapable of changing that image. any rhetor like eastwood may certainly aim to alter public conceptions of his/her character, values, or persona—but such efforts require particular rhetorical skill not often required of other less famous or iconic speakers. this is the special burden of the celebrity rhetor. efforts to counter iconic persona or to play a role different from the one the audience expects must be at least as dynamic, artful, and persuasive as those other representations of the celebrity individual available to the public imagination. thus, while eastwood's rnc address functioned to rally an already excited and forgiving crowd, the dissonance caused by the lack of iconographic reference prevented it from succeeding in the same way eastwood's chrysler ad had done earlier in the year. in fact, for some audiences, it may have damaged clint eastwood's public image, and leaving audiences to potentially now associate the actor not with assertive, optimistic politics, but with a rambling old man arguing with an empty chair (abdullah). to some degree, all rhetors must grapple with multiple determinants of ethos and representations of the public self, but in the contemporary, hyper-mediated world, a handful of individuals have achieved something more than a mere public persona. particularly popular, maligned, or otherwise prominent individuals are defined increasing through their representation in print, in film, online, and elsewhere, and these aggregated representations, when communally shared, continue to define the individual at and during every subsequent moment. recognition of this additional influence on the context and meaning of celebrity rhetoric will open pathways of critical understanding and analysis of celebrity rhetor methods and strategies. celebrity studies and persona studies, as burgeoning fields, are leading the way in this respect (barbour, marshall, and moore), as they “seek to critically understand and to demythologise” celebrities' role in the production of culture” (holmes and redmond 2010, 3). rhetorical critics and analysts may follow their lead to expand beyond assessing traditional forms of ethos and to engage the celebrity rhetor in her/his own right. moreover, by infusing persona studies with rhetorical criticism and rhetorical criticism with persona studies, future writers can help fill the gap in work on the reception of celebrity by its audience, as noted by holmes and redmond (2010, 6). future rhetorical criticism must trace adherence to and divergence from iconographic persona, skilful translation of celebrity qualities to social or political topics, public image referents not confined to or even explicitly presented in the speech but still present in the public imagination, and the dissonance that occurs when speakers reject their anticipated roles. in spectacular examples of celebrated public address and also in less spectacular instances, this new approach will help us to understand how public image is established, sustained, and challenged, and how the rhetor's interaction with that image shapes the meaning of every single speech. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 53 works cited abdullah, halimah. “eastwood, the empty chair and the speech everyone's talking about.” cnn.com. 31 aug. 2012. web. 10 mar. 2016. aden, roger c. “nostalgic communication as temporal escape: when it was a game's re‐ construction of a baseball/work community.” western journal of communication 59.1 (1995): 20-38. print. amossy, ruth. “autobiographies of movie stars: presentation of self and its strategies.” poetics today 7.4 (1986): 673-703. print. ---. “ethos at the crossroads of disciplines: rhetoric, pragmatics, sociology.” poetics today 22.1 (2001): 1-23. print. aristotle. on rhetoric. trans. george a. kennedy. new york: 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"i'm a celebrity, get me into politics: the political celebrity and the celebrity politician." framing celebrity: new directions in celebrity culture. ed. su holmes and sean redmond. london: routledge, 2006. print. foss, sonja k. “retooling an image: chrysler corporation's rhetoric of redemption.” western journal of speech communication 48.1 (1984): 75-91. print. goffman, erving. the presentation of self in everyday life. new york: doubleday, 1959. print. “'halftime in america; ad with clint eastwood creates political debate.” nj.com. 7 feb. 2012. web. 7 feb. 2012. holiday, judy. “in[ter]vention: locating rhetoric's ethos.” rhetoric review 28.4 (2009): 388-405. print. holmes, su, and sean redmond (eds). framing celebrity: new directions in celebrity culture. london: routledge, 2006. ---. “a journal in celebrity studies.” celebrity studies 1.1 (2010): 1-10. doi: 10.1080/19392390903519016 hyde, michael j. (ed.). the ethos of rhetoric. columbia: university of south carolina press, 2004. print. lee, m. j. “clint eastwood super bowl ad made obama's day, blogs say.” politico. com. 7 feb. 2012. web. 7 feb. 2012. schmitt 54 marsh, david, paul 't hart, and karen tindall. “celebrity politics: the politics of the late modernity?” political studies review 8 (2010): 322-340. doi: 10.1111/j.14789302.2010.00215.x marshall, p. david. celebrity and power: fame in contemporary culture. minneapolis: minnesota university press, 1997. print. ---. “the promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media.” celebrity studies 1.1 (2010): 35-48, doi: 10.1080/19392390903519057 marshall, p. david, and kim barbour. “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective.” persona studies 1.1 (2015). monroe, bryan. “were politics buried inside eastwood's 'halftime' commercial?” cnnpolitics.com. 7 feb. 2012. web. 7 feb. 2012. nichols, john. “chrysler super bowl ad edits out wisconsin union signs.” the nation. 7 feb. 2012. web. 7 feb. 2012. nownes, anthony j. “an experimental investigation of the effects of celebrity support for political parties in the united states.” american politics research 40.3 (2012): 476-500. doi: 10.1177/1532673x11429371 “quoted: clint eastwood explains some more about tampa.” the washington post. 18 sept. 2012. web. 7 oct. 2012. rojek, chris. “'big citizen' celanthropy and its discontents.” international journal of cultural studies 17.2 (2014): 127-141. doi: 10.1177/1367877913483422 shaw, michael. “reading the pictures: the clint eastwood chrysler 'halftime in america' controversy, and the doctored wisconsin footage.” bagnewsnotes. 7 feb. 2012. web. 7 feb. 2012. smith, craig r. “ethos dwells pervasively: a hermeneutic reading of aristotle on credibility.” the ethos of rhetoric. ed. michael j. hyde. columbia: university of south carolina press, 2004. print. turner, graeme. “approaching celebrity studies.” celebrity studies 1.1 (2010): 11-20. doi: 10.1080/19392390903519024 von burg, ron, and paul e. johnson. “yearning for a past that never was: baseball, steroids, and the anxiety of the american dream. critical studies in media communication 26.4 (2009): 351-371. doi: 10.1080/15295030903176641 west, mark, and chris carey. “(re)enacting frontier justice: the bush administration's tactical narration of the old west fantasy after september 11.” quarterly journal of speech 92.4 (2006): 379-412. doi: 10.1080/00335630601076326 woodall, bernie. “clint eastwood's 'halftime' ad uses chrysler turnaround as inspiration.” the huffington post. 6 feb. 2012. web. 7 feb. 2012. salter & blodgett 76 alt-right: ctrl+a; del anastas ia salt er and br i dget blodgett built as a hypertext work of electronic literature, “alt-right: ctrl+a; del” explores the social media fatigue experienced by a woman operating in online spaces. the work takes place from november 9 2016 to january 20 2017, during the pivotal moments of transition prior to donald trump’s inauguration. it is heavily influenced by the ongoing challenges faced by participants in social media discourse who are identifiable (or labeled) as other than white, heterosexual, cisgender men (marciano, 2014). the fictionalised narrative of the work is presented alongside a day-by-day evolving timeline of tweets drawn from real social media discourse. the reader-player experiences both the mundane and the politically momentous, the true and the “fake” news sensations, while navigating through the daily pressures of life which present their own source of exhaustion and challenges. ultimately, the reader-player must decide to what extent it is worth engaging with the incendiary discourse, and these decisions shape the reputation of the character’s online persona. the choice to engage in political discourse will inevitably result in eventually catching the attention of a horde of procedurallygenerated trolls (phillips 2015), while refraining from participating will leave the character relatively invisible and disengaged from both the media platform and source of social connection. the reader-player must balance the demands of social media to present an active persona to their followers with the personal needs of a human who must cope with the results of harassment from a faceless flood. this work serves both as fictional response and real collection of social media moments from a pivotal period in us political history, inviting the reader-player to think about the apparent “post-truth” state (suiter 2016) and the ensuing challenges it presents to would-be participants who occupy activist personas in tense and dangerous networked spaces. as an archive, it attempts to capture something that is inherently ephemeral: the in-the-moment experience of the timeline (zhao et al. 2013). drawn from the authors’ own social networks, these juxtapositions are difficult to reconstruct with existing social media tools, as twitter resists the backwards-seeking gaze directly and requires apis and directed searches to observe past tweets (burgess & bruns 2012). the central mechanic of consequences for speech is directly inspired by targeted harassment campaigns in recent social media history. the misogynist, word-focused hunting of gamergate, which demonstrated the effectiveness of hashtag-driven mobbing at silencing discourse, is the inspiration for the procedural trolling model encountered as endgame (chess & shaw 2015). these tactics have been on display across the political spectrum during the election, as demonstrated by the attacks of “bernie bros”, or automated chatbots labeled as such, on hillary clinton supporters (wilz 2016). the game invites both active political participants online and those who refrain to consider their position and motivations, and particularly how the specter of online harassment haunts the decisionmaking process of constructing a social media persona. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 77 works cited burgess, j & bruns, a 2012, ‘twitter archives and the challenges of big social data’, m/c journal: a journal of media and culture, vol. 15, no. 5, retrieved [insert date here dd month yyyy], http://journal.mediaculture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/561driscoll. chess, s & shaw, a 2015, ‘a conspiracy of fishes, or, how we learned to stop worrying about #gamergate and embrace hegemonic masculinity’, journal of broadcasting & electronic media, vol. 59, no. 1, pp. 208-220. marciano, a 2014, ‘living the virtureal: negotiating transgender identity in cyberspace’, journal of computer-mediated communication, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 824-838. phillips, w 2015, this is why we can't have nice things: mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture, mit press, cambridge, ma. suiter, j 2016, ‘post-truth politics’, political insight, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 25-27. wilz, k 2016, ‘bernie bros and woman cards: rhetorics of sexism, misogyny, and constructed masculinity in the 2016 election’, women's studies in communication, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 357-360. zhao, x, salehi, n, naranjit, s & cosley, d 2013, ‘the many faces of facebook: experiencing social media as performance, exhibition, and personal archive’, proceedings of the sigchi conference on human factors in computing systems, sigchi, paris, france, pp. 1-10. editors’ note to view ‘alt-right: ctrl+a; del’, download the html file from the link provided and open in your browser. this creative work has been double-blind peer reviewed prior to acceptance for publication. salminen, jung & jansen 48 are data-driven personas considered harmful? diversifying user understandings with more than algorithms joni salmi nen h a m a d b i n k h a l i f a u n i v e r s i t y & t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f t u r k u , soon-gy o jung h a m a d b i n k h a l i f a u n i v e r s i t y a nd ber na rd j. ja nse n h a m a d b i n k h a l i f a u n i v e r s i t y abstract in this work, we build on research on data-driven personas to present what might be “wrong with them”. from wrong assumptions by the client and wrong applications of methods to imbalanced, messy, or superficial data; a lack of communication regarding how these personas are created; and issues with usability, there are a plethora of issues that plague data-driven personas. we conclude by contemplating whether data-driven personas are even worthwhile and, if they are, then what are some of the immediate remedies required from the human-computer interaction community to make data-driven personas a viable tool for user understanding. key words personas, data-driven personas, harm introduction persona is a user-centred design (ucd) technique applied in hci, user experience (ux), and other fields such as business and marketing. personas, in these contexts, are defined as archetypes of user groups that share similar traits or behaviours (e.g., goals), and they are typically portrayed in the form of user profiles (cooper 1999; nielsen et al. 2015). data-driven personas, supposedly, elevate manually created personas from low-tech design artefacts to high-tech user representations (jansen et al. 2020). while data-driven personas can be defined in several ways (jansen et al. 2020; mcginn & kotamraju 2008; miaskiewicz & luxmoore 2017; mijač et al. 2018; zhang et al. 2016), we crystallize the contemporary definition as follows: a data-driven persona is a complete persona profile, created in a persona template using quantitative data about a given user population which is analysed using statistical techniques, including data science, and machine learning algorithms. this definition, as can be seen, is heavily rooted in “quantitative data” and “algorithms,” to which we will return later. it is standard that the research articles on data-driven personas (an, kwak, jung, et al. 2018; an, kwak, salminen, et al. 2018; chapman et al. 2008; goodman-deane et al. 2018; miaskiewicz & luxmoore 2017; mijač et al, 2018; zhu et al. 2019) start out by criticizing manual persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 49 (“traditional”) persona creation methods, proposing data-driven personas as a remedy to shortcomings that include, inter alia, slowness, unreliability or risk of human analyst bias, small sample sizes and lack of representativeness, as well as un-reactiveness of the static personas created to the constant and dynamic changes in user behaviours, preferences, and characteristics (chapman & milham 2006; howard 2015; jansen et al. 2020; salminen, jansen, an, kwak, et al. 2018). therefore, advocates of data-driven personas see these personas as superior to manually created personas, and as offering a solution to the problems of manual persona creation. their argument is that personas are “fixed” when using “data” and “algorithms”. this kind of thinking poses hidden dangers. first, the goal of personas as “data-driven” (i.e., based on real user data, albeit often qualitative) was always present in the original conceptualization of cooper (1999) and the further development of other hci scholars (anvari & tran 2013; nielsen 2019b; pruitt & grudin 2003; turner & turner 2011). second, it is becoming increasingly clear from gained experience in the field as well as from the accumulated knowledge on over-reliance on “data” and “algorithms” that both the use and development of data driven personas are marred with challenges. these challenges logically evoke a variation of dijkstra’s classic (dijkstra 1968) question: are data-driven personas considered harmful? in other words, should the research community pursue data-driven personas or are data-driven personas a dead end? the purpose of this article is to highlight the variety and scope of challenges pertaining to data-driven personas. we not only consider the challenges with the development and evaluation of data-driven personas, as typically done in previous works (an, kwak, jung, et al. 2018; an, kwak, salminen, et al. 2018; chapman et al. 2008) – where it is presumed that datadriven personas, as statistical creations, are primarily technical artefacts that should be judged by technical merits and metrics – but we also consider the larger schemes and ramifications of data-driven persona lifecycles, including how they fit into the hci research community (which is predominantly qualitatively oriented when it comes to personas) and how they fit into organizations that, on one hand, tend to admire “data” and “algorithms” and, on the other hand, struggle to capture real value using data-driven personas. we adopt the lifecycle view of personas (adlin & pruitt 2010), discussing challenges pertaining to different stages of the data-driven persona project, including its initiation, persona adoption, support, and general impediments that data-driven personas “inherit” from the essential nature of personas. many observations in this manuscript are based on the authors’ encounters with hci reviewers, especially those expressing scepticism towards data-driven personas. due to anonymity, we cannot know the backgrounds of those reviewers, but based on their comments, it is often logical to assume that they come from a different tradition of creating and using personas and might, in some cases, be threatened by “data” and “algorithms” (we are basing this argument on the tone of some the reviews we have received over the years). in our opinion, it is important to make these points of criticism visible and put them forward to critically assess the current state and the future of the research on data-driven personas. related literature conceptually, persona criticism can be divided into three types. first, there is criticism towards personas as a design technique in general. this form of criticism applies to all types of personas, including manually created personas, data-driven personas, and mixed-method personas. second, there is approach-specific criticism, e.g., that manually created personas are often based on low sample sizes (chapman & milham 2006). third, there is method-specific criticism within salminen, jung & jansen 50 a specific approach, e.g., that k-means clustering would not be optimal for data-driven personas because it assigns each demographic group only to a single cluster (kwak et al. 2017). the literature does not always explicitly state the level of criticism it is engaged in. hence, when reviewing the challenges related to data-driven personas, we need to consider if the specific points of criticism are valid for data-driven personas. in this brief literature review, we summarize well-cited articles presenting persona criticism, and relate that criticism to datadriven personas. the following section will dig deeper into this criticism. additional resources for the reader include a literature review of quantitative persona creation (salminen, guan, jung, et al. 2020) and a textbook focused on data-driven personas (jansen et al. 2021). one of the most cited persona critiques was put forth by chapman and milham (2006). while their criticism focused on several aspects that data-driven personas claim as benefits over manual personas (e.g., low sample size, staling), some of the concerns apply to data-driven personas as well. these include, at least, the inconsistency problem (one part of persona profile information can be from source a and another from source b and these may or may not refer to the same users) and the granularity problem (increasing the number of persona attributes requires more personas to be created in order to cover all possible segments). salminen, jung, and jansen (2020) mentioned ‘three es’ as general challenges of personas: envision (personas have no direct relationship to real user data), execution (quality of the generated personas is low or unknown), and evaluation (the success of personas is based on anecdotal feedback). the latter two can be considered as relevant concerns for data-driven and manual personas alike. in addition, salminen, guan, jung, et al. (2020) mention the following challenges of quantitative persona creation: (1) lack of standards and best practices, (2) lack of ethical considerations, and (3) loss of immersion. these are critical issues that we expand on in the following section. multiple authors discuss the political challenges of persona use, particularly stereotyping (marsden & haag 2016; rönkkö et al. 2004; turner & turner 2011). these concerns do not magically disappear with “data” and “algorithms” but can, in fact, become even more accentuated if the persona generation is done precariously or the results taken at face value. therefore, these issues remain relevant for data-driven personas. howard (2015) posed the overarching question, “are personas really usable?”. the crux of his criticism is that, although personas were originally introduced to facilitate communication among team members in ucd, in reality, personas do not solve the communication problems, but may even lead to further misunderstandings. a similar conclusion was made by friess (2012) who, based on an ethnographic study, reported that designers rarely evoke or mention personas in their daily jobs, and by matthews et al. (2012) whose participants found personas as abstract and misleading. finally, de voil (2010) raises several key issues regarding the concept of personas, proposing that personas are artificial thinking aids with severe limitations. these concerns remain topical for data-driven personas, and we will expand on them in the following section. none of the criticism for data-driven personas in the past literature is comprehensive. instead, the levels of criticism are often mixed, and most often the criticism focuses either on manually created personas or on personas as a user-centric design technique. while we do not claim to unveil all the challenges of data-driven personas in this article, we nonetheless make an analysis of how the central challenges regarding personas in general manifest in data-driven personas. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 51 the challenges of data-driven personas are both theoretical and painstakingly practical, and the hci community should be aware of them. it is our purpose to summarize the main ones and raise some novel ones that touch upon the transition of data-driven personas from “one-off exercises” into interactive persona systems (jung et al. 2017, 2020; jung, salminen, kwak, et al. 2018; jung, salminen, an, et al. 2018). this transition of personas moving from “static” layouts/templates/posters to interactive persona systems imposes some novel challenges regarding user experience (ux), user interfaces (ui), and interaction techniques) that the previous literature has not made explicit. this article opens discussion on those challenges, further expanding the list of “grand challenges” faced by data-driven personas. approach we organize this work by themes, which represent central issues with data-driven personas. these are derived from authors’ prior experience with data-driven persona research (more than a dozen published papers, including several chi publications) and with helping more than half a dozen client organizations in industries such as news and media, telecommunications, airline, e-commerce, and design/ux research, to apply data-driven personas. drawing from this experience-based knowledge, we formulate central arguments as to why data-driven personas could be considered harmful. in deference to alternative views, we also solicitated comments from two external researchers known to have extensive experience in persona research (one in qualitative personas and the other in quantitative personas). their comments were incorporated in honing the arguments made in this manuscript. finally, our work is based on perusing a large body of literature on data-driven personas (e.g., adlin & pruitt 2009; goodmandeane et al. 2018; guo & razikin 2015; mcginn & kotamraju 2008; miaskiewicz & luxmoore 2017; mijač et al. 2018; watanabe et al. 2017; zhang et al. 2016; zhu et al. 2019 and many others) over a period of multiple years. why are data-driven personas harmful? starting from project definition and extending to persona data collection, creation, evaluation, and their eventual adoption in organizations, many things can go wrong with data-driven personas. we adopt a “lifecycle view” (cf. adlin & pruitt 2009, 2010) to inspect these challenges that have an adverse effect on the decision to undertake a data-driven persona project. in other words, the following challenges consider the data-driven persona project’s (a) initiation (expectations, objectivity, standards), (b) adoption (user perceptions and use), and (c) support (training, maintenance), as well as (d) general impediments (superficiality, aggregation, averages, and relevance). challenge 1: inflated expectations from stakeholders a common, yet often discarded aspect of applying algorithms for persona creation, is that the average stakeholder in a company attributes mythical properties and capabilities to these technological inventions, so that the mere mentioning of “data”, “algorithms”, or “non-negative matrix factorization” evokes positive qualities such as trustworthiness, efficiency, and transcendence of human capabilities. this effect, dubbed the “mystique of numbers” by siegel (2010, p. 4721), refers to the phenomenon wherein stakeholders have unrealistic expectations from data-driven personas. as soon as stakeholders are informed that data-driven personas are based on “real data” and “millions of user interactions” which are analysed by (the implicitly objective) “algorithms”, they abandon their critical attitudes and become willing to take personas seriously. while this effect is beneficial for persona adoption, which is typically hindered by the lack of credibility, stakeholder commitment, and trust in the personas (friess salminen, jung & jansen 52 2012; jensen et al. 2017; matthews et al. 2012; nielsen 2019a; rönkkö 2005; rönkkö et al. 2004; seidelin et al. 2014), it comes with the negative side-effect of hyperbolic expectations. in the long run, the stakeholders’ unrealistic expectations may result in various adverse outcomes. these include, e.g., disappointment in the fact that data-driven personas did not solve all analytics problems despite the superhuman capabilities of the algorithms. similarly, there is a risk that hidden errors in the data, algorithms, or simply the misunderstandings of what certain data is and how it is created in the persona profile, skew the stakeholders’ decisionmaking process thus defeating the original purpose of data-driven personas which is to provide valid, correct, and accurate information for stakeholders to consider real user needs, wants, interests, and goals. stakeholders may believe that statistical methods may simply be selected and applied to get “the answer,” i.e., the immutable truth of their users (whereas, in reality, the truth is much more nuanced than what algorithms reveal). this is paired with a strong, but almost always unstated assumption that distinct types of people must exist. the contrary assumption, that people are approximately multivariate, normally distributed, and do not fall into neatly separable groups, is typically rejected from the outset. an analogy is slicing a pizza: there are infinite ways to do it, and none is correct or incorrect; it all depends on one’s goal (chapman & feit 2019). as such, the data analysis efforts involved in data-driven persona creation can be more or less successful, but none of them is the only and perfect solution. furthermore, a predominant focus on statistical significance in data-driven persona creation may overlook the personas’ practical significance, as these two concepts do not always equate in the real world. for example, there may be a statistically significant difference between two user groups with a low magnitude (jansen et al. 2019), rendering this difference unimportant for decision making. technically-oriented persona creators may want to optimize the accuracy or validity of the personas based on some metric to minimize or maximize, whereas stakeholders would want to optimize the usefulness of the personas, regardless of how they are created. a crucial question for the purpose of usefulness maximization is: are the similarities and differences among the personas truly so important that they matter for decision making? such considerations are often omitted when reporting data-driven personas in academic literature. consequently, data-driven personas may end up being abstract and esoteric ⎯ i.e., technically complex and difficult to communicate to stakeholders in ways that are both truthful and easy to understand (salminen, jung, & jansen 2020). in summary, the present ability to generate data-driven personas does not match the expected perfection, meaning that there may be a gap of what the stakeholders think they get and what they actually get with data-driven personas. challenge 2: algorithms are biased too data-driven personas can be seen as design artefacts created by algorithms. as such, they are susceptible to what is known as algorithmic bias (friedman & nissenbaum 1996; hajian et al. 2016), a tendency of algorithms to accentuate the properties of the data while ignoring fairness or legality of the outcomes. an example would be an algorithm repeatedly picking africanamerican names for criminal personas created from the data (salminen, froneman, jung, et al. 2020). in general, there are three sources of bias in algorithmic systems: (1) imbalanced/skewed datasets that “favour” one user group over another; (2) mathematics of the algorithm that accentuate the differences among the groups by “picking” certain groups over others; and (3) cultural assumptions that are encoded in datasets and systems, leading to persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 53 systematic discrimination by structural design (hajian et al. 2016). data-driven personas are not immune to these concerns. in fact, “data-driven,” when blindly applied, can unintentionally become “bias-driven”. therefore, following the on-going research in the ethical analysis of algorithms (eslami et al. 2018), an ethical review of data-driven persona development is necessary. while research papers may claim that data-driven persona development increases objectivity (jansen et al. 2020; mijač et al. 2018), the deployment of algorithms for data analysis may present new sources of prejudice and lack of transparency (salminen, santos, jung, et al. 2019). additional ethical challenges include safeguarding the privacy of online users and giving stakeholders information and tools to assess how reliable and trustworthy the data-driven personas are (which is a non-trivial problem as the technical sophistication of end-users of personas greatly varies). thus far, research on ethics in data-driven personas is scarce, with the exception of a couple of studies (goodman-deane et al. 2018; salminen, froneman, jung, et al. 2020). it is uncertain if data-driven persona advocates recognise these ethical issues in their work, as most studies simply lack the discussion. for example, replacing the persona generation algorithm can have a drastic effect on the generated personas, even when the underlying data is the same (brickey et al. 2012) and yet, there is virtually no work comparing what kind of personas different algorithms generate from the same user data. thus, it is uncertain if datadriven personas can become biased and if they can, how can the issue be effectively addressed? challenge 3: where are the standards? data-driven personas paradoxically suffer from a lack of standards. the lack of standards is paradoxical because, being the result of quantitative data and objective/replicable processes, data-driven personas are, in theory, in a perfect position for standards to emerge. yet, there are no standards or metrics even for measuring such a basic concept as persona quality, which would be fundamental for comparing and ranking different data-driven methods. unlike in computer science where researchers run experiments on baseline datasets that are the same for everyone, no baseline datasets exist for persona creation. unlike in fields like psychology, where there are studies on norms of perception – e.g., how certain groups by age, gender, or culture view the world (gosling et al. 2003) – data-driven persona studies propose no such norms or even discuss them. hence, it is difficult to understand what features and expectations users have for data-driven persona systems. the lack of standardization also makes it difficult to obtain strong guidelines for persona creation that would be derived from empirical research. there are no empirically validated guidelines, for example, as to how many personas should be created, what metrics should be used to evaluate the personas, what ethical considerations should be made when collecting and processing data for persona generation, and so on. also, although data-driven personas could be generated from many alternative metrics to describe different behaviours (e.g., clicking behaviour, viewing behaviour, purchase behaviour), typically, studies use only one behavioural interaction metric at a time (an, kwak, salminen, et al. 2018). which metric(s) to choose, then? this issue is akin to that in the field of analytics, where stakeholders need to define their questions well to avoid getting lost in the dozens of reports afforded by the analytics systems. for data-driven personas, there exists virtually no guidance for this metrics selection problem, but researchers and practitioners carry out the selection in an ad-hoc manner. the lack of standards hinders data-driven persona creation (the choice of methods is unclear, as is the mutual comparison of methods), use (what are the standard use cases for datasalminen, jung & jansen 54 driven personas?), and understanding of the data-driven persona user behaviour (how many personas do user view? how long they spend, on average, on persona profiles? what information is the most crucial for decision making?). apart from limited exploratory work on these matters (salminen, kathleen guan, jung, chowdhury, et al., 2020; salminen, nielsen, jung, an, et al., 2018; salminen, willemien froneman, jung, chowdhury, et al., 2020; salminen, yinghsang liu, sengun, santos, et al., 2020), no convincing standards for data-driven persona user behaviour have been developed to date. challenge 4: mess, confusing, and difficult to use user studies report many issues with data-driven persona ux and ui (salminen, jung, an, et al. 2019; salminen, jansen, an, jung, et al. 2018; salminen, jung, an, kwak, et al. 2018; salminen, sengun, jung, et al. 2019). these issues include, at least, confusion over what the information in persona profiles is and how it is generated (lack of transparency), how to get more information about a specific persona, questions about the reliability and trustworthiness of the information, and – the most vital question of all – “now what? how can i use this persona?”. according to our experience, stakeholders struggle to make use of persona systems, even when they are provided with multiple features, such as interest prediction, gap analysis, and search and navigation (jansen et al. 2020). these features may appear unfamiliar to persona users, and it may be that it is more important for design outcomes that personas are inspirational and memorable rather than numerical and accurate. in this light, the definite proof of value for data-driven personas remains elusive. moreover, at this stage, research on effective uis for data-driven personas is still in its infancy (salminen, liu, sengun, et al. 2020), and there is little empirical evidence about how stakeholders interact with these systems, what features are requested, and so on. it is fairly easy to generate proof-of-concepts (mijač et al. 2018), but the leap from these prototypes into full-fledged production systems with an active user base is still in the horizon. therefore, making data-driven personas user friendly and useful remains an obstacle for their wider application. challenge 5: superficial and unsurprising it can be said there is a consensus among qualitative persona researchers that, even if not always obtained, the goal and purpose of personas is to provide in-depth understanding of different user types, that is to facilitate the sense of empathy (blomquist & arvola 2002; haag & marsden 2019; nielsen et al. 2017; nielsen & storgaard hansen 2014; wright & mccarthy 2008). these insights are, on one hand, the result of the creation process itself; by immersing oneself into the user data, one achieves a thorough understanding of the user’s circumstances. on the other hand, gaining such insights relies on the innate ability of humans to understand other humans (grudin 2006). algorithms cannot think and, hence, they cannot compete with this ability. thus, a major concern with data driven personas is that the algorithms behind their generation often lack the ability to interpret, decipher, and encode common sense meanings. cultural meanings and (tacit) distinctions are difficult even for untrained humans, and a datadriven persona algorithm is completely oblivious to them unless – with some method that has not been created yet – trained to classify information based on its cultural meaning. cultural factors are lacking in the data-driven persona literature, despite an extensive body of literature on culture-cognizant application of manually created personas (anvari et al. 2019; jensen et al. 2017; nielsen 2010). while data-driven persona profiles can include social media comments (salminen, şengün, kwak, jansen, et al. 2018), they cannot disambiguate their meanings or make any complex interpretations from these comments. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 55 finally, persona enrichment poses an issue since it tends to require using independent datasets (mijač et al. 2018), evoking the consistency problem (see p. 1). yet, without in-depth insights, data-driven personas risks remaining shallow alternative uis for website analytics data, having little actionable information. challenge 6: aggregation makes things worse chapman and milham (2006) were first to articulate the aggregation problem of personas. later, other researchers have observed this issue (bødker et al. 2012; matthews et al. 2012; salminen, jansen, an, kwak, et al. 2018); yet, no definitive solutions have been proposed. personas are, by definition, aggregates: they group individual users to one user representation. yet, each user is unique and different from others (sometimes referred to as segment of one [lingel 2012]). chapman et al. (2008) analysed data-driven personas and found that the more granular representations of users we want, the more personas are needed. for example, if we want to represent users by gender, two personas (male and female) may be sufficient. however, if we want to represent both gender and age, assuming two age categories, we now need twice the number of personas: male-young, male-mature, female-young, and female-mature. the issue is that the selection of granularity of personas is arbitrary and there are no rules for deciding this granularity. another issue of data-driven personas is their potential weakness against the argument often mentioned by practitioners, “with individualized data, i can target the individual users, so why would i need personas/segments/clusters/etc.?”. this question is valid, as in use cases such as personalization and recommendation systems, the unit of analysis is the individual and the decision-maker is an algorithm (albeit, it is also true that many of such algorithms rely on dimensionality reduction, which is a form of grouping [huang et al. 2019]). as the world moves towards automated decision-making, is there room for data-driven personas? challenge 7: the average persona does not exist the typical definition of personas is that they describe typical users (marsden & haag 2016; sakata et al. 2014). therefore, creating an average persona is the conceptual and practical default of many persona-creation projects. its challenges relate, firstly, to stereotyping when focusing on the mean/average user (marsden & haag 2016; marsden & pröbster 2019; turner & turner 2011) and, secondly, to the focus of data-driven algorithms on the central tendency in the data. what we mean by this can be illustrated with a simple example. assume two datapoints about users, with numerical values of “1” and “5”. their average is “3” which is equally far from both observations and thus does not well represent either datapoint. this “flaw of averages” is well documented in a classic study conducted by the united states air force in 1950, finding that, among 4,000 measured pilots, no pilots matched all the average attributes of height, weight, etc. (hertzberg et al. 1954). the problem with mean-centred personas (i.e., those that describe average, typical users) is the general problem with the mean: if half of your users are right-handed and half are left-handed, should your persona be middle-handed? obviously not. instead, you need personas for both leftand right-handed users. this is what we mean we talk about diversity of personas – a good persona set is one that covers various user types, not only their hypothetical amalgamation. yet, by picking “representative” behaviours and characteristics for the data-driven personas, we tend to overlook the extremes. these extremes, anomalies, deviations, minorities, salminen, jung & jansen 56 and fringe groups are, therefore, not considered by the stakeholders using the data-driven personas, as these segments are hidden; they do not exist, as far as the stakeholder is considered (salminen, froneman, jung, et al. 2020). this rounding up of characteristics may end up with eliminating everything that makes a user unique, resulting in bland and unimaginative user profiles that feed rather than curb stereotypes. therefore, representativeness comes at the cost of diversity. challenge 8: maintenance cost unlike traditional personas that are created once and then used for some time, data-driven personas require constant nurturing, care, and maintenance. this maintenance is costly and time-consuming. the reason for maintenance stems from the reliance on live datasets (jung, salminen, an, et al. 2018). as platforms such as youtube and facebook repeatedly change their terms of service and apis, often without proper documentation or notifications for developers, persona systems reliant on these data sources are “broken” until the necessary updates are made. similarly, software packages and algorithms are frequently updated, requiring the datadriven persona developers to monitor and implement these updates to ensure the continued functionality of the system. thus, unlike traditional personas that are independent and contained, data-driven personas tend to have complex linkages to sub-systems, data science libraries, and web technologies that come with a built-in technical debt (thomas et al. 2018). related problems are missing data, unknown measurement errors in data exports, sampling/thresholds that limit the data collection speed and may skew the data distributions, and the adding/removing of data variables and classes by the online platforms without providing any say to researchers on these decisions. when personas are built around data sources owned by multi-national corporations such as facebook and google, the dependence on the goodwill of these organizations to continue sharing user data is high. if these platforms were to consider it strategically unwise to continue sharing data via their apis, data-driven personas would be quickly broken. finally, privacy issues such as the general data protection regulation (gdpr) in the european union and similar legislative initiatives in other economic areas may further limit the availability of user data for applications such as data-driven persona generation in the future. while the benefits of data-driven personas can be seen in the abundance of online user data and the effect of democratizing personas for even smaller organizations that can have access to this data, a future scenario where the data becomes less accessible and perhaps only accessible for large corporations against payment can be envisioned. future developments bring forth this cloud of uncertainty for data-driven applications such as online user personas. challenge 9: personas are passé! a compelling argument against data-driven personas that one often reads in some reviews and online discussions among ux professionals is that personas are not relevant anymore and organisations are using other methods. blažica (2014) surveyed start-up companies about their use of ux techniques and observed that personas ranked the fourth last (out of eight techniques) in terms of stakeholder familiarity and also fourth last in terms of regular use. while ten respondents indicated that they had used personas “a few times”, only one respondent reported regular use. this, indeed, warrants concern as personas did relatively poorly compared to other methods. persona studies 2021, vol. 7, no. 1 57 if there is general redundancy for personas among hci professionals, then this sentiment is inherited to data-driven personas that, after all, are personas. indeed, multiple alternative techniques for ucd exist ⎯ e.g., interviews, focus groups, surveys, participant observation, user narratives, jobs-to-be-done, scenarios, customer journeys, and so on (blažica 2014; carroll 1997; goodman et al. 2013; kliman-silver et al. 2020). similarly, there are a plethora of analytics tools that provide numerical information about users in the form of charts, numbers, and tables (e.g., youtube analytics, google analytics, facebook insights, ibm analytics, etc.). so, why are data-driven personas needed? applies to… challenge data-driven personas all personas (also ones created manually) c1: inflated expectations x c2: algorithmic bias x c3: lack of standards x x c4: user perceptions and difficulty of use x x c5: superficiality x c6: problem of aggregation x x c7: problem of averages x x c8: maintenance cost x c9: irrelevance x x table 1: data-driven personas inherit challenges from the concept of personas but there are also challenges unique to them. discussion we presented nine challenges (see table 1) that might imply that data-driven personas are harmful. these challenges are far more serious than generally believed. they start with wrong assumptions from the stakeholders, and extend to precarious application of methods, imbalanced or messy data, access to superficial data only, lack of communication how they were created, too complex uis, unclear or lacking definitions of persona content, and omission of ethical considerations. the crucial message of our work is that the state-of-the-art of datadriven personas does not create perfect personas, despite the somewhat illusionary and impressive use of technical jargon such as “data”, “algorithms”, and so on. are data-driven personas worthwhile, then? indeed, at first glance, the challenges may seem overwhelming. it is, in any case, certain that no single paper or research project can solve them. for the discovery of solutions, researchers within the persona domain need to work in unison. probabilistic methods can assist with the aggregation problem (chapman et al. 2015). other potential solutions involve developing standards for the choice process for hyperparameters (most importantly, the number of personas) and for evaluation metrics that need to be consistent among the numerous data-driven persona methodologies. salminen, jung & jansen 58 it can also be said that ‘no persona is an island’, meaning that data-driven personas coexist and co-evolve together with computer science, hci, and other related fields. for example, studies in algorithmic bias (diaz et al. 2018; hajian et al. 2016; salminen, jung, & jansen 2019) apply to data-driven personas, for example, through the process of selecting persona name, persona’s demographic traits, and interpreting persona’s sentiment by using tools of natural language processing (nlp). data-driven personas lay on a foundation of algorithmic and technological work, implying that their future is intertwined with the progress in these fields that support and enable the technical back-end of data-driven personas. conclusion data-driven personas may provide many benefits relative to manually created personas. however, the implicit assumption that data-driven personas would be “perfect” or “easy” is 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& shankar a 2016, ‘data-driven personas: constructing archetypal users with clickstreams and user telemetry’, in proceedings of the 2016 chi conference on human factors in computing systems, chi ’16. acm, san jose, pp. 5350–5359. zhu h, wang h & carroll jm 2019, ‘creating persona skeletons from imbalanced datasets a case study using u.s. older adults’ health data’, in proceedings of the 2019 on designing interactive systems conference dis ’19, acm press, san diego, pp. 61–70. doi: 10.1145/3322276.3322285. humphrey 42 pater for millions: negotiating the collapse of a youtube father persona mi chael humphrey c o l o r a d o s t a t e u n i v e r s i t y abstract shaytards was widely considered the original youtube family vlog, and the family built their massive following with representations of wholesome, heteronormative, religious americans who could have fun with everyday life. as classic microcelebrities (senft 2013), the family of six created a valuable brand for millions of fans, which led to fame and wealth. but when the father and driving force of the vlog was caught sending sexually explicit texts to a “cam model”, more than the family brand collapsed. shay’s persona, as the steady father force for an imagined family (friedman & schultermandl 2016) of millions was sent into disarray. this article follows the comments across multiple channels that show how the imagined family negotiated this collapse, demonstrating how an audience can establish a deep personal connection with a microcelebrity’s persona. key words youtube; microcelebrity; father; narrative stancetaking; family breakdown introduction on february 12, 2017, a youtube channel called dramaalert posted an eight-minute video called, “shay carl ‘it goes down in the dms’ #dramaalert aria nina cam girl interview!” (dramaalert 2017). the video begins with an introduction reminiscent of the bbc, then cuts to a man named keem sitting behind a large laptop computer. keem has a red computer mouse and audio control board to his right and a microphone arm holding a golden microphone on his left. like an announcer at a boxing match in las vegas, keem begins: “let’s get right into the neeeews! holy shit, it goes down in the dms, that’s right. we have a big story today coming from the shaytards, the original vlogging youtube family.” a photo appears, showing the family on the couch; the children’s faces are blurred out, despite their being highly exposed on youtube for most of their lives. what follows in the video is an interview with aria nina, who details a set of explicitly sexual texts from shaycarl, who has an established persona as a wholesome, loving, religious father on a popular youtube family vlog. the shaytard channel, as of this writing, has more than 5 million subscribers. the family’s five channels combine for nearly 8 million subscribers and more than three billion video views. as one of the very early family vlogs, the shaytard channel became an industry. shay began as a prankster on youtube, before revising his persona to paterfamilias of a growing, faith-based family. in gaining a mass audience for that performance, he became a pater for millions. the shaytards consistently performed two critical roles on youtube: a classically patriarchal heteronormative family, and an open and transparent vlogging family by inviting viewers to become intimately involved virtually. combined, these created what friedman and persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 43 schultermandl (2016) refer to as imagined family, “the kinship constellations attained through quick media technologies” (p. 6). through living their lives and consistently promoting their faith as latter-day saints (lds), a regular implication was that there is a way of being the right kind of family, one that aligns with the norms that western religious faith demands. but what happens when the key persona symbolising this rightness collapses in a public way? here, i will examine that question from both sides of the imagined family dynamic—the microcelebrities who constructed and maintained the edifice of the family, and the consuming-creating audiences that maintain the bonds between themselves, the family, and each other. from microcelebrity to macro-dad when senft coined the phrase “micro-celebrity” to capture a digital phenomenon of users presenting themselves as “coherent, branded packages to their online fans” (2013, p. 347), she established a metaphor for digital being. if anything, digital life has taken on even more characteristics of a marketplace versus a communal space since her initial theorisation. as mcrae reminds us, some of the market is driven by a desire to believe in the image, even while doubt pervades, wrapped neatly in the term “authentic,” to point where authenticity is a “kind of labour that is necessary for lifestyle blogging success. ‘success’ in this case is defined as social and monetary capital acquired through heavy website traffic and brand sponsorships” (mcrae 2017, p. 3). such complications around performing and assessing authenticity emerge in a platform that encourages users to “broadcast yourself.”. this dynamic is not lost on users: “at the same time that people are beginning to perceive a coherent online presence as a good and useful thing, they are also learning that negative publicity can be quite dangerous to one’s employment, relationships, and self-image” (senft 2013, p. 350). an active audience of buyers can just as easily become sellers, and all elements of the transaction are commodities. online platforms are a market fuelled by the contemporary definition of parasocial interaction (giles 2009), a complex set of behavioural outcomes sparked by mediated interactions and a continuum of possibilities for a relationship. because of the two-way communication that digitality affords, the entire range of possibilities for these interactions seems available. concurrently, the possibilities of being any identity you want to be appears equally available. yet still, users who post on youtube seek out “clicks” as a sign of robust parasocial relationships (chen 2016). chen argues that youtube is a space to first construct digital selves, then perfect the presentation of those selves, and then enter into parasocial relationships with other selves. this is a divergence from a strict microcelebrity model, in which some users find themselves in parasocial relationships nearly impossible to actualise (true fan-celebrity) to relationships that are at least digitally actualized (relationships among digital selves). this nuance is critical when examining the effects of an imagined family. within a particular youtube channel, especially those that grow a large following, both digitally actualised and non-actualised relationships are at play regularly. the marketplace and the intimate space collapse, and this is where the stakes rise, because social media technologies have “drastically altered our means of imagining community by selectively fostering kinship ties, based not only on common genealogies but also on common values” (friedman & schlutermandl 2016, p. 8). within these common values, the health, wealth and happiness of the central figure correlates to the health of the whole system of relationships around them. this seems to imagine a much more expansive experience than a marketplace, even as the market continues to pervade imagined intimacies. one generic persona that draws from both broad social norms and personal experiences is that of the father figure. as bruzzi (2019) reminds us, hollywood has played an outsized role for modern western culture in defining the father persona, and the connections it has to masculinities. the role of masculinities, and thus fatherhood, is fluid depending on contemporary concerns (such as the economy), aspirations for what it means to be successful, the advancement and setbacks of women’s rights, as well as the cross-current identities, such as humphrey 44 race, religion, and geographical location. as bruzzi points out, progress in liberating what fatherhood must look like has been regularly met with backlash, resulting in the state of flux. “as we come closer to the present day, there is less consistency than ever in hollywood’s depiction of the father” (p. 158). hamad (2014), on the other hand, argues that the persona of the father on a personal journey to embrace their paternal position is the newest way to center men and privilege their narratives. this could obviously take on many forms of fatherhood, but all serve to place men in a postfeminist position of both embracing traditionally feminine roles and characteristics (the sensitive nurturer rather than the distant breadwinner), while reconstructing the traditional heteronormative household. villamarín-freire (2021), however, sees these moves with the father persona as potentially positive: “i think that postfeminist fatherhood can have a positive social impact, especially in the way in which men who are exposed to those representations conceive of their masculine identity” (p. 340). this assumes, she admits, work that unravels the establishment of such a persona for a new round of patriarchy. what comes out of all the literature is a longing, both scholarly and social, for clear definitions of fatherhood. that longing extends to a desire for clear representations of fatherhood. for nearly a decade, shaycarl embodied just that as the family vlogging pioneer. fans repaid him and his family with millions of subscriptions, billions of views, that meant millions of dollars in income. the shaytards had a broad appeal, thanks to shay’s early prominence on youtube and his goofy humour, combined with wife colette’s good natured and overtly religious persona. the shaytards were not exactly evangelising the lds faith, but also were not shy in sharing their beliefs and, more commonly, their core values. the lds label is a key feature of a family who is white, heterosexual, child-rearing, working class, upwardly mobile and religious, though only occasionally pious. from the homemade production quality to the folksy use of language and humour, the most notable element of this entertainment is that it appears relatable, in both its mundane moments (get the family fed) to its most profound (videoing the birth of a child). the personae rests upon “heroic normativity,” a rallying image of the self that 1) resists elite establishment cues, such as high artistry, refined language use, the prominence of traditionally important people or institutions; 2) embraces non-elite establishment cues, such as nuclear family life, faith, patriotism, and individualism; 3) lives in tension with traditional media by subverting it with non-gated platforms (such as youtube and twitter) while also leveraging its attention; 4) finds its heroism in quantifiable proofs, such as number of subscribers/followers, likes/loves, positive sentiment, or more generally, mass agreement on identity. the mass appeal for such a persona rests on mainly one normative, domestic trait—faithfulness. white, male, religious the allure of fictionalising the self is powerful when creating a persona to negotiate a private and public world. whether in the purposeful act of applying fictive tropes upon one’s own persona, such as when louis c.k. and jerry seinfeld both played fictional versions of themselves for american television shows (piper 2015), or in using fictionality for coherence of disparate personas presented across everyday lives (greenburg 2022; warren 2016), the “fabrication of a role for particular directions and ends,” (marshall 2014, para. 3) leaves personas in a “perpetual state of what could be authentic self-performance or a performance of the authentic” (piper 2015, p. 15). for family vlogs, cross sections of identities must be maintained, adhering to norms around gender, class, race, ideology, creating a precarious balance in performing a ‘way to live’, heroic normativity being just one. in shay’s case, being middle class, white, male, and a member of the lds church each comes with a set of expectations. the shaytards’ clarity about their commitment to the church of jesus christ of latterday saints, a christian-based religion started in the united states in the 19th century now with more than 16 million members (church of latter-day saints 2022), gave them an unusual persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 45 cultural place on youtube. in one sense, there is an element of outsider that must be negotiated, as lds members inspire wary, and often misinformed, mental images in viewers’ minds, from stereotypes such as wearing strange undergarments, to misinformation, especially that mormons are polygamists (barlow 2012). in another sense, it can feel ecumenical, as one commenter notes after watching a shaytards video about mormonism: “i love that this video’s lesson is parallel to many other religions other than lds.” and in yet another sense, their depiction of family life drew praise and large audiences from lds church members, because the church encourages members to use social media for spreading the faith (wrigley 2011). in fact, the deseret news (petersen 2015) credited the shaytard channel with converting a british woman to the lds. she said, “i guess i was just lost. i saw how they were as people, and i wanted to be like that. i was unhappy in my relationship with my boyfriend at the time, and i wanted the love that they had for each other.” the aspirational theme of that comment is rooted in the family’s performance of daily joy, as she explained: “i found them both hilarious. they were so happy. there was just something so different about their family.” that differentiation is performed, and effectively so. that the riffing off themes of familialism and religiosity was improvisational provided a sense of authenticity to the videos. embedded in that approachability is shay’s performance of masculinity. the trope of the shaytards channel is a man-child, with a heart of gold, built a life with a faith-filled and faithful wife, both of whom benefit monetarily from the fruits of their love of god, children, and each other. it is safe, stable, and merely asks that one accept the moulding in which this particular life is injected. for those who long for such a family, or want to see their own identification of family reflected in videos, the trope is alluring. american men, especially from the working class, are confronted with mediatised forms of masculinity to emulate (mosher and tomkins 2010). having consumed a version of maleness, from movies and television and from other boys who performed the roles of maleness, it becomes commonly accepted to act tough, solve problems with dominance, aggrandise one’s self, while simultaneously providing for, and objectifying, women. while this crosses the lines of class to some degree, men from working class backgrounds are especially expected to fit such moulds. when these expectations fail to meet reality, men can look again to mediated fathers and families. especially for white men, popular culture does allow some choice (gee 2014) among a range of white, hetero family and father figures. the image that the shaytards channel portrays aligns nicely with the description coontz offers about the idealised nuclear family “who have tended to pride themselves on the ‘modernity’ of parent-child relations, diluting the authority of grandparents, denigrating ‘oldfashioned’ ideas about child raising, and resisting the ‘interference’ of relatives” (1993, p. 1). shay represents a ‘rule-breaking’ modern family man. he throws his children in the air like toys while they screech in glee. he makes himself the butt of jokes, instead of acting as an authority figure, to centre his masculinity. it is family-as-disney-ride and it is infectious. shaycarl’s persona begins with masculinity, the prime identity in this culture from which all others flow, coloured with casualness, a modern trope of family life, reinforced by religiosity, and bonded tightly together by heteronormativity. to maintain the image, and to create cohesion for his persona, what is most needed is for the fault lines to remain unseen, but the collapse took place in public, and such a collapse is consequential beyond the channel’s audience. looking through the lens of both microcelebrity and imagined family, i analyse the negotiation of that collapse via comments on youtube, reddit, and twitter, with these core question in mind: • how does the moral father persona navigate his own shaming within his own imagined family channels? • what characteristics of a morality-based mass imagined family emerge in times of crisis? • does disruption of the father persona provide space for re-examining normative values that were core to the family’s appeal? humphrey 46 methods small stories research is particularly useful as a methodological guide in persona studies. small stories focuses on semiotic interaction of users across multiple platforms, “which allow for differentiated degrees of publicness” (georgakopoulou 2017, p. 273), creating a proper vision of the complexity in which a persona must navigate the private-public chasm. youtube presents a “public” digital space, one in which persona-crafting can be achieved at scale and become part of the microcelebrity marketplace. certain phenomena are consistent among small stories in social media spaces. narrative stancetaking, for example, establishes that a story is being shared and positions other users as participants and co-tellers of the story (georgakopoulou 2017, p. 275). who is on the receiving end of a narrative stance is crucial—on the one hand, a small digital space of known friends (texting, snapchat, dms) allows for a co-creation of a story that is rooted in offline-online history and context. youtube, on the other hand, affords narrative stances that reach well beyond existing groups, and into contexts that lack clarity around who, where, when, and how someone is communicating. the chances for the narrative stances to be negotiated with the teller (or without them) changes drastically based on platform and intention for an audience. the method of small stories research is to watch both the permutations of a digital story being formed, how visibility and interactivity are afforded by the platform and how all of this both facilitates and complicates personas and their narratives. in this article, i add to small stories research through a thematic analysis that looks at intensity of statements, repetition of words, and repetition of insights or conclusions (owen, 1984). a sample of 125 videos across a decade of shaytards’ postings established both daily narrative stances and a broader development of persona for shay and each family member. ultimately, i focused on all comments from five videos, one twitter posting by shay, and one reddit thread, all posted after the story of shay’s digital infidelity. this allowed me to study the renegotiation of shay’s persona, the reconsideration of the family’s narrative and its social implications, and the negotiation of the imagined family’s state of being. breaking the bond the negotiation of what any family disruption means to both individual and shared lives comes in waves. multiple narrative stancetaking moments make up the broader narrative of what happened to the shaytards and each one is negotiated by audiences across multiple platforms. for the first wave, the revelation, specifics about shay’s persona collapse quickly led to sorting out victims. the first victim, aria nina, was the centre point of the controversy, because of her interview with keem. she told the youtube host that the relationship began when shay messaged her to thank her for her support in a twitter spat he had with another youtube celebrity, laci green. the conversation quickly became sexual, and then became rude, according to nina, “so i decided to post all of the dms.” the messages were raw, vivid sexual fantasies. in the video, keem asks nina to read some of the dms: “i sure can, they are extremely special: i gotta finish stroking this ... i’m going crazy ... come knock on my hotel room door ... i want to bend you over and slowly slide it in your ass ...” keem goads her to continue to read more amid bursts of laughter, and then sends out a second shock wave: “i know some people might say, ‘well, shaycarl was probably hacked or whatnot.’ shay actually reached out to me and i know these dms are real because he confirmed to me that they are real.” shay had apparently argued that nina had started the conversation, which she denied. those details did not really matter. in a reddit thread (reddit 2017) that showed all of the dms, the reaction wavered between mocking (“50 shades of shay?”), condemning (“i know shay had his flaws but damn, cheating is the last thing i would have ever expected from him.”) and nina was quickly erased from the conversation by those expressing sympathy for shay’s wife, colette: my heart is breaking so badly for colette... she stuck with him even when they were dirt poor, she gave him five beautiful children, and she has always been an persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 47 amazing and loving wife. shay always seemed to have so much love for her. every time something like this happens, my view of "love" becomes more and more jaded. i really did think they were one of the last few remaining examples of a beautiful, "perfect" relationship (reddit 2017). 1 but another thread of thought quickly sprang up in reddit, one that unravelled the myth of family that the shaytards had been creating: humans are not meant to live with the same person forever, it's not in our genetics. at best you can repress those thoughts and what you get is this! what shay should have done is tell his wife about these thoughts openly, and propose a threesome with a girl if he's such a horny fuckboy. (reddit 2017). naturally, this theme was resisted heavily by others in the community: if you don't want to live with one person forever, don't fucking get married and have 5 kids with someone. are you ok with your wife/girlfriend cheating since it's "in her genetics" to get better sperm? or would you want her tell you her sexual thoughts about other men and propose an mmf threesome? some of this rhetoric is a result of reddit’s openness to multiple perspectives, fueled somewhat by its culture of anonymous commentary (humphrey and gbadamosi 2021), and it is unclear how much the voices that dominate the youtube comments cross over with the shaytard subreddit. but it’s clear that there was an understanding of the fissures that lie close beneath the story world the shaytard channel had created: mormonism actively encourages people to repress feelings and act in a nonnatural manner that causes these feelings to boil over and then you get a situation like shay found himself in. the first time i got my mormon friend drunk he had an emotional breakdown talking about how much he hated his life and what his parents forced on him. it's terrible for you. (reddit 2017). this kind of speculation is part of the fissures among cultural and lifestyle choices so common in american discourse. in previous research on collapse of personas, about anonymous trolls whose real identities were exposed, the strategies for negotiating the sudden change ranged from defiance to life-endangering remorse (humphrey 2017). for shay, the language he used reflected remorse, and also reflected the narratives of other white male american religious leaders whose personas were damaged. ‘my heart is sick’ on twitter, shay posted his first narrative stancetaking post via an image from his notes app in his response to the chaos (shaycarl 2017): i’ve been lying to myself. my heart is sick. it’s been impossible to keep up this perfect ‘happiness is a choice’ mentality. i can’t do it anymore. i started drinking again 3 months ago. i have struggled with alcoholism for years. i thought i was able to escape addiction & it's associated demons, but that disease has manifested itself back into my life (due to my decisions) because it is a life long disease. i hate myself for it! i have not been myself the past few months. the reason i haven’t 1 all online comments will be presented with original spelling and punctuation. humphrey 48 been uploading vlogs is because my life has slipped back into this horrible state. i am not making excuses. i have a problem. this problem has hurt the ones i love most because i delayed the decision to get help. my wife, friends and family are by my side. my purpose is to rehab. it’s my only priority. i will not be on the internet. i’m sorry if you expected more out of me. i’m sorry i’ve let you down. i’m sorry i let my family down. i’m sorry i let myself down. the language of family vlogging is largely flipped here. the predominant “we” as model family subjects, gives way to “i” as a collapsed version of the self. it is so self-focused, in fact, that he does not address the specific incidents of sexting. he has erased what would be the most devastating piece of the story and left his audience to deal with those specific actions on their own. there are echoes of that self-flagellation in the confessions of preachers jimmy swaggart and ted haggard, along with republic governor mark sanford, three american men who built large followings around narratives of classic judeo-christian and patriarchal morality. each responded after being exposed for visiting sex workers (swaggart), having sexual contact with another man (haggard) and having an affair that included disappearing for nearly a week (sanford). in all cases, though ranging widely in content and strategy, the language is driven by first person singular. in each case, the men place the blame on their choosing dark forces. three of four confessions included a litany of people injured and refer to either neglecting their role or “letting down” those around. also, three of the men referenced delay in getting help: shay: the problem has hurt the ones i love most because i delayed the decision to get help (shaycarl 2017). swaggart: and i think this is the reason (in my limited knowledge) that i did not find the victory i sought because i did not seek the help of my brothers and my sisters in the lord (swaggart 1988). haggard: when i stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness increased and finally dominated me (haggard 2006). sanford’s statements allude to help he was offered (from a bible group and even his father-inlaw) but did not ultimately take (new york times 2009). in all four cases, the theme of internal struggle, and self-isolation, reflects the individualism so central to western masculinity, agentic language of doing battle with evil forces within them: shay: i thought i was able to escape addiction ...(shaycarl 2017) swaggart: and i have thought that with the lord, knowing he is omnipotent and omniscient, that there was nothing i could not do ...(swaggart 1988) haggard: for extended periods of time, i would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. (haggard 2016) sanford: and that is, i suspect, a continual process all through life, of getting one's heart right in life. (new york times 2009) what is almost always missing in the narratives that they tell is a sense of common “we.” all of the blame is their own, even while agency lost, and all other characters in the narrative are victims. shay’s case is missing some acknowledgement of the other party in the controversy, which is fairly uncommon. swaggart does not address the sex workers’ lives, but does talk copiously about the integrity and even compassion of the media that broke his story. haggard addressed the young 20-year-old man who he says “is revealing the deception and sensuality that was in my life”, and asks his congregation to “forgive him, actually, and thank god for him” (haggard 2006). sanford laments that he did not consider the needs of the woman with whom he had the affair over his own, adding if he had, “i wouldn't have jeopardized her life, as i have” (new york times 2009). shay, on the other hand, erases aria nina from his narrative, instead persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 49 blaming “addiction & it’s associated demons.” this could very well be a subtle artefact of the way these four men engaged with media. while the two pastors and governor each had to build their broader narratives in a traditional public light via mass media, shay was able to build his following more directly. especially because this story never reached the same level of mass media controversy, shay could establish a cleaner narrative of the break from his old self. what he could not control is the fact that these very same media are available to his fans and critics alike. research has shown that the rules for public apologies and forgiveness in mass media may not hold true in digital platforms (sandlin & gracyalny 2018, valentini et al. 2017). the commenters might be as influential in the process of confession as the confessors. although while the digital confessors might want the scandal to quiet down, the memory of the event gets embedded and contextualised in nearly every corner of their digital presence, because while distraction online is commonplace, digital memory is notably persistent. negotiating from within and without the channel shay’s wife colette was the first to return to youtube, on her own channel called katilette, seven months after the news broke that shay had been sexting with a cam model. her narrative stancetaking moment, a 10-minute vlog, included compelling title: “letting a dream die” (katilette 2017). while not exactly clickbait, it was not the announcement the title might suggest. she begins, “i’m back and i’m so grateful right now that i was able to turn the camera on,” explaining that she tried to make the video many different times over the year, but selfdoubt and second-guessing stopped her from doing so. she continues, “i finally just felt, like you know what? i'm just going to let go of all the things that i'm trying to control and just accept what is and talk to you guys.” the primary message of the opening few minutes is that she wants to share what she learned in the past seven months while she also draws clear boundaries about the details of their life post-scandal. her message is a mix of selfempowerment and raw honesty: “this is about me, this channel is about me, and i'm excited to share with you guys what's in my soul. my soul is so full right now.” a few minutes later she says, “there are some things that i don't want to share with you, and i won't, and i'm okay with that, and if you're not, sorry, no big deal, i don't care.” this is a stark contrast to the looser boundaries the family had created over the years. she explains the silence over most of 2017 in the most generic of terms: “we were planning on leaving anyway in march for a while you know, at least quitting the shaytards channel, letting the kids take a break and all that stuff, but stuff happened and life happened and we had to leave.” she quickly addresses shay’s alcoholism, that their life has been messy and that she has returned a very different person. the shaytards channel for many years developed a fun and authentic-feeling narrative about the perfection of the western family myth; thus, it is quite dramatic for the matriarch to foreshadow a paradigm shift in her own thinking. the title could also be read through the lens of microcelebrity, an engaging marketing tactic to regain the digital brand’s position, one that can be relatable. and colette seems to play up that theme a little more when she says her life experiences might reflect the viewers’; that this situation of addiction—and the sexual element of the scandal—is not a break for the mass imagined family, but a reinforcement of the bond, and perhaps even a redefinition. she begins by joking: “i’m totally hippy now, that's my new thing. i meditate, i read a lot of books, i'm so happy right now.” the theme shifts to dealing with anger and how listening to a self-help book was allowing her to see the need for acceptance of the way life actually is, and “we have to allow a dream to die.” and it is here that the narrative of domestic life, which the shaytards channel had turned into a mass imagined family while benefitting from their individual persona constructions, is both explicated and critiqued: and i saw myself as a little girl thinking i want a perfect relationship. i want to have a perfect marriage. i want my prince charming to come sweep me off my feet and i want to be a mom and i want to have a hundred children and the way humphrey 50 i wanted my life to be. and i know that's an exaggeration but i did, i had that idea, and i was holding on to it so tightly that it was hurting me, because i knew life isn't perfect and it hasn't been perfect. and it's been really messy, shay and i’s relationship has been messy, and it's been hard. and i have had my heart broken, and um, and we both have, really. the way that we thought life would be, wasn't. but as i let that sink in and as i let my soul just accept it, i started to tell myself it's okay. i was looking at that little girl in my mind saying it's okay. i gave her a hug and i patted her on the back and i was like, colette, it's okay that your dream didn't come true. it's okay. it doesn't mean that you're any less. you were wonderful and you were just fine. ... if your dream would have come true, would you be who you are today? and i heard those words and i thought, “no!” in many ways, these exaggerated details of the dominant story about family (perfection, monarchal imagery, the loss of agency from being swept up, giving birth central to women’s identities) were the exact details the shaytards channel narrativised regularly. now the image of that life was being directly reconsidered. not only that, but she also comforts herself as a child, speaking both to adults who shared similar dreams, and to actual children watching the video, rejecting this supposed ideal and, ultimately, realising that it restricts human growth and identity. at the nearly 9-minute mark, colette addresses the marriage simply saying “shay and i are working on our relationship still. it’s not perfect, we’re taking it one day at a time, and it’s messy but it’s okay, and that is reality.” as usual, the great majority of the comments were supportive and asking the family to return to making videos. but there were also pointed critiques for collette’s choices, including a large group encouraging her to leave shay: men like that just do it again and again. it is said that staying with a man who cheated on you will keep doing it. yes men can change but not with the same woman he chose to hurt. many also homed in on colette’s critique of her own persona construction, which led to a thread of negotiating the meaning of her comments and the whole incident: commenter 1: but why does she give up on a dream just because somebody else cheated? commenter 2: after someone cheats on you like a husband or boyfriend you feel like you messed up on life and that your not worth it and you feel like your dream have been crushed feelings are a thing you know its really really hard to experience something like that one day you trusted that person and the next there throwing you away and cheating on you now no one should have to go through that but it happens and its the hardest thing about life especially if you have kids , she is a beautiful woman and she deserves more she was just angry very angry at shay but eventually she has to forgive him and just move on in life and find someone perfect for her and the kids . she is probably suffering right now with this situation. but its reality one day she will be happy again and forget the pain she had now. commenter 3: because the dream included a man that didn't exist. commenter 4: he didn’t cheat though. he talked to someone inappropriately yes, but i think online chat is purely fantasy he was never going to actually cheat and he hasn’t. so why everyone is just talking about him like he had f#cked someone else is just not totally fair or truthful. commenter 3: if you don’t constitute it as cheating then that’s fine. but if you were married with 5 children i doubt you’d count it as any less. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 51 commenter 4: thinking hard about it truthfully i would feel betrayed and have some trust issues and some doubts of their love towards me. it would make me feel insecure. i wouldn’t necessarily call them a cheater. but i would think we have some big issues to deal with regarding our relationship. i’d probably be asking commenter 3: well “cheater” is just a label and you don’t have to consider it cheating but it’s not being faithful which is basically one big aspect of a monogamous marriage so you take it however you’d like it. commenter 5: it’s not letting a dream die as much as it is trying to have the perfect life. it’s not possible. we have to embrace the good and the bad in life. in many ways, much like colette did toward the end of the video, these commenters represent a fairly large-scale effort to repair the memory of the imagined family and not redefine it. if shay damaged the bond, it was only his personal decision, not a flaw in the structure itself. that was another major theme of the early comments: shay did a shitty thing to you ! he . really. did. but if you’re over it, then you do you, collete. i love you and want happiness for you and your children. shay is going to have to gain back my trust. i love you hun, stay positive :)❤ the comment above received more than 900 likes. while it was clear from collette’s video that shay had harmed his wife and children, commenters wanted to make it clear that he had hurt them, too. nearly two months later, in november, shay’s personal channel posted a video simply titled, “i’m sorry” (shaycarl 2017). “i’ve been terrified, and so ashamed, embarrassed, disgusted and just scared.” and then, much like the mea culpas we examined earlier, he goes into a litany of apologies, starting with his wife, children, and his wider family, then adds, “and i want to say sorry to all of you.” next, he makes an interesting move that almost borders on a defence: a lot of people say i don’t owe anybody an apology, but i do. and i want to take responsibility for my actions, for the choices i made. ... not because i have an alcoholism problem, i’m not justifying anything i did or said. (shaycarl 2017) shay then swings back to saying he’s not seeking forgiveness from his audience “if god has forgiven me”, and adds that he doesn’t even think colette has forgiven him yet, but believes “but i have to forgive myself” (shaycarl, 2017). there, the themes of both videos meet for a moment, both claiming a place for the self outside of the purview of the imagined family. at that point, the video ramps up emotionally: “i hate myself for the pain i caused my angel of a wife, the embarrassment, the public humiliation. i’m tired of hiding from it.” at the two-minute mark, shay taps into master narratives of gender and relationships, and for the first time directly addresses the scandal’s primary cause, the sexting, which leads to almost melodramatic levels of description: i fell to my natural man, carnal, sensual, devilish, part of me that exists, that i have to fight against every day. the path of least resistance, this tilt toward the telestial, that nags at my soul, that pulls me something, to someplace i don’t want to be. i’m not perfect. i’m not perfect. i never said i was perfect, but i fought to stay happy. i still believe that happiness is a choice. i believe my choices have caused me much unhappiness and that if i choose better, i will find joy (shaycarl, 2017). telestial is a phrase specific to mormonism, the lowest of the three degrees of glory in god’s kingdom, according to the encyclopedia of mormonism (williams, 1992): “it embraces those who on earth willfully reject the gospel of jesus christ, and commit serious sins such as murder, adultery, lying, and loving to make a lie … and who do not repent in mortality.” in all of these humphrey 52 rhetorical approaches, shay’s full apology reflects the themes of the other religious men we analysed who had been caught in sexual scandals. the primary difference was that shay had nine months to contemplate the issue, whereas the other men’s responses came within days of the scandal breaking. and unlike colette, who seemed to have contemplated and questioned the meaning of the narrative in which she had embedded herself, shay reinforces it: i believe in families. i believe my family is the most important thing in the world to me. i don’t care about youtube, i don’t care about fame or money, i don’t care about scalable businesses. i care about my wife and kids. to me, we are eternal, and the things that matter the most last the longest, and i believe that families are forever. that is my biggest hope, that is the one thing i care about, is that i can exist with them after this body dies. after we exit this earth, whatever this mortal test is, after that is over, i don’t want our relationships to expire. i want to be with my wife forever. and i don’t know if that’s true, but it is my biggest hope (shaycarl 2017). overall, the confession reads like a rank order of power. shay has the agency to make himself happy and if he makes the right decisions, the heavenly powers will reward him with eternal life alongside his family, whether they have choices in that matter is unclear. but what does become clear is that this incident has only reinforced, and made more blatant, his sense of mission: “that’s what i’m going to focus on. i’m going to focus on strengthening my family. i’m going to focus on families in general” (shaycarl 2017). then, in a sudden shift, shay seems to subtly admit a greater responsibility in the scandal and appears to apologize to nina: “i just want to apologize and take full responsibility for the things that i said to somebody that i did not deserve to be saying those things to.” he leaves long pauses in the video, easy enough to edit out, that are telling their own story. there’s a point toward the end of the video where shay is talking about starting over, but not necessarily with a celebrity plan in mind. “i don’t expect any of you to forgive me. i just want to start fresh and not feel like a scum. and i felt that i deserved to and i allowed myself to suffer. and i’m not ...” and then stops and puts his face in his hands. it’s clear in those moments of pause that he is demonstrating struggle, perhaps resisting self-defence, perhaps specifically referencing the charges that members of his own imagined family have levelled against him. the comments from the youtube audience largely reflect anger and loss, again with a mixture of snark (“hey i’m cheating here”, a parody of his intro), scepticism about his sincerity (“you deserve an oscar for worse performance in apologizing”) and motivation (“what would he have done if no one found out?”), as well as speculation about his sobriety in the car (“he was drunk while recording this, cool guy”). there are also positive themes in the comments, including just wanting the family back online and a willingness to give him another chance. but the grand theme is of regret and condemnation. one of the most searing covered a lot of ground: i looked up at you and your family when i was a kid.... i come back about 3 years or 2 years later and i see this.. youtube destroys families... here is a prime example. what goes on behind the scenes is completely in the shadows. people only believe what’s on screen. this is an example... this is a good example of the darkness behind the camera being brought on the camera. it’s miserable.. shay’s monologue in that car is not just problematic to viewers because he is sometimes hyperbolic or that he comes off as a bad actor. it is hard to accept for many because it no longer represents the full narrative: someone who cheats on you doesn’t love you. if you loved collette that much you would never have even let it cross your mind about talking to another woman . persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 53 don’t @ me because there’s nothing you can say that would change my mind . i really looked up to you shay, now i feel like you’ve manipulated all of your youtube audience. … pain is entwined with condemnation, and sometimes even willingness to forgive. for some, this incident offers an opportunity to reflect on how the myth props up false expectations, but that’s only one angle. another, less positive view, is that young and older people enjoy the scorn. that is a dominant theme of the comments, to smear, judge, condemn, second-guess and dismiss. this is, in fact, a major gratification for many on the web, and a cottage industry in its own right. another theme focuses on forgiveness, opening an avenue for the family to rebuild their damaged image. some of those comments can reinforce accepted gender roles: it looked to me like you fell into a common trap for men who gain success and wealth. so many opportunities are suddenly there for you and every deal takes a piece of your time and some degree of control of your life. pretty soon it feels like you have no control whatsoever and it wears on you. i'm in my 40's and i've seen 2 of my business partners go through similar situations. you're not a bad person, shay. you're imperfect, as we all are. other comments fall into the classic american narrative of second chances, especially if the offender can offer something in terms of entertainment, shameless defense of a way of life, or both: mistakes are always forgivable if the person chooses to move forth with a good heart and good intention to do better and improve. i think it's easy for people removed to judge others but you never know what someone's dealing with, no one's above making a mistake anyway, we're all human. thank you for making a video shay and owning up to your mistakes, it takes a strong person to do that. i wish you the best in your recovery and journey in the future. god knows what is in you in place of you <3 bless. i'll still be here for you and your family. the “slip of judgement” argument is useful in deflecting the damage of hierarchical gender roles, especially narratives of ownership and dominance. the shock of the revelation naturally gives way to the instincts to forgive, to accept humanness, to offer second chances. these instincts disproportionately favour heterosexual men, especially those willing to the take up the mantle of the western family myth. conclusion youtube’s publicness, augmented by the allure of microcelebrity, creates a powerful setting for persona studies to focus. what is lost in narrowing in on the marketplace for such a setting? when it comes to a celebrity that engenders a sense of shared commitment, one that might bind an imagined family, what gets lost is the personal loss felt by members who have no control over the vicissitudes of the celebrity's life. this loss is often expressed on youtube and other social platforms. the commenters’ control rests in the very channels where the bonds were created—videos, comments, votes—where the audience can negotiate the meaning of the narrative they have witnessed and experienced. most of the videos that the shaytards posted over a decade remained after shay’s persona collapse, and comment sections revived in many of the most popular videos to contextualise those past events with the with shay’s scandal in mind. when a father figure such as shay disappears, or continues his persona’s collapse, the ability to shape the narrative is all that is left for the audience. real loss results from the collapse of microcelebrity personas in which audiences have become emotionally (and potentially financially) invested in. as demonstrated in this analysis, commenters make it clear how much they, as members of the imagined family, relied on the shaytards to guide, empower, and fulfil them. this reliance is based on the regularity of persona humphrey 54 building through regularly sharing videos, and the intimacies the family revealed about their lives, which ultimately led to a belief that the myths the family are selling actually exist and can be relied upon. after the collapse, what remains for the imagined family is not a close marketplace as conceptualised by mcrae 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self-presentation; persona; mediatisation; intercommunication introduction for more than a century, the forms of communication surrounding major international mega sporting events (mses) have been legion. mses, such as the olympic games or the array of world championships across athletic and sporting codes, have provided pathways for nations and individuals to express themselves as well as convey strong threads of nationalism and internationalism through teams and individuals. media coverage of mses showcases the sporting elite, traditionally via controlled media coverage reaching a globalised audience through multiple communication channels (mcgillivray 2014, p.99). however, as noted by mcgillivray (2014, p.101), new technology has created opportunities for alternate content creators or “citizen media” to use the global attention directed toward the mse to draw attention to under-voiced social issues. citizen media, and the resultant ‘hybrid media environment’ (mcgillivray 2014), has altered traditional media gatekeeping with multiple, uncensored narratives. increasingly, mse organisers have contributed to the social narrative, by demonstrating inclusivity and equality and acknowledging the need to leave a positive social and environmental footprint. for example, planning and investment to achieve sustainability for the london 2012 olympic games resulted in the creation of a 45-hectare biodiverse habitat and affordable housing from the conversion of mcdonald & marshall 2 the olympic village accommodation (international olympic committee 2022). while athletes are intrinsic to mses and the social narrative, they are governed by activism-adverse regulations. yet, athletes are uniquely positioned as citizen journalists crafting their personalised narrative with their deep connections to social causes. using persona studies as a lens, this article identifies how the shifted persona of the athlete, and their use of social media, re-personalises the potential and real pathways to express sociopolitical positions and sentiments. although there is an inherent value associated with an athlete’s visibility and reach, few amateur athletes have notably tested the flexibility of the policies in place by using social media during mses for athlete activism. the gold coast, queensland, australia was the destination for the mse, the 21st commonwealth games (cg2018), in april 2018. this event involved 71 nations assembling 6600 athletes (goldoc 2018a). through cg2018, we examine how publicly prominent individual athletes contribute to, and extend, the social cause narrative (a form of athlete activism) through their personal communicative activities on social media platforms. a real-time approach (vardaman et al. 2012) was adapted to monitor and identify celebrity athletes who entered into discourse regarding socio-political causes during this mse. only two athletes met this criterion during the 2018 event: england diver tom daley, and australian para-athlete kurt fearnley ao. both athletes used social media to reach their “micro-publics” – a technique to “draw together their own audiences” beyond the past pathways of legacy media and directly aligned to “their own self-publicity” and formations of “self-promotion” (marshall 2014a, p.164; marshall et al. 2020, p.89): this social-media connection cultivated and worked to visibly champion a human rights cause. both athletes championed inclusivity and equality; daley focusing on lgbti+ advocacy and fearnley, on disability advocacy. the approach taken in this work is focussed on deciphering how athletes share this activist public identity through these individualised techniques of extending both their ideas and their image. the study is informed by the extensive research on mediatisation (lundby 2014), its relationship to individualised mediatisation (hjarvard 2013), and the valuable work by frandsen (2019) that extends how mediatisation is personalised through the online transformations of sport. to fully investigate this transformed way that elite athletes negotiate personalised and public roles during mses, this study integrates how these athletes are negotiating their heightened capacity to use both legacy media and their person-to-person social media platforms that castells (2009, pp.4, 58-71) describes as a new “mass selfcommunication” in a networked society. we investigate the fluidity or movement between legacy media and personal communication. athlete activism, through active and engaged athlete citizenship, potentially advances important social change (kaufman and wolff 2010, butterworth 2014, smith et al. 2016). this research addresses the gap identified by cooper et al. (2019) and cunningham et al. (2021) to identify evolving forms of situational sports activism through an interdisciplinary lens. persona studies, in its reading of online identity formation and public sharing, provides the theoretical tools for an analysis of how celebrity-athletes negotiate the movement of their ideas through online platforms. the analysis considers how celebrity athletes work to shape the stories that are generated about them within a social cause-related community and into wider flows of media stories and an equally wider public. persona studies persona studies encapsulates the representations individuals are constructing, how these are being exhibited in the public sphere, and the power and influence personalised narratives can persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 3 have. this compilation of imagery that is exhibited through various forms of media and curated for external audiences is known as the production of the public self. the collective accumulation of this personal information dispersed across what can be called the presentational media forms of online culture which include websites and social media that create opportunities for individuals to represent themselves and present their own narrative (or a version of themselves) (marshall 2010, pp.35-48; marshall et al. 2020, pp.32-34). some individuals, particularly those that have a wider public presence, have created opportunities for their personally produced and curated information to flow from their presentational media activities on social media into traditional representational media or what is now often called legacy media, such as, television, radio, magazines and newspapers (marshall 2010). social media platforms facilitate information intersections; blending our interpersonal, media, communication and profoundly “intercommunication” (marshall et al. 2020, pp.39-55) worlds. other related research has identified how greater aspects of our cultures are now ‘mediatised’. for lundby (2014, pp.3-35), couldry and hepp (2013, pp.191-202) and, specifically in the domain of sport, frandsen (2019), mediatisation has transformed both our regular forms of personalised engagement and even our politics. in persona studies, mediatisation refers directly to the way our public identities via online culture reshape us through text, image and the sharing of other media forms at a level that is relatively new because of its pervasive deployment by billions. mediatisation represents one of the key dimensions of persona as the personal is reconstructed through this now complex individualised mediatisation as we curate our online identities on social media platforms (moore et al. 2017, p.3; marshall et al. 2020, p.69). our analysis that follows explores this specific process of self-mediatisation by elite athletes as they shape their personal narratives into political and social causes. we integrate into the analysis how these activist athletes negotiate a horizontal “mass-self-communication” (castells 2009, pp.65-66) by managing “social power” now represented by social media platform persona work with the topdown or “vertical” power (castells 2009, p.70) of traditional media to move their ideas, opinions and stories. our study investigates how elite athletes work to make these forms of mediatisation and communication intersect in valuable and potentially powerfully influential ways. from a persona studies analysis, intentional value identifies one of the dimensions of analysing contemporary persona where an individual works through the personal mediatisation of social media platforms for specific objectives and ends (marshall et al. 2020, pp.72-74). persona studies provides a lens to explore this intentional value through a mapping of the kind of value, agency, reputation and prestige, that athletes display through online presentation of the self. this aligns to the earlier work of goffman (1959) and the presentation of self. goffman’s model considers the staged performance, which in the case of the sporting event/arena, provides the opportunity and setting for athletes to demonstrate their sporting excellence. yet when not competing, the athletes as actors can craft an alternative narrative which audiences can engage with through social media. intentional value of athletes/actors can be examined through mapping online personal presentation. value identifies the relative worth cultivated by an individual through online representation. agency pertains to active and engaged individuals who works towards wider cultural transformations. reputation and prestige are interlinked and incorporate the reach, visibility, influence and power individuals can utilise. through different connections and constellations of collective identity, athlete activists can leverage their value, agency, reputation and prestige to influence or disrupt a narrative. by focusing on elite athletes at mses, we examined how they blend traditional narratives of their athletic performance with personal narratives with socio-political underpinnings. athletes demonstrate how it is possible to cultivate parallel and alternative identities or multiple personas when the platforms of forming publics – what current persona research has called mcdonald & marshall 4 ‘micro-publics’ have moved into and through the networks of personalised online cultures with equal or greater impact than traditional and legacy media formations of cultural influence. athlete celebrities as much as we all construct personas, elite athletes move into a different realm of mediatised visibility as their performances appear across media platforms, and they become essentially celebrified (driessens 2013). from one perspective, traditional media helped construct highly visible athlete celebrities by providing audiences with news about on and off field behaviours (summers & johnson morgan 2008, fields 2016). the portrayal of athlete celebrities was once dominated by the sports media narratives (lines 2001); however, with the introduction of social media, we have subsequently seen an emergence of athletes taking ownership of their own narrative by actively using social media to enhance their visibility and attain recognition. toffoletti and thorpe (2018, pp.305-6) see personalised social media as an opportunity for “athletes to craft their brand” and self-disclose multiple aspects of their authentic self. this individualised activity can be explained by the term, ‘micro-celebrity’ (senft 2008, marwick & boyd 2010) as it moves into collectives that are no longer defined comprehensively as a unified public sphere. individuals can amplify their popularity through their online performance (senft 2008, p.25) and respond to their communities (p.116). rather than rely on the visibility afforded by traditional media, athletes resourcefully use social media platforms to cultivate their own narrative and generate micro-public followings. sports athletes have become another type of social media "influencer", as individuals that work to maintain both their significance and connection to their core followers through a key shared interest (see abidin 2015, duffy & hund 2015). athletes can leverage their influence to channel positive and professional behaviour into a form of athlete citizenship, potentially leading to constructive societal outcomes. athletes utilise the visibility of their sport or mse, as platforms or sites “to engage in political activism in hopes of shedding light on societal issues” (agyemang et al. 2020, p.954). this form of “affective power” (marshall 2014a, pp.51-61) amplifies and legitimises the athlete’s significant voice. affective power cannot be measured by the number of followers a person has, but we can use follower data to get a sense of the athlete’s potential influence. for example, when contrasted against the average twitter or instagram account, which ranges between 180 – 240 followers (statista 2018), amateur athletes with between 47000 and 2.2 million followers begin to illustrate the potential influence they could assert within their audience. however, the affective power of professional athlete celebrities currently in the public sphere who can amass followings in excess of 70 million (statista 2022) would be significantly higher. prominent athlete activism for social change has been witnessed at mses, such as the 1968 olympic games podium protest (see hartmann 2003, abdul-jabbar 2015, boykoff, 2017, cooper et al. 2019) and kaepernick’s 2016 anthem kneel (see schmidt et al. 2019). in their discussion and classification of sports activism, cooper et al. (2019, p.155) state that: “all activism is socio-political in nature whereby actions can range from specific policy and legislative reforms to more broad based calls for change including a critical analysis and reconstruction of taken-for-granted norms and attitudes within hegemonic systems”. mses present an opportunity for activism yet they are highly politically controlled and some forms of activism, such as podium protests, are in direct conflict with some mses policies. for example, the olympic charter states, “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any olympic sites, venues or other areas” (international olympic persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 5 committee 2018, p.91). the commonwealth games federation (cgf) constitution, outlines similar behavioural expectations, governed through clear policies (commonwealth games federation 2017). the commonwealth games, through the cgf, seek to demonstrate integrity, global impact, and to champion athlete, citizen and community engagement (commonwealth games federation 2018, p.32). as such, these mses reconstruct this idealised conception of individual to cultural value through their mission statements. in this way, the sporting event’s mission works to subsume the individual into these high ethics. competing athletes sign a ‘membership agreement’ outlining various terms and conditions when accepting their place on a team. one clause for australian athletes is: “no demonstration” whereby athletes agree to the following statement: i agree i will not throughout the games period make statements or demonstrations (whether verbally, in writing or by any act or omission) regarding political, religious or racial matters and acknowledge these are contrary to the objects and purposes of cga, cgf and the spirit of the games (commonwealth games australia 2018, p.9). despite this clause, the cgf regard athletes as change enablers. the significance of the athletes’ role is addressed by the cgf’s strategic plan which “seeks to change the world for the better by upholding and living its values of humanity, equality and destiny’ and encourages athletes to use ‘actions, words and deeds’ to ‘inspire fairness, inclusion and respect for the individual regardless of gender, ability, faith, sexuality or colour” (commonwealth games federation 2018, p.39). it is important to also realise that the traditional athlete persona at the commonwealth games, with their performance and relative silence of self on behalf of their country, is actually an implicit political persona that represents the ideal of the nation and their constitution of a model citizen as a sports hero. working within the bounds of the cgf constitution, conflict has the potential to arise when an athlete seeks to become an ambassador for social change. athletes participating in mses are reconfigured into a different persona that goes beyond athletic prowess into a territory that links the athlete to all sorts of representative collective configurations. their link to their home country shifts the athlete’s public identity into something resembling a diplomatic persona. their personal views may be in contrast to their nation-state limiting freedom of expression. prospective athlete citizens are thereby constrained by policies and silenced by the passivecompetitive national politics of games. like their entertainment celebrity activist counterparts (see brockington 2009, 2014, tsaliki et al. 2011, totman 2017), athlete celebrities are embracing the reach they have through social media platforms, and they too are drawing attention to socio-political issues. “soft activism” is a term introduced by palmer (2019, p.2) whereby athlete-celebrities use non-confrontational social narratives to influence social change. societal issues are amplified through athletecelebrity online personas whilst leveraging the mse’s international media exposure (kaufman & wolff 2010, hartmann 2016, boykoff 2017). however, there are factors that could convince an athlete to approach athlete activism with caution. elite athletes are projected as role models (lines 2001, bardocz-bencsik et al. 2021, cunningham et al. 2021) carrying expectations of “high standards of behaviour and moral conduct” (summers & johnson morgan 2008, p.179). as such, athlete activists have additional levels of stakeholder scrutiny. the sport persona, and particularly those derived from athletics and international games competitions, faces different risks and disincentives than other public personalities in presenting their cause(s). hartmann (2016, para. 4, no. 1) and smith et al. (2016, p.145) discuss mcdonald & marshall 6 the multiple barriers faced by athletes seeking to advocate for social awareness including navigating the formal and informal rules, pressures and norms surrounding organising bodies, clubs, sponsors, other athletes and audiences. in considering why many athletes remain silent, cunningham and regan (2011, p.658) expect that athletes consider whether it is their responsibility to be advocates for social change, and the potential monetary loss associated with activism. olympic or commonwealth games athletes do not have the same financial rewards as professional athletes, e.g. professional golfers. amateur athletes self-fund to reach the level necessary to represent their country which then provides potential access to commercial opportunities (jeffery 2017). it could be argued that the commercial incentive is the only lucrative path for amateur athletes, and this is reliant on representation and successful performances at mses. to risk exclusion or expulsion from mses, by participating in athlete activism, could be financially damaging. mse policies seek to limit opportunities for athletes to express politically charged comments by providing strict guidelines on acceptable content. athletes reduce reputational risk if they only comment on their sporting performance and experience. athletes must be mindful that personal opinions published in the public sphere have the potential to be accessed and unfavourably repurposed for journalistic materials (hutchins 2011, hutchins & rowe 2012). authors documenting risk associated with athlete activism note that athletes are “expected to play and not protest” (kaufman and wolff 2010, p.156), however, this past assumption is being challenged as athlete-online-identity-agency has altered how we view athlete value. social media technologies have provided athletes with a vehicle to “present more aspects of their identity” and advocate “for political and social causes” (schmittel & sanderson 2015, p.333). close examination of the gc2018 media coverage revealed alignment between athletes and social issues. this article takes a focused look at how two athletes used the cg2018 as a stage to leverage their social impact value, something that is distinctively differentiated from other social media influencers’ persistent push to economic value and promotion. method content analysis of traditional media – television and print – were used to identify sociopolitical causes arising at the cg2018 and to identify amateur athletes competing in the commonwealth games who are championing these causes. this took place in real-time by monitoring major australian print news, such as, the courier mail, the australian, and the local paper of the host city, the gold coast bulletin, plus channel seven’s television coverage of the cg2018. as a supplementary search, the database newsbank was also used. news media was monitored during april 2018 for socio-political causes raised at the mse and any connections linking the mse and competing athletes. one researcher monitored the named channels for any stories that focused on key socio-political causes as identified by gold coast 2018 commonwealth games corporation (goldoc) including cultural awareness, accessibility, inclusivity and gender equality. the real-time approach was adapted from vardaman et al. (2012) whereby the researchers examined the themes that emerged from traditional representational media during the mse. this reflects a similar approach by finlay (2018, p.137) who selected case studies based on elite athletes pushing “their messages directly into social media” and major media organisations “pulling a select few into the spotlight”. when a socio-political cause was identified, the issue was examined closely to see if there was a connection made to any athletes by traditional media. themes connecting societal issues with persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 7 specific celebrity athletes were monitored across traditional news media and social media as the stories unfolded. the public social media accounts of those athletes identified were then examined to determine if the athletes themselves supported these causes and how they personally joined the narrative. this included all publicly available social media used by the respective athletes. only participating athletes, publicly supporting a socio-political cause through social media were included in the sample. once the athletes were identified, an examination of their public social media was conducted. our analysis was guided by previous research examining athletes’ use of twitter (hambrick et al. 2010, pegoraro 2010), self-presentation techniques using twitter (lebel and danylchuk 2012, hull 2014, agyemang and williams 2016) and the emerging examination of the use of instagram (highfield & leaver 2015, reichart smith & sanderson 2015). unlike previous research where a larger number of athlete profiles were included (hambrick et al. 2010, hull 2014), or a limited number of posts examined (agyemang & williams 2016), all content that was posted by the selected athletes during april 2018 was included in the data set. athletes’ presentational media were classified according to self-presentation descriptions of front stage and backstage (goffman 1959). to investigate online representation, this research adapted hull’s (2014) adaptation of goffman’s model. front stage coding included engagement with fans, the promotion of stakeholders and the reposting or reproduction of information created by the mass media (hull 2014, p.250). backstage coding incorporated observations that the athlete made about their sport, fan behaviour that the athlete exhibited and behind-thescenes insights (hull 2014, p.251). a second coder independently applied the coding frame and agreement was reached (smith & mcgannon 2017). once data was sorted according to front and backstage classifications, we focused on how posts articulating a social cause narrative flowed between presentational and representational media and how they articulated value, agency, reputation and prestige as core dimensions of persona studies analysis. the commonwealth games 2018 the gold coast, queensland, australia was the destination for the cg2018, which took place 4 – 15 april, 2018. this two-week mse involved multiple sports and participation from 71 commonwealth nations. the organisers, gold coast 2018 commonwealth games corporation (goldoc), were responsible for assembling 6600 athletes (jones 2018) and 15,000 volunteers (goldoc 2018c). it was promoted as the “largest sporting event to be staged in australia this decade” and ”featuring the largest integrated sports program in commonwealth games history, comprising 18 sports and seven para-sports” (goldoc 2018a). para-sport facilitates inclusion of athletes with a disability and allows athletes to compete with other athletes that have been classified as having similar impairment (international paralympic committee n.d.). attendance across the cg2018 can be represented by the 1.21 million tickets sold (jones 2018). extended audiences could view events via television or broadcast apps which further identifies a potential 1.5 billion viewers of the cg2018 (jones 2018). goldoc also reported 113 million web page views of the designated cg2018 website and when combined with “social media channels (twitter, facebook, youtube and instagram) had around 733,600 followers and more than 108.3 million impressions” (jones 2018). a newsbank database search revealed over 7,500 newspaper articles reporting on aspects of the cg2018 during april 2018. goldoc implemented a comprehensive approach towards the promotion of human rights which aligned to the cgf constitution. key issues included cultural awareness, accessibility, inclusivity and gender equality. humanity, equality and destiny were showcased through goldoc’s commitment to ensure the para-sports program was extensive and integrated. mcdonald & marshall 8 building on the success of the inclusive 2002 manchester commonwealth games, cg2018 expanded the para-sport program by hosting approximately “300 para-sport athletes across 38 medal events in seven sports” (goldoc 2018b, p.22). a responsibility towards fairness and non-discrimination was exhibited through goldoc’s commitment towards inclusivity and safety for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (lgbti+) individuals demonstrating best practice initiatives for lgbti+ athletes, volunteers and spectators. through collaboration with goldoc and the local lgbti+ community, several engagement activities facilitated a safe and inclusive environment including the provision of a pride house (o’halloran 2018). the athletes utilising a real-time approach (vardaman et al. 2012), we examined representational media for newsworthy articles that aligned to the core values articulated by the commonwealth games constitution; humanity, equality and destiny. there were five prominent human rights stories appearing in news media during the cg2018: the lgbti+ community and inclusivity; disability and inclusivity; indigenous rights/protests; gender equality and, homelessness. all social cause issues were examined closely to identify connections and communication flows between representational media and the athletes’ presentational media. athletes identified as part of the social cause narrative were delimited to two: tom daley advocating for the lgbti+ community and kurt fearnley ao, a disability advocate. the social cause narrative involved a two-way flow between the athletes, who crafted their connection to, and support for, the cause via self-presentation through social media and this was amplified by traditional and new media who shared or re-purposed athlete posts. as such, this demonstrated intercommunication whereby traditional media drew from presentational media constructed by the athletes and conversely the athletes repurposed news items created about themselves or their socio-political cause. representations of intercommunication, whereby social media posts, generated by athletes, were repurposed in traditional media, will be discussed for each athlete pre, during and post-cg2018. twitter and instagram were the two dominant platforms used by the athletes; table 1 represents the number of posts made by both athletes during the month of april 2018. table 1 is divided into three date periods, pre, during and post-games. tom daley kurt fearnley ao instagram twitter facebook instagram twitter facebook 1st – 3rd (pre-games) 2 1 1 0 4 0 4th – 15th (cg2018) 7 8 2 10 46 5 16th – 30th (post games) 12 9 2 6 48 3 total 21 18 5 16 98 8 table 1: number of social media posts made by athletes during april 2018 persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 9 persona analysis – tom daley tom daley, emerged as a celebritised athlete at the age of 13 when he won the 2009 european championships 10m platform diving event and the following year “became great britain’s first individual world championship gold medallist” (british swimming n.d.). since that public debut, he has achieved an impressive list of sporting accomplishments and has become a media personality, brand ambassador, author of a healthy lifestyle book and built a substantial fan base. in 2018, daley had over 2 million followers on three social media channels. in 2023, he has 3.2 million followers on instagram, 2.5 million facebook followers, 2.2 million twitter followers and, 1.18 million youtube subscribers (biograhymask 2023). daley’s influencer status was previously recognised in 2017 when daley and his husband won the british lgbt independent influencer award (british lgbt awards n.d.). traditional media reporting on personal milestones included the announcement that daley and his husband were expecting a baby through a surrogate (bbc news 2018). in the three days leading up to the opening ceremony, daley posted material that celebrated the build-up to the cg2018. twitter, instagram and facebook were used as platforms to engage with fans which included thanking followers for their support and promoting meet and greet times. daley created connectivity between his social media channels by drawing people back to his bio/vlog which is hosted on youtube. in the pre-game period, daley posted a vlog (see daley 2023) which gave followers a behind-the-scenes view of the diving venue and the athletes’ village. in 2018, the athlete village video (2 april 2018) received 380,485 views and 11,000 thumbs up (see daley 2023). during cg2018, daley utilised instagram, twitter, facebook and youtube. twitter was the platform where the greatest intercommunication occurred whereby daley utilised his posts to highlight inclusivity and the lgbti+ community and the current status of homosexuality within some commonwealth nations. a message exposing current inequality and discrimination experienced by the lgbti+ community in some nations emerged from the peter tatchell foundation (ptf) (2018) (see figure 1). daley retweeted and personalised this tweet, through his personal social media and, subsequently leveraged this during representational media interviews (18 and 21 april 2018). figure 1: screenshot ptf tweet (peter tatchell foundation 2018) mcdonald & marshall 10 the ptf retweet was shared 155 times and liked by 863 people; however, the lgbti+ message achieved greater prominence after daley won gold in the synchronised diving event (13 april 2018). daley personalised the original ptf message adding how lucky he felt to be able to compete “without worry” (see craw 2018, staton 2018). the use of a rainbow emoji, signifies a connection to the lgbti+ community, further reinforces daley’s connection to the issue (see staton 2018). daley simultaneously communicates with his social media followers and with representational media. on this occasion, daley’s tweet (see staton 2018) had been shared 10,000 times, was liked by 65,000 followers, and the interconnected youtube video/narration (16 april 2018) had accrued 545 520 views (see daley 2023). in addition, several australian and united kingdom publications reported on daley’s successful athletic achievement, and the significance of his social cause message (for example, see bbc sport 2018, craw 2018, staton 2018). through his shared experiences in the lead-up to the cg2018, daley was already positioned as a valuable advocate for inclusivity messages. the ptf provided the initial connection, yet daley’s response to retweet and personalise the message allowed him to integrate the issue into his personal narrative and create an opportunity for greater awareness of the issue. queensland police (2018) also seized the opportunity to promote their message of inclusivity tweeting a photo of a lgbti+ liaison officer with daley. inclusion in the narrative of these two external organisations illustrates daley’s perceived prestige. upon the conclusion of gc2018, daley posted another four cause-related retweets. in two posts, daley enhanced the visibility of a real-time movement occurring in the united kingdom and directly linked the role of the commonwealth to human rights. daley re-posted two messages drawing attention to an lgbt+ protest in london: one by the ptf, the other by entertainment celebrity, stephen fry (see craw 2018). daley leveraged his celebrity athlete status to further the discussion with british politician, boris johnson. a bbc news report was shared via his twitter feed featuring johnson who had promised to build on daley’s recent advocacy (connolly 2018). daley shared a second media article where he discussed his message on the bbc’s the andrew marr show, justifying the timing of his protest (robinson 2018). daley indicated that as an openly lgbti+ athlete, he had an opportunity to share his personal story and speak with lgbti+ movement leaders from other nations to encourage positive change (robinson 2018). through these two examples, daley demonstrates a blend of front stage and backstage performances according to hull’s (2014) definitions. through interviews with representational media, daley shares personal, behind-the-scenes insights that can be classified as backstage; however, by reposting the interviews, this represents front stage. through sharing his personal story daley builds connections with the cause which enhances his message. daley’s sense of duty surrounding this cause was surrounded by risk. his protest messaging was opposed by several participating commonwealth nations and his next sporting competition was in russia. with russia banning “lgbt propaganda” by law (abc news 2022), advocating for inclusivity would be considered a major risk. in 2014, daley had deemed competing in russia unsafe, but he was determined to compete in the may 2018 diving world series (mandle 2018). daley participated and used subtle messaging by wearing a rainbow pin badge on the medal podium thus being seen “as an out and proud gay man” in russia (mandle 2018) amidst this country’s antigay laws; the messaging was captured through representational media with the reproduction of daley’s instagram content (manzella 2018). this example highlighted the fluidity of content between representational and presentational content thus illustrating a persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 11 further expansion of intercommunication. in addition, this acknowledges daley’s agency as he acted as a communication intermediary for the socio-political cause. daley’s articulation of the social-political message during april 2018 drew predominantly from the ptf message. intercommunication was more prominent between the networks daley had established and linked directly to his personal social media. as an extension of the concept of intercommunication, there were communication flows between daley’s personal posts and media platforms of other organisations, particularly with the ptf and the bbc. based on the ptf retweets during the cg2018, there was evidence to suggest daley was aware of his capacity to influence the social cause narrative. additionally, external organisations leveraged daley’s authenticity and success, further amplifying the lgbti+ message and building his reputation. persona analysis – kurt fearnley ao kurt fearnley ao is an australian para-athlete participating in wheelchair sports since the age of 14 and who now holds national and paralympic records in track and marathon events (fearnley 2018a). fearnley is a qualified physical education teacher, charity ambassador, selfproclaimed “passionate disability advocate” and “member of the independent advisory council of the national disability insurance scheme…” (fearnley 2022). in 2004, fearnley was awarded the medal of the order of australia and, in 2009, he was named nsw young australian of the year (mcgarry 2018). in 2018, fearnley had 20 thousand followers on instagram, 47 thousand twitter followers and a webpage showcasing his achievements. his social media channels, accessed via his website, reveal followers have subsequently increased by over 7000 (fearnley 2022). fearnley’s visibility was enhanced during april 2018 across australian media as he was selected as an official games ambassador. as one of only five athletes selected as an ambassador, fearnley helped promote cg2018 inclusivity, appearing in promotional material, and was part of the queen’s baton relay. this prestigious representation acknowledges fearnley’s value and agency. in a similar pre-celebratory style to daley, fearnley tweeted to encourage followers to support the cg2018 and acknowledged the inclusivity that would be shown to athletes with a disability. fearnley contributed a prominent narrative through athletesvoice, positioning disability as an important issue for the cg2018 (fearnley 2018a). athletesvoice provides an alternate platform for athletes to narrate their own, real-time news; fearnley connected fans to his athletesvoice contribution through twitter. fearnley used his own successful sporting performance as an entry point to alert audiences for the need to be inclusive. building support for people with a disability, fearnley shared personal stories, embraced humour, team camaraderie and celebratory pictures with friends and family thus providing examples of personal, behind-the-scenes insights. twitter was fearnley’s main communication platform during cg2018; over 70% of fearnley’s 46 tweets/retweets represented backstage presentation. fearnley’s final event, and subsequent success, occurred on the last day of the cg2018 with the announcement that he would be the australian flag bearer during the closing ceremony. media attention shifted towards the broadcasters, who were criticised for not televising the athletes’ stadium parade as per previous mses. fans, followers and commentators felt deprived of witnessing fearnley’s moment; carrying the nation’s flag on behalf of able-bodied and paraathletes signified the prestige fearnley had accumulated. notably, fearnley used twitter (figure 2), and a connection to a second article in athletesvoice (figure 3), to reframe the narrative and remind followers of the inclusivity of the cg2018. mcdonald & marshall 12 figure 2: screenshot of fearnley’s inclusivity tweet (fearnley 2018c). figure 3: screenshot of fearnley’s tweet/link to athletesvoice (fearnley 2018b; fearnley 2018d). in a very real sense, fearnley’s narrative constructs a persona that heightens awareness of disability to a wider public via broadcast media and the games administration itself. this represents fearnley’s wider visibility and extended reach that he had generated through his authentic representation during the cg2018. as the cg2018 concluded, fearnley adopted a stronger presence in the cause-related space and shifted the narrative towards the larger disability discussion in australia by sharing an abc interview (abc news 2018) via his twitter account. this is an example of the intercommunicative strategy through its increasing presentational prestige through the agency of selective sharing. the timing may have deliberately avoided the restraints on raising sociopolitical issues but may also have been a leveraging opportunity given his athletic success and that of the cg2018. fearnley self-branded himself an advocate, raised further awareness of the limited funding for people with a disability and sought to acknowledge various forms of disability in society. his work was recognised in june 2018 with an officer of the order of australia for “distinguished service to people with a disability, as a supporter of, and fundraiser for, indigenous athletics and charitable organisations, and as a paralympic athlete” (governorgeneral of the commonwealth of australia 2018, p.17). fearnley’s social media communication contained personalised and positive imagery and messages to support para-sport, yet it also provided a connection to traditional media which facilitated more extensive conversations and provided a more comprehensive platform to persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 13 advocate for disability. twitter was the main social media platform used by fearnley. of the five facebook posts, two provided links to athletesvoice which demonstrated intercommunication and allowed fearnley to remain clear with his messaging surrounding disability advocacy. self-presentation and the social cause narrative cg2018 provided an opportunity to demonstrate how two athletes, with perceived high value because of their past success in their sports and their associated visibility across media and cultures, strategically leveraged their appeal to convey socio-political messages within a constrained environment. overall, daley and fearnley provided evidential support to agyemang’s (2014) athlete citizenship definition as they each took an approach to channel their influence to create a positive impact on society without breaching the cgf constitution bylaws. both athletes have sought to create representations and construction of the self by sharing controlled details about their private lives. although carefully curated, the details revealed via their social media accounts have helped both athletes build credibility and demonstrate authority when advocating for important societal issues. in doing so, they both demonstrated a strategic public alignment to issues pertinent to their personal lives. the genuine relationship between the athlete and the social cause is reinforced by the history of the athlete. as such, this supports agyemang’s (2014) discussion on athlete citizenship, whereby stakeholders, view and accept congruency. the need for audiences to see athlete behaviour as congruent with expectations links also to goffman (1959). in addition, this extends hutchins and rowe’s (2012) discussion regarding the use of social media at mses and, begins to address cunningham and regan’s (2011) question as to whether athletes are willing to advocate for social change. daley and fearnley shifted the gaze of fans, followers and media coverage from their own performance towards socio-political causes during a time of heightened media visibility. using their own narratives, an element in their identity moves back and forth from traditional media to social media. this research expands on previous notions of intercommunication (marshall 2013) by recognising a complex form of mediatisation through blending personal and professional persona and fluidity between presentational and representational media and exemplary of how “mass self-communication” (castells 2009) reforms traditional legacy media’s vertical power towards certain political ends. as such, the athletes’ use of social media provided a mechanism for their personalised content to move “through layers of media and communication” (marshall 2014b, p.163), respond and intersect with various stakeholders who are themselves, drawing meaning, making connections and engaging with emerging forms of public activism. intercommunication, as defined here, intersects or traverses a range of media, provides connections and expands narratives and engages collective publics. it is important to further identify the collective dimension of persona that shapes these athletes’ public identities: each of their personas by the very definition of persona is already working and engaged in a collective space and thereby identifies the core audience that is already perceived as connected to and, in some way, aligned to the persona. it is through the collective that we can identify that the athlete persona is not audience or nation-specific. as demonstrated by fearnley and daley, the athlete persona could push other national cultures to respond to the needs of their particular cause/communities. further studies in this area could explore how celebrity athlete self-presentation is transferred into other mses that are located in destinations with distinctly different culturesi, for example, where homosexuality is still criminalised. recognising the limitations of this research (that this study concerns two caucasian males representing democratic nations) suggests the need to examine how activism, through persona, may be constrained by gender, ethnicity or representation of marginalised communities. further mcdonald & marshall 14 research could also examine the interpretation of messages by diverse audiences and, in particular, examining sentiment and how the social issue is framed by followers. conclusion mses provide platforms for athletes with a strong desire to exhibit citizenship to raise awareness of their cause, however, they must navigate athlete agreements and policies. the visibility of an mse presents a timely opportunity to further social or political discussions, and yet the rules at play call for a strategic approach. intercommunication is providing complementary, alternate and shifting platforms that may assist forms of athlete activism to advance important social change as a form of “soft activism” (palmer 2019). what we have identified is an interesting change in value that augments athlete authenticity whilst representing a cause in its movement between a personal social media and a much wider legacy media platform. while only two athletes at the gc2018 were observed clearly integrating social cause narratives through intercommunication, they demonstrated the unique position athletes can assume as athlete-citizen journalists. as intermediaries and celebrities, they can leverage their influence and reach further contributing to mcgillivray’s (2014) discussion of transforming, accelerating and integrating alternative narratives at mses. followers see the constant depiction of the athletes’ self-presentation which, by the very nature of their everyday lives, display and document the barriers that they encounter. presentational media, and the ability to leverage already established value, reputation and prestige have all contributed to a narrative that peaked organically at the cg2018. athletic success and meaningful personal narratives attract representational media, which are subsequently interwoven back into personal narratives and thereby leveraging a greater platform. building on the previous work of castells (2009) and frandsen (2019), these athletes are moving through different networks, and forms of presentation as they build a strategic persona around citizenship. athletes, like daley and fearnley, with authentic alignment to a cause, shared through social media over a period of time, may be in a stronger political position to advocate without risking their sporting careers. their differentiated agency from their nations, sporting bodies and their rules of etiquette had been built through what could be described as a relatively independent online identity agency that employs a shifted construction of public identity. the personas these particular athletes have cultivated online, with their different construction of publics and collectives, reformation of their mediatisation through their individually curated social media platforms, and an integrated performative dimension that is both linked to and transcends their athletic achievements/visibility, allow them to develop a nuanced, politically inflected public and shared identity that redefines their cultural value, agency, reputation and prestige. this active cross-cultivation across media and social media forms of representation and presentation allowed these particular athletes to advance a sophisticated, individualised, politically and cause-related bespoke athlete persona during and after the cg2018. acknowledgments a sincere thank you to donald swanson for proofreading this paper. sadly he has passed recently. persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 15 end notes ithis research was conducted prior to the tokyo 2020 olympic and paralympics games. daley’s successful performances and his lgbti+ message at the tokyo 2020 olympic games was captured in global news media (see harris 2021, ronay 2021). fearnley had retired from competition in 2018 but was on the commentary team for the tokyo 2020 paralympic games and continues to advocate for disability as a presenter on several television series and via podcasts. fearnley was appointed ‘chairman of the board of the 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measure, record and share many aspects of life has been received with great enthusiasm for their potential to enhance conceptions of self through measuring variables relating to an individual’s health and productivity. in 2012, readers of the economist were introduced to the idea of using numbers on oneself in the same way that charting progress towards a goal is commonplace in business. a new culture of selfimprovement termed ‘self-tracking’ was beginning to gain currency. at the time that self-tracking was becoming mainstream it was estimated that the mobile health and diagnostics market was worth approximately us$640 million, which would grow to us$8.03 billion by 2019. in popular culture (news items and blogs), people who track their activity using technology are seen as heroic figures who are insightful, actualised, virtuous, and in control. experimentation (trial and error), active intervention (a health kick, diet or detox), preventative self monitoring (blood pressure, glucose levels, heart rate) or the conscious foregrounding of habits (hydration, caffeine intake, counting steps) are constructed as rewarding. this can be seen as a manifestation of applying management principles to personal healthcare, and by extension the practice of applying an exacting science to the management of everyday life. focusing on three current consumer technologies: fitbit, jawbone up and apple’s healthkit application and developer platform, we argue that using such devices fixes individuals to symbolic discourses, permissions, limits, and thresholds, which prefigure and enclose energies directed towards the formation of self-knowledge and conception of selfhood. key words quantified self; wearables; self-tracking; personal metrics; technological affordances introduction human understandings of the relation between bodily states and their personification have passed through various technological epochs following different paths of mediation, abstraction, and performance. each of these eras has correlated strongly with dominant modes (enlightenment reasoning, industrial labour, immaterial and social labour) and means of production such as the type of instrumentation available, or being developed, at the time (i.e. persona studies 2015, 1.1 77 oral, text-based, image-based, and then digitised). the instrumentation arising out of each technological epoch—for instance, the popularisation of body knowledge associated with public anatomical dissections of cadavers and the exchange of anatomical information via drawings and printed atlases during the 17th and 18th centuries—is a key mediator of knowledge deployed conceptualising the self, and performing oneself to others. later technologies such as stethoscopes, sphygmomanometer (blood pressure measuring instruments), x-rays and other nuclear imaging, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging, and most recently bioinformatics, gene sequencing, and advanced biometrics, all produced new conceptions and metaphors for the cognition of bodily materiality. more recently, gary wolf of wired magazine, a co-founder of the “quantified self” movement, has asserted in the new york times that in the “cozy confines of personal life” it was rare to yield the “power of numbers” and that “[a] journal was respectable. a spreadsheet was creepy”. wolf, in the same article states: two years ago, as i noticed that the daily habits of millions of people were starting to edge uncannily close to the experiments of the most extreme experimenters, i started a website called the quantified self with my colleague kevin kelly. we began holding regular meetings for people running interesting personal data projects. i had recently written a long article about a trend among silicon valley types who time their days in increments as small as two minutes, and i suspected that the self-tracking explosion was simply the logical outcome of this obsession with efficiency. we use numbers when we want to tune up a car, analyse a chemical reaction, predict the outcome of an election. we use numbers to optimise an assembly line. why not use numbers on ourselves? the quantified self movement was founded by gary wolf, along with kevin kelly, in 2007 at the height of web 2.0 optimism. the pair have stated that they named the movement after observing the increasing popularity of tracking and logging personal data on variables including heart rate, physical activity, or sleep among a host of others, using various smartphone applications. as these practices gained purchase among various groups over the world this led in turn to the development of the quantified self ‘meet up’ where participants would share findings of their self-experimentation. these “show and tell” sessions revolved around a simple three question formula: what did you do? how did you do it? what did you learn? however, a question remains: how critical can life-auditing be with methodologies and technologies available to self-trackers at present? there are four key developments that have contributed to the currency of the quantified self. first is the shrinking in size of the sensors themselves. second is ubiquity of sensory components through their inclusion in smartphones and wearable computing. third, social networking produced and normalised a certain social affordance of sharing. fourthly, cheaper remote storage and cloud computing coupled with the computational power to process so called “big data” made it possible and acceptable to collect and contribute personal data to remote server locations. in this paper, we inspect the various ways in which persona is formed through the use of sensor-based, data driven wearable devices such as the fitbit jawbone up, and the apple watch among a growing number of others can be situated within a broader trajectory of bodymediation technology. we then discuss the epistemological and therapeutic role of self-tracking devices as part of contemporary networked and technocratic cultures of innovation and selfmanagement. we go on to look towards ways by which personification through quantification and metrics commodifies not only the performative presentation of self, but also the routes to jethani & raydan 78 self-knowledge on which persona formation is based. two distinct yet mutually constitutive bio-political domains of persona formation flow through practices of self-tracking. one is the grounding of self-quantifier archetypes in cultures of auditing, archiving, and early adoption of technology. the second relates to data ontologies in which technologically garnered selfknowledge is made meaningful. we argue that, despite their novelty and the relative fidelity with which they can bring hidden aspects of the self to our attention, the production of intimate self-knowledge through sensor technology is unlikely to contribute to emancipatory forms of persona-formation. in the self-knower: a hero under control, robert wiklund and martina eckert point out that society’s preoccupation with knowledge of the self draws much of its gravitas from popular culture, lifestyle marketing and the ideological belief that by drawing attention to one’s ‘inner being’ the hidden risks and potentials that factor in the pursuit of one’s self-betterment can be addressed (v). this view comes from a long line of thinkers working within the field of clinical social psychology (see allport, jourard, rogers, maslow, markus, warsaw and davis, cited in wiklund and eckert). in the contemporary moment, the pre-occupation with self-knowledge is perhaps most sharply observed among the growing number of people who, using a range of sensor-enabled, data driven and wearable devices, ‘self-quantify’ their lives. as a new user explains on the quantified self website: i am new to "formal" self quantifying … i've tracked information about myself for a long time, mostly on paper, but never thought of it in this context. lately i've started to play around with apps and devices. it's all very confusing as there are so many of them. to start with, i'm focusing on logging what i eat. i have a sweet tooth and hope that by having to log every muffin and every piece of candy, i may be able to get control of it. i'm logging steps as well, hoping for the same motivational force [2014-oct-20, 11:48] this type of personal archival is received very differently from the work of steve mann whose experiments with wearable computational photography and counter surveillance resulted in a famous altercation in a mcdonalds in paris. there, an employee assaulted mann trying to pull off the wearable computer vision system he had invented and worn for decades— essentially a prototypic device similar to google glass — and ejected him from the restaurant (wearcam.org). one reason for this shift in reception is a move away from the visual archival of life to the numerical representation of processes, which can be equated to one’s vitality and this connects back to wolf’s claim that in the context of one’s personal life, spreadsheets are “creepy.” however, many people are subjecting themselves to exactly such regimes of record keeping by attaching various sensor enabled wearable technologies to the body to track virtually any aspect of their life. a spreadsheet may still remain ‘creepy’ or too arduous to be an effectively sustainable form of self-knowledge production, but the ubiquity, unobtrusiveness, and seeming passivity of a lightweight, relatively discrete bracelet has proven to be less so. large numbers of people across the world are using wearable technology to measure and quantify the body, hoping to answer questions such as: why do i feel sluggish? how can i improve my health? am i at risk? this seems to be a method of taking control of the production of knowledge about themselves, something that was once the exclusive domain of medical practitioners or folk knowledge. here, we critically explore persona-formation through the use of technology to produce a personal data repository intended to formulate a seemingly objective sense of the body and self. we argue that practices of technically mediated self-quantification are aligned to externally calibrated goals, thresholds, norms, and expectations which are framed by socialised persona studies 2015, 1.1 79 representations of what is “healthy” or “productive”. further, we suggest these measures exhibit a complex relation of knowledge production that is interventionist by nature and selfdirected in the sense that the participant pays, and in some cases admits oneself to a community dedicated to achieving a similar task, essentially self-knowledge through data. quantitative or measurement-based technology is deployed in the mining of the user’s bodily states and behaviours, before banking this data and analysing it by a qualitative feedback mechanism consisting of algorithms and various visualisation tools. these tools are available to the user and/or others through a synching mechanism which provides real-time data via a web-based ‘analytic’ dashboard, along with the ability to share this data across social networks or with other applications, provided the user grants such permissions. in what follows we engage with questions of how the production of self-knowledge is defined within such systems. how might the n=1 nature of self-enquiry, and its re-integration into the technical, ideological and institutional structures, give rise to the ontologies that make such data meaningful at the aggregate or population level (n=all, all available or all that can be inferred given the data available to the system). we suggest that the relation between self-tracking and persona formation lies in the movement of practices of quantification and measurement at the peripheries of our lives to a more central epistemological locus. the feeding of data into a machine and its playback forms a rhetorically quantitative representation of self, which under the auspices of self-betterment, reflection on behaviours in real time, and learning new life strategies as a result, forms an intimate manufacture of persona which interpolates the subject as empowered through selfknowledge and a mastery of its technical systems of production. in the past, the production of self-knowledge at this level of intimacy depended on a network of professionals, which may have included psychologists, doctors, dieticians, personal trainers and others. is being less reliant on professionals for such information an emancipatory praxis? does ubiquitous knowledge of the self contribute to greater self-awareness in the formation of identity and persona? as evgeny morozov points out in the critique of self-quantifiers, self-trackers may be identifying with the means of production as opposed to the knowledge flowing from the practice of self-tracking: it’s hard to imagine the previous generations of self-trackers forming a social movement of some kind—one with its own proselytisers, regular conferences, and a set of shared goals and aspirations. the existence of such a movement would indicate that there was something cool, even laudable, about the very activity of tracking, a tracking aesthetics of sorts. as far as social movements go, this one would be all about celebrating a common means, not a common end (77). self-tracking and their associated cultures of technical innovation produce epistemologies of self-awareness which produce personas that cannot be divorced from the technocratic logic of “saturated” and “networked” conceptions of self which reconfigure the body relative to the self as individual, aggregated at the population level, the interior and exterior self, and the self in regards to space and time. we conclude with the assertion that although self-tracking does produce emancipatory conceptions of personhood, it does so within a defined set of parameters including oligarchy, self-representation via the proxy of mediated data of the self, regulation, asceticism and panopticism. these parameters are shaping technical affordances, interfaces, business models, routes to innovation, and policy relating to the use and re-use of personal data. counting steps, measuring heart rate and blood pressure daily, or tracking the quality and duration of sleep by technical means are activities that are undertaken with the objective of jethani & raydan 80 empowering one to escape the negative effects of a demanding lifestyle, and exercise freedom in decision making enabled by a direct and intimate knowledge of one’s own bodily and behavioural disposition. it is not surprising then that devices like the fitbit, jawbone up, and a host of others are gaining universal appeal as consumer technologies aimed at the mass market. as they are marketed, such devices are portrayed as inexpensive solutions designed to help users better understand their own health. as such, they are aimed at the mass market as nongendered, catering to all levels of fitness, and technologically savvy lifestyle product: on the walk to work, at the weight room or on the last mile. somewhere between first tries and finish lines. pillow fights and pushing limits. that’s where you find your fitness. every moment and every bit makes a big impact. because fitness is the sum of your life. that’s the idea fitbit was built on — that fitness is not just about the gym. it’s all the time. how you spend your day determines when you reach your goals. and seeing your progress helps you see what’s possible. seek it, crave it, live it (www.fitbit.com/whyfitbit). however, despite the celebratory rhetoric associated with the “quantified-self movement”, the self-quantifier, we argue, is unlikely to achieve authentic personal agency. we posit that the selfknowledge produced through iterative and ubiquitous quantification and documentation of one’s life is distorted by various forces inherent within the industrial processes which give rise to the technology used in self-quantification, and within the various software architectures and data permissions wherein self-quantifiers generate epistemologies of self. further, the critiques of self-quantification are masked by the ideology perpetuated in the marketing copy quoted above. by a co-opting of the delphic philosophical tenet of ‘know thyself’, which constructs the self-quantifier as an emancipated figure, the self-quantifier is framed as the embodiment of the self-aware subject in the world of contemporary networked society and technocracy. locating the politics of self-tracking in regards to self-tracking, what might some of the more interesting and unprecedented political dimensions of persona formation be? in this section we discuss three emerging biopolitical trajectories which impact the ways in which self-quantification relates to the formation of a sense of self: the use of self-tracking by mandate of social or governmental institutions; the double logic of making self-tracking devices noticeable and discrete;the potential pathologies and various types of dysmorphia that are likely to emerge as self-tracking is mainstreamed. in a blog entry on the topic of purchasing a jawbone up24 ($129 $147 usd), mark carrigan, a sociologist who has been studying the quantified self movement, discusses how selftracking interfaces with social policy, which he describes as the “coming techno-fascism”. cardigan writes: i’d got bored with the nike fuel band, losing interest in the opaque ‘fuel points’ measurement and increasingly finding it to be an unwelcome presence on my wrist. i’d also been ever more aware of how weird my sleep patterns have become in the past couple of years, cycling between rising early and staying up late, with little discernible rhyme or reason. the idea of tracking my sleep in a reasonably accurate fashion, using degree of bodily movement as a cypher for the depth of sleep, appealed to me on a reflexive level. somewhat more practically, the jawbone’s silent alarm sounded great: it gently wakes you by vibrating on your wrist at the period within a defined interval at which it detects you are in the lightest state of sleep. it’s only been a few days but it really seems to work. i’ve woken up refreshed in a way that feels oddly natural given the rather novel consumer technology that’s bringing it about. … persona studies 2015, 1.1 81 consumer self-tracking devices and schemes like this serve to normalise tracking of this sort. what comes next? how hard is it to imagine a situation where a conservative government, eager to separate ‘strivers’ from ‘skivers’ demands that welfare recipients submit to monitoring of their alcohol and nicotine intake? here we can see a strong resemblance between antecedent technologies to the current generation of self-tracking wearables such as house arrest bracelets or remote alcohol monitoring devices. other developments can be seen in fitbit’s collaboration with designer tory burch, which takes the utilitarian design and function of the standard rubber fitbit and provides an alternative collection to the consumer that is metal and made to resemble a piece of jewellery. this trend to further domesticate and differentiate the device within the existing fitbit product range is reflected by the fact that the burch design retails approximately $50 usd more than the standard flex model ($129.95usd) indicating differentiation beyond point-forpoint comparison of products based on functionality alone. with increased opportunity to ‘choose’ the type of device one attaches to the body, the practice of self-tracking is normalised in everyday life, and consumers are provided the ability to outwardly display either a utilitarian or an ornamental identification with the practice. this is a radical departure from carrigan’s reflections on forced industrial and social schemes tracking, but is nonetheless an indication of how users are being catered for in the current consumer marketplace of wearable technologies. this departure also shows how such systems can be further assimilated into the performative dimension of embodying the self-tracking ideology with some, albeit limited, degree of individuality and gender specificity. this invites the question: is a jewellery-like self-tracking device designed to draw attention to the fact that one is self-tracking or suggestive of the potential to make such technologies discrete, especially when being used for the purposes of the third-party mandated monitoring individuals as carrigan suggests. the self-quantifier persona also carries within it a number of potential pathologies. these are self-commodification and disciplining, technology fetishisation, transference of one’s attention away from organic reflection into a system of numerical representation, idiosyncratic behaviours, various hypochondria’s and forms of self-medication that may have a deleterious impact on one’s health. these are lines of enquiry which are yet to be seen in conversations at the quantified self meet-ups or on the various web forums linked to self-tracking communities . addressing the potential downside of their experiments will undoubtedly be a fruitful area for future study in the coming years. it is here that we suggest persona studies can make a contribution as it engages with future presentations of the self relative to past accounts, mirroring the need to understand the devices themselves from the perspectives of technical antecedents and related devices outside the established category of “health-tracking”. this contribution could see the interfacing of media archaeology (particularly useful given its emphasis on alternate genealogies of technical systems of knowledge production and representation) and persona studies around the objective of understanding the public self and its technological predispositions (parikka; barbour et al.). self-quantification practices, namely practices occurring within the named ‘quantified self’ movement, frame the production of self-knowledge “around” a particular category of technology: sensors, wearables, ubiquitous computing and their associated set of informational artefacts. the statistics, graphs and predictions—such as life expectancy based on resting heart rate data—resulting from self-quantification are inevitably gaining currency as authentic, unbiased mediations of self (bijker 123). one way that the authenticity of such data may be challenged is by viewing self tracking systems as ‘remediating’ self-knowledge through jethani & raydan 82 networked, sensor enabled, and data driven technologies which then intersect with cultures of self-help and self-therapy (bolter and grusin). the self-quantifier persona is constructed by those who wish to promote the use of selftracking devices as a strategically and ‘technocratically rational’ figure. however, the ideal selfquantifier persona image perpetuated by the marketing messages of fitbit or apple is unlikely to sense the extent to which their self-commodification is automated and internalised. n. katherine hayles suggests that the unconscious nature of sensor data means that the human perception of self and environment takes place within an ontology where technical artefacts carry part of the cognitive load associated with the processing of sense data (hayles). embedded in an epistemological site of knowledge production distributed in a way that makes the underlying codes and software operating to produce that knowledge “non conscious.” by existing below a certain cognitive threshold, yet intensifying the level of awareness of the self, self-quantification constitutes a complex, and dialectical relation of self-intimacy and selfabstraction where it becomes difficult to recognise the extent to which self-tracking commodifies the processes being mediated (townley). in addition to this, the desire for security and anxiety reduction is articulated within the symbolism of consumer products emerging through the wearable technology and quantified self pipeline, such as whistle an activity monitoring system for pets. buying into cultures of self-quantification—ideologically, and transactionally—means that a visual and physical narrative of life can be constructed and then drawn upon as a resource especially in times of stress or uncertainty. looking at these practices historically, by the mid 1990s microsoft research, led by gordon bell, jim gemmell and roger leuder had begun to explore ways in which a ‘memex' like memory extending system for assisting in the production of intimate knowledge of self could be developed (bush). they imagined that: if you choose, you’ll be able to create this digital diary or e-memory continuously as you go about your life. this will be nearly effortless, because you’ll have access to an assortment of tiny, unobtrusive cameras, microphones, location trackers, and other sensing devices that can be worn in shirt buttons, pendants, tie clips, lapel pins, brooches, watchbands, bracelet beads, hat brims, eyeglass frames, and earrings. even more radical sensors will be available to implant inside your body, quantifying your health. together with various other sensors embedded in the gadgets and tools you use and peppered throughout your environment, your personal sensor network will allow you to record as much or as little as you want of what happens to you and around you (bell and gemmell 28). more recently, nicholas feltron, a former facebook employee has collected data on various aspects of his life and authored a series of personal annual reports which represent each year of his life between 2005 to 2013 (feltron.com). graphing variables such as travel miles, music listened to, photographs taken, books read, food and drink consumed and so on. each year feltron added new metrics to the report. in 2007 for instance, he added time spent walking and time spent on busses, taxis and trains. in 2008, using openstreetmap.com, he mapped out a spatial timeline—feltron is credited with developing the facebook timeline—of his life detailing major events such as the election of barack obama, or his “favourite lunch with dad” producing a macrosopic and subjective map of his life. in 2009, the project developed further when feltron solicited feedback by way of an online survey of every person with whom he had “meaningful encounters” with over the course of the year, and overlayed data on conversation topics, mood and demeanour. later iterations of the report were more sophisticated, 2010 focused on relationships, namely with his father and the 2012 report makes use of a custom persona studies 2015, 1.1 83 built mobile application called “reporter” which randomly sent reminders to feltron to complete a survey answering the following questions: where are you? who are you with? what are you doing? what are you wearing? what are you eating? what are you using? what are you drinking? are you asleep? these experimental techniques and the understandings that they produce will undoubtedly become more commonplace as tools, deployed in the production of private and social understandings of the body and one’s life-biography, altering the scale and intensity of productive capacities, as a commodity, as diseased, gendered and as ‘normal’. the ability to relate these understandings to the body’s materiality and dimensions (weight, height, steps), physiology (heart rate, metabolism, respiration), sensory thresholds (eyesight, hearing, pain and nociception), numerical indexing such as body mass index (bmi) and other states of being (hunger, thirst, anxiety etc.) as units for the quantitative comparison and measurement further produce bodily dimensionality relative to certain parameters. drawing on georges canguilhem’s notion of a habitual and ideal state, designated by the “pathological normal”, elisabeth stephens reminds us that the normalisation of a body by set parameters that denote health and/or productivity is not only a matter of “moving subjects towards” a numerical or statistical range denoting normalcy, but also “measuring the gaps and differences by which they deviate from that norm” (stephens). in regard to the quantified self, participants hold a belief that: the relationship between “habit formation” and the limitations of devices is significant. on one hand, the habits/practices that most participants sought to instill [sic] in themselves generally (though not always) adhered to normative guidelines around health and good citizenship: exercise more, work more effectively, keep moods elevated, etc. on the other hand, these clearly are not passive consumers swallowing blindly the parameters of “what’s good for them.” in many ways they see their activities as a response to big data and big science dictums that make claims about the healthy body from on high. in the face of generalised, anonymous one-size-fits-all prescriptions derived from population studies, they seek to understand what is right for me. what is the optimal bedtime for me? under what diet regime do i feel my best? what activities (sleep, caffeine, wheat, dairy, and other usual suspects) are particularly correlated with mood or energy in my life? (nafus & sherman) what may result out of self-quantification is a further mutation of normalcy where “we are unable or unwilling to realise (individually or en masse) that we are becoming radically alone” in our pursuit of self-discovery. in its most extreme form, this may foster the notion that it is the internal reflection and measurement that counts, no matter how it is achieved (hassan). the annual report or dataset becomes the instrument through which the subject constructs persona and it also becomes the informational asset in which any claim of an authentic self or persona is evidenced. the various modes of personal data production—private, pushed (encouraged), communal, imposed or exploited—add further complexity to the self-quantifier persona (lupton). the development of self-knowledge through these different forms of tracking, each with different motivations and perceived utility are, therefore, likely to be obscured by the context dependent factors associated with these various modes. for example, acceptance of surveillance and quantification exacerbates anxiety of not only others, as in the case of personal alarms and cctv, but also a potential self materialised in the numbers if they go the wrong way or deviate from what is normal. this furthers the uncertainty to which one might feel they are in touch with the self or able to “listen” and intuit the body. attaching a fitbit to one’s wrist jethani & raydan 84 produces, something that relates back to what maurice merleau-ponty, writing in the 1940s, described as, an “incomprehensible twist in an organic process [of self awareness and proprioception] … where a human act becomes torpid and is continued absent mindedly in the form of a reflex” (87). in the next section we discuss how these practices of self-quantification are intersecting the fields of lifestyle marketing, consumer technology, and discussions of health and illness. knowing and healing the self the production of self-knowledge then has become a valuable social, economic, and moral resource in the management of everyday life. the notion that a person can change though self-knowledge presumes that an inner locus of knowledge and experience is one that is equivalent to or subordinates the material world. this locus of knowledge and experience provides the major rationale for central institutions of democracy, the law, the state, education, community, and more importantly the notion of a self with a certain degree of agency. these all operate on tenets of enhancement of physical and mental functioning, building character and will, engaging in independent judgement, intentionality, memory, and conscious knowledge (gergen). notwithstanding a long polyvalent history which includes popular psychology and the deep ties of asceticism and self-discipline to religiosity, the postmodern pop-culture popularisation of the self-help genre of books, psychometric testing is perhaps a suitable place to begin to develop a critical understanding of self-reflexivity. this self-reflexivity is achieved through proliferation of minuscule sensor technologies that can be worn or embedded somewhere in a person’s home or work environment. the self-help book phenomena rests on the assumption that self-directed reflexive analysis is required to achieve the ultimate aim of developing a personal philosophy aligned to the given objective of the text, be it the accumulation of personal wealth, achieving better health, overcoming addictions, forming more enriching relationships or any number of other life-goals. inherent within the logic of the self-help genre is the conveying of sometimes confronting “home truths” which when recognised enable the reader to observe some personal trait that has been obscured by the anomie associated with an increasingly fast paced and complex world. it can be noted, however, that if the goal-directed nature of the text is removed then self-help books may be reduced to over determined or misappropriated folk wisdom and vacuous platitudes of self-empowerment. another significant feature in the logic of self-help books is the invitation to reflexively narrativise one’s life which includes an inventorying or diary keeping as a means to track progress, and “thinking ahead” about how one’s habits and behaviours in the present may have longer term effects (rainwater, cited in giddens 72). for instance, a record of alcohol consumption, recreational drug use, risk-taking behaviours, or even weight fluctuations or tracking of mood, may be used as a resource to be drawn on during the self-help undertaking outlined in the book. the information could also be retained for use in the future, should the need arise and this information become relevant in some form of selfdirected lifestyle intervention or administered therapy. further, the reader of self-help books identifies as a distinct subscriber to an ideologically loaded set of ideas outlined by the author— often given authority as a first person account of personal transformation. for example in her bestselling book thrive, ariana huffington promotes the idea of wellbeing as a “third metric”, which along with money and power define success. the reading of self-help books are thus an individual undertaking, and ideological interpellation, where peer support is displaced into a broader discontiguous network of relations either within or outside the auspices of group therapy or mutual aid, that is, those reading the book. persona studies 2015, 1.1 85 given that self-directed intervention into one’s own life involves risk in that it forces one to confront material realities and open possibilities, the individual must be guided by something more material than intuition and in which security can be sought to demonstrate that one’s efforts at self-betterment are not in vain (giddens 73). it is not surprising then in the decades following the popularisation of print-based self-help culture that numerous technical innovations have begun to feature in the industry for self-help and self-knowledge. self-tracking practices combine introspective methods, experimental methods and the phenomenological methods of human centric investigation, the quantitative measures of the survey researcher, and the qualitative measures of interpretation. numerical representation is necessary to maintain the interplay between intimacy and abstraction, and the expansion of the upper limits of what one desires relative to their perceived needs. in light of this, it is important to note that the model for organising self-tracking communities such as the quantified self are not that of an isolated subject struggling to come to grips with the increasing ontological complexity of their life-world, but that of a collectively negotiated production of knowledge through benchmarking, the analysis of gaps (where i am now, and where do i want to be?), and the assessment of one’s strengths and weaknesses. this pursuit is based on a willingness to engage in self-scrutiny and in some cases self-deprecation. furthermore it is riddled with anxieties, as zygmunt bauman writes: “health", circumscribed by its standards (quantifiable and measurable, like bodily temperature or blood pressure) and armed with a clear distinction between “norm” and “abnormality”, should in principle be free from such insatiable anxiety. again, in principle, it should be clear what is to be done in order to reach the state of health and protect it, under what condition one may declare a person to be "in good health”, or at what point of therapy one is allowed to decide that the state of health has been restored and nothing more needs to be done. yes in principle … as a matter of fact, however, the status of all norms, the norm of health included, has, under the aegis of “liquid” modernity, in a society of infinite and indefinite possibilities, been severely shaken and become fragile. what yesterday was considered normal and thus satisfactory may today be found worrying, or even pathological and calling for remedy ... ever-new states of body become legitimate reasons for medical [or other types of] intervention … (2000: 79) the collection and visualisation of personal data are intended to capture and evoke such “matters of concern” (latour, 2005: 87-120) which like health and fitness, mood and happiness, sleep patterns, stress, ageing, productivity, and mental performance and memory, are all sources of life-uncertainty that would otherwise be difficult to draw attention to against the background of a modern, busy, and achievement oriented life. this is especially pertinent given the longstanding interest in healthcare expenditure and its relation to gross domestic product, quality of life indexes, and calculations of life expectancy (costa-i-font, courbage and mcguire). these matters could manifest in things like tracking the number of glasses of water, coffee or units of alcohol consumed in a day, keeping track of bills to pay, appointments, exercise, work productivity, or progress towards any life-goal an individual may set for themselves. obviously such striking explications of one’s successes (or shortcomings) appeal to the emotions and evoke a sense of the technological sublime and a translation of a ‘clean’ technological fix in the form of knowledge through data. however, the messy realities of people’s lives prevail against their interventionist efforts and matters of concern, matters of fact, lived experience, and recognisable situations become bound up in the production of self-knowledge as a life-resource. the data produced through tracking exists in transitional form between the intimate and public, jethani & raydan 86 as an intermediary between the subject and a projected self-in-world, self-relative-to-others “outside” which helps achieve a sense of control through self-exposure, actualisation and a sense of ownership over personal data where one must act upon but also exchange something of value with other people (de lange, 2013). the quantified self movement can be viewed as part of the trajectory of self-therapy where an individual’s life forms part of a “planning project” for which an individual is solely responsible, and thus the parameters around which action to redefine the self might be taken (beck-gernsheim; giddens 75). the project of reflexively forming a conception of self that is malleable to self-help, and by extension receptive to self-therapy, subordinates the epistemological pursuit of self-knowledge to the identification of properties of oneself that can be fashioned into markers that denote a productive and rewarding self-directed change for the better. speaking methodologically, the fact that self-help relies heavily on self-reports introduces a number of biases relating to situational and dispositional specificities, and other personal sensitivities which may impede the extent to which one might become self-aware in the process of self-help (donaldson and grant-vallone 249). we can see the appeal of numbers in self-help given the above echoing something that lewis mumford identified in technics and civilisation, written in the nineteen thirties. mumford reminds us that between the fourteenth and seventeenth century a significant change in the conception of the body’s relation to the environment occurred. hierarchical conceptions of the body in space were replaced by formulations of space and time that held both as configurations of relativities and magnitudes. this change in perspective, argued mumford, brought about a new attitude towards the body that was readily assimilated into multiple facets of everyday life. as this emphasis on numerical representation and measurement grew, “tempo became faster [and] the magnitudes became greater, conceptually, modern culture launched itself into space and gave itself over to movement” until a point where “in time-keeping, in trading [and] in fighting, men counted numbers; and finally as the habit grew, only numbers counted” (mumford 22). for the self-quantifier, the numbers—which stem from seemingly raw data which is meant to represent material physiological and behavioural processes—are intended to foreground certain aspects of self which are being engaged in the formation of a spatially and temporally specific construction of persona relative to a life stage, or progress towards some external goal or benchmark. the quantified self can, therefore, be thought of as persona forming through processes of numeration in an “extended present” (nowotny). this extension of selfdirected action extends to the body, via mediation, in self-quantification where the body “of an action system rather than merely as passive object” (giddens, 77). commodifying epistemologies of self herbert marcuse in one dimensional man recognised that industrial society necessitated its own intensification in order to project onto society the solutions through which the life it produced could be made simpler, more navigable, and less atomistic. the likely reality of body monitoring—despite all changes that have occurred to grant cognitive access to one’s body and oneself, the political contestation of knowledge, or information—links the pre-sensor technology era of medical instrumentation being only in the hands of specialists to the present “clinic in the pocket” era of wearables and smartphone applications in a historical continuum. however, the groups of individuals who self-quantify do alter the terms under which this knowledge is held and contested. that is, they alter the basis of their own dominion. this is persona studies 2015, 1.1 87 done, as marcuse has argued, by “gradually replacing personal dependence on the ‘objective order of things’ (on economic laws, the market etc.)” (147). marcuse argues: to be sure, the “objective order of things” is itself the result of domination, but it is nevertheless true that domination now generates a higher rationality — that of a society which sustains its hierarchic structure while exploiting ever more efficiently the natural and mental resources, and distributing the benefits of this exploitation on an ever larger scale. the limits of this rationality, and its sinister force, appear in the progressive enslavement of man by a productive apparatus which perpetuates the struggle for existence and extends it to a total international struggle which ruins the lives of those who build and use this apparatus (147-148). socialisation in self-quantification and tracking is difficult to resist given its propensity to be immersive, ubiquitous, and passive. the self quantifier is not likely to feel coerced into their practice but they also have little freedom to experiment despite the larger rhetoric of experimental behaviour that is bound up in n=1 methodology and the hacker-space like setting of meet-ups and forums where self-quantifiers share knowledge. the potential corresponding tightening of regulatory control over movement and actions, however, is not be taken lightly when it interferes with the ability to act on desires only to repress them in order to reproduce capital in the form of a statistical baseline of normative limits on which further discipline of others is forged. a wearable sensor additionally undermines somatic knowledge—what the body already knows—in order to prime it for selfinitiated regimes of surveillance. in some ways, the subject becomes a spectator invited to watch their own objectification but not fully participate in it. self-quantifiers may also be motivated to gain influence in policy outside of dictates of traditional western, evidence based, and preventative medicine. in this case, the self-quantifier becomes an actor contesting ideas of ownership of data generation and the ability to influence health policy. the use of self-tracking devices generates a distinct “networked public” (varnelis) that is then equipped with open, and collective sources of “evidence”, stemming from the collectivisation of individual knowledge. the quantified self “community” then, at the collective level, hold this data to be a productive application of their labours, distinct from their individual pursuit of data collection, even if posted and shared across social media among a more private group of peers. the value of such data is recognised widely within the fields of evidence-based medicine, the public participation in clinical trials, and in advocating for health technology that caters towards various interest groups, often ignored or deemed non-profitable by the health technology sector. quantified routes to personification what kind of person is the self-quantifier? while we do not suggest the existence of a singular archetypal persona, in this section we outline some routes to knowledge through which self-quantification personas can be understood. the familiar process of auditing provides a suitable point of entry. auditing refers to a linked set of diverse practices where observation, reflection, documentation, and analysis is used to determine the credibility of certain practices or individuals, the (re)allocation of resources and the identification of certain traits within individuals which may label them as potential “talent”, or “risk” to be either cultivated or mitigated respectively. audits “evoke a common language of aspiration” yet “also evoke anxiety and small resistances, are held to be deleterious to certain goals” (strathern 1-2). relatedly, the jethani & raydan 88 notion of conducting a “gap analysis” (balm) is commonplace in many facets of everyday life, which naturalise the questions: where am i? where do i want to be? what is standing in my way? when auditing acquires a social presence that precipitates beyond the institutional contexts of the workplace, educational system, clinic, or notions of accountability, it also automates and internalises a form of neoliberal self-governance which is made compelling, or at least appealing. self-quantification therefore combines, symbolically and materially, the precepts of auditing with health-orientated lifestyle marketing and web 2.0 enabled participation in a networked form of personal growth. the popularisation of auditing as a management strategy since the nineteen eighties is a notable antecedent to the assimilation of self-quantification into the practice of everyday life, and in particular into the workplace. given that workplace auditing, and quality assurance frameworks (such as the iso 90000 or triple bottom line reporting), along with psychometric testing programs such as the leadership skills inventory and meyers-briggs personality-type indicators, are commonly encountered in the workplace, it is not surprising that more intimate forms of monitoring are rarely thought of as negative measures of control which may, potentially, impinge on personal freedom. practices of self-quantification share with the more general model of auditing the setting of objectives, the measurement of performance, monitoring and evaluation, and reporting and feedback presented in the form of ‘insights’ or areas requiring attention as opposed to direct reprimand (power, 113). however, structured auditing requires a degree of standardisation and control of measures which become problematic and constraining when a goal is removed. this is particularly important given the preventative focus of producing and archiving data on the body for future use, in the event that it may play some role in addressing chronic illness, establishing baseline levels of activity for some purpose such as a personal injury claim (see jethani and daly), or producing a record of events for the purposes of documentation or proof in some other future circumstance. the notion of auditing, and relatedly archiving, satisfies the need for an individual to appear transparent, honest or compliant in some way and to prove to others (and oneself) that they embody certain context-dependent traits that are deemed to be desirable. practices of selfquantification and self-surveillance create new “archival conditions” that both resist —through passivity and ubiquity of sensors, for instance, as they are used within a mainstream consumer product like the apple watch, and transform the “archival impulse” to store information for future use (røssaak). as røssaak reminds us, four mutually constitutive processes dictate the formation of personal archives, storage, preservation, classification, and access. while selfquantification discourse posits that archives produced through self-tracking are “living”, dynamic, real-time forms of archiving, there are the distinct problems of data interoperability and obsolescence which renders the self-quantifiers archive as fragmented and discontiguous across a number of devices, data storage locations and file formats. this could be at the level of devices, but also at the level of the various communities and platforms that emerge around them. —further, archives of self-quantification are kept apart by the permissions granted to users and third parties as to how their data may be retrieved and repurposed. for example, apple specifies the following in its developer guidelines for its recent entry into the health tracking market with its health application and developer platform: because health data can be sensitive, healthkit grants users control over their data by providing fine grained control over the information that the apps can share. the user must explicitly grant each app permission to read and write data to the healthkit store. users can grant or deny permission separately for each type of data. for example, a user could let your app read the step count persona studies 2015, 1.1 89 data but prevent it from reading the blood glucose level. to prevent possible information leaks, an app does not know whether it has been denied permission to read data. from the app’s point of view, if the app has been denied permission to read the data, no data type exists. healthkit data is not saved to icloud or synched across multiple devices. the data is only kept locally on the user’s device. for security, the healthkit store is encrypted when the device is not unlocked (developer.apple.com). at the level of a single individual an archive produced in this fashion is discontiguous by virtue of the parameters that one chooses to monitor and by devices that become obsolete and applications that cease to exist. at the aggregate level the archive is, at its base, structurally discontiguous. as barbour et al., argue: all of us know what it is like to act in a role, to wear a uniform or costume, to create a profile. more than a few of us know what it is to suffer through the ‘individualising’ categories of a social networking sign-up survey that do not adequately account for distinctions. persona is all these things, or rather, through the various everyday activities of our work, social, and online selves we contribute to the accretion of the identity at the base of its structure. persona functions like the construct or automated script that we assemble to interact with the world with on our behalf. this involves the technologies of computation and mediation and their interfaces that function to automate, produce and filter communication with us; email, blogs, twitter accounts, and so on. these golems interconnect and can interact on their own in unpredictable ways on our behalf; connecting our facebook account to a product, brand or petition; using google as a portal to login into other web enabled services; or authorising an app to record our location. then there are the traces that we leave scattered across digital networks, intranets, hard drives, and lost usb memory sticks, from scattered collections of digital photos to the contact lists of our mobile devices and the ‘achievements’ in our online gaming profiles. persona can also be something that happens to us, as friends tag unflattering images via facebook, or another twitter user publicly addresses us with a unwanted, or unwarranted commentary, using the ‘@’ and the ‘#’ functions (barbour et. al,). if the individualising aspects of personal metrics are coming to bear in the formation of persona as an “automated script” their function as non-person personas raises the issue of the reconstruction of persona from the archive. the application of such archives in cases of amnesia and degenerative neurological conditions are one such example where we can go beyond technological obsolescence and consider the relation of “traces” to persona. a large group of people cultivating a persona through “common means” invites a questioning of the relationship between data and self, especially given the difficulty of embodying means that quantify health, mood, or productivity in ways that others within and/or outside the movement would see as authentic data. as jamie sherman, reporting from the 2012 international quantified self meeting held in amsterdam notes, views are inconclusive; some considered data being produced to indeed be a true reflection of the self, others considered data to be a partial or “murky” reflection. others still considered data to be constantly evolving—a disembodied type of self that evolves under the volition of forces not entirely of the material body. a further position acknowledges the fragmentary nature of data which disassembles the body for it to be reconstituted relative to some objective, or that the self is not singular, but multifarious, the self is not data, but data is just one of many selves (http://epicpeople.org/how-theory-matters/). http://developer.apple.com/ http://ep/ jethani & raydan 90 in order for the personification of self-quantification to occur, it needs to be first anthropomorphised: the sensor data and by extension information produced by the various applications being used needs to have meaning assigned to it. as luciano floridi notes: [the] giving of meaning to, and making sense of reality (semanticisation of being), or reaction of the self to non-self … consists in the inheritance and further elaboration, maintenance, and refinement of factual narratives: personal identity, ordinary experience, community ethos, family values, scientific theories, common-sense-constituting beliefs, and so forth. these are logically and contextually, and hence sometimes fully, constrained and constantly challenged both by the data that they need to accommodate and explain and by the reasons why they were developed. ideally the evolution of this process tends towards an ever changing, richer and robust framing of [personhood] (7-8). out of this tendency, floridi identifies four trajectories relevant to understanding how sensor data is anthropomorphised to produce a data intensive construction of persona. first is the numerical representation of narratives whereby the self is compelled to produce and store data afforded by the increased capacity to self-surveil everyday life. secondly, there is the delimitation of culture, where conceptual narratives of self are self-designed with increasingly sophisticated tools, therefore meaningful realities become exteriorised into a “community” of non-challenging and reassuring narratives loosely aligning to the quantified self ethos. thirdly, the de-physicalisation or abstraction of reality through mediations of self/identity through notions of gender, job, and so on can all be ‘framed within virtual mediation, and hence acquire an informational aura. finally, the fourth way in which persona is abstracted is through an embodiment of the “conceptual environment” produced by the values, ideas, trends and the “‘intentionally privileged macro-narrative” of reducing the body and its processes to numbers, and constructing numbers as the target or locus of direct action that underpins the lexis and praxis of self-quantification (floridi, 8-9). an important question to ask, then, is at which point does the data gathered become actionable information and translate to knowledge of oneself? consider the two sources of data as firstly generated and collected by any given wearable device, and the secondary input and user-curated information that is designed to give the primary data context and meaning (for example specifying to the device that half an hour was spent cycling on a morning commute, or that certain foods were consumed at dinner, which amounted to seven hundred calories). the device categorises and processes data discretely, but relative to pre-figured ranges. the data is presented back to the user via a dashboard of information, graphed and labelled, to be read. this is understood as increasing awareness of the most basic life activities for the able bodied: eating, sleeping and movement, or calorie intake, sleep patterns and physical exertion. in this way, that interventionist nature of upkeep differs from data flow between fixed and mobile sensor infrastructure, directly sensed data, and user inputted information. importantly, the information produced by the fitbit and jawbone up, for example, are presented back to the user by an on screen dashboard that has a pronounced “community”’ tab, making this data two dimensional, temporal and networked. here, graphs, user generated photos, statistical analyses, and social interactions are served as “archive support” for memory and recall (stiegler). moreover, the data collected is done so in the context of the subjective mind and body, an activity, a feeling or a mood (“i am cycling and feeling great”), and this context is unregistered and undetectable without input from the user. this examination of user interaction with such wearable devices poses several complexities in relation to the modes of persona studies 2015, 1.1 91 collection, creation, and curation. far from a construction of an identity from typical modes of internet usage and the data trails, circuits, and networks we leave throughout the course of our digital lives, wearable technologies mandate active participation, and are not implanted or incidental modes of data generation. conclusion the use of self-quantification technologies does not resolve the issue or deal directly with the driving force behind the diversion of persona-forming knowledges towards an agenda of neoliberal achievement and self-management, but it does hold the promise of recognising the role of the lifestyle-as-commodity and lifestyle-querying technologies as a force that potentially impedes the formation of authentic self-awareness. put differently, problems and frustrations with self-quantification technologys’ ability to meet user expectation could mean that they are recognised as part of the problem rather than a solution to the problem of authentically identifying — and being taken seriously — as a self-quantifying figure and socially self-aware persona within a fickle culture of self-directed intervention and self-optimisation. as david rothenberg in hand’s end: technology and the limits of nature points out: the problem is that technological installation of human presence in the world invariably involves a series of choices. choosing particular avenues of action necessarily closes others. as technical decisions are made, the original intention is fast channeled towards those possibilities which the technology admits. the more complex and encompassing the tool, the more it implies a unique, peculiar way of thought. this is why... successful programming of a computer leads us to imagine that our own mind works the same way…clearly technique is not merely a means: just when we think the problem is solved, the machine reveals new troubles and possibilities alike. technology wraps us up in its circle. this cycling path represents what it means to be human in all kinds contact with the external world based on the dream of rational, planned order. does any single external plan guide the wish? theodor adorno writes that techniques can "speak in a way which has nothing to do with the deliberate communication of a human message ... what looks like reification is actually a groping for the latent language of things (xv) the dominant voices of self-quantification lead us to believe that by tracking we may be living the best, most informed life possible. but how is failure built into this? perhaps by working harder, building more robust data, as thin datasets mark a sign of failure, that is to say “take up the cause and embody it fully” for the personification of self-quantification to be deemed “authentic”. others may not be prepared to be so dedicated to their quest for the numbers and may reflect on the trade-offs being made, but that is what makes the ideal quantifier stand above the rest. works cited balm, gerald j. 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"portable monitoring devices and methods of operating same." google patents, 2012. print. suneel jethani is a ph.d. candidate and lecturer in the school of culture and communication at the university of melbourne, australia. nadine raydan is a phd candidate in the college of design and social context at the royal melbourne institute of technology maxwell and fleming 56 expropriating privacy: the public persona of the pandemic unhoused fer g maxwell t o r o n t o m e t r o p o l it a n u n iv e r s i t y and vic toria fleming yo r k u n iv e r s i t y abstract during the winter of 2020, toronto resident khaleel seivwright, began to construct small mobile shelters to provide insulation and privacy to unhoused residents living outdoors. conditions produced by the covid-19 pandemic increased demand on the city’s already underfunded and strained shelter system, subsequently accelerating development of encampments in parks throughout the city. from the outset, these “tiny shelters” served as a flashpoint in public discourse on the question of the relative health, safety, and beauty of unhoused privacy. drawing on media coverage of seivwright’s case, we address the question of the private persona as it emerges in relation to the unhoused, and to the practices of violent expropriation which daily police their existence. by examining the news discourses produced about sievwrights tiny shelters, we interrogate how sievwright’s public persona came to represent encampment residents as well as himself subsequently emerging as a boundary subject mediating the contradictory relations immanent to domesticity: between public and private space and public and private identity. our analysis asks how the limits of privacy are actively imposed and managed under capitalism: who is allowed to have domestic space, where is that domestic space allowed to exist, and crucially what public personas emerge in relation to practices departing from the normative bounds of capitalism’s public/private distinction? using critical discourse analysis (cda), we examine the ways in which public personas are mediated by individuals and media institutions at the same time as addressing how personas themselves intervene in this process. cda directs us to ask how personas are constituted through language. this emphasis on persona as both outcome of relations of power and as mediator in its own right permits us to address figures who are conventionally denied personas while simultaneously complicating and challenging the meanings behind domesticity within capitalist cities. key words unhoused; housing; space; critical discourse analysis introduction the winter of 2020 saw toronto carpenter khaleel seivwright undertake a project to construct small, mobile shelters for the city’s unhoused residents. with the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, toronto’s underfunded and overloaded shelter system experienced an increase in demand as many toronto residents faced an intensification of their economic precarity. between 2018 and 2022, the number of people using toronto’s shelter system increased from 6,600 to 9,700 (gibson 2022; hune-brown 2019). yet, due to the cramped conditions of most shelters in toronto, many unhoused people expressed concern regarding the health and safety persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 57 of the shelter system fearing greater exposure to the covid-19 virus (boucher et al. 2022). consequently, these dynamics accelerated the emergence of encampments of unhoused people in parks throughout the city. encampments, also known as tent cities, are erected to support a larger group of unhoused people who collectively construct alternative forms of housing using items, such as tents, on either publicly or privately owned land (boucher et al. 2022). as boucher et al. (2022, p. 2) note, encampments “often form without official authorisation and thus violate local bylaws [. . .] in canada, these bylaws have engaged significant charter litigation and human rights analysis” yet their continued enforcement “harm[s] encampment residents in canada and violate[s] international human rights law.” seivwright’s tiny shelters project responded to the scale of both the housing crisis as well as the pandemic in an attempt to afford toronto’s unhoused residence a warm space to live until the city developed and enacted a longer-term and sustainable solution. with seivwright’s announcement of his tiny shelters project on gofundme, housing activists, housed toronto residents, toronto’s local news media, as well as others began supporting his initiative. as such, through seivwright the double crisis of housing and the pandemic became articulated as an emergent and imminent political issue. yet, within a matter of months, the city filed an injunction against seivwright and his tiny shelters demanding the cessation of his project. these issues of access to housing and the enforcement of legal distinctions between public and private property raise the question of unhoused peoples’ capacity to practice public and private persona: how does the social production of and access to space mediate persona? looking at news media discourse on seivwright’s tiny shelter project, we use the concept of the boundary subject to illustrate the social relations shaping the production of public and private space as well as the persona’s capacity to navigate between and across these sites. as a boundary subject, seivwright’s public persona helps manage a housing crisis which denies the unhoused personas by virtue of their exclusion from private property. we argue that critical discourse analysis’ (cda) concern with language’s mediation of political possibility holds the capacity to capture these dynamics. our analysis explores the representation of the relative transparency between public and private space, the scale of tiny shelters vis-a-vis the availability of public urban space in the city, and the risks immanent to the construction of “makeshift” shelters emphasises the need to think through the constitutive social relations through which space is produced, and persona comes to matter. theoretical framework persona studies emerged in dialogue with arendt’s work on the private, the public, and the social. arendt (2000) argued that the political transformations of modernity could in part be understood through the erosion of the barrier between what she called the "public" and "private" realms. looking to classical antiquity, she contended that ancient greece demonstrated a strict separation between matters of private interest and matters of political interest. political action could here constitute an outstanding difference from the normative features of everyday life because concern for such things was safely ensconced in the privatelyheld home and hearth of a slave owning elite. for these fortunate citizens, concern for the labour required for their own reproduction could take a backseat to the concern for their free expression in the political realm (p. 186). yet this crucial division was torn asunder by the rise of the modern capitalist state and its concomitant public organisation of the life process itself (p. 197). the state of nature which enlightenment political philosophy expounded upon imagined a shared social space as the basic condition of life and therefore defined the private as a necessary retreat from this (p. 191). social space, which arendt argues emerged from the collapse of these two distinct spheres of life, fatally blended the private construction of self with the public construction of self. this collapse, theorists of persona argue, enabled the production of persona as the public constitution of individual selfhood. persona refers to a conception of the self-emerging maxwell and fleming 58 from the individual's navigation of private and public modes of (re)presentation. tracing the concept through literary, psychoanalytical, and sociological modes of the early twentieth century, marshall and barbour (2015) argue that persona describes "the peculiar relation between the individual and the social in its production and enactment by individuals" (p. 2). they posit persona as constituted by different registers of performance which, articulated to different audiences, variously "allow the social to move into the territories of the previously private and intimate" (p. 6). persona studies demonstrates a marked theoretical sympathy with the project of cultural studies, insofar as both attempt to foreground the agency of the subject vis-a-vis the social relations within which they find themselves enmeshed. de certeau's notion of strategy and tactics informs persona studies' questioning of the "strategies foregrounding versions of public and private presentations and how these relate to the individual celebrity negotiating his/her position within institutions and the broader culture" (barbour et al. 2017, p. 7). reference to de certeau, together with arendt's own implicit identification of public and private realms with particular spaces, draws attention to how persona emerges in relation to the social production of space. walter benjamin (2005, p. 733-34) demonstrates this in view of the bourgeois parlour rooms of the late-nineteenth century. a new capacity for the consumption of leisure goods, driven by the primitive accumulation of pre-capitalist cultural practices, the production of commodities and the emergence of a new middle-class to enjoy them, funneled all manner of pre-capitalist aesthetic forms into the front rooms of emergent bourgeoisie. looking over these pristine, slip-covered and glass-encased objects, benjamin argues the visitor to these homes might feel unwelcome; the room sought to reflect the outside world inwardly in object form. benjamin articulates how the privacy of the modern capitalist subject is experienced not as a lack "privation" in arendt’s terms (p. 191) but as excess. but as with so many of the cultural forms he examines, benjamin looks back on these parlours with a melancholic eye, arguing that the increasingly rapid circulation of commodities eventually effaced the real and imagined membrane between these crowded rooms and their exterior environments, exemplified and harried on by the austere steel and glass surfaces of modernist architecture – environments in which it became impossible to leave a meaningful trace of one's presence (2005, p. 734). the spatial turn in marxist thought goes some length to develop a theory of how such transformations of the private realm come to be mediated by space, arguing that the subject does not navigate space so much as they are thoroughly and dialectically entwined with it. in the words of one of marxist spatial theory’s principal thinkers, henri lefebvre (1991, p. 179), "symmetries, interactions and reciprocal actions, axes and planes, centres and peripheries, and concrete oppositions" spin out of the material exchange between the body and its environment immanent to practice. building on lefebvre, neil smith (1984) emphasizes that the production of space also involves the production and integration of distinct spatial scales including the individual’s relation to their immediate urban, regional, national, and global context (p. 180). this production of scale is understood not as a pre-given natural quality but as a contingent set of relations which emerges historically. what this means for the study of persona is that the individual's negotiation of public and private realms of presentation must be thought in terms of the navigation of particular spaces and the relations constituting and connecting these: the physical, conceptual, and imaginative dimensions of a given space both emerge from and condition the practices through which particular kinds of persona come into being. drawing on the insights of marxist spatial theory, we can consider how the relation between the public and the private, and thus the individual subject's capacity to navigate these in their presentation of self, are mediated by transformations in the material and discursive spaces they inhabit. though the constitution of self on digital platforms have often been characterised in both promotional and critical literature as delocalised, a number of scholars draw attention to the dialectical relation between platforms, the spatial contexts within which they are used, and the social relations which produce them (farmaki et al. 2020; kitchin & persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 59 dodge 2011; ash et al. 2018). but beyond consideration of digital persona production, attention to the dialectical entwinement of self and space is demanded by the present neoliberal regime of capital accumulation in which the rapid development and trade of land punctuates decades of violent urban redevelopment. in the context of the city of toronto, where the average rent is unaffordable to nearly half of all renters (connelly 2022), with chronic underinvestment in social housing amidst booming private housing stock development (lehrer et al. 2010), alongside an overcrowded shelter system and rapid rises in deaths among the unhoused (hunt and caseletto 2022), access to private space has become a particularly scarce, though no less important, mediator of subjects' capacity to survive, much less to actively cultivate public and private persona. by interrogating the social relations shaping the production of public personas as well as the spaces they navigate and inhabit, we are able to illustrate the ways in which certain public personas gain traction by mediating between different social groups, institutions, spaces, and/or discourses. in the case of seivwright, his public persona came to fruition at the point of mediation. although seivwright likely did not intend to become a public persona through his tiny shelters project, in some instances, personas are developed regardless of authorial intentions (moore et al. 2017). while persona studies have focused more directly on analysing the self-construction of a private persona for public consumption (barbour et al. 2017; humphrey 2017), our intention is to highlight the ways in which the emergence, construction, and movement of public personas often evade the author of the personas ability to manage their public image. in some instances, such as the case with seivwright, his public persona extended beyond self-constructed images and narratives developed for social media platforms and entered other venues of public discourses, such as news media, precisely because of the mediating capacities afforded to his public persona. as such, star and griesemer’s (1989; 2011) conceptualisation of boundary objects are a useful way to think through the mobility and fluidity of seivwright’s public persona. according to star and griesemer, boundary objects have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognisable, a means of translation. the creation and management of boundary objects is key in developing and maintaining a coherence across intersecting social worlds (1989, p. 393). however, although we understand objects as “a social configuration or ensemble of social relationships,” (jameson 1991, p. 137) public persona should not be viewed as an object wholly external to its subject. bishop and waring (2019) were the first to identify the notion of a boundary subject as distinct from yet related to boundary objects in their analysis of the role of a patient’s subjectivity during the discharge process at clinical facilities. by conceptualising the boundary subject, bishop and waring were able to include the patient themselves as an integral component to the coordination of their care. borrowing from bishop and waring, we extend the idea of a boundary subject to persona studies in order to capture both the social relations which underpin the construction of personas as well as acknowledging the relative autonomy some subjects maintain in shaping and directing their public personas. by framing public persona as a boundary subject, we can demonstrate the embeddedness of personas in the social worlds and spaces in which they are made in an attempt to move away from the prioritisation of concerns of individualism as the driving force informing their production. theories of the discursive production of subjectivity elucidate the relative autonomy afforded to boundary subjects in the production of their own public persona. building on antonio gramsci’s (1971) contention that class struggle necessitates the capture and maintenance of control over the limits of political possibility, theories of discourse identify the communicative techniques by which certain relations and the possible futures immanent to them become elided and closed off (fairclough, 2003, p. 45). discourse refers simply to “a maxwell and fleming 60 particular way of representing some part of the world” (fairclough, 2003, p. 17). different discourses include or leave out, imagine or deny, abstract or concretise different aspects of a given subject as a direct efflux of the interests of their authors (fairclough 2000, p. 17). persona studies has typically attempted to locate the agency of the individual in the discursive construction of their public self. developed in relation to a tendency in cultural studies, persona studies theorise the collective agency of the audience vis-a-vis the mediatised production of meaning. marshall et al. (2015, p. 295) write that persona studies focuses on the “agency of the individual” in relation to these same processes of communication. though consideration of collective and individual agency is of course an important part of any theory of social relations, we call attention here to the necessity of considering the mutual interpenetration and co-constitution of the individual and the social. we are interested here in tracing the social relations which structure and mediate these two entwined categories. while marshall and barbour (2015, p. 2) characterise persona as the study of “the relation between the individual and the social in its production and enactment by individuals,” the marxist spatial thought described above, together with norman fairclough’s development of a critical materialist study of discourse, makes difficult any claim to the individual as discrete from and enacting the social. our intervention attempts to address persona as not only “presentation and performance” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2) but also as a form of representation. in so doing, we are able to highlight the discursive orientation of representation while subsequently elucidating the social relations which always already underpin the construction of personas. method for this research, we culled articles from several canadian news outlets, ranging from local to national news media, including the globe and mail, the toronto star, blogto, toronto city news, now magazine, and toronto life. through the collection of these sources, we were able to capture how seivwright’s tiny shelter initiative as well as his public persona moved between regional and national scales while also highlighting any discrepancies that could emerge from each publication's coverage. as seivwright addressed an acute local crisis within toronto, we included a variety of locally based news sources. we queried factiva and google news for mention of “tiny shelter”, “tiny shelters”, “khaleel seivwright” and “seivwright” between october 2020 and october 2021, collecting for analysis all forty-two articles returned through this process. this period of time was selected because it includes both the launch of the tiny shelters project and the announcement of its (forced) conclusion. we selected the search terms used as they constituted necessary components of the discourse on seivwright’s shelters and by extension provided us with access to the discursive negotiation of his public persona. news media’s capacity to pull together and coordinate relations between different discourses made it a crucial pathway through which the discursive relations constituting sievwright’s persona flowed. in the case of the sources we have selected, the interdiscursivity of news media bridges relations between the privacy of the unhoused, pandemic social distancing policy, and urban redevelopment to construct seivwright’s public persona. in order to pull apart and explore these relations, we use norman fairclough’s framework for conducting critical discourse analysis (cda). cda clarifies how the relation between social events and social actors is mediated by the networking of social practices through discourse. texts relate to particular orders of discourse through three primary social practices: action, representation, and identification (fairclough 2000, p. 22). each practice is objectified in a different aspect of the internal and external relations between texts: genre (action), discourse (representation) and style (identification). action implies a social relation between elements, which we found in the mixture of different genres present in the news media sampled here. from journalistic investigation of the city’s management of sievwright’s homes, to editorial commentary on these actions and the broader context of the entwined pandemic and housing crises, seivwright’s persona was persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 61 actively positioned as a boundary subject navigating through disparate social groups and discursive sites. news media discourse on sievwright enabled the establishment of a communicative relationship between toronto’s municipal government and housing advocates without the involvement of the unhoused, who were actively excluded from participation by virtue of their material conditions. as a boundary subject, sievwright’s public persona moved between antagonistic social groups, such as the toronto municipal government and housing advocates. news media, then, operates as a confluent and intertextual site grouping together various relations which influences the construction and contextualisation of public personas. representation describes the elements themselves exemplified for us in news coverage positioning interviews with seivwright, housing advocates, toronto residents, and representatives from the municipal government alongside reports regarding the inaccessibility of housing produced by the city or non-profits within a single location. the interdiscursivity of news media therefore makes it a useful site to interrogate the social relations shaping the production of public personas. we look at how coverage of sievwright mediates the relation between discourses on unhoused domesticity, the entwined crises of housing and the covid pandemic, and the municipal government’s management of both. finally, identification constitutes some undertaking, commitment to, or judgment of these elements exemplified here in news media’s construction of seivwright’s public persona as a representative of the unhoused, and thus of structural issues associated with housing and the pandemic. as such, the utilisation of sievwright’s public persona as a representation of the discourses of both the unhoused and the housing crisis in toronto illustrates not only the influence of news media discourse on the construction of the public persona, but also how the relation between privacy and access to property within capitalism crucially shapes individual agency, determining which subjects can emerge as public personas in the first place. constructing seivwright’s persona the social event we are examining is the construction and subsequent destruction of the encampments in toronto throughout the covid pandemic. sievwright emerged as a public persona which mediated the public-ness of the unhoused residents of these encampments. through sievwright, the encampments were articulated as a social, economic, and political issue which linked a network of actors in response, including the toronto municipal government, housing advocates, toronto residents, as well as others. because of the context of domesticity and its close link to capitalist property relations, sievwright stood in as one of the social actors for the unhoused. emerging from our analysis of these texts are three primary themes which we describe as follows: transparency, scale, and temperature. each relates broadly to the spatial dimensions influencing the production of public and private personas, emphasising how the capacity to register as persona in news media discourse necessitates material practices objectified in and emerging in relation to the spaces in which they occur. successive readings of lexical and semantic relations within and between texts paid particular attention to the presence of private space as a condition of the private and public persona, locating in this social relation three kinds of practices mediating the transparency of the borders between public and private space, the perceived scale of the private vis-a-vis the public, and the temperature requirements subtending the private. moreover, the themes identified draw out the role seivwright’s public persona played as a boundary subject where his persona served to articulate the urgency and immediacy of the housing crisis as well as the pandemic to broader audiences. as the city of toronto amplified their efforts through legal measures to remove seivwright as a central figure in public discourses of the encampments, the loosely linked relations between housing advocates, the city, as well as encampment residents began deteriorating resulting in an amplification of violence enacted by the city towards encampment residents. seivwright’s public persona, as a maxwell and fleming 62 boundary subject, served to at least temporarily bridge the interests of these groups in an attempt to address the severity of the housing crisis during the first year of the pandemic. transparency the first theme we identified throughout the news discourses analysed was the varying degrees of transparency – meaning the spatial and linguistic capacity to be known and/or unknown – afforded to seivwright and encampment residents. the contrasting degrees of transparency afforded to these subjects illustrates the relationship between private space and the production of public personas – that is, one’s public persona is crucially mediated by their relation to private property. seivwright’s status as a once-unhoused, now secure resident of toronto positioned him as an external subject intervening in the city’s limited response to the housing crisis. early coverage of his efforts positioned him as such an individual actor by taking note of some biographical details, including his age and occupation. for example, the earliest article on the tiny shelters, published in blogto, wrote: winter is notoriously difficult for underhoused residents in cities like toronto, where temperatures reach deadly lows and shelters are almost always at capacity….with a global pandemic now thrown into the mix, further compounding what was already a raging affordable housing crisis, advocates are growing concerned for the safety of vulnerable toronto residents — residents who, thanks to covid-19, are more vulnerable than ever before…a 28-year-old carpenter has devised what seems like a suitable solution, at least for now, while government officials work to increase permanent affordable housing for all (o’neil, 2020). other coverage characterised seivwright as a singular representative of the unhoused, one whose perspective on his own shelters could have a determining effect on the city’s housing policy. toronto star columnist sean micaleff (2021) emphasised seivwright’s contention that his shelters be a “temporary solution to the housing crisis”, while a profile of local artist rajni perera (ansari 2021) included seivwright’s efforts as an example that “people in power are listening to activists'' (despite the fact that the city had actively suppressed seivwright’s capacity to intervene). through the news media’s construction of seivwright’s public persona the housing crisis became articulated as an urgent political and economic issue where his persona started operating as a boundary subject between the city of toronto, encampment residents, housing advocates, as well as with local, provincial, and in some cases, national media. seivwright’s public persona was used to both contextualise the growing housing crisis during the pandemic as well as cut across social groups normally at odds with each other. at least temporarily, seivwright’s public persona participated in the translation of the housing crisis to a range of other social actors in toronto, including news media. through seivwright’s public persona acting as a boundary subject, a bridge was erected between these disparate groups and spaces. one set of practices mediating the transparency afforded to seivwright operated concretely through the spaces of the encampments themselves. we use the term spatial transparency to refer to the architectural and institutional dimensions of space which support particular discourses of the self, including but not limited to the public and private persona. benjamin’s analysis of the bourgeois parlour paid particular attention to how its relation to public space shifted with a growing sense of alienation produced by the expanded circulation of commodities and its architectural corollary in the relative visual transparency afforded by modernist buildings. an example of transparency in the case we analyse here is given in news discourses placing the relations between the interiors and exteriors of encampment dwellings in contradistinction to the interiors and exteriors of the city’s shelter system. across the texts analysed here, the city of toronto is continually quoted as identifying seivwright’s efforts as “interfering with efforts to relocate people indoors” (gibson 2021). persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 63 seivwright’s tiny shelters provided a degree of opacity for unhoused people to maintain a sense of privacy outside of the city’s purview, which would have been inaccessible to them in the shelter system. enclosed on all sides by wood and insulation, and thus impermeable to vision from the outside, the tiny shelters limited the city’s capacity to record and manage the mobility of the unhoused people within their most intimate, ostensibly private spaces. a toronto star interview with one unhoused woman contrasted the sense of privacy afforded by the tiny shelters with that found in the city shelters: the idea that these shelters are safer than encampments is false. [. . .] it’s a feeling that many living in encampments share with jewel, because having each other feels more secure. […] in her last three weeks at the park, she lived in one of khaleel seivwright’s tiny shelters, and had her first full night’s sleep in months. that sense of security wasn’t the same at the bond [a city shelter]. on her first day, when staff did her intake, they didn’t ask her any questions about prescription medication, medical needs, allergies, health conditions or mental health, including if she’d had thoughts of suicide. she also shared that most shelters in the city aren’t safe for women, disabled people, people in the lgbtq community, or people of colour -and as a queer, disabled woman, she’s faced sexual violence, drug abuse and homophobia in shelters around the city. (salhia 2021). the kind of inspection described here is mediated by the tiny shelters’ location on public land as the threshold for entrance to these warm beds is not defined or demarcated by interviews, bag checks, quiet hours, and other surveillant practices used within the shelter system. the city, in response to the encampments operating in public space and outside of normative municipal housing practices for the unhoused, actively positioned seivwright’s tiny shelters and the encampments broadly as dangerous, illegal, and ultimately a threat to the public enjoyment of these now occupied parks. for example, emma tietel writes in the toronto star, “local carpenter khaleel seivwright’s tiny shelters are dangerous, they [city officials] say. living outside in general is dangerous, they say.” (teitel 2022). liam casey, reporting for the globe and mail, wrote, the city’s response to encampments takes into consideration the health and wellbeing of those living outside and the broader community needs,” he said [. . .] “the city cannot force people to come inside and avail themselves of the many services offered by the city but living in an encampment in a city park is unhealthy and illegal. note here the emphasis on “broader community needs” which, left vague, identifies some proximate activities threatened by the use of public land for private space. these dangers were explicitly articulated as a threat to the physical security of the housed as well as the economic security of the local tourism sector in statements by ontario premier doug ford. paraphrased in the toronto star (gibson 2021) premier ford argued that “homeless people should leave the camps and accept spaces in the shelter system. while acknowledging fears about the system, from assaults to theft, he [ford] cited the optics of encampments on past and future tourists.” finally, the spatial mediation of the relation between the public and private spaces navigated by the unhoused was accompanied by linguistic practices which rendered their domestic lives opaque. only a handful of articles referenced encampment residents by name, and only one of these endeavoured to elaborate the personal history of encampment dwellers to the same extent as was afforded seivwright. here, seivwright’s status as a boundary subject is emphasised through the absence of any personal or social details of the unhoused people who he has come to represent. for example, an op-ed published in the toronto star, uses the experience of jewell, “a 50-year-old, queer, disabled woman who has been experiencing homelessness since the end of 2019” to relate some of the risks of violence and trauma maxwell and fleming 64 immanent to toronto’s shelter system (salhia 2021). general disinterest in the domesticity of the unhoused was particularly apparent when compared with pronounced biographical interest in seivwright. evidenced by kozak writing for the globe and mail, khaleel seivwright, 28, a native torontonian and professional carpenter, is building tiny shelters for homeless people living outside in toronto this winter. [. . .] mr. sievwright once spent five months living in a tent in vancouver and knows first-hand some of the immense challenges facing homeless people (2020). yet, when it came to discourses on the encampments circulating within toronto city hall, residents were not afforded the same anonymity present in news media coverage, as the city spent months laying out plans to clear about two dozen people from a homeless encampment in a popular park [. . .] building dossiers on those living there [emphasis ours] and involving hundreds of municipal workers in the process, internal documents reveal. [. . .] the city also compiled aerial maps of all the tents in the park, each identified with a number and related to each resident (casey 2022). even discussion of this openly surveillant activity on the part of the city neglected use of names, still referring to affected unhoused people under the anonymous group identity of the “encampment resident” (casey 2022). thus, while biographical detail could be afforded to seivwright, no such effort was made in the representation of the unhoused. rather, seivwright’s public persona operated as a boundary subject through which the unhoused came to be known without affording them a public persona or the private space which necessarily subtends this; thus, further illustrating the bounded relationship between the ability to produce a public persona and access to private space. scale mirroring smith’s conceptualisation of the production of scale (1984), seivwright’s public persona mediated different scalar hierarchies within the city. here, scale pertains to the relative size of the homes within these parks, the amount of space the encampments take up within the park itself; the scale and size of the crises of housing and the covid pandemic; and finally, anxieties about the limits of the production of relative space within the city. coverage of seivwright’s tiny shelters elevated their scalar qualities beyond concerns with private space to concerns with how private space dominates and shapes the development of urban space more generally. at the same time, seivwright’s status as an individual actor was continually transcended via constant comparisons between his lone initiative and municipal policy. these themes emerge through coverage of seivwright which continually characterises him as an individual good samaritan producing homes on his own time with materials supplied by charity – a figure of humble means but substantial determination. a toronto star editorial (heinonen 2020) describes him as a “scarborough-based carpenter who took matters into his own hands'' – a relative outsider, putting his skills as a craftsman to work in service to others. micaleff, in the star, registered awe at the apparent speed and effectiveness with which seivwright acted: “[he] saw a problem and acted quickly. for that, he’s a hero” (2021). a hero who, like david and goliath, is made compelling by the substantial difference between the size of the issue and the capacities of one individual. in contrast to the news discourses which continually stressed the singular and yet significantly meaningful intentions behind seivwright’s contributions, coverage repeatedly referenced the relative smallness of spaces afforded to unhoused people. here, seivwright’s public persona is amplified through the immensity of his task whereas public acceptance of unhoused people occupying his tiny shelters is contingent on the continued emphasis of their small size. the globe and mail, reporting on seivwright’s shelters, devoted attention to the smallness of the structures both in terms of their spatial footprint and their cost of production: persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 65 the tiny shelters, complete with a small, double glazed window and hand-built insulated door, resemble the basic structure of a typical home, allowing someone to sit and lay down, but not high enough for a person to stand in. the structures are constructed with basic building materials including 2 x 6 pieces of lumber, plywood, and various layers of insulation, and will keep an occupant warm in temperatures well below freezing (kozak 2020). much is made here of the shelters’ resemblance to a conventional private home; they map more cleanly to established bourgeois norms of domesticity than do tents or even the city’s shelters. on the other hand, the shelters’ small size and economical production suggests they offer little disruption to the established fiscal and scalar hierarchy of the city; they might slot neatly into spaces currently unused for profitable development. the significance of seivwright’s endeavor, and the accordant smallness of the structures he built was addressed as a helpful creative solution to an overloaded shelter system. one op-ed columnist wrote in the toronto star that seivwright’s tiny shelters highlighted the limits of the municipal government’s capacity to address the entwined housing and pandemic crises, arguing that “with toronto’s economy in a covid – lockdown restrictions – swoon, there’s only so much money to address the myriad social needs for which the city is responsible [. . .] where would 2,000 more beds be carved out? where would the money come from?” (dimanno 2020) discourse also emphasised that the shelters offered a technical solution to the presumed limits of affordable space available in the city. this was particularly pertinent in relation to the question of the use of park space with a number of texts emerging from the assumption that public parks’ intended and therefore central use should be for the leisure practices of the city’s housed population. tracy cook, the city’s deputy manager, was quoted in an article on seivwright’s shelters articulating a vague threat posed by encampment residents to leisure practice, emphasising in a powerpoint presentation concerning “encampment work – proposed next steps” that “we’re all concerned with encampments come spring.” the emphasis on seasonality here suggests that the encampments are an imminent danger to leisure practices in the city’s parks as the weather improves. the city’s chief communications officer, brad ross, similarly represented the unhoused encampment residents as existing outside of and in tension with their proximate housed community. ross was quoted in the globe and mail arguing that the city “has taken extraordinary measures to help those people experiencing homelessness and is trying to strike a balance between the homeless and the community” (casey 2022). the unhoused appear here as the obverse of the housed, a relationship defined by a fundamental tension which is the city’s task to manage. this discourse on the perceived disruption of the use of leisure space ultimately found expression in the terms of the city’s settlement with seivwright which prevented him from “placing or relocating shelters built on ‘city-owned land or otherwise creating a nuisance or interfering with the city’s rights in violation of the city of toronto municipal code” (salem 2021). parks, then, became off-limits to seivwright’s shelters. with the city’s injunction on seivwright, the city clearly articulated a central anxiety around his intervention in the housing crisis, namely the erection of privately-owned spaces within public land. “under the terms of the settlement,” the toronto star (salem 2021) noted, “mr. seivwright confirms he has no ownership interest [emphasis ours] in the tiny shelters.” the anxieties over the limited affordances of public space for private housing evident in this discourse is subtended by an absolute conception of urban space. texts observed here continually voice anxiety about the question of how much space is actually available for housing. generally, the news media discourse that we observed posited that use of public park space for unhoused privacy constitutes an ultimate limit on the production of private space. within the slim spatial margin for development, only the relative smallness of seivwright’s homes could mediate the vast and (presumably unaddressable) needs of the unhoused. this limit was articulated most firmly by mayor john tory, who argued that “the firm way, and frankly the compassionate way, [to deal with the issue] says these encampments can’t remain without being acted on in public parks” (gibson 2021). discourse on the size of the encampments, then, maxwell and fleming 66 reasserts that there is in fact a distinction between private and public spaces which enabled seivwright’s public persona to emerge as a boundary subject mediating the hostile relationship between the city of toronto and unhoused residents. temperature the third theme gleaned from news discourses of seivwright speaks to the limitations of a public persona mediating the housing crisis within the city. we use the concept of temperature to highlight three interrelated aspects of the discourses surrounding the tiny shelters: the perceived risks immanent to seivwright’s shelters, the city’s (un)willingness to accept the shelters in public space, and the limitations of an individual persona to articulate, manage, and mediate these political questions as a boundary subject. the warmth requirements of the human body mediates both supportive and antagonistic discourses on seivwright’s homes. on the one hand, we found that texts continually took note of the tiny shelters claimed capacity to heat at 20 degrees celsius using only body heat. for example, victoria gibson, in the toronto star wrote, “on a gofundme page, seivwright wrote that the structures were designed to be ‘mainly heated by body heat,’ and stay around 16 c in temperatures of -20 c.” (gibson 2021). yet on the other hand, numerous texts registered alarm at the tiny shelters as supposed fire hazards referencing as support the fire-related death of one encampment resident who was not housed in one of seivwright’s homes. the city of toronto’s official position was “that the encampments are dangerous, that they pose a fire hazard, and that they endanger lives” (heinonen 2022). in stating this, the city demarcates what is perceived to be acceptable and unacceptable forms of danger for encampment residents. although unhoused people have referenced several dangers found within the shelter system, the city’s position on the illegality of the encampments suggests a relative acceptance, or perhaps, normalisation of the threats within official shelter systems. the representation of fire in this discourse thus does two things: it highlights the management of temperature as a necessary condition of the private persona. and second, it actively gates access to warmth and, by extension, privacy by continually dictating the spatial and temporal parameters of the unhoused’s capacity to generate warmth – namely, that it be provided in the shelter system or not at all. lastly, the discourse on fire articulated the perceived risks attendant with seivwright’s status as a small enterprising producer. toronto’s fire chief jim jessop was repeatedly quoted as cautioning against the unregulated construction of seivwright’s shelters. one article followed the observation that “there has been no link made between seivwright’s shelters and the site of the [fire] fatality” with a quote from jessop noting that the fire “underscored the dangers of makeshift shelters” (gibson 2021). a limit to the aforementioned david and goliath construction of seivwright’s persona, then, is his ostensible inability to ensure safety relative to the institutional mechanisms afforded to urban planners and private developers. seivwright was continually framed as one man who, despite being well-intentioned, acted primarily alone and thus without institutional mechanisms for quality control. discourse on the risk of fire immanent to seivwright’s shelters demonstrates the incapacity of an individual persona to articulate and manage the political question of housing. as the narrative of risk of fire gained traction in news discourse, the illegality of seivwright’s structures became more pronounced. this manufactured tension between the city, seivwright, and the risk of fire is illustrated in an article reported by the toronto star. victoria gibson writes that the encampment discussion hit a flashpoint again in february. the city filed an injunction against seivwright. and days later, a blaze erupted in a corktown park encampment that claimed a life. ‘it highlights the life safety risks of living in these types of structures,’ jessop said at the time. the wooden structure has not been publicly linked to seivwright (gibson 2021). persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 67 the injunctions served against seivwright were continually represented alongside the city’s intimations towards fire hazards within the encampments. consequently, the functionality of seivwright’s public persona as a boundary subject began deteriorating the further, he was removed from news coverage. his growing incapacity to mediate between disparate social groups eventually culminated in the accelerated violent and forced expropriation of unhoused peoples from encampments around the city. consequently, seivwright’s public persona stood in as both the ideal subject as well as the limit of political action within the neoliberal city: an entrepreneurial producer whose principled stance made a substantial difference to his community, but whose efforts paled in comparison to the capacities of the municipal government. conclusion public and private personas emerge in relation to space. they are contingent in part on the material social relations within which their subjects are caught up and thus they are substantially mediated by forces beyond the control of the individual. we use the concept of the boundary subject to illustrate the social relations influencing the production of public and private space as well as the capacity for a persona to move between and across these sites. this relation becomes acutely apparent in the construction of seivwright’s public persona as a boundary subject which manages the housing crisis as the unhoused, who are denied personas due to their exclusion from private property, come to be represented through the figure of the principled, enterprising, housed individual. in this paper, we argued that critical discourse analysis holds the capacity to capture these dynamics as it is expressly concerned with language’s mediation of both political possibility as well as its limits. our analysis of the representation of the relative transparency between public and private space, the scale of tiny shelters vis-a-vis the availability of public urban space in the city, and the risks immanent to the construction of “makeshift” shelters in discourses on seivwright calls on scholars working in persona studies not to uncritically reproduce cultural studies’ emphasis on audience agency, but to instead emphasise that because the individual cannot be disentangled from the social, we must think through the constitutive practices from which both of these relations come to matter. works cited ansari, s 2021, ‘vision of hope’, toronto star, 14 march. arendt, h 2000, ‘the public and the private realm’, in baehr, p (ed.), the portable hannah arendt, penguin, new york, pp. 182–230. ash, j, kitchin, r & leszczynski, a (2018), ‘digital turn, digital geographies?’, progress in human geography, vol.42, pp. 25–43, <https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516664800> barbour, k., lee, k & moore, c (2017), ‘online persona research: an instagram case study’, 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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.11237 maxwell and fleming 68 casey, l 2022, ‘plan by city staff to clear park in works for months’, toronto star, retrieved september 9, 2022, <https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/05/01/torontoplanned-encampment-clearing-operation-for-months-built-profiles-of-residents.html>. casey, l 2022, ‘city planned park encampment clearing for months, documents show’, the globe and mail, retrieved september 9, 2022, <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto/article-toronto-plannedencampment-clearing-operation-for-months-built/>. connelly, j 2022, ‘rents are unaffordable and homelessness is growing. here’s how to help get toronto’s house in order’, toronto star, retrieved november 6, 2022 <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/10/09/rents-are-unaffordableand-homelessness-is-growing-heres-how-to-help-get-torontos-house-in-order.html>. dimanno, r 2020, ‘stop dismantling the homeless encampments’, toronto star, retrieved september 9, 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<https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/12/21/despite-politicaldifferences-my-dad-and-i-agree-that-housing-is-a-human-right-many-torontoniansdont-have-now-we-bond-over-volunteering-to-help-build-shelters.html>.. humphrey, a 2017 ‘user personas and social media profiles’, persona studies, vol.3, pp. 13–20, <https://doi.org/10.21153/ps2017vol3no2art708> humphrey, m.l, 2021, ‘the social oikos: examining arendt’s concept of a public-private divide through the lens of a youtube vlog’, persona studies, vol.7, pp. 20–32, <https://doi.org/10.21153/psj2021vol7no1art1458> hune-brown, n 2019, ‘no fixed address’, toronto life, retrieved september 9, 2022, <https://torontolife.com/city/rents-high-shelters-full-8700-torontonians-homeless/>. jameson, f 1991, postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism, duke university press, durham. kitchin, r & dodge, m, 2011,code/space: software and everyday life, mit press, cambridge. kozak, n. (2020). ‘make shelter’, the globe and mail, 9 november, a6. . lefebvre, h 1991, the production of space, blackwell, massachusetts. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 69 lehrer, u, keil, r & kipfer, s, 2010, ‘reurbanization in toronto: condominium boom and social housing revitalization’. disp the planning review, vol.46, pp. 81–90, <https://doi.org/10.1080/02513625.2010.10557065> machin, d & mayr, a, 2012, how to do critical discourse analysis: a multimodal introduction, sage publications, london. marshall, p.d & barbour, k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective’, persona studies, vol. 1, pp. 1-12, <https://doi.org/10.21153/ps2015vol1no1art464> micallef, s 2021, ‘carpenter’s tiny shelters a missed opportunity for city’, toronto star, retrieved september 9, 2022 <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/02/27/toronto-carpenterstiny-shelters-for-the-homeless-were-a-missed-opportunity-for-the-city.html>. moore, c, barbour, k, & lee, k 2017, ‘five dimensions of online persona.’ persona studies, vol.3, no.1, pp. 1-11. o’neil, l 2020, ‘a toronto carpenter is building insulated mini-shelters for homeless people’, blogto, retrieved september 9, 2022 <a toronto carpenter is building insulated minishelters for homeless people>. rice, c 2006, the emergence of the interior, routledge, abingdon-on-thames. salem, z 2021, ‘man who built shelters for homeless agrees to shutdown’, toronto star, retrieved september 9, 2022 <https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/08/28/manwho-built-tiny-shelters-for-torontos-homeless-will-no-longer-do-so-after-reachinglegal-agreement-with-city-of-toronto.html>. salhia, m 2021, ‘the reality for toronto’s homeless is that shelters don’t feel safe. what i, a suburbanite, learned from an encampment resident’, toronto star, retrieved september 9, 2022 <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/06/22/the-reality-fortorontos-homeless-is-that-shelters-dont-feel-safe-what-i-learned-from-anencampment-resident.html> smith, n 2008, uneven development: nature, capital, and the production of space. 3rd ed, university of georgia press, athens. star, s.l 2010, ‘this is not a boundary object: reflections on the origin of a concept’. science, technology, & human values, vol.35, pp. 601–617, <https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243910377624> star, s. l & griesemer, j. r 1989, ‘institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects: amateurs and professionals in berkeley’s museum of vertebrate zoology, 1907–39’, social studies of science, vol.19, no. 3, pp. 387–420, <https://doi:10.1177/030631289019003001 > tietel, e 2021, ‘doug ford should help dig the city out of this hole instead of digging cars out of snowbanks’, toronto star, retrieved september 9, 2022 <https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2022/01/18/doug-ford-shouldhelp-dig-the-city-out-of-this-hole-instead-of-digging-cars-out-of-snowbanks.html>. ferg maxwell toronto metropolitan university and victoria fleming york university abstract key words introduction theoretical framework method constructing seivwright’s persona transparency scale temperature conclusion works cited smith 70 quasi-subject commodities labour, minimalism, and the social life of things pau l s m ith abstract commodities play an integral role in the creation and maintenance of personas— to such a degree that they begin to take on characteristics of labor, provenance, and politics, such as distressed clothing or fair trade labels. this essay proposes that we have begun to freight our commodities with their own personas and imagined subjecthoods, and that this shift is foreshadowed in the transformation of artistic practices in the late twentieth century. two theories on the status of contemporary artworks have come to recent prominence—david joselit’s “painting beside itself,” which argues that artworks need image not just their status as commodities but rather their circulation and [social] networks, and isabelle graw’s claim that artworks are being reconsidered as imaginary “quasi-subjects.” thus, artworks are being equated with persons, not by their looks but by their actions. this new apprehension of objects finds its own roots in american sculptural debates of minimalism in the late 1960’s, where theorists resorted to ascribing subjectivities to objects to account for the relentless anthropomorphism of even those works which attempted to fully excise the human form. proponents of “quasi-subjecthood” argue from two tacks: the object either is a subject of its own, or is propped on the “ghostly presence” of its maker. i believe this indicates two predominant characterizations of commodities: full subjects, or signs of an absent maker. both arguments flirt with a fetishism that, in giving personas and personalities to objects, threatens to erase the social conditions in which each object is made. however, there may be a way in which these imaginaries can be harnessed as prosthetics for our communities. this essay explores possible avenues for artists and critics to create ethical objects for societies of art. key words minimalism, quasi-subject, transitivity, commodity culture introduction the following essay investigates some of the projections that distinguish artworks as unique among commodities, through a tracing of the ramifications of art critics both midcentury and contemporary. three distinct projections, widely promoted in the art world, play major roles in vesting the art object with the sophisticated and semi-autonomous subjectivity of a persona. these projections are “transitivity” and “quasi-subjectivity,” both with theoretical roots in the early 1960s, combined with a brief on the motor of the persona with which the artwork separates itself from other commodities and currencies: a privileged relationship to, and projection of, a very human kind of labour. with a thorough understanding of today’s persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 71 language of critique, we can explore several avenues contemporary artists have taken to sidestep or exacerbate the increasingly saleable function of social projection. in his writing on commodity fetishism, marx showed how relations of production were abstracted and concealed in consumer products, but today we see labor inscribed upon every communicating surface and every skin. this new commodity is a “social hieroglyph” that signals exactly who made it, how, and where. it is rough around the edges and a bit touched-looking, elaborating several ways at once of calling itself organic, fair and real… it is the old trick of the honest commodity. (kelsey, 108) commodities play an integral role in building identities. affluent consumers purchase objects that loudly wear their vintage, craft, or brand. promoted as “lifestyle marketing” and “ethical eating,” fair-trade coffee and bespoke shops promise the luxury of sustainable goods pronouncing their provenance, a “touched-look” that rubs off on the buyer. as will be seen, however, the producer in turn sheds a subjectivity onto the commodity—the organic tomato makes its history clear, promising that even as an object, it participates or acts in an unusually ethical sphere. artisanal coffee, beauty cream, and handbags often name the labourer who packaged, produced, or sourced them. luxury goods promise articulation, a trick learned from the historical analysis of art objects. in high price: art between the market and celebrity culture, isabelle graw explores how “artworks can be viewed as precursors to branded goods” (high price 128). the transparency and authorial mythos of many consumer goods take their cues from “the personalisation of brands [which] correlates with the personalisation of artworks, just as the consumer experience is based on the experience of art” (129). luxury goods typically offer at least the semblance of use, however, and so differ from art objects that contain only prestige, class and the depth of uselessness. graw’s careful theory of the art object’s “quasisubjecthood” has found broad acceptance in the art world. this is prosopopoeia at its most hyperbolic, and it shares many characteristics with another popular term in art criticism, david joselit’s “transitive painting.” first named in the 2009 essay “painting beside itself,” transitive artworks are those—increasingly common—objects that make explicit their social, economic and geographic travel, a movement they produce seemingly at will. these lauded concerns—for “quasi-subjecthood” and network aesthetics—are also clearly seen in broader discourses around objects, such as the object “post-internet,” nicolas bourriaud’s “relational aesthetics,” and bruno latour’s “actor-network” theories. graw and joselit are indebted to american art critics of the 1960’s for composing a new vocabulary for the analysis of art. faced with the increasingly abstract objects of minimalism, theorists resorted to vesting objects with imaginary subjectivities to account for the relentless anthropomorphism of, for example, robert morris’ 6x6x6 foot cube. transitive painting and quasi-subjecthood in 1992, giorgio agamben observed an increasingly networked character of art: [e]ven the mona lisa, even las meninas could be seen not as immovable and eternal forms, but as fragments of a gesture or as stills of a lost film wherein only they would regain their true meaning… it is as if a silent invocation calling for the liberation of image into gesture arose from the entire history of art. (agamben, 56) smith 72 for agamben, language in the twentieth century became code—gestures waned and so were claimed as a property of cinema and visual art, in order to recoup what we had lost. agamben’s writings on gesture are indicative of the increasing discourse around how objects play active roles in our social lives, even assuming properties of performativity and subjecthood. this increase is reflected in— among other writings—the popularisation of bruno latour’s actor-network theory. along with the rise of both relational aesthetics and the attention on cologne’s 1980’s arts scene, in which artworks are primarily an impetus for socialization, networks have come to extreme prominence of late. interviewed by jutta koether in 1990-1991, martin kippenberger claimed “[simply] to paint a picture and hang it on the wall is dreadful! the whole network is important. even spaghettini…” (joselit, “painting” 125). this rejoinder is cited by david joselit in his influential “painting beside itself,” which rapidly popularised his “transitivity.” transitive painting… invents forms and structures whose purpose is to demonstrate that once an object enters a network, it can never be fully stilled, but only subjected to different material states and speeds of circulation ranging from the geologically slow (cold storage) to the infinitely fast. (“painting” 132) transitive painting—perhaps todays dominant style, incorporating a range of art-critical models in its fold—images its own social, digital and economic circulation. here joselit’s analysis holds agamben’s hand—where the painting is a still and un-reproduced image, barred from the right to circulate, its auratic gains in value are rendered nil. transitive art, like the peripatetic denizen of today’s biennial-visiting high art world, accrues value with each new sighting, siting, and citing. painting has always been couched in social and economic transfers. but transitive art is both the demand that objects “explicitly visualise networks” and that they actively participate in them. as joselit says of koether, she “actualizes the behavior of objects within networks… [with] this notion of passage” (“painting” 128). as we are inundated with the language of networks, it is no longer sufficient, according to some critics, for an artwork to cede claims of its objecthood in favor of representation. rather, the rigorous art object must visualise and perform its inevitable movement—objects must in some way act. in his book after art, joselit elaborates the effects of network aesthetics by listing four spatially-determined categories of art criticism. meaning lies “behind the object,” “beside the object,” “within the object,” and “before the object”—respectively, iconographic symbols, social histories, indexical or semiotic analysis and “active” meaning (joselit, after art 43-45). joselit promotes the ‘before the object’ mode of meaning, which he argues stems from “the movement of the object… meaning moves with the artwork” (“states”). appropriation, avatars, and platforms (the “liberation of institutional movement” (“states”)) are named as prime conductors of this meaning-by-motion. contemporary art criticism defines meaning as what travels with the artwork and exists only in travel. talking about her work in spike art quarterly 22: painting as code, rachel rose says a painting becomes “almost like a body of its own.” seen as bodies, artworks exchange themselves and argue much as we do. they are paid for, not paid. graw’s theories position artworks (particularly paintings) as fetishes of actants, things that perform and determine, what she calls “quasi-persons.” graw explains that painting is “particularly disposed to support the expectation—widespread in the art world—that acquiring a work of art means getting a hold on the artist’s labor capacity and therefore owning a slice of her life” (“thinking” 46-47). the deftness of this analysis is its unspoken refutation of art’s medium-specificity as materiallybased. rather, graw leverages public imaginaries to make her point: art objects are only special because people believe they are, a claim shored up by recurring privilege in critical discourse and price points. increasingly, financial and idea economies are at the forefront of capitalising persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 73 subjectivities—alternately termed “spirit,” “human capital” or “semiocapitalism”—it would appear that art is particularly disposed to supply this demand. artworks facilitate this by a twofold relationship to subjecthood: on the one hand (and particularly, graw claims, in painting), “we are still dealing with the ghost of a presence” (“thinking" 50). here the indexicality of artworks—their ability to suggest the latent presence of an absent maker—provides their ability to speak. when we talk about art, we often elide the object, referring to “a warhol” or “a morris,” as though products are their producers. this ability for artwork to encapsulate the artist’s subjectivity appears to allow it a measure of independence from the artist. graw acknowledges this tendency—and carefully avoids fetishism—when she states that even “those antisubjective procedures that aim at undermining authorship in painting end up granting subjectivity to it. these works seem to have a life of their own and appear to be self-active, as if they painted themselves” (dusseldorf 40). freighting painting with a subjecthood of its own is not only a means to facilitate the sale or transmission of the artwork: this is also the mechanism that allows us to aver that an artwork “critiques something”—a claim central to art’s activist impulses. however, like graw, “the idea that an artwork would articulate a critique seems to me, in any event, to be questionable” (graw, adorno 24). artworks appear to be independent (“i am interested in painting’s capacity to trigger vitalist projections” (graw, dusseldorf 40), while depending on a spectral link to the artist. graw claims an artwork reaches a pinnacle of price based on “the assumption that it is priceless” (high price 29)—such that art objects are mortgaged to what is presumed an unplumbable depth of history, culture, or character—much like subjectivities. through the stickiness of the artist’s subjectivity, this latent persona, to the object, this thing is equated with a similar type of subjective summit or unknowability as resides in the mind of the artist. even in those cases where the artist mobilizes industrial, anti-expressionistic techniques, the art object, through a gesture of placement as an artwork, retains the capacities of its (still fetishised) maker. as diedrich diederichsen argues, “the aura of the original [even in cases of artistic multiples and highly distributable works] causes the living artistic labor to appear as a patina” (42). if typical commodity fetishism is the activation of imagined socialities situated in the past that obfuscate the producer, the specifically artistic commodity fetishism instead relies on imagined socialities projected into the future of the producer. socialities imagined, that is, only to a degree, as artists must always be able to reiterate or re-supply their “authentic” lives to buttress value of their work. if the power of an artwork is its “charge,” as david joselit says, it can only achieve circulation and buzz by surviving radical decontextualization from its author. though the aura of authority is ever-present, the artwork still needs to be self-sustaining. decontextualization— or estrangement—of a work from its author allows it a life “of its own,” not unlike the financial life of most artworks post-sale (excepting the following price increase for the rest of an oeuvre). although the artist’s subjectivity is sticky, it need not be materialized forever. things travel better without baggage. the artist must be eminently summonable—the emergency credit card—but not actively present in the artwork’s day job. because their job is movement, contemplation, being seen, or just being, artworks, unlike other commodities, must continually prove their value with recourse to their pricelessness and what diederichsen calls a “second order use-value”. this is the use-value of being everything but applicably useful in a circulation or an attention economy by vacillating between filiality and waifishness. it is “both a special kind of commodity and the prototypical commodity at the same time” graw observes (high price, 130), for artworks always claim to be smith 74 unquantifiable, full of meaning. this relentless exceptionality is similar to the exceptional states of subjects among things even as they sell their labour, just as the thing sells its service. the transcendental quality—attributed in secular society only to individuals and individual artworks—makes us desire to be artworks. when graw says “the art market relies on a belief in the remoteness of its products from the market [,] it is obliged to emphasize this autonomy for the simple reason that it forms the basis of the product’s marketability” (high price 138), we could say the same for our belief that we are more than our ever-present labour. in his essay “in praise of actuality” hal foster diagnoses the proliferation of performative models of making, presenting, and writing about work as tender to an increased desire for the blatant appearance of the qualities of subjectivity. foster writes, “the performative does not actualize… so much as it virtualizes. it seems to offer the presence we desire, but it is a spectral presence, one that famishes, with the result that as viewers we come to feel a little spectral as well” (bad new days, 130). perhaps the tendency for a performative or process-based reading of artworks (and the implication of these qualities onto the object absent of a maker) is indicative of the increasing abstraction with which we perceive our subjecthoods. it could also point to a substitutability of presence and performance whereby, in a world foster laments as “post-critical,” labour and currency are fluid enough to be present enough only when in appearance. in his own take on anthropomorphism, foster states: [i]n capitalist modernity, subject-object relations are overridden by the commodity form, which tends to refashion the image-object as an agent-person in its own terms. any attempt to animate the artwork in another way must confront the sheer force of that pervasive spell… the apparent liveliness in things should not be confused with the actual liveliness of people, thoroughly imbricated though the two often are in the present. (bad new days 121) it may help to understand why the art object is simultaneously an exception to the general laws of commodities and yet wholly paves their way by taking stock, briefly, of what artworks can be exchanged for, and appear to act as: autonomous subjects capable of activity; speculative currency; the body (and all substitutions) of the performer/artist. no other commodity but that one identified with and otherwise only with humans—our labour as humans—is this fluid. thus foster might overstep the assumed powers of the “autonomously” labeled artwork when he claims that his critique is “motivated by a resistance to any operation whereby human constructs are projected above us and granted an agency of their own, from which position and with which power they are more likely to overbear us than to enlighten us” (bad new days 121). if the most rudimentary social histories have taught us anything, it is that, outside the commodity form at least, autonomy and individual agency on a generally-human scale grant oppression quicker than power. if the artwork has fallen from its transcendental pedestal, maybe calling it a person, too, is a way of limiting its strength. perhaps this dependence on the absent maker is why joselit allows the object the rights to perform like a subject but falls short of naming it one. transitive paintings might travel like their authors as though we imagine their partially-autonomous presence to be that of the painter. this formulation allows us to reconcile painting’s quasi-subjecthood with its author’s quasi-presence. the indicative mark of subjecthood cannot be discarded, only moved between artwork and artist. even if it can seemingly move at will (a seeming that creates value), when subjected to analysis painting certainly cannot mean on its own. twentieth century animism is carefully traced in brown’s thing theory. brown cites frank o’hara’s lines that “the eagerness of objects to/be what we are afraid to do//cannot help but move us” (brown, 14). there can be exemplary ramifications for quasi-subjecthood: persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 75 “[adorno’s] point is that accepting the otherness of things is the condition for accepting otherness as such” (brown, 12). nor is joselit’s transitivity the first case of a commodity finding value in and through exchange. joselit’s commodities, as artworks, find meaning through it— meaning being a primary use-value in art. in a classically marxian analysis, value is bestowed on commodities by movement. introducing the social life of things with “commodities and the politics of value,” arjun appadurai notes that “a commodity is any thing intended for exchange,” and “value is embodied in commodities that are exchanged” (appadurai, 9, 3). this—admittedly basic—definition of the commodity sheds light on how transitive artworks seek to visualise the creation of value. some do so by becoming “quasi-subjects” and inventing socialities—an operation only possible by mimicking the smallest measure of life: the capacity for both labour and uselessness. even marx, while analysing the situation of an imaginary sociality between ordinary commodities themselves, could not escape granting subjecthood to things, once those things performed. this is evidenced by prosopopoeic play in capital. marx must, it seems, resort to giving commodities voice to perform his defetishistic critique. illusion can only be performed in tandem with capitulation: “if commodities could speak, they would say this: our use-value may interest men but it does not belong to us as objects. what does belong to objects, however is our value. our own intercourse as commodities proves it. we relate to each other merely as exchange values” (qtd in ngai, 61-62). as barbara johnson claims, marx’s little screenplay is “a sign that the very thing [marx] is arguing for is too strong for him” (qtd in ngai, 62). commodities always wear the social conditions of the time, and perhaps a brief tracing of the appearance of contemporary labour can illuminate dominant projections on the skins of things. john kelsey’s “new commodities” may be the most recognisable condensations of our means of labour. organic tomatoes, distressed clothes, bespoke shirts acutely articulate the labour behind their production. what they say matters less than the volume of their voices. kayla anderson notes, “a desire for communicable commodities,” testified to by “the wealth of writing on evocative and talkative objects” (98). while svenja bromberg identifies a “turn towards objects” and the “real explosion in art exhibitions that explicitly centre around objects and articulate a relation to the philosophical strand of object-oriented ontology (ooo)/speculative realism.” i believe that our desire for these chatty things is correlative to our own desire to be engaging, evocative and hyper-social. as noted by luc boltanski, eve chiapello, christian marazzi and others, western economies are making communication increasingly salable. paolo virno suggests an out in “idle talk,” for perhaps the only alternative to the compulsion to speak is not silence but waste. christian marazzi explains “as is the case today, money and language actually overlap” (42). “we can speak of money as a form of linguistic value” (marazzi 25). money and language have always shared beds, but today they are inseparable. on a similar note, kolja reichert argues that, provisionally at least, art is a better means of exchange than money. “art is becoming a currency, harder than coltan and gold” (reichert). while less fluid than currency proper, art attracts in a way cash only dreams of. appropriating joselit’s “image power,” reichert makes the case that what is truly valuable is that which has a special charge to or from visibility—and art has been long prepared for today’s economy premised on attention, recognition, hits and transitivity. no other kind of commodity is better attuned to speak well and look good, with charismatic self-sales. even as luxury goods, according to joshua simon, imply a lifespan that far surpasses our own, they and other non-art commodities continue to foster a belief in possession—that we could possess a thing and turn it to our labour, the shade, ever-present, of use-value (24-29, 31). the commodity lives in labour. but the art object seems to offer only the most fleeting hold on its body: in many respects, it is the labour-time of the artwork which we purchase. just as the commodity form has naturalized the permeation of labour and life for centuries, (first by implying that we are what we do, and more recently that we do what we are), so it makes us smith 76 subjects of the time we sell. whether acting as speculative investments or discursive objects, artworks are paid for the fruits of communicative labour in time. if a central facet of the art object is human-type-labour, the artwork implies as well the salability of its unplumbable depths. if the labourer in twenty-first century america puts their affects on both display and the line, the notion of a self-to-be-sold has shifted from merely time, to whatever entrepreneurial feelings and communicative tics can be harnessed. quasi-subjectivity thus appears as more than the appearance of autonomous travel, the spectre of the artist, or the ability to verb: behind all of these activities lies the interiority of the artwork, a shadow first fully realized, i argue, in the critical response to mid-century american minimalism. minimalism, abstraction, and the subjectivity of things as american sculptors explored increasingly nonrepresentational strategies in the midtwentieth century, artworks were endowed with a new kind of power. as david getsy notes, “anthropomorphism became a central term of derision from all sides” (9). but try as it might, freestanding sculpture could never banish the body entirely: “even the most abstract objects could not escape the analogies to human bodies” (12). to account for this relentless resemblance to the human form even in the face of the complete evacuation of figural images, art critics and historians had recourse to an imaginary subjectivity within the artwork, a tool in their vocabulary since hegel’s claim that painting is the medium “the principle of subjectivity” inhabits (graw, art and subjecthood 15). critics such as michael fried and gregory battcock began to focus on how artworks act, not what they look like. this turn from representational criticism to performative apprehension gave the objects in question the ability to perform human-like activities without human-like forms. hal foster argues that minimalist sculptures “reject the anthropomorphic basis” by foregrounding seriality—an anthropomorphism classical abstraction alone could only sublate. in minimalism, serial production [is] made consistently integral to the technical production of the work of art. more than any mundane content, this integration makes such art ‘signify in the same mode as objects in their everydayness, that is, in their latent systematic [sic]’. (foster, the return of the real, 63) when objects shed representation, we begin to apprehend them as people in their own right. we can find one key to this rethinking of sculptural personality in michael fried’s famous diatribe “art and objecthood.” this essay tends to be cited as a thorough explication of minimalism’s key concerns, agreeable on most points but for fried’s tone and general distain. fried criticises minimalist art as “theatrical” for its evocation of presence, a presence that is not immediate or, we could say, exclusively in the present. fried prefers those modernist experiences in which “every moment the work itself is wholly manifest… [work] that one experiences as a kind of instantaneousness” (166-7). turning viscously on minimalism, fried asserts that a minimalist “preoccupation with time—more precisely, with the duration of the experience—is, i suggest paradigmatically theatrical, as though theatre confronts the beholder, and thereby isolates him, with the endlessness not just of objecthood but of time” (166). like people, minimalist sculptures are durational and eschew an instantaneous read. discovering that robert morris’ cubes are not quite cubes, or that his optical illusions hide familiar forms, takes time. they are not immediately epiphanic. people cannot be apprehended immediately because they harbour thoughts, feelings, or souls that their surface conceals. before lambasting sculptural duration, fried attacks a perceived interiority in minimalist sculpture: “the apparent hollowness of most literalist work— the quality of having an inside—is almost blatantly anthropomorphic… as though the work in persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 77 question has an inner, secret life” (fried, 156). fried does not object to anthropomorphism, but a theatrical mode of its evocation he finds in minimalism, or perhaps anthropomorphism is acceptable only when obviously projected. unlike nonthreatening resemblance, theatrical sculptures confront us by performing like people, as if on a stage. fried also charges theatricality with overt objecthood: not that minimalist works are too much like things but that they are too much like situations. people, too, step out of objecthood as durational situations that cannot be dealt with simply. one wonders if, while critiquing minimalism’s “inner, secret life,” fried knew the conditions for morris’ first minimalist show. tellingly, this exhibition was held not in a gallery or museum, but in a theatre. a hollow grey 2x2x8 foot column (titled column) stood on the otherwise empty stage for three and a half minutes. the column then fell to the floor, where it laid for another three and a half minutes before the stage lights dimmed. morris operated this performance by way of a string trailing offstage, but his original plan was to fall over while standing inside the work. unfortunately, this strategy injured morris during rehearsal, as though comeuppance for usurping the object’s autonomy. as maurice berger observes, “the action of the sculpture as a kind of confrontational performer created an explicit analogy between itself and the artist’s body” (berger, 48). explicit as well is the position of the object as subject—an active being existing in time, and perhaps subject to fatigue. sexiness, too, is part performance. for berger, morris’ minimalism effects a desublimation of the erotic, long repressed by modernist sculpture and criticism’s “purity and aloofness” (ibid., 57). nonrepresentational objects do not have a long history of being fetishised (though one might argue that representation becomes moot as the object is fundamentally altered through fetishisation). if minimalism’s forms are amatory it is because their bedrock, like that of the erotic, is the hidden, suggested or extrapolated body. by refusing representation minimalist eroticism comes, as it does for people, through situation, time, performance and secrecy. it is pertinent to ask what sort of confrontation minimalist objects demand—what attention they seek. deviations from cubes, for example in minimalist work, tends the viewer’s quick attention span. if, as larry johnson says, “the attention span the reader/viewer has for the work of art [is equal], say, to that of a daily horoscope or a beauty tip,” (johnson, 94), visitors to a gallery should be seen as cruising the works on display for the one that piques interest—a time-and-attention economy. minimalist sculptures feel like people—easily “read,” but generously yielding upon inspection. ridding themselves of representation, minimalist sculptures invite a cruising, quick eye for interest. cruising results in the intimacy of two bodies and, in a way, little more: two presences touch while remaining distinct. balancing interiority and recognizable form, minimalist sculptures are cruisable objects and upon duration become subjects. in her later writings on minimalism, yvonne rainer argues that minimalist sculpture censored drama at inverse proportions to the drama in the minimalist artist’s life. in her memoir feelings are facts, rainer says, “bob [morris] would later tell me that barbara rose asked him ‘where were you when i was giving birth to your child? after all, i did it for you.’ at which he said, he hit her across the face. as it turned out, he was with me in maine.” rainer remembers those two weeks in maine as “impossibly idyllic.” call it censorship or repression: either term would clearly indicate that the lack of explicit sexuality in minimalist sculpture simply hides, or perhaps produces, a font of intrigue elsewhere. perhaps minimalists meant to swap feelings for facts. it is only by the disappearance of the overtly lewd that an object can acquire sexuality of near-human proportions. however, this erotic read, though promoted by many in the minimalist milieu, found sparing acceptance in viewers: “abstract eroticism was a difficult concept for people to accept” (berger, 58). one wonders if the confrontation, time, presence, distance and crowding, which repulsed fried, could be the white cube when theatrically sexed. for many, minimalist forms evoked architecture instead: benjamin buchloh charged one of minimalism’s faults its “failure to place smith 78 that [viewing subject, object subject] outside the parameters of corporate decor,” explains tom mcdonough (mcdonough, 86-87). can we speak of corporate sexiness? the fetishised greyflannel suit? did minimalism do enough to let the object-turned-subject take a sick day? perhaps the aforementioned seriality, which undercuts representation, ushers in the spectre of the office (a latter-day take on the factory). though minimalism resists corporatism by rejecting flawless methods of repetition, foster observes that its seriality is nonetheless “indicative of advancedcapitalist production and consumption, for both [minimalism and pop] register the penetration of industrial modes into spheres (art leisure, sport) that were once removed from them” (the return of the real, 66). three facets coincide for these critics: personhood, eroticism, and corporate interiors. by the 1960’s, capitalism had carefully integrated labour and life—the “aesthetics of administration” benjamin buchloh would later observe in early conceptual art were forms already deeply rooted in the leisure and private lives of americans. minimalist works mimicked the subjects of their time: erotic and serial, with increasingly few options (the logic of serialism is quiet uniqueness). minimalist sculptures worked small distinctions into a field of similarity, much like the office worker was compartmentalized into ever-smaller personalizations of space. minimalism’s sexiness and minimalism’s corporateness should not be seen as contradictory or as reversions of art back into object, but as realisations that artworks could perform [under] the same conditions humans do. for fried, the experience of works by tony smith or robert morris is one of “being distanced, or crowded, by the silent presence of another person” (fried, 155). as hal foster observes, minimalism does announce a new interest in the body—again, not in the form of an anthropomorphic image or in the suggestion of an illusionistic space of consciousness, but rather in the presence of its objects… as they often are (as fried saw) just like people. (the return of the real, 43) interviewed about his work, tony smith quipped “i was not making an object” (quoted in fried, 156). writing on fried’s “art and objecthood,” isabelle graw argues that “objecthood revealed itself to be subjecthood” (graw, art and subjecthood 11). the sculptures do not resemble subjects, they act as subjects—just as minimalist objects are often just like people. david getsy proposes that the heights of nonrepresentation expanded the possibilities for sculptural meaning. getsy observes “abstraction offers a position from which to reconsider or to visualise anew the body and personhood” (278). perhaps this expansion resulted, at least in part, in a neo-animist vesting of subjectivity in objects—now popular in a wide range of disciplines. minimalist critics supplied a preliminary vocabulary for artists making objects people too or, as hito steyerl says of images, “a thing like you and me” (46-57). introducing the influential book minimal art: a critical anthology, gregory battcock presciently observes that “what is most important is what an artist does, rather than what he is, what the object does—in terms of response—rather than what it is” (minimal art 36). this preference of the performing or active artwork takes a larger role in battcock’s writings as his work progressed. five years later, in 1973, battcock published the essay “aesthetics and/or transportation” in arts magazine. true to the essay’s title, battcock outlines a future in which aesthetic experience is absorbed by transportation, which he predicts is, as transportation was understood in the 1970’s, reaching a dim obsolesce: “artistic energies will be absorbed outside of art. one area for such aesthetic speculation is transportation,” and “transportation itself will cease to be essential, as all significant transportation will involve non-physical phenomena” (“aesthetics” 33-35). this is only half-true today, for as the internet appears to shrink and still persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 79 the world, tourism has been steadily climbing for several decades and shipping and logistics still comprise a large role in major economies. nevertheless, this is battcock at his most hopeful: that the full integration of art and life will result in a finer life (whereas the opposite, considering the continued rise in airline passengers and degradation of services onboard, might be true instead). battcock promotes “not getting anybody anyplace at all” (35). for battcock, the often-overlooked qualities of transportation permeate all objects. this is made clear in his 1970-71 essay “wall paintings and the wall,” a careful historical study of the backside of paintings. for battcock, the development of painting as a form lies in its specific situation as a potentially mobile object in space: painting [differs] from these other flat visual forms in that painting has a front and a back… one difference between a “painting” in the modern sense, and fresco or mosaic picture, is that there is a space between the painting and the requisite wall” (“wall” 24-26). painting’s mobility was reproblematised in the 1960’s, as battcock lists a number of painters who in various ways explore painting’s third dimensions (and later drafts an exhibition proposal of these artists) (26). battcock is also sure to note that frank stella’s shaped canvases (vital to minimalism’s evolution) are deeply indebted to early sienese paintings: “a crucifix is flat and in the shape of a cross. a primitive sienese painting of a crucifixion is also flat and possesses the shape of a cross” (24). like most paintings since, these crucifixes were painted on the front and left blank on the back. however, they were designed to be relatively immobile and often to stand free from the wall—as opposed to what might be termed non-transitive paintings, which obscure their support (as though a commodity hides its true history by inventing an essence, in this case flatness). battcock loosely predicts a transitive art. though wrong in particulars, the observation that aesthetics and transportation would become more intimate seems prophetic in light of today’s travel-minded art elite, dubbed “itinerant artists” by miwon known. kwon’s suggestion that artists are transposable—providing a set of services rather than discrete objects—mirrors the idea that these same objects are also transposable service-providers. the presence of the artist ensures the success of the work, even if it is a latent presence that goes on to produce the illusion of an autonomous, active artwork. one example of this is the frequent reversion to verbs when discussing art, suggesting an artwork “questions” or “gestures.” it is the object as often as the artist who performs these actions. one could say that richard serra’s 1967-68 verb list (to roll, to crease, to fold, to store, etc.) is projected into the artwork. perhaps he should have included “to critique.” battcock’s writings on transportation are indebted to mail art no less than minimalism. however, they are prescient—and active—for minimalism no less than mail art. it was in minimalism that the artwork first became a person, and the spectre of its travel appeared. not simply a seen movement from studio to gallery, but the ability of minimalist forms to inhabit or mask themselves in everyday shapes and assumptions lends these objects their place as genesis of both today’s transitive artwork—where meaning moves with—and the exacerbated personas of artworks, appearing ever more like people, saturated with performance and their “lived” labour. beyond fair trade: the hyperbolic object what would a hyperbolic art look like? one option is talking nonstop, to exacerbate the messiness of where personas begin and end. john kelsey advocates for such an approach in essays such as “the self-employment rate” and “escape from discussion island,” which consists smith 80 of “pushing discourse to its own outside, producing breaks and flights within the discursive situation in such a way that work becomes a foreign activity” (kelsey, 98). if our nonstop chatter will be economised no matter what, endless production lets us inhabit speech without particular regard for the persons it produces. this method apprehends the (written) object as integral to the author’s subjectivity, and seeks to destabilise the speaking subject by making all of the authors’ works refractions of an impossibly quagmired self. trisha low explores this option with particular sharpness in projects such as confessions [of a variety] and the compleat purge. identifying contemporary subjectivity in a web of confessional cultures—promoted by relentless memoirs, reality tv programs and interviews—low abolishes persona’s ability to dictate or hold onto a subject by talking too much. by the end of her texts, there is no “authentic” low left. acceleration of sentiment and sediment play to the instability already inhabiting the confessional—each new production must dig deeper and thus eliminate all previous works (much like the classic model of avant-garde fine art). if each confession requires abolition by a truer one, each “new commodity” mentioned previously must be supplanted by a more transparent object. nonstop production of personas might be a viable strategy for writing, but what about the art object, which has a completely different relationship to its author? one take—possibly more cynical—is the practice of merlin carpenter. for most people, never working and always working create a similar bricolaged lifestyle. for two years, carpenter had seven nights of work. most of the time, “carpenter thought of himself as ‘on strike’” (busta). can a painting come to blows, strike a deal, pull its own weight? during this period, 2007-2009, carpenter held seven shows (all titled a variation on the opening) across western europe and the usa. with luxurious but blank canvases hanged on the walls, carpenter made his marks mid-opening, splashing a handful of blank paint and a few lines of text on the waiting white monochromes. words were ripped from the opening night crowd, evincing a low budget of premeditation. “it soon became apparent that it wasn’t so much the canvases, but his guests and gallerists—the social body in attendance—that he saw as readymade” (busta). carpenter’s casual tone erased any possibility of these events being an authentic-and-authorial action painting spectacle. rather, carpenter offered his viewers little more than the usual event of an opening with nothing to open. after all, “people go to art openings…because, more than the art, the occasion itself offers them the valuable prospect of increased social connectivity and the enrichment of whatever it is they personally produce. an opening is a group fantasy.” carpenter’s the opening paintings do not just rely on a social body or slick situation: they are completely inextricable from it. as caroline busta observes, these paintings have only “the bare minimum for the canvases to hold indexical value.” the paintings can barely support their author, and can barely live on their own without the event of the opening to confer value. carpenter’s pieces shrug off the saleable persona, suggesting that the objects [produced] are not things of agency or much less subjectivity. rather, the art is a symptom of the people. both art and money are situated here exclusively in the social: the “group fantasy” of openings is making some kind of capital, and carpenter deigned to show us how pauce it really is. the opening works might be painting beside itself at its most hyperbolic: painting beside people. paintings that disregard our desire to make them the chattiest things demand some level of autonomy, not only because they are positioned as the centre of an event, but also because they do not work as interior design: these paintings could hardly be said to provide a better atmosphere than what they were already surrounded by. while minimalism gives us the confrontational object-turned-subject, carpenter gives the confrontation almost without object. assuming that successful paintings do, as asserted above, attain quasi-subjecthood, carpenter presents the weakest of possible subjects. here is an persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 81 object we always have to make, but that is definitively an object and not a situation. avoiding the reifying traps of latter-day relational aesthetics and “zombie abstraction” (vapid processoriented and historically-referencing canvas washes), carpenter cuts down and shows up the art object as the projected subjects of our desires, while pulling the networks that still them to shreds. while contemporary commodities are valued to the extent that they “express” an underlying labour, artworks are expected not only to express a labour, but also to perform (to critique, to activate, to predict, c.f. richard serra) it. carpenter implies artworks that fail to locate an author, fail to locate locution, but appear as aggressively independent. they take on the characteristics of carpenter’s anti-social performance, but are more capable of clearing the room. similarly, trisha low makes herself unlocatable, foiling her speech in advance. these strategies are markedly different from the prevailing tendencies of personas in art—in general, the creation of alter egos has accelerated over the past twenty years. dozens of pseudonyms spring to mind: reena spaulings, claire fontaine, john dogg, donelle woolford, to name just a few of the higher profiles. artistic personas and pen names sell—they are flexible, wearable, and buyable, loosely associated with a history of anonymity and alter egos in avant-garde circles. as the selves—digital or otherwise—we publicise are organised by economic benefits (blanketed as convivial or professional friendships), we become more social, chatty, and self-promotional. these traits are projected onto commodities, which take greater leave of their histories and makers as they come to, almost autonomously, promote agendas, speaking with all the voices of people. while the chatty commodity has the same spectre of autonomy marx analysed a century and a half ago, the artwork uses these conditions to much more explicit benefit. while the object appears to exist autonomously, only the artwork appears to live as such. a broken object, while devalued, has yet a shred of use-value. broken artworks are worthless (although usually held in collections owned by insurance companies—as proofs for payment), for them labour, the labour of their activities, connections, and transitivity, has ceased. as demonstrated, the “quasi-subjectivity” and “transitivity” we give to objects—letting them act like us—are indebted to the struggles of minimalist critics to apprehend new breeds of objects. the sixties saw not only the rise of personhood in art, but also the beginnings of our language-based economy in which the domestic service sector rose at the expense of other means of employment. artists are an easy fit for a labour market premised on movement, speech, and service. the fall of divisions between object and subject at least partially mirrors the failure to separate work and life—a twisted realisation of avant-garde dreams of life-art integration. as art’s quasi-subject strategies have infiltrated mass consumer goods (just as the spectre of “luxury” is sold to a wider and wider public), what options do we have for ensuring our commodities are ethical if ethics is not synonymous with transparency? the trick might be accepting the reification of the author and the object (both together and separately), but confusing the relations between the two to such a degree that neither can be thought of as autonomous. in the work of merlin carpenter, arts’ social pretension is in full force and, as such, begins to act as social prosthetic. carpenter, in a turn rare for contemporary artists, upset the usually smooth schmoozing of an art opening by giving us the subjects we crave, but too weak to live without us. for getsy, minimalist abstraction “proposed unforeclosed accounts of ‘what a person is” (getsy, 276). abstraction’s refusal to transpose imagery (or representation) into capital might still hold these utopic qualities, but we must ask how sociality itself is abstracted by works. the expansion of personhood in the 1960s freed othered bodies to be accepted as bodies, but also smith 82 created devious commodities—physical precursors to bots. the next “new commodity,” actively ethical and exemplifying quasi-subjectivity, must choose to be cacophonous—so we can forget it. works cited agamben, giorgio. means without end: notes on politics. trans. vincenzo binetti and cesare casarino. minneapolis, london: university of minnesota press, 2000. 54-55. print. anderson, kayla. art beyond anthropocentrism: models for an object-oriented worldview. diss. the school of the art institute of chicago: department of visual and critical studies, 2014. 98. print. appadurai, arjun. “introduction: commodities and the politics of value.” the social life of things. ed. appadurai. new york: cambridge university press, 1986. 3-9. print. battcock, gregory. “aesthetics and/or transportation.” arts magazine, september/october 1973. 33-35. print. ---“introduction.” minimal art: a critical anthology. ed. gregory battcock. new york: e.p. dutton & co., inc.,1968. 19-36. print. ---“wall paintings and the wall.” arts magazine 45.3 (december 1970-january 1971). 24-26. print. berger, maurice. labyrinths: robert morris, minimalism, and the 1960s. new york: icon editions, 1989. 48. print. bromberg, svenja. “the anti-political aesthetics of objects and worlds beyond,” mute, july 2013. accessed january 20, 2015. web. brown, bill. “thing theory.” critical inquiry 28, no. 1, (autumn 2001). chicago and london: university of chicago press. 1-22. print. busta, caroline. the opening. berlin: sternberg press, 2011. no page numbers. print. diederichsen, diedrich. on (surplus) value in art. trans. james gussen. berlin: sternberg press, 2008. print. foster, hal. bad new days: art, criticism, emergency. london, new york: verso, 2015. 120-130. print. --the return of the real. cambridge, ma; london, england: october books, massachusetts institute of technology, 1996. 38-63. print. fried, michael. “art and objecthood.” in art and objecthood: essays and reviews. chicago and london: university of chicago press, 1998. 148-172. print. getsy, david. abstract bodies: sixties sculpture in the expanded field of gender. new haven: yale university press, 2015. 9-12, 128-130. print. graw, isabelle. adorno: the possibility of the impossible. trans. james gussen. new york, berlin: lukas & sternberg, 2003. 24. print. --“introduction” in art and subjecthood: the return of the human figure in semiocapitalism. eds. isabelle graw, daniel birnbaum, nikolaus hirsch. berlin: sternberg press, 2011. 17. print. --high price: art between the market and celebrity culture. trans. nicholas grindell. berlin: sternberg press, 2009. print. ---“our love for painting: a conversation between charline von heyl and isabelle graw.” in dusseldorf: paintings from the early 90’s. new york: petzel gallery, 2015. 40. print. ---“the value of painting: notes on unspecificity, indexicality, and highly valuable quasipersons” in thinking through painting: reflexivity and agency beyond the canvas. eds. isabelle graw, daniel birnbaum, nikolaus hirsch. trans. emile florenkowsky. berlin: sternberg press, 2012. 46-47. print. johnson, larry, interviewed by david rimanelli. “highlights of concentrated camp.” larry johnson. munich, new york, and london: prestel publishing, 2009. 94. print. persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 83 joselit, david. “painting beside itself.” october 130, fall 2009. cambridge, ma; london, england: massachusetts institute of technology. 125-132. print. --after art. princeton and oxford: princeton university press, 2013. print. kelsey, john. rich texts: selected writing for art. daniel birnbaum and isabelle graw, eds. 2nd. berlin: sternberg press, 2012. print. marazzi, christian. the linguistic nature of money and finance. trans. isabella bertoletti, james casciato and andrea casson. los angeles: semiotext(e), 2014. print. mcdonough, tom. “‘a certain relation to reality’: isa genzken between subject and object.” i’m isa genzken, the only female fool. berlin: sternberg press, 2014. 86-87. ngai, sianne. our aesthetic categories: zany, cute, interesting. cambridge, ma; london, england: harvard university press, 2012. 60-62. print. rainer, yvonne. feelings are facts: a life by yvonne rainer. cambridge, ma; london, england: massachusetts institute of technology, 2006. reichert, kolja. “where is the money?” spike art quarterly 40 (summer 2014). accessed january 20, 2015. web. simon, joshua. neomaterialism. berlin: sternberg press, 2013. 24-32. print. steyerl, hito. “a thing like you and me.” the wretched of the screen. e-flux, inc. berlin: sternberg press, 2012. 46-57. print. persona studies 2015, 1.1 25 the art and politics of artists’ personas: the case of yayoi kusama sooji n l ee abstract this essay presents persona as a trajectory of contemporary art in the post industrial art world, in which artists’ “work” increasingly includes non-art activities such as networking and media publicity. after discussing pressing issues in art scholarship in regards to the disciplinary tradition and persona studies, i analyse the image of the japanese artist yayoi kusama (b. 1929) who has been operating in the western-dominated international art world since the 1960s. arriving in the u.s. in 1957, kusama quickly became one of the most prolific and notorious artists in new york. however, by the early 1970s she returned to japan and has since been living voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital. art historical assessments of kusama’s work have generally been confined within the western theoretical parameters of feminism and psychoanalysis. here, i draw attention to her persona: a “non-art” topic that has largely been ignored within the modernist discipline of art history, which insists on an object-based formalist methodology. i critique this tendency by demonstrating how an artist’s persona can become a medium of art and politics, and how an artist’s artworks can become by-products of the artist’s larger-than-life public persona. i trace kusama’s effort at persona cultivation from new york in the early 1960s, and particularly explore her satirical and ironic use of the cultural, racial, and gendered stereotypes about japanese women. based on archival research and aesthetics analysis, i argue that kusama exploited the commercial value of her japanese body and identity at a time when escalating cold war national pride and xenophobia jeopardised her career in new york. by discussing how she pursued selfpromotion and commercial success, this paper also portrays the commercialization of art and artists during the 1960s. key words yayoi kusama; artist's persona; art history; artist as celebrity; orientalism introduction in 2012, the japanese artist yayoi kusama (b. 1929) had the largest retrospective exhibition of her career, co-organised by the tate modern in london and the whitney museum of american art in new york. in conjunction with the exhibition, the english translation of her autobiography was published, nine years after its initial publication in japanese. moreover, the french luxury fashion brand louis vuitton, a subsidiser of the exhibition, launched a collection of clothes and accessories, all printed with kusama’s autographical dots. to celebrate and advertise the limited collection, louis vuitton’s flagship stores worldwide were decorated with “avatars” of kusama—her lifelike mannequins, all wearing her trademark dotted dress and red wig, as well as her trademark motifs such as dots, flowers, and dotted plant forms. not a mere lee 26 presentation of art, this multilateral exhibition event pronounced a few significant but underdiscussed facts and questions about kusama and the contemporary art system. first, the flamboyant display of “kusamas” in the mass-culture marketing indicates that the artist has successfully cultivated a unique and profitable persona. second, her persona needs to be analysed, especially since it has become an art itself and kusama a remarkable celebrity. third, the art world is not unlike other creative industries such as film, music, and fashion in that it produces its own stars and celebrities. but, fourth, commercial and mass culture topics continue to be rare and underestimated in scholarly discourses of art and artist, which i think results in part from the paucity of such concerns in the theoretical and methodological parameters of the modernist academic conventions of the art history discipline. fig 1: louis vuitton new york soho store display in aug. 2012. photograph by the author. fig 2: louis vuitton tokyo omotesando store window display in aug. 2012. photograph by david novak. persona studies 2015, 1.1 27 this essay presents persona as a trajectory of contemporary art in the post-industrial art world, in which artists’ activities increasingly include non-art services such as networking and mass media publicity. after a discussion of pressing issues in art scholarship in regards to disciplinary tradition and persona studies, i will specifically analyse the image of kusama that she gained while operating in the western-dominated international art world since the 1960s. kusama arrived in the united states in 1957 as one of the first postwar japanese artists to move to new york city to pursue a career in the booming contemporary art scene, and her ambition and eccentricity quickly made her one of the most prolific and notorious artists in the city in the 1960s. but in the early 1970s she returned to japan and has since been living voluntarily in a psychiatric hospital in tokyo, where she continues to produce art. art historical and theoretical assessments of kusama’s work of the 1960s germinated when the artist re-emerged on the international art scene in the 1990s. the writings by influential art critics and historians including griselda pollock (2000) and mignon nixon (2000) were in general confined within the western theoretical parameters of feminism and psychoanalysis. while kusama enjoyed the wave of the burgeoning literature and her growing popularity, she neither supported nor refuted such interpretations. she is well known for avoiding clear-cut explanations and definitions of her work, which further makes her a difficult subject of study in contemporary art history and journalism. but for the same reason, i would argue that her persona—and her effort at persona cultivation—demands a close analysis. i will trace kusama’s effort at persona cultivation from new york in the early 1960s, and particularly explore her satirical and ironic use of the audience’s cultural, racial, and gendered stereotypes about japanese women. based on archival research and aesthetics analysis, i argue that kusama exploited the commercial value of her japanese body and identity at a time when escalating cold war national pride and xenophobia jeopardised her art career in new york. by discussing how she pursued self-promotion and commercial success, this analysis will also portray the commercialization of art and artists during the 1960s. kusama actively and critically partook in what critical theorists such as theodor adorno and max horkheimer have described with concern as the conflation of art and entertainment in capitalist society. these are some of the “non-art” aspects that have been ignored within the modernist discipline of art history, which insists on the object-based formalist methodology, while avoiding (or trying to avoid) the growing importance of the “world” outside of artworks, such as artists’ biography and the art market’s star system. i critique this tendency by discussing kusama’s case and demonstrating how persona can be a medium of art and politics, and how an artist’s artworks can become byproducts of the artist’s larger-than-life public persona. persona studies and/in art criticism: conceptual clarifications to broach the significance of artists’ personas and persona studies in art’s scholarly dimensions, anthropological and sociological views of the art world can make useful bridges. sociological theorists of art and artists, for example janet wolff, pierre bourdieu, arnold hauser, and howard becker, have challenged the traditional kantian ideologies of artistic autonomy and have also discussed the social role and identity of artists. also, anthropologists such as george marcus and fred myers have aptly examined the art world as the “western-centred tradition of fine arts that began with the birth of modernism and a transformed art market out of the previously dominant academy system in nineteenth-century france” (3). arguing against the prominent cynical view that “art worlds make art,” marcus and myers proffered a belief in the individual agency of the artist as a social actor and suggest that scholars of art must consider ethnography in their research. following that proposal, i am interested in how “non-western” artists like kusama have interacted with the modernistic, euro-america-centric western art world through the use of personas. i propose to conceptualise artists’ personas as sites of intercultural exchange and conflict between the artist and her socio-cultural context. artists’ personas can be analysed to make visible and elucidate the related landscapes of art (of the art world), culture (of the lee 28 masses), and everyday life (of the individual participants), which are often separated in modernist art discourses or are taken for granted in contemporary art criticism. this conception of persona can be understood as similar to how architectural historian esra akcan conceptualises translation as both “a contact zone” and “a contested zone” that “not only makes cultural exchanges possible, but also reveals the tensions and conflicts created by the perceived inequalities between places” (4). also, by emphasizing artists’ use of personas, their own bodies, and performative tactics, we can empower artists as agents of creative production and its global circulation. as influential feminist cultural critics like bell hooks and trinh t. minh-ha have widely argued, women of colour have often been under-represented and/or caricatured in hegemonic western cultures and media, but they can also transform the stereotypes by engaging critically and creatively with them in everyday practice of cultural politics. here i am not proposing to deconstruct or undermine the disciplines of art history and art criticism with those of social sciences. but i am trying to share my struggle as an art historian with the former’s philosophical disciplinary limitations, and demonstrate how it can be resolved by considering perspectives of other disciplines that are foreign to the art history academia, for example, in this case dramaturgy and celebrity studies among others. in my experience of art history education in the united states of america, sociological discourses of art and artists were mostly overlooked while aesthetic concerns remained highlighted (if not dominant) in course readings and discussions. however, it should be stated that to analyse the politics of public image is not a completely novel approach in art history scholarship. cultural historians of abstract expressionism like michael leja (1993), ann gibson (1997), and fionna barber (2004) have explored the troubled existential subjectivity and the rebellious macho masculinity performed and embodied by the painter jackson pollock and other leading artists of the so-called new york school. many art historians such as max kozloff (1973), eva cockcroft (1974), david and cecile shapiro (1977), and serge guilbaut (1985) have investigated the us government’s use of abstract expressionism during the cold war to propagate “american” ascendant consumerism, democracy, and individualism. rarely, however, has the use of public image or the imagemaking strategy been explored in relation to east asian artists who have thrived in america. as an object of considerable study as described above, pollock’s image is interesting in that both the artist and the media coverage (including the famous life magazine’s in august 1949) were involved in the formation of his “free” and young “american” cowboy image which also matched the aesthetics of his drip paintings—a technique widely described as inspired by navajo sand paintings. as a recent biographer of pollock elaborates: it wasn’t his paintings alone, however, that life made famous. pollock . . . was spectacularly photogenic. the life article showed him leaning up in front of one of his paintings in jeans and a denim jacket, ankles crossed, arms crossed, cigarette dangling from his mouth; both the cocky pose he adopts and the expression on his face convey his defiance, his refusal to cozy up to the camera. he does not look like a civilized man; he looks dangerous and sexy, full of latent power: a cowboy, or a motorcycle hoodlum. . . . . the very fact that his paintings had been made not with gentlemanly oils but with the sort of industrial paints used by builders and laborers was further proof of his tough guy status. this was no effete character in a smock and a beret; this was a portrait of the artist as america—and the rest of the world—had never seen him before (toynton xiv– xv). what is articulated here is the becomingness and conflation of pollock’s body image, his art, and his attitude, which altogether evoked the image of young and cool america. such a troubled, rebellious macho masculinity of pollock’s persona prefigured (and may have inspired) those of the hollywood actors like marlon brando and james dean who would rise to stardom by playing antiheroes in movies like a streetcar named desire (1951) and rebel without a cause (1955). persona studies 2015, 1.1 29 another artist who cultivated a persona that matched the aesthetics of his artwork was andy warhol. around the same time as he founded the factory (his studio and soon-to-be new york’s most desired hangout place) in 1962, warhol also underwent a major makeover of his appearance (e.g., getting a nose job and changing dress style) and stylised his attitudes as well: “the new public andy was the epitome of cool. with shades, striped t-shirts, leather trousers and pointed shoes, he was chilled 24/7—apparently too laid back or bored even to answer questions from the press. the essential ingredient of the new andy warhol persona was andy the machine, andy the android, andy the asexual creature” (andy warhol). a cultural icon with a specific look, warhol has been dramatised in numerous movies by actors including jared harris, guy pearce, and david bowie, who played the role by wearing the pale face, the spiky silver wig, the lofty shyness, and the evasive manner, among other warholian characteristics. the term persona, when applied to public figures, usually refers to their public images or public “selves” performed or formed among the publics and in mass media. the recently growing discourses of persona studies, a field developed from media and celebrity studies, are inevitably concentrated on studying images of celebrities. an early prominent contributor to celebrity and persona studies, janet thumim’s 1986 article on katharine hepburn’s star persona, defined persona as “a public image which derives from the performances and utterances of the person and is constructed over time in specific ways” (71), stressing that the persona should be distinguished from the person and also implying that celebrities (unlike the above examples of pollock and warhol) have little control over their public images. yet, as noted with pollock and warhol’s public images, there is another kind of “persona” at work in contemporary culture—the art star. in contemporary culture, where mass media play an influential role in identity management, an artist who gains exceptional media exposure can become a celebrity, and his/her artworks may come to look like by-products of his/her larger-than-life public persona. this is why autographs of artists like pablo picasso and vincent van gogh have their own values separately from their paintings. as art critic carter ratcliff has aptly described, in the institutionalised and capitalist art world, a big-name painter is like a brand or corporation, “a non-person that bears a person’s name but for the sake of clarity must never be confused with that person” (106). ratcliff continues: “when an artist achieves institutional status his or her self aggrandizes its scale and takes on the impersonality of an emblem. this institutional version of the self still displays characteristic personal traits, but they are now formulized, even conceptualized” (106). there may be little to no difference between the ways an art star operates and a pop star operates in contemporary systems of culture. but compared to a pop or movie star’s persona, an artist’s persona can be a far more complicated subject of discussion because a painter or sculptor is not readily received as a performer, and because the formation of an artist’s image partakes his/her art objects (rather than embodied performances) as well. an artist’s persona is often subtle, ironic, indiscernible, and less a thing of the public culture than that of pop or movie stars. an artist’s persona can be defined as a concrete but unstable body-image and a performative interface between a person’s (internal) subjectivity and (external) identity which can reveal the complicated relations among performance, representation, and perception of those artists who have become symbolic figures in contemporary culture. briefly put, i view an artist’s persona as a performative category and method in visual culture studies that blurs not only the conventional art-historical separations of fine arts, media arts, and performing arts, but also the traditional boundaries between self and persona, between subject and object, between artist and the art, between producer and audience, between presentation and representation, between art and politics, and between art and commerce. my interdisciplinary approach to artists’ personas utilises the following concepts about contemporary culture in their extended and intersecting definitions: art world, persona, and politics of celebrity. art world: while the art world has traditionally been seen as an exclusive network of people who share particular interests, knowledge, and language of art and aesthetics (e.g. lee 30 danto), because of its growing collaborations with and assimilation into commercial industries such as fashion, the contemporary art world is currently seen as a “creative industry” (caves) or a “creative enterprise” (buskirk). the contemporary art world, which is multimedia in its modes and methods of growth and existence, generates ‘artist personas’—indefinable yet tangible images of the artists resulting from the published images of their works, their face and body, the accompanying texts, and the ensuing talks in the discursive spaces. this public identity of an artist can have psychological and commercial influences—at least distantly—on the artist’s inner self as well as on the perceptions and receptions of her works. persona: authoritative theorists of persona such as carl jung and erving goffman have rendered life as a series of role-playing performances and have also emphasised the collaborative nature of persona formation resulting from the needs of the society. according to goffman, one’s social life (which he described as a “theatre” in which s/he performs different roles) is a “relatively closed system,” limited by social norms, and that human interaction is “the reciprocal influence of individuals upon one another’s actions” (15). this means that stereotypes, assumptions, and prejudices are thus inevitable in social interactions and identity formations. this is why personas can be used to trace the society’s dominant desires and discourses of identity. an artist’s persona, which operates in any cultural sphere, is formed out of his/her social relations as well, and may therefore also mirror and reveal the society and culture’s collective myths and their dominant notions of identity. celebrity persona: as we have seen above, some artists manage to become celebrities and/or cultural icons, and their personas can be and should be analysed for their historical, cultural, or social significance. assuming that collective desires are involved with their success and fame or notoriety, i read the artist’s persona as a cultural and performative text, and so analyse what p. david marshall (2006) describes as “the textual and extra-textual dimensions of the public persona” (9). according to marshall, a celebrity’s persona is textual because s/he performs on-screen or on-stage roles that are constructed by the industry and are thus themselves cultural and ideological texts; but it is also extra-textual because s/he can always present oneself differently in off-screen and off-stage performances (for example, in interviews, talk show appearances, and “real-life” photographs by paparazzi) and because what other people (audiences and critics) say or write about him/her also contribute to his/her image. celebrity studies’ methodology is extensive by nature, and in this essay about art and artist, i propose and demonstrate that art history can likewise take a synthetic approach of analysis by looking at both art and non-art images of artists and their works and activities. kasuma’s struggle for recognition kusama is one of the most puzzling personas in contemporary art. as mentioned, she has entered herself into a psychiatric hospital and she does not like to explain in depth about her artworks. but interestingly she abandons her reserve only when speaking of her mental struggle, which she uses to explain her originality as an artist. she has famously claimed that her art’s reoccurring motifs and themes like dots, nets, flowers, obsession, and repetition derive from her continuous hallucinations developed during her childhood (kusama 61–95). and whether she is really mentally ill has been much debated. some speculate her “mental illness” might be a part of her publicity strategy—a known doubt well captured by a 2008 new york times article’s headline, “is she mad or merely cunning? while the art world debates, yayoi kusama climbs back on top” (worth). at any rate, however, it is truly “insane” that the artist has been living in a hospital voluntarily for over forty years. and notably, art historian midori yamamura’s research into kusama’s personal documents, including hospital papers, has verified the artist’s testimonials of strokes, suicide attempts, and therapy sessions during the 1960s as true facts. based on an extensive archival research, yamamura has convincingly argued that kusama did not fabricate her mental illness, but formulated her lifelong psychiatric problems into a narrative during the 1960s, an action likely caused by her struggle for recognition. persona studies 2015, 1.1 31 besides her special talent in drawing and painting, kusama had a rare ambition for success at a young age, which was what led her to travel alone to new york in the first place. kusama was among the first japanese artists to arrive on the contemporary art scene in new york city after world war ii, and she recalls that her airplane cabin to seattle (en route to new york) in 1957 was “empty except for two american gis, a war bride, and me” (kusama 11). it was very rare in the 1950s for a japanese woman to not only travel abroad alone, but also to pursue a career outside domestic spheres. soon after arriving in new york in 1958, kusama began to experiment with a new style of painting. in japan she had earned recognition for her surrealistic watercolour and ink paintings, but in new york she began to create abstract monochrome oil paintings, known as infinity net series. she covered monumental canvases, as large as 33 feet long, with tiny arcs, nets and circles that she painstakingly painted day and night. the infinity net series can be seen as an outcome of kusama’s aspiration, critical savvy and sensitivity to the zeitgeist. critically pondering the trends of the late ‘50s new york art scene, she said, as for the art scene in the city at that time, the action painting of the new york school still held sway, even though jackson pollock had been dead for ten years. . . . but . . . it was clear to all that the new york school, which had prospered alongside the commercialization of art, now needed to break new ground (kusama 34). kusama clearly saw the art world in both economic terms and historical contexts, and her infinity net paintings may have in fact targeted the new york art scene that continued to bask in the international success of abstract expressionism in seeming prolongation. kusama’s all-over abstract compositions evoke jackson pollock’s drip paintings, but she filled her canvases with her own vision and subjectivity represented by the monochrome nets and dots. as her neighbour artist donald judd noticed, kusama “was sophisticated about what had to be done as an artist for that time” (cica vol. 36). with the infinity net paintings, kusama was indeed able to achieve her first solo show in new york, as early as october 1959, at the brata gallery. the show attracted much attention, receiving favorable reviews, excerpts of which kusama proudly reprinted in her autobiography (24–34). it is important to note that these early reviews reveal the critical role kusama’s japanese origins played in the new york audience’s perception and evaluation of her work. the art critics tended to view her paintings as restrained eastern derivatives of abstract expressionism. for example, arts magazine’s sidney tillim compared her infinity net paintings to jackson pollock’s 1946 shimmering substance, and said, “conditioned by a tradition of not only black and white but of self-effacement, perhaps only a japanese artist could create an art of withdrawal without the polemical emotions of western abstract expressionism” (56). donald judd, then an art news critic, wrote, “the expression transcends the question of whether it is oriental or american. although it is something of both, certainly of such americans as [mark] rothko, [clyfford] still, and [barnett] newman” (17). these are no doubt favourable reviews, but the charged vocabulary of opposition—“oriental” versus “american” and “japanese selfeffacement” versus “polemical emotions of western abstract expression”—hints at the eastwest dichotomy in the era’s public discourses and the western audience’s preconceived expectations for a japanese artist. despite critical acclaim of the infinity net paintings and her subsequent solo exhibitions, kusama continued to struggle for recognition and survival: “the city was saturated with the possibility of great good fortune but also harbored a bottomless quagmire of shame and blame. and the heartless commercialism of many art dealers was too terrible even to joke about; it was a cause of real agony for many creative artists” (kusama 37). at the time, kusama was in fact searching in vain for an advocate in the commercial art scene. by the early 1960s, pop art had emerged as the new, promising trend that would take american art’s international success to the next level. and foreign artists like kusama seemed to be losing opportunities while lee 32 american artists such as andy warhol and claes oldenburg, with whom she used to exhibit in group shows, found representation with powerful art dealers such as leo castelli, betty parsons, or charles egan. in a letter written on september 9, 1963 to her dutch artist friend henk peeters, kusama complains about the monopoly of american pop in the increasingly institutionalised new york art market: “by this american pop [americans] become exclusive of others” (cica vol. 49). it should be highlighted here that kusama compares pop art to a nationalist american style. similarly, artist hans haacke, a german-émigré working in new york since the 1960s, remembers the ‘50s and ‘60s as “a time when american artists developed national pride” (cica vol. 35). ambitious and keen to succeed, kusama sees herself as always ahead of the times, and since the 1960s has claimed that warhol and oldenburg, among other big-name american artists, stole her ideas to cement a legacy in the art history canon (kusama 39–42). she asserts that her first three-dimensional production, a series of sewn phallic sculptures she began to make in the winter of 1961, were the original “soft sculpture,” a practice widely associated with oldenburg since 1962 (turner 67). she also claims warhol started to use repetitive images— which would become his trademark style—after seeing her collages filled with postage stamps and airmail stickers at stephen radich gallery in the fall of 1961. when warhol premiered his silkscreen 192 one-dollar bill in a green gallery group show in june 1962, their fellow artists also recognised an appropriation of a concept introduced previously by kusama. donald judd “thought she should have gotten credit for this [use of repetitive imagery]” (yamamura 81). her neighbour artist ed clark remembers that kusama around the time “suddenly got obsessed with the thought that her ideas might be appropriated, which compelled her to close all the curtains facing park avenue and 19th street” (yamamura 88). in fact, in the early 1960s, oldenburg and warhol were leading artists in the emerging neo-dada and pop art movements, whose practices were characterised by creative appropriation. these financially endowed art movements were promoted by the influential art dealer leo castelli. while the u.s. government during the cold war expanded its political and economic power across the globe, castelli built his own american art empire in new york, contracting male, american artists such as warhol, oldenburg, robert rauschenberg, and jasper johns. the culminating achievement of castelli’s entrepreneurial promotion occurred at the venice biennale. the 1964 grand prize was awarded to rauschenberg, making him the first american artist to receive the prestigious award in 69 years of the venice biennale’s history. kusama’s desire for critical and commercial success was no secret among colleagues. artists like hans haacke and carolee schneemann have commented on how kusama in the 1960s was “very determined to make herself known” and “extremely desperate and increasingly ferocious trying to position her work” (cica vols. 35 and 39). arthur lubow, who met kusama in 2012 for a w magazine interview, remarked with surprise how the 83-year-old artist, who was currently having a successful retrospective at tate modern, would periodically interrupt him to tell him how famous she was and to ask if he thought she was more famous than other artists of her generation. i would argue that kusama’s obsession with recognition and acceptance should be considered in relation to her social position and identity in the 1960s, rather than her personal vices of narcissism, neurosis, or pathology, which have coloured perceptions of the artist and interpretations of her work. her incessant emphasis on her own originality results from her marginalization in the new york art community during the ‘60s. in the 2008 documentary film sarcastically titled yayoi kusama: i love me, kusama speaks directly to the camera: “i’m an excellent creator. i’ve always been a pioneer in my work. i’m filled with originality. i’ve never imitated other creators” (yayoi kusama). however, the seemingly arrogant proclamation is followed by a statement that subtly hints at the reason behind her egocentrism and narcissism: “artists think their own pieces are the best, so we don’t see things that way. we can’t live if we don’t believe ours are the best. you can’t be an artist if you don’t make up your mind that ‘i’m persona studies 2015, 1.1 33 the one who creates the best work’” (yayoi kusama). this confession suggests that her often criticised narcissism and obsession with fame reflect a naked vulnerability and gnawing fear of being marginalised and rejected. kasuma’s self-stylisation, self-display, and self-promotion in 1963, amid her struggle with declining health and a flailing career, kusama underwent a remarkable makeover, as if seeking to advance her career through self-display and self-promotion. a collection of snapshots titled “yayoi kusama: a picture biography” in a 2009 exhibition catalogue clearly show the chronological evolution of the artist’s style (diederichsen). at the beginning of her career, kusama attended show openings wearing western-style twopieced suits and with her hair pulled back in a tidy bun, thus looking like a neat professional woman. but in 1963, she began to appear in public events dressed in sumptuous kimonos, and changed her hairstyle to the “cleopatra” coiffure, which had been recently popularised by elizabeth taylor starring as the exotic egyptian queen in the 1963 movie. it was evident she had decided to exploit the commercial value of her “exotic” appearance in order to advance her career. “she used situations that she created. … she appeared wearing a beautiful kimono, and she liked it,” as her artist friend henk peeters remembers (cica vol. 49). it was also in 1963 that kusama’s earliest account of hallucination appeared. during her interview with the art critic gordon brown for wabc radio in 1963, she described how “my nets grew beyond myself and beyond the canvases i was covering with them. they began to cover the walls, the ceiling, and finally the whole universe” (hoptman et al 100–105). this incident suggests that kusama was at the time trying to publicly connect her artwork to her inner self— thus using her mental illness to draw attention not only to her work but also to her image. an archival research revealed that kusama developed her story about her hallucinations into a written document in 1966 in new york with the assistance of two art critics, jay jacobs and gordon brown, who helped her translate, copyedit, and title it (yamamura 64n8). ten years later, the artist would officially publish an essay on her inner struggle, waga tamashii no henreki to tataki (“odyssey of my struggling soul”), published in the japanese art magazine geijutsu seikatsu in november 1975 (hoptman et al 118–122). in december 1963, moreover, kusama opened an ambitious exhibition at the gertrude stein gallery in new york titled aggregation: one thousand boats show—an impressive installation of a white rowboat bristling with a thousand sculpted fabric phalluses. the artist covered the gallery walls with 999 black-and-white photographic reproductions of the phalluscovered rowboat that she displayed in the corner of the room. more interestingly, however, during the exhibition kusama produced a nude photograph of her, for the first time in her career. the black-and-white photograph of her standing naked in her phallic environment was not a snapshot; kusama meticulously planned and staged the photo-shoot. she hired rudolph burckhardt, a photographer well associated with abstract expressionists, and directed him as to how best to compose the picture (zelevansky 20). by directing the photographer, staging herself inside her installation art, and performing erotically for the camera, kusama thus consciously turned herself into an art object to be looked at while also maintaining her role as the ”author” and artist of the image. by hiring one of the best-known art magazine photographers, she aggressively embraced the commercial system of publicity photography under her own artistic practice. starting with this nude photograph, kusama increasingly focused on staging herself in various environments, including urban streets, tabloid magazines and newspapers, and her own installations—which are all well documented in photographs. thus she used her body as a medium of art and publicity. in the mid-1960s, she began to participate in the counterculture emerging in new york, organizing numerous naked body-painting performances (during which she painted dots on the participants’ bodies) and flag-burning demonstrations with hippies. and in 1968–1970 she further involved herself with the underground cultural production, producing lee 34 various business ventures, such as kusama fashion company, kusama orgy weekly newspaper, and a homosexual social club called kok. these activities were largely ignored and rejected by the critics in the mainstream art community who had praised her previous work in painting and sculpture (kusama 97). even the relatively liberal underground art newspaper village voice harshly criticised her hippiestyle naked group performance on november 17, 1968 saying, “kusama, whose gross lust for publicity never leaves room for taste, managed to put on the year’s most boring freak shows ... kusama is definitely suffering from over-exposure of over-exposure” (solomon 100). in retrospect, however, the seemingly “non-artistic” activities can be understood as pioneering examples of the then emerging performance art and pop art movements. kusama’s contribution can be compared for example to andy warhol, who turned his studio into a social hangout and business enterprise known as the factory. extending art to encompass pop production, warhol founded interview magazine (in 1969), and discovered and managed celebrities like nico and edie sedgwick, known as “warhol superstars.” his famous public persona, widely recognised by his silver wig, striped t-shirt, and leather jacket, has been celebrated. kusama, on the contrary, was reputed as being an exhibitionist and attention seeker—because she was a woman and non-white. as carolee schneemann, an artist regarded widely as a feminist pioneer of performance art, noted emphatically: “[kusama] and i were the few female artists using the body, using nudity, and using the obsessive imagery. . . . many times i had to fight for her, because her situation was much like mine. ‘oh, she’s just nude,’ and ‘that oriental nude running around’” (cica vol. 39). it seems that accusations against kusama’s activities result in great part from the ‘60s sexist and racist backlash. kasuma’s self-orientalisation as critique kusama’s public spectacles were seen as crude attention-seeking acts, but a close observation of her performances, particularly her kimonoed performances, reveals that they were more than a survival tactic, a performative critique of the orientalist fantasy prevalent at the time. as mentioned, starting in the early 1960s she would often appear in gallery openings and other events, gaudily dressed in kimonos in obvious gestures to seek attention. but the artist also staged performance art pieces that used kimono as the costume, and it is in the latter cases that reveal her critical stance. kusama was well aware of the orientalist fetishism about kimono and japanese women as she was experiencing them directly in america and europe. the longest romantic relationship she has had was with the american artist joseph cornell, whom she dated for about ten years before his death in 1972. kusama claims that what sparked the ten-year affair was her exoticism and what she calls cornell’s “lolita complex,” which she associates particularly with notions of “orientalism” and “japanism” of the ‘50s and ‘60s (cica vol. 5). lolita complex, more commonly known as “lolicon” in japan, refers to a sexual attraction to teenage girls, usually by male adults. kusama first met cornell, twenty-six years her senior, in 1962 through an art dealer who hoped to win over the otherwise reclusive and obstinate man by enticing him with “an attractive oriental girl,” so kusama wore “my finest kimono, with a silver obi” to accompany her to visit cornell in queens (kusama 163). for cornell it was love at first sight, and he began writing love letters (kusama 166–169). in the 1950s and 1960s, the american wars in asia had resuscitated the pre-existing orientalist visions of asia and particularly japan. during and after the u.s. occupation of japan (1945-1952), romance and marriage between american gis and japanese women occurred frequently and the so-called japanese “war brides” gained a new visibility in america. in american culture, the image of kimonoed “geisha” women was also greatly popularised. data shows that between 1949 and 1967, hollywood produced over a dozen movies set in japan, in addition to nearly two dozen war movies set in asia (shibusawa 256). they ranged from highbudget films like sayonara (1957) starring marlon brando and the barbarian and the geisha persona studies 2015, 1.1 35 (1957) starring john wayne to b-movies like japanese war bride (1952) and three stripes in the sun (1955). these movies commonly portrayed a sappy, interracial love affair between a japanese/asian woman and an american man, in which the woman is invariably depicted as loyal and submissive and always dressed in exotic traditional dresses that mark her ethnic difference. this is a familiar narrative in western literary tradition, which can be traced to the famous opera by giacomo puccini, madame butterfly (premiered in 1904 in italy), one of the last productions of european japonisme that boomed in the late nineteenth century. madame butterfly became a sort of “prototype” of interracial romances that end with the non-white female protagonist’s sacrifice (marchetti 79). in the opera, cio cio san, nicknamed butterfly, is a beautiful fifteen-year-old japanese girl contracted to marry the american naval officer pinkerton (who she subsequently falls in love with) during his sojourn in nagasaki. after pinkerton leaves for his home country, butterfly waits loyally for his return, having given birth to their son. after three years, pinkerton returns with his american wife, and the devastated butterfly sends her little son to the american couple and kills herself. the same narrative is reiterated in numerous film and theatre adaptations, including a 1915 silent film starring mary pickford and a 1932 paramount film featuring cary grant, and also in interpretations set in other asian countries such as the popular broadway musical miss saigon (1989). the longevity and international popularity of the narrative indicate vestiges of the imperial fantasy in modern western culture. kusama parodied not only the madame butterfly narrative but also the geisha girl stereotype of japanese women in her 1966 street performance titled walking piece. in the solo performance, the artist flamboyantly strolled the streets of lower manhattan, dressed in a blossoming pink floral kimono and carrying a matching umbrella. thus performing a “geisha,” she invited passers-by to indulge in latent oriental fantasies. the performance was documented by eikoh hosoe in colour photographs, which evince that kusama was playing a “geisha” as imagined and portrayed in western fictions, not a traditional type of japanese geisha. specifically, it appears that the artist re-enacted emotional moments from madame butterfly: she wept, wandered dejectedly, and gazed longingly at the horizon of the hudson river horizon as if waiting for her lover to return from across the pacific. the “geisha” also appeared lost and misplaced in the industrial streets of manhattan factory buildings, drug stores, and boulevards. altogether the photographs evoke an image of a western “geisha,” which has no affinity with japanese images of strolling women, for example ukiyo-e prints by the famous edo-period artist hokusai, in which the figures do not express much emotion and are situated in simple interiors or landscapes. kusama staged another kimonoed spectacle in 1966, at the 33rd venice biennale. outside the prestigious international art exhibition’s italian pavilion, she displayed narcissus garden, her installation piece consisting of 1,500 factory-made mirror balls, alongside a sign that read “your narcissism for sale $2”, and sold the balls to the passers-by. wearing an exotic kimono and a pretty smile, she was offering for sale not just the mirror balls, but also “yayoi kusama.” the artist exhibited her beautiful kimono-clad body amidst the shiny mirror balls, thus marketing herself along with her art objects. when the police came and ordered her to stop— because she had received a permission only to exhibit her art but not to sell it—kusama instead passed out self-promotional flyers that featured the renowned art critic sir herbert read’s poetic description of her work as “images of strange beauty” that “press … on our organs of perception with terrifying insistence” (hoptman et al 63). while this incident perfectly exemplifies kusama’s self-marketing effort—a taboo for an artist’s work at the time—it is equally important to note that it was her “most straightforward critique thus far of the mechanization and commodification of the art market” (hoptman 50– 51). the artist’s act of mongering, bartering and selling transgressed the conventional code of conduct at the prominent international art exhibition. the title of the installation, narcissus garden, suggests that the artist wanted to parody the narcissism of the art collectors and other lee 36 art-world authorities involved in the acts of trading art and producing meanings about “art,” although she has never explained in detail her intensions behind the installation/wholesale/ performance. notably, kusama offered mass-produced mirror balls as “art,” whose shiny surfaces would reflect back at the viewer his/her own narcissism—while she was notorious and criticised for her narcissism involved in her practice of nudity and self-publicity. by analyzing kusama’s performative exposure as a parodic critique of orientalism, we arrive at a new interpretation of her nude photographs as well. the aforementioned nude photograph taken in her aggregation: one thousand boat show, for example, can be interpreted as kusama’s parody of oriental female nudes in the tradition of western art. with her back turned toward the viewer, the naked artist strikes the classical odalisque pose—an invention of imperial french art that is familiar to us from the nude paintings by jean auguste dominique ingres. female slaves of an ottoman sultan, odalisques became the objects of fantasy for european artists and collectors in the nineteenth century who preferred to see the women in reclining nudes awaiting the male gaze. in comparison, kusama presents her naked body as part of the installation that she has created. thus in this image, she is both the subject and the object of the art. in another staged nude photograph dated to the ‘60s, kusama appears prostrate on a phallus-covered sofa, with her body covered in her trademark polka dots. her pose here is strongly reminiscent of paul gauguin’s thirteen-year-old tahitian lover portrayed in his 1892 painting spirit of the dead watching, another product of the french colonial history. gauguin is known to have found both artistic inspiration and sexual pleasure in the french colony in the pacific ocean, and the spirit of the dead watching demonstrates his romantic view of the primitive culture: his envy mixed with fear of their spiritual ascendancy is expressed in his juxtaposition of the tahitian girl and the figure of the ghost. in contrast, in kusama’s work, her aggressive, independent self-presentation commands full authority over such supernatural powers and inspirations. this nude photograph of kusama is actually a work of photomontage which she made by combining her nude photograph by hal reiff with photographs of her artworks: accumulation no. 2 sofa (1962), infinity net painting (circa 1959–61), and the macaroni floor from her installation food obsession (which premiered in her 1964 driving image show at castellance gallery). this photomontage is therefore a collective theatre of her oeuvre thus far. full of “kusamas,” it represents her world and her visions. in it, she presents herself as a self-pleasing and self-inspired artist. conclusion: as dotty as she can be starting with the observation that kusama has a unique presence in contemporary art, we have seen how kusama’s work in performance and persona cultivation began from a struggle for survival in the new york art world. a close look at kusama’s personal history within the cultural history of the new york art world has shown that for kusama art could never be separated from self-marketing or from life. while she is often criticised for her self-promotion, it was in fact the harsh realities of the western art market that taught her to play with her “exotic” appearance and identity in order to promote artistic success. literature on kusama’s work of the 1960s proliferated only after the artist re-emerged on the international art scene in the 1990s. the art critics and scholars of the 1990s tended to analyse how kusama’s self-display photographs of the 1960s appeared to the post-modern and post-feminist eyes and minds of the 1990s, without a close investigation of the historical backgrounds of the photographs. a danger in such a method is that the “white” western observer could ignore possible phenomenological problems resulting from kusama’s gender and racial identity, as it is different from his/her own. an extreme example comes from new yorker’s art critic calvin tomkins, whose article “a doyenne of disturbance returns to new york” (1996) was published at a time when kusama’s self-display photographs were avidly contextualised as feminist gestures. criticizing the lionizing trend and referring to kusama’s persona studies 2015, 1.1 37 photomontage nude, he said, “fair enough. let’s just note, though, that in a frequently published photograph for which kusama posed in 1966 . . . . her expression does not exactly project defiance” (tomkins 102). evidently he ignored the extravagant explosion of polka dots on her body and could not see that kusama was possibly mimicking an image and masquerading as a seductress. in mythologies (1957), roland barthes analyses the sport of wrestling as spectacle. in his analysis, the wrestlers make excessive gestures expected by the spectators, and these grandiloquent gestures have no meaning but are signs of the wrestler’s awareness of being watched and of his power to create spectacular entertainment. in the case of kusama’s performance of spectacles, however, there has been a critical problem with the reception. the current paucity of writings on the politics of kusama’s identity, appearance and performance indicates that the spectators have not been able to read her excessive gestures as mere signs. they have probably perceived her oriental body as an image rather than a performing subject. the artist’s excessively “japanese” and “erotic” gestures have instead been observed as natural and normal for a japanese woman. however, kusama—and the way she lives, works, and exists in the world—continues to challenge our norms, expectations, and myths in subtle, interesting ways. she is one of the few female artists in history who have seen their career thrive in the mainstream art market and culture during her lifetime. the success of the “crazy japanese woman” also contradicts the western myth of genius as tragic hero, which in modern art history is usually associated with male artists, such as vincent van gogh or jackson pollock, who died young. on the contrary, kusama is still active and prolific, at the age of 86, while living in a psychiatric hospital. her persona, as a result, is one that both reflects and transgresses common stereotypes about legendary artists. it exists and operates by shuttling back and forth between the domains of fiction and non-fiction, art and life, typical and extraordinary—while dancing with their proximity and distance. in her autobiography’s final pages, kusama “identifies mortality as her latest and perhaps final theme” (lee 47). her goal is now to produce work “that will shine on after my death” (kusama 238). and as always, she does not lack resolve: “and no matter how i may suffer for my art, i will have no regrets. this is the way i have lived my life, and it is the way i shall go on living” (kusama 238). over a decade has passed since she wrote those words, and she continues to work with the same passion and obsession. works cited akcan, esra. architecture in translation: germany, turkey, and the modern house. durham: duke up, 2012. print. andy warhol: the complete picture. dir. chris 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kusama.” bomb 66 (winter 1999): 62–69. print. wolff, janet. the social production of art. new york: st. martin’s, 1981. print. soojin lee holds a ph.d. in art history, and is an instructor in art history, theory, and criticism at the school of the art institute of chicago, illinois. persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 7 the #tradwife persona and the rise of radicalized white domesticity d evin p ro ct o r e l o n u n iv e r s it y abstract the “momosphere”—a collection of parenting, relationship, cooking, and crafting blogs and social media—has seen exponential growth during the socially distant pandemic years. it has also seen the rise of a new domestic online persona: the “tradwife.” these #tradwives write blogs and social media posts that promote “traditional” gender roles and family life, wherein the man provides for and protects the family, and the woman has children and takes care of the needs of the family. to combat the inevitable critiques of misogyny, many self-identified tradwives use feminist rhetoric to frame the movement as a choice they are making about how to live their own lives as empowered women. but the problematic nature of tradwife identity can go beyond issues of gender roles and into radical white supremacy. while these tradwives do not always identify as alt-right and/or white nationalists themselves (though some do), they are sometimes accompanied by either overtly white supremacist content or hashtags that signal allegiance to white supremacist hate groups (e.g., #thirdposition, #14words, #1488). focusing on three well-known tradwife profiles, this article applies the five dimensions of online persona (moore, barbour & lee 2017), to unpack the construction of tradwife persona. as the networks around the profiles widen to include multiple platforms and expanding lists of followers, they reveal different possible paths that the tradwife persona can take, and how online identities can contribute to the process of extremist radicalization—whether implicitly or explicitly—through their personas alone. key words tradwife; momosphere; online persona; radicalization; gender roles; blogs introduction among the various sites in the momosphere—the portmanteau given to a new crop of parenting, cooking, crafting, and relationship blogs that sprang up during the socially distant reality of pandemic life—new lifestyle genres have emerged with strange names like cottagecore, coastal grandma, and tradwife. while new to many in the mainstream internet public, the term ‘tradwife’ has been around in intermittent usage for a couple of decades, before a notable surge in searches in early 2020 (google trends 2022). tradwife is not just an aesthetic style or pandemic fad; it is, for many women, an identity. simply put, a tradwife is a woman who believes in ‘traditional’ gender roles and family dynamics. in popular media, these tradwives are often characterised in rather dismissive terms: “women who believe the greatest happiness is to be found in female domesticity or chores” (morgan 2020); “a woman who chooses to focus solely on her family, husband and home, rather than doing paid work or having a career” (lang 2022); or even a woman “who sticks to traditional gender roles and broadcasts it on social media” (kosoff 2021). what “traditional” means in this context can vary greatly, as proctor 8 we shall see, but it usually involves heterosexual marriage with masculine dominance and feminine subservience, child-rearing, homeschooling, and right-wing political ideals (christou 2020; freeman 2020; mattheis 2021). the uptick in tradwife searches in 2020 came on the heels of a bbc talkback episode, ‘submitting to my husband like it’s 1959: why i became a tradwife’, featuring alena kate pettitt (sitler-elbel 2021, p. 15). pettitt, whose blogsite the darling academy acts as hub of all things a traditional british wife should know and do, introduces the term thus: “you may have noticed a new movement of ladies calling themselves ‘traditional housewives,’ homemakers of our generation who are happy to submit to, keep house, and spoil their husbands” (pettitt 2022a). pettitt is not the first contemporary woman to adopt the mantle, but with this video, she became famous, and infamous, overnight as the global face of the phenomenon. this article will examine the construction of online persona through three well-known tradwives: alena kate pettitt of the darling academy; caitlin huber, aka mrs. midwest; and ayla stewart, aka wife with a purpose. following this introduction, i will analyse the tradwife concept itself in terms of its relationship with race and gender politics. then i will briefly touch on the ways the online tradwife community uses internet platform affordances to practice its aims in persona construction. the organization of the article will then follow the three tradwives through five dimensions of online persona as laid out by moore, barbour and lee: “public, mediatised, performative, collective and having intentional value” (2017, p. 1). as the dimensions of these tradwife personas are explored, they will reveal—through networks of followers and their own posts, tweets, videos, selfies, and guest appearances—how the tradwife persona implicitly, and at times explicitly, relies upon and promotes white supremacy and misogyny. these forms of racism and sexism manifest in tradwife persona performances to 1) establish tradwifery as a legitimate practice and form of identification, 2) illustrate how a person should act/talk/live to be considered a tradwife, and 3) establish themselves as part of a community of tradwives. i chose these specific tradwife profiles for various reasons. pettitt, as mentioned above, became the first widely-known tradwife in 2020 and introduced the term to the mainstream public: at the time of writing, her bbc video has been viewed 195,000 times (submitting to my husband like it’s 1959 2020). caitlin huber, however, is without doubt the most successful current online tradwife persona, with followers and fans of mrs. midwest in the hundreds of thousands and views approaching millions. ayla stewart, while not as popular in terms of follower numbers, has been a tradwife online for the longest, since at least 2010 as wife with a purpose, and is somewhat notorious for political statements that get her banned from platforms and featured in news segments. together, the three women represent the diversity of the tradwife persona. in this exploration of persona—its construction, its networks, and its politics—the focal point from which questions will arise is the concept of tradition. the latter half of the portmanteau—wife—is clear, but what is meant by ‘tradition’ in this context? and perhaps as importantly, whose ‘tradition’? how does the concept of ‘tradition’ traffic notions of race and gender? tradwife politics tradwife sexism the first and most obvious critique frequently deployed against the concept of tradwifery is that it is inherently sexist: it portrays women as subservient to men and unequal in society. “women who participate in #trad culture articulate their desire to return to ‘traditional’ gendered roles where men are ‘strong’ leaders and patriarchs, and they can be submissive helpmeets” (mattheis 2021, p. 93). so, is the tradwife movement sexist? yes. and it is not controversial to assert that it is even explicitly anti-feminist. tradwifery stands firmly against many feminist struggles over the past half-century: the right to work, the right to maintain one’s own finances, persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 9 the right to bodily autonomy, the right to freedom from harassment. and as demonstrated through this article, many tradwives wear their anti-feminism as a badge, supporting a false dichotomy of ‘feminism versus femininity’ and fighting against what they see as a rising tide of woke anti-feminine rhetoric. this is not the first time an assumed ‘feminist attack’ has seen a backlash among women calling for a return to ‘traditional feminine’ gender roles. in the mid-1960s, helen andelin’s fascinating womanhood: how the ideal woman awakens a man’s deepest love and tenderness (2020)—now in its sixth edition, having sold over 2 million copies—was published in direct response to betty friedan’s (1963) the feminine mystique (christou 2020). tradwives who do not openly advocate anti-feminist positions often maintain that this chosen lifestyle is their way to express a version of feminism: “how can it be a waste to invest time in my husband and children? true feminism is about choice and, as a tradwife, that’s what i have” (nicholas 2020). this concept is called “choice feminism”: the idea that all choices women make are inherently feminist, because they are made by women (ferguson 2010). the fallacy in this belief lies in the fact that so many women simply do not have that choice. for racial, geographic, cultural, and many other reasons, many women are unable to work even if they would choose to. and for economic and systemic reasons, many women have to work who would choose not to: the choice itself reflects privilege. the ideas that undergird ‘choice feminism’ reflect the schisms that characterized feminist discourse in the united states throughout the 20th century. feminism in the late 1800s and early 1900s, often referred to as the first wave, primarily focused on women achieving the right to vote, whereas the second wave—initiated largely by friedan’s work in the 1960s— fought for further equality for women on social and legal levels. the women’s liberation movement, as the second wave is often called, represented global womanhood as a monolith, as a united force that demanded attention, which was its strength as well as its downfall. this purportedly unified alliance was represented mostly by white women and thus portrayed a hegemonic vision that did not accurately speak for all women. critiques of this construct, brought forth by black feminist thinkers like bell hooks and audre lorde, ushered in the third wave of feminism, characterised by intersectionality and the understanding that “there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives” (lorde 2007, p. 138). realities of gendered labour practice also contradict these choice feminist assertions. the decisions to stay at home “may be presented as entirely personal. however, they are inseparable from the profound crisis of both work and care under neoliberal capitalism” (rottenberg & orgad 2020). so those women who choose to not work are exercising a privilege to embody a traditional version of feminine gender roles, as these traditions are often “frozen moments in history arbitrarily chosen from the cultural repertoire as “the’ authentic expression of the national collective” (christou 2020). indeed, very likely these arbitrary historic traditions themselves are complete inventions (hobsbawm 1992). for instance, it is a myth that women in the far past didn’t work. they were wives and mothers, but also worked the fields, brewed mead, sold and bartered goods, spun wool, and very often worked alongside guildsmen to learn a trade (shahar 2003). by framing the woman’s role in the home as ‘traditional’, tradwives continue a long project of delegitimizing women’s contributions in the workforce as separate and less valid than the formalized economy of male labour (milkman 2016). tradwife racism the link between tradwife identity and racism, by way of white supremacy, is less visible than its link to misogyny. ashley matthies (2021, 92) argues that the tradwife persona represents relationships as universal (a biologically-based heterosexual gender binary) and thereby, “white, western heteronormative ideals of femininity and masculinity become fixed as transhistorical and trans-geographic ‘facts’”. in this way, the tradwife concept “approximates whiteness through an unhinging from space and time” (gaztambide-fernández & angod 2019, proctor 10 p. 721). in other words, by framing these particular formations of gender roles and identities seen in the white middle-class united states of the 1950s as traditional, the tradwife persona reifies them into natural fact for all humans. one can imagine that black families in the united states in the 1950s—many living under jim crow laws, financial insecurity, and the threat of violence and incarceration—did not resemble the same traditional gender roles and distribution of labour as their white counterparts. this discrepancy is exactly the type of insight that intersectional feminism seeks to address, rather than continuing a “discourse of denial” that gives gendered difference prominence over race (bhopal 2020). the assertion that gender is central to constructions of race, and that tropes of gender serve in the construction of whiteness as a form of structural and social power serves as a central tenet of black feminist scholarship (collins 2008; crenshaw 1991; higginbotham 1992; hooks 1981; lorde 2007). sojourner truth, asking, “ain’t i a woman?” spoke to the reality of womanhood as constructed in tandem with whiteness: she had worked her whole life, like virtually every other black woman of the time. she had withstood hardship, abuse, and backbreaking labour. the construction of feminine, fragile, victorian womanhood did not describe her, and yet, was she not a woman? this construction of fragility still influences the current mainstream notion of (white, hegemonic) feminist womanhood that “ideologically grounds itself in a gendered victimology that masks its participation and functionality in white supremacy” (moon and holling 2020, 253). further, a weaponized version of this fragile white femininity has motivated race-based violence, from klan aggression based on rape scares perpetuated by media like birth of a nation, to the lynching of emmet till, to contemporary “karens” who threaten black birdwatchers and barbecuers today with state violence. the tradwife movement appeals to and supports an infrastructure of systemic white supremacy. this does not necessarily mean that it is inherently hateful or extremist, but it does make for fertile ground. mattheis (2021, p. 94) further argues, “while it is true that participants in #trad culture are not necessarily participants in extremist, white supremacist, or neo-fascist ideologies, supporters of these latter ideologies make incursions into #trad culture precisely because they see it as useful”. a nationalist vlogger on youtube, who records under the name the golden one, posted a video called ‘the woman question’ that urges his followers to “dial down the open misogyny and consider new strategies to win over more women to the white nationalist cause” (kelly 2018). the tradwife movement is one of the spaces in which these men seek to recruit. it is useful as a site to introduce radical and extreme ideas, because “it is not explicitly racist and extremist. instead, it amplifies extant racialized and gendered discriminatory beliefs intrinsic to normative culture” (mattheis 2021, 94). so, is tradwife racist? yes, but not necessarily to the extent of extremist white nationalism. except, as we will see, when it is. tradwife platforms we now know what a tradwife is to a certain extent, but how do we look at the phenomenon as one of online persona? the tradwife acts as a sort of archetype, after all, rather than a celebrity role model or villain. it is an aspirational invention, a person while also a personified assemblage of discourses, beliefs, and practices. in this sense, the tradwife is the very definition of persona, not quite the individual, but also not the collective. as moore, barbour and marshall (2019, p. 3) discuss, an online persona will have “the appearances of being an individual, but it is in fact the way an individual can organize themselves publicly [as] a projection and a performance of individuality”. alena kate pettitt, caitlin huber, and ayla stewart perform these seemingly individual identities as their online personas on their blogs, posting pictures of themselves and their families in various scenes of familial bliss: matching outfits, beautifully prepared meals, walks in nature, and other curated-to-seem-candid moments. these photos— and the personal testimonies, bits of advice, and ‘favourite things’ lists that accompany them— frame the women on the screen as individual people, but it is important to remember that these performances are “destined for some type of audience, some community and some collective” persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 11 (moore, barbour & lee 2019, p. 3). specifically, this intended audience is made up of selfidentified tradwives, those who aspire to be them, and those who are curious about (or even dubious of) the label. on these blogs, the intended audience is often spelled out rather explicitly. pettitt’s the darling academy identifies itself as “a lifestyle website for housewives, homemakers, traditionalists & anglophiles. a place to embrace your love for home, and your role in it” (pettitt 2022a). as expected, the site is populated with recipes for prototypical british foods like yorkshire pudding and plum pie, articles about the joys of marriage, and even books for purchase outlining proper ladylike etiquette. huber’s mrs. midwest, on the other hand, offers a youthful american tone for its audience, with “the goal of creating a haven for traditionally feminine women trying to find their place in this modern world” (huber 2020). huber has similarly categorized blog posts for “femininity”, “homemaking”, and “relationships”, but in place of darling academy’s etiquette books are articles like “youtube content i’ve binged” that enacts her youth and contemporary relevance. ayla stewart’s wife with a purpose site is rather stark in comparison, missing the “news, inspiration, and blog entries that wordpress deleted without cause given in september of 2019” (stewart 2019b). at the time of writing, it simply hosted a gallery of un-captioned pictures and a narrative about how and why she recently retired from political commentary. the only indication of audience is the site tagline, “tradlife: the restoration and preservation of traditional family values” (stewart 2019a). going back a few years, however (via the internet archive’s wayback machine) to the home page in october of 2018, we see that the site is described as “an online forum which brings together people interested in god’s plan for happy families and wives dedicated to traditional homemaking. it also serves youth interested in an alternative to feminism and liberal ideology” (stewart 2018). where pettitt and huber’s sites stray away from overt political opinion, stewart’s is plainly articulated as anti-feminist and antiliberal. the three women—and their three constructed personas—act here as our entry point to the online movement. they reflect the collective but are not the collective. they are, rather, “the indexical signs of the collective itself … essentially a way to negotiate one’s self into [the tradwife] collective” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 3). if we envision the tradwife movement as a type of public, i.e., as a group of people who are joined due to a shared interest in and circulation of a particular discourse (warner 2002; habermas 1991), then a persona can be understood as a way to embody that discourse as a way of claiming one’s part in that public. while pettitt, huber, and stewart vary in the specifics of tradwife performance, their similarities work to create, support, and appease the larger tradwife collective. as mentioned in the introduction, online tradwives perform the persona to 1) establish tradwifery as a legitimate practice and form of identification, 2) illustrate how a person should act/talk/live to be considered a tradwife, and 3) establish themselves as part of a community of tradwives. as we will see in the coming pages, they use different platforms to achieve these aims, utilizing the specific affordances of those platforms. in this context, “affordances” can be understood as the “aspects which frame, while not determining, the possibilities for agentic action” on a specific platform, i.e., the tools an interface provides a user to appropriately operate the technology (hutchby 2001, p. 444). for instance, the discussion of tradwife online content thus far in this piece has relied on the specific affordances of blogging: creating long-form written posts with static pictures, with little interaction from the audience. while blogs often have commenting ability afforded to readers, the commenting features have been turned off on these sites. as a one-to-many broadcast type of platform, a blog serves the first aim—to establish tradwifery as a legitimate practice and form of identification—and also helps establish a tradwife public among audience members. as we move through the tradwife persona constructions and into new platforms, the affordances change, as do the ways persona is constructed and the aims these constructions serve. youtube and instagram are primarily proctor 12 visual media, affording the tradwives the ability to post videos and pictures, but they also afford their audience members options for communication: commenting, liking, following, etc. in this way, the platforms serve the second aim—to illustrate how a person should act/talk/live to be considered a tradwife—while also fostering the creation of an inter-communicative layer to the tradwife public. at this point, a tradwife’s followers can see each other and communicate, forming a community out of a public. further on, when we consider the twitter, the tradwives themselves enter the group by communicating, reposting, commenting, and responding, which serves the third aim—establishing themselves as part of a community of tradwives. tradwife as persona in examining these tradwives as personas, rather than individuals, and attending to the ways these personas obscure sexist and racist notions, we must recall that they are highly curated in their “intensive focus on constructing strategic masks of identity” (marshall and barbour 2015, p. 1). they are tactical in nature, not merely being people, but crafting negotiated identities to perform personhood in specific contexts with explicit aims (2015; see also de certeau 1984). this may seem like goffmanian presentation of the self (1959), but marshall, barbour and lee (2017) have established five key components to show how online personas are something quite different that has developed over the last two decades. online persona, they argue, are public, mediatized, performative, collective, and see value as derived by agency, reputation, and prestige (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 3–7). the rest of this article will unpack what those five dimensions entail and how our three tradwife persona exemplars enact the dimensions in the service of performing a tradwife persona. as we explore how each tradwife persona is constructed along its five dimensions, we will also unravel three very different relationships between tradwife identity, politics, gender, and race. public personas are public. a person’s online persona is not only public in the sense that it can be seen by strangers but also because there is potential for virality. that is, any online persona could expand its audience from a few close friends to becoming a global celebrity. this is not probable, of course, but it is within the realm of possibility, so preparation for celebrity is a part of the construction of persona. part of wide success in this context is being universally relatable, which makes any appeal to overtly racist or sexist sentiment an ineffective route to virality. both huber and pettit represent their brand of “traditional” femininity on youtube as a part of the aim to illustrate how a person should act/talk/live to be considered a tradwife, but shy away from any overt statements about race and only implicitly support misogynistic narratives. this tactic has shown them some success. since her introduction via the bbc talkback segment in 2021, pettit has started her own youtube channel—with 8,070 subscribers—and uploaded seven on-brand, persona-supporting videos concerning etiquette and featuring interviews of her on other outlets. her most successful video, “five reasons i love being a tradwife,” has been viewed 76,000 times (pettitt 2022b). though her blog the darling academy has been active since 2016, her first video was uploaded after the bbc spot came out and greatly amplified her audience. huber’s mrs. midwest blog started after pettitt’s, in 2017, but reflecting her ‘modern’ and youthful persona, she made the leap to youtube first in 2019. there she currently has 201,000 subscribers and 144 videos, of which the most-viewed (‘my glow up | 7 ways i changed my appearance’) has been seen by over 600,000 people (huber 2022). while this may seem like an unimportant list of numbers, it speaks directly to the levels of virality that a persona’s publicness can achieve. stewart has been vocal on issues of race and feminism since she began posting content online in 2010. her first blog, wife with a purpose, predates both other tradwives significantly, as does her move to youtube in 2015 with her first (and still most-viewed) video “welcome refugees?? i blame feminism, this is why” (ayla stewart exolains 2015). despite her earlier persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 13 appearance on the platform, her numbers—10,100 subscribers, 34 videos, and 141,000 views of the video above—are far more like pettitt’s than huber’s. while manifesting in different forms and varied size, all three personas show the ability to “go from a small public of close and intimate friends to a massive and global public audience, enabled by the act of sharing” (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 3). mediatized personas are mediatized. by posting videos on youtube and running blogs—not to mention the various facebook, instagram, pinterest, gab, twitter, patreon, and etsy accounts between the three of them—these tradwives are undoubtedly using media platforms and technologies as a part of their persona production and dissemination, but that by itself is not fully what mediatization means in this context. the use of the media itself is incorporated, because a persona is more than a person: it is a collection of person/brand/audience/marketing message/politics/business and all of the various platforms that host, spread, and link those related aspects. all of these aspects of persona, in this context, serve the aim to establish tradwifery as a legitimate practice and form of identification. the line between explicit and implicit racist or sexist rhetoric in this context takes the form of platform censorship and corporate caution, respectively. the mediatization dimension of persona construction involves “the naturalisation of platform censorship and the negotiation between the personal, corporate, and institutional agency” (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p. 4). stewart’s constant censorship, for instance, is a part of her persona: the deletion “without cause” of blogs from her wordpress site wife with a purpose in 2019 and her very public ban from twitter in 2017 are a part of this censored aspect of her persona. she even refers to herself on her current site, a wife’s purpose, as “the most censored christian mom in america” and details how she was “deplatformed, with no reason given, from twitter, facebook, wordpress, etsy, pinterest, tee spring, patreon, etc.” (stewart 2019c). huber and pettitt do not have the same censorship claims and focus much more on the corporate and institutional agency of their personas. huber has a ‘shop’ tab on her blog that links out to allow purchase of her “favourite things”. she does not produce these items, but in the site’s frequently asked questions, she explains: “i get ad money from youtube from my videos, and when i do a sponsorship, i will negotiate to get paid. i also get a little money from any links that i offer to y’all from amazon!” (huber 2022). she is letting us know (with a colloquial “y’all”) that even though she is making money from this, she’s really just like us: a normal person, where ‘normal’ is code (for all three women) as white, middle-class, heterosexual, cisgendered, neurotypical, and able-bodied. pettitt takes corporate agency a step further by offering her own books on ‘traditional lifestyle & etiquette’—co-authored by herself and the darling academy—for purchase via amazon link. co-authoring allows her personal self, alena kate pettitt, to be a separate entity from the academy itself, even though they are two facets of the same persona. it is also noteworthy that she is selling books, actual paper-bound books, which is quite uncommon for an online persona with a blog and a youtube channel. this strategic attention paid to the ultra-traditional media platform of the printed word supports her version of tradwife persona and her intended audience. performative personas are performative. one could consider most examples up to this point to be performative in nature: stewart’s political heavy-handedness and consequent censorship; pettitt’s use of the term “academy” and production of glossy bound books; huber’s “y’alls,” and binge lists. these are, indeed, strategic acts and behaviours that help perform the three as different shades of the tradwife persona. but how are they exhibiting performativity in a deeper sense together (e.g., austin 1975; butler 1990)? how are they performing gender, motherhood, and marriage in a way that establishes what a tradwife persona is and should be? moore, barbour, and lee (2017, p. 4) suggest “to present a publicly mediated persona, we must perform proctor 14 our identity, our profession, our gender, and effectuate our tastes, interests, and networks of connection, through activities like commenting on posts, liking other’s contributions or framing a selfie”. we have seen above how they perform identity in specific and slightly different ways, and in each blog they explicitly state their professions as “traditional wife”, “homemaker”, and “traditional homemaker and wife.” how they perform gender and gender roles (and both implicit and explicit misogyny), is smuggled through less overt means. these blogs do not contain the necessary affordances look at these commenting, framing, and liking activities, but it is possible to view these practices via the women’s instagram pages. in pettitt’s instagram selfies, she is always in a dress reminiscent of 1950s style, and usually wearing subtle makeup. in some she is alone, either cooking, setting a table, or walking in nature. many are with girlfriends (in similar period dresses) out and about doing things around town. a few show her with her husband, but none include her children. we know she has children, as she writes about homeschooling and missing the “baby stage”, but she never shows them. huber’s selfies follow a very relatable chronological trajectory for a normal person (see ‘normal’ above): they start with her on adventures, shift to pictures of her meeting, having more adventures with, and marrying a man, and very soon nearly every picture is her with her children. both pettitt and huber’s feeds have a staged feel with beautiful lighting, and often seem like they are taken by another person (though huber swears she uses a self-timer on the camera). stewart’s pictures, however, feature very few selfies. the selfies that do appear are obviously self-taken, but she is in full makeup and usually wearing period dresses from the 19th century era up to the 1950s. most of her pictures are of her children. the women frame the ‘tradition’ aspect of tradlife in different temporal registers, from stewart’s pioneer aesthetic, to pettit’s mid-century nostalgia, to huber’s contemporary influencer style. aside from the pictures of people, however, the majority of all three feeds are comprised of nature, cooked food, and home decoration. so, while they perform their personas separately for slightly differing audiences, together they reconstruct and mutually support the tradwife ideals of nature and simplicity, and the importance of cooking and making a beautiful home. these performances for social media audiences serve the aim of illustrating how a person should act/talk/live to be considered a tradwife much like those performed on youtube, but also work to establish themselves part of a community of tradwives, which the next section takes as its focus. collective personas are collective. the tradwives, like everyone on social media, are part of their own webs of connection, both within and across platforms. this is what boyd calls a “networked public”, the “imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice” (boyd 2014, p. 4; with reference to anderson 1991). in terms of the persona, moore, barbour and lee (2017, p. 6), describe this spreading-across-platforms as a “micro-public” involving a network of friends and followers, along with their interconnecting networks, wherein “the individual is a node, but they are also simultaneously orbiting nodes in other networks”. at this point in the analysis, the three tradwife exemplars’ networks start to diverge, and the various threads of tradwifery become very visible. to sample the overlapping networks in which pettitt, huber, and stewart act as nodes of tradwifery, i decided to filter the possible results into something manageable. i had to do this because of the sheer numbers involved: while stewart has roughly 2,500 instagram followers, pettitt and huber’s skyrocket to 39,100 and 52,300, respectively. i parsed these out in two ways. first, i ran a search in each profile’s follower and following lists for the root word at the foundation of the tradwife persona: tradition. second, i checked these lists against each other for repeats that would indicate mutual follows: who among their tradition-related followers do they follow back? my reasoning for this distinction is that anyone can follow a profile, and while that puts the follower clearly into the public of the profile, it does not imply any reciprocal engagement with the persona. if they follow each other, however, that is evidence of mutual persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 15 recognition and a relationship on some level—mutually orbiting “nodes” across publics. this dimension of persona—how it is disseminated and linked across other personas and publics—is key to the overriding questions of this article, so this section will dig deeper than the others thus far, in hopes of exposing ideologies that overlap with tradwifery. surprisingly, of the 784 profiles pettitt follows, not one mentions the precise word “tradition” in the username, bio, or tagline. this could, of course, be strategic on pettitt’s part, to distance herself from some of the content below, and could also reflect how the concept of tradition can be deployed in a wide variety of ways. among her followers, however, 31 exhibit some sort of connection to tradition, usually as an identity descriptor in the username (traditional_wife, that_traditional_girl, traditionalmomlife) and among these, patterns begin to show themselves quickly. note the following three profile bios, all followers of pettitt that incorporate “tradition:” traditionalguy i believe in traditional gender roles and old values waiting till marriage vegetarianism femininity>feminism #propatriarchy traditionallytiffany 🌸🌸~feminine not feminist~🌸🌸 housewife and homemaker🕊🕊embrace tradition proverbs 31:30//follower of jesus christ⛪�✝ mama of four 🌿🌿 ✞ traditionalpowerexchange traditional power exchange patriarch and husband trying to understand how we revive patriarchy 30, father, professional believe in domestic discipline in all three, we see a different public being represented: that of overt anti-feminism. the pitting of femininity as counter (and preferable) to feminism does not merely imply anti-feminist sentiment, like the dog-whistles of “traditional gender roles” and “family values”—it explicitly states the position as a mathematical formula: “femininity>feminism.” of huber’s 54 “tradition” related followers, she shares four with pettitt, three of whom expressed identical anti-feminist sentiments: ladylikelevelup for feminine, traditional, and spiritual sirens feminine, not feminist. embracing a feminine and traditional life. traditional_wife tradition anti-feminist -love -honor -obedience proctor 16 traditionalwifelife traditional wife life �🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺🧺 30yo uk trad wife & mother 🇬🇬🇬🇬 domestic discipline / taken in hand marriage rejecting feminism, pro-patriarchy � again, we see femininity against feminism and talk of supporting patriarchy. huber has several other followers that express similar assertions, (with “anti-feminist” and “feminine, not feminist” both repeated several times). the fourth follower they share goes in a very different direction with her definition of tradition: thetraditional.lady the traditional lady -catholic -american anglo-saxxon, celtic, nordic ancestry this traditionalism is neither gender, femininity, nor politics related; rather it is about ancestry, specifically western european ancestry. and she is not alone. another of pettitt’s followers similarly evoke tradition in the european sense: familyvaluesmatter traditional european family celebrating traditional european aesthetic with nuclear family values tradition in this same vein comes up repeatedly among huber’s tradition-related followers, but in a much less subtle and more political way. for instance, no bio text is given for the account southern_traditionalist, but the profile picture is a tattered confederate flag, a symbol which also appears in pictures throughout the profile, aligning the account with neo-confederate traditionalism in a visual register. other accounts spelled out their traditionalist allegiances with text and emoji: western.traditionalism nationalism⚔ traditionalism🔱🔱 catholicism⛪ environmentalism🌲🌲 far from pettitt’s followers’ comparatively subtle white supremacy, these profiles identify themselves as neo-confederates and nationalists. whether these sentiments are rogue dissenters or represent a larger network within the micro-public of the two women’s personas is unclear from this exercise, and these are not statistically meaningful numbers, to be sure. this is only a sample taken from 85 of their combined 89,600 followers, less than 1%. also, they are followers that pettitt and huber may know nothing about (they each have tens of thousands). in huber’s ‘tradition’ list of followers, though, there is a single mutual follow implying a two-way engagement between nodes: worth_fighting_for traditional aesthetics tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. wear your heritage, support your culture worth_fighting_for is the instagram platform of western aesthetics, a brand which produces clothing and web-aesthetics. the images posted by the account follow a fairly strict formula: collaged images overlaid with text, like stylized memes. many of these images advise men to be physically and mentally strong because “hard times are coming” and tell their audience to reject persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 17 the “modern feminist agenda” and have children. all of this is to be expected within the tradwife umbrella of discourse. but western aesthetics also advises its audience to think about “heritage” and “culture”. one of the often-repeated memes on the site reads “remember who you are”, surrounded by pictures of young white women in “traditional” dress, labelled “germany, italy, france, the netherlands, austria, poland, norway, sweden, finland, belarus, estonia, russia” (worth_fighting_for 2021). in an original article on the main site, western aesthetics defines traditionalism as “rooting people together under a common identity, showing that people and their culture didn’t pop out of nowhere. tradition is history, tradition is geography, the way that people settled in a specific territory” (western aesthetics 2021). by grouping these young “traditional” women together in the previous meme, worth_fighting_for is doing just that: forming a common identity across different nations and cultures. “who you are” in this case is divorced from these national differences and congealed into one european (i.e., white) identity. moore, barbour and lee remind us that “micro-publics have a tremendous porousness, connecting to other networks effortlessly and with often unpredictable and unforeseen consequences” (2017, p. 6). in that vein, huber’s mutual following could be explained away as a benign aesthetic choice—worth_fighting_for is, after all, a clothing brand at its core—if it wasn’t for other details. the first is that worth_fighting_for regularly features pictures from huber’s instagram in their memes, cast as the prototypical european beautiful mother figure, so the relationship goes beyond mere aesthetic tastes. the other detail is back at huber’s blog, in the article, “20 ‘things’ i recommend.” number fifteen, sandwiched between a betty crocker pie recipe and a self-made spotify playlist, sits the recommendation “this presentation: stefan molyneux, the fall of rome. i’m a big fan of this man and his philosophy: it’s brash, offensive, and my favorite type of youtube content. i love his presentations in particular because they combine culture, history, and philosophy into one amazing learning session” (huber 2019). stefan molyneux is a self-identified alt-right philosopher and purveyor of scientific racism who communicates the belief that white people have a higher iq than non-whites and views races as different species of human (splc 2022). the video huber recommends is about the purported danger of non-white immigration and deals heavily in the great replacement theory that drives much of the hate-based violence in contemporary white power extremism. the link she gives to the video does not work because youtube banned his videos from the platform for hate speech violations, in a sweep that also included david duke (former kkk grand wizard) and richard spencer (white nationalist who coined the term ‘alt-right’). in calling herself “a big fan of this man”, huber is hiding this part of her strategic persona performance in plain sight. along with this link, she has an ongoing relationship with the ultra-misogynists of the “manosphere” including pushing diet and lifestyle tips from “neomasculinist” online vlogger roosh v, who has asserted that if he sexually assaults a woman on his property, it should not be legally considered rape. in an interview in 2019 with online manosphere vlogger yogioabs, huber actually reveals her strategy: “because my message can be kind of like, intense for some people—like, the things i believe—i like to pad it with, well, skincare and like, how i clean my house, you know?” (god is grey 2020). how she deals with situations when people see past the packaging is covered in the next section, but now we turn to our third tradwife, ayla stewart. stewart has far fewer followers than huber or pettitt, so her mere 13 flagged for “tradition” is unsurprising. she seems to have a closer relationship to them, though. of the seven “tradition”-related profiles she follows, four of them are mutual follows. one is an anti-feminist profile that should be anticipated: traditional_woman_80 anti-feminist. traditionalist. awake. country wife and mom � � � � 🤠🤠🤠👢👢👢👢👢👢👢👢�🇨🇨🇨🇨 🇺🇺🇺🇺 i wear my weirdness like a badge. proctor 18 another is a seemingly non-political mormon profile (stewart identifies as mormon): traditionalmormon mormone tradizionale italian american. lds convert. job 27:5 and the other two fall into the previously mentioned “ethnic european” category: traditionaleuropeanfemininity traditional european woman bringing back the femininity of traditional european culture ethnic_europa traditionalism “a brave man may fall, but he cannot yield” the ‘ethnic european’ tropes above also contain the ‘strong man, feminine woman’ aspects from the anti-feminist strain of tradwifery. even ‘traditionalmormon’, while seeming innocuous, hides far-right political messaging, using the hashtags #fascism, #fascist, #nationalism, #nationalist, #altright, and #thirdposition throughout their profile. these connections show that stewart has an audience for, and a stake herself in, the idea of a unified ‘european’ ethnic culture. scrolling through her feed reveals more support for this idea; she reposts others’ posts about “white identity”, uses hashtags like #blueeyedbabychallenge, #whiteculture, #itsoktobewhite, and even posted her dna results. when the onward_america instagram profile (now banned) posted a “fashwave” meme of stewart, haloed by the black sun (sonnenrad) nazi symbol, her response was “@onward_america turned me into a fashwave meme and i love it ❤🇺🇺🇺🇺.” 1 stewart’s youtube video ‘welcome refugees?? i blame feminism, this is why’ (ayla wife 2015) helps to contextualise =the somewhat baffling mixture of dog-whistle white supremacy and overt alignment with white nationalists in stewart’s instagram. when the video was posted, stewart had virtually no internet presence, save her largely unfollowed blog. but someone at stormfront—the largest neo-nazi web forum on the internet—saw the video and brought it to the attention of other stormfront members. here is a sample of the ensuing conversation (with spaces between speakers): thread: pro-white woman on youtube gives her take on muslim migrants this video is excellent and gives me hope. [embeds link] i haven’t seen or heard of this woman (ayla stewart) before. she has a few videos out and not one of them have over 100 views. please give her some likes and subscribers. we need to stick together. loved it. she seems like someone who might be open to wn. i hope someone who is both knowledgeable and patient introduces her to it. i went ahead and opened a youtube acct just to subscribe to her. 😊😊 once this girl becomes jew wise, it will change her world well gave her a thumbs up, and a message to look deeper, and to always follow the money. gave her a little hint also. show support, and try to steer in the right direction. i advise more do the same. she’s a half-awakened white woman, and people like her should be the ones we spend the most time “recruiting.” (stormfront 2015) persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 19 in this interchange, we see the initiation of a new public and the birth of stewart’s white nationalist (wn, as above) audience. a month later, she joined stormfront as ‘adorableayla’, introducing herself by saying “hi, everyone. i just joined up. i tweet over @apurposefulwife, i youtube at wife with a purpose, my blog is nordicsunrise.wordpress.com and i was on radio three fourteen a few weeks ago if you listen to that” (adorableayla, 2015). although stewart has not posted on the forum since, her account there is still active. her wn audience has continued their interest, which explains some of stewart’s other instagram followers: angry white man, white international news, angrygermanboy1488⚡⚡, and 1488_archives2. the wn interest in her becoming “jew wise”—referring to the wn antisemitic idea that a jewish cabal runs all of the world’s banks, governments, and entertainment, with the goal of erasing and/or enslaving the white race—has had some effect, too, shown by her tweeting comments like “jews/banking created the world wars, not europeans” (apurposefulwife 2017). on twitter, she describes herself in her bio as “christian, wife, mom of 6, nationalist panderer on white western heritage & my god’s love for white people.” it would seem her persona has fully incorporated white nationalism publicly, but it is perhaps more complicated than that, as we see in the following, and final, dimension of personality. agency, reputation, and prestige personas value agency, reputation, and prestige, which moore, barbour and lee shorten to “varp” (2017, p. 7). personas are curated carefully with specific intent in mind, and “ideally, lifestyle bloggers strike a balance between presenting a lifestyle that is aspirational and yet ordinary” (mcrae 2017, p. 22). these tradwives must maintain a somewhat non-controversial public stance in order to perform that ordinariness, even as they wink slyly at their audience. this risk of controversy has become problematic for pettitt and huber as tradwife identity continues to grow in mainstream recognition. the most visibly controversial aspect of the identity is the definition of gender roles being viewed as a move backwards, away from contemporary roles fuelled by decades of feminist work. pettitt takes this on directly in her bbc video, aligning tradwife identity with feminist ideals: “my view of feminism is that it’s about choices, and to say on one hand you can go into the working world and compete with men, yet you’re not allowed to stay home, that’s actually taking a choice away” (bbc stories 2020). she has stuck to the “choice feminism” line of argument, and it has largely worked for her. while implicitly endorsing misogyny, she does not openly argue against feminism, staying ‘above the fray’ which serves her refined, british construction of tradwife femininity. huber took a different approach and took time away from her platforms because of the stress of being in the public eye. the alt-right connections to some of her content and interviews with “manosphere” über-misogynists discussed above had gone somewhat viral on reddit, and she had been flooded with emails and messages asking for explanations (e.g., kitty_burglar 2020). after a two-month hiatus, she returned with a video addressing her time off: you know when you are a traditional homemaking christian wife online you attract people who hate everything that you stand for, and they want to disparage you, they want to talk badly about you, they want to make up insane conspiracy theories about you and associate you with political movements from the 1930s and 40s that it’s just really disturbing and hurtful and the slander was getting to be too stressful. (mrs midwest 2022) rather than face allegations or explain why people might have been upset—even refusing to say the word ‘nazi’—she supports her relatable persona and talks about how stressful it was. who among us would not find that overwhelming? and judging by the response it works: the video has 718 comments, every single one of them supportive. but where did this connection to white nationalism come from in the first place? tradwives’ white nationalist messaging began before the public writ large knew the darling proctor 20 academy or mrs. midwest existed. in 2017, ayla stewart issued what she called the “white baby challenge” on twitter: the mormon religion is under attack by black ghetto culture. as a mother of 6, i challenge families to have as many white babies as i have contributed. we can win the utah racial war and protect its unique lds european culture. (apurposefulwife 2017) we will get to how this tweet affected stewart and the construction of her persona below, but first, this moment is notable because it predetermined much of the public beliefs about tradwife identity. when pettitt’s bbc video aired and thrust the movement into the mainstream, the “white baby challenge” and tradwife identity’s links to white nationalism were unearthed. when asked about these links in the video, pettitt responds with complete surprise at the concept: “someone said this type of housewife was promoted by the third reich, and it’s like, ‘was it really? i didn’t even know that!’” later in the video, discussing the choice of “1959” as a focal year, she pivots into well-trod dog-whistle racism, under the auspices of “safety:” it’s almost harnessing kind of what made britain great during that time, when you could leave your front door open and know you were safe, and you knew your neighbours in the street. and we can have that again. you know times are changing so fast and we don’t even know the identity of our country right now. (bbc stories 2020) in a later interview, she alters her position slightly (possibly due to the transparency of the response above). it’s not that tradwives are not racist, but that most of them are not: the term tradwife has kind of been hijacked by some really fundamental people who have got links to white supremacy and the alt-right and things like that which is just, it’s a case of the few spoiling it for the many … we’re just this like really quiet group of people who have no representation in the media whatsoever. (brandman 2021) in their discussion of varp, moore, barbour and lee explain that “the intent to create personas can vary from the personal or intimate (designed to facilitate personal or familial relationships) to the professional (more associated with work), or the public (produced by those who wish to claim a level of fame or notoriety)” (2017, p. 7). while pettitt and huber definitely perform their persona for the fame, stewart, it seems, can’t choose between fame and notoriety. a month after issuing the white baby challenge, she posts on her twitter and instagram a picture from the 1960s of a black family and writes: “#tradlife isn’t race based. all people, all communities operate at their peak with traditional gender roles, families and faith” (apurposefulwife 2017). in stewart’s introduction post to stormfront, she refers to being interviewed on radio3fourteen, which is a show hosted by self-identified white nationalist lana lokteff as a part of the larger alt-right media group red ice tv. she was asked to appear in an interview with lokteff called “trad women vs the feminist lifestyle” in 2015 very soon after her video about refugees gained a niche, far-right popularity on youtube. two years later, within months of her “white baby challenge” tweet, stewart appeared again on radio 3fourteen in three videos: “woman who issued white baby challenge responds to media attacks,” “tips on raising a large family,” and a round table of five women titled “debunking the claim that nationalism is hostile towards women” (radio 3fourteen 2022). currently her blog’s front page (where, recall, she talks about wordpress deleting all her previous posts) she asserts: several far left news outlets, as well as journalists who wanted to pick up the story for click bait, created the lie that i had claimed white people should outbreed black people. i have never said that, i have never said anything close persona studies 2022, vol. 8, no. 2 21 to that. i was one of the first targets of the far left trying to smear any conservative as a “white supremacist.” (stewart 2019a) stewart is riding the line between two of her intended audiences—two publics that overlap in persona construction. does she know that people will see though this on some level? is she winking at them? this rebellious stirrer-of-the-pot attitude is, after all, very much a part of her persona. conclusion tradwives are not all anti-feminists or white nationalists. i feel the need to state this clearly, so as not to confuse the issue or seem like i am making extravagant claims. the concept of tradwifery absolutely contains aspects of systemic misogyny and white supremacy but does not necessarily ally itself officially with those movements. and as we have seen in the preceding pages, tradwife persona construction engages with these themes in very different ways. pettitt—with her construction of a british, reserved, author-of-etiquette-manuals tradwife persona—feels that claims of sexism and racism are completely off-base, and thus she will not engage with them. it is completely possible that she considers herself neither of these ugly things and has simply absorbed a certain amount of existing misogyny and racism from society. many people who do not march or write hateful things online have absorbed those same beliefs, and subsequently vote, think, and act in ways that are systemically damaging to women and people of colour. huber’s persona of a youthful, tech-savvy, fun tradwife obfuscates some of the real links she has to the more toxic areas of the anti-feminist and fascist internet, notably the neomasculinist manosphere and the european aesthetics movements. when confronted with this, she responds on brand/persona as a young internet personality who has been unfairly painted with this brush. she maintains this ignorant innocence even in the face of videos wherein she blatantly admits to cushioning her “kind of like, intense beliefs” with skincare videos. it should be mentioned that on her blog she lists her collegiate major as “strategic communications”. stewart is an anti-feminist and a white nationalist, by her own account. her tradwife persona takes on the form of a trickster—saying incendiary things, then acting bewildered at being censored with “no reason given.” she has used this persona to gain fame in the small but very active alt-right internet world, giving speeches and interviews on nationalist shows, and even hosting some of her own, where she openly discusses what a future white ethnostate might look like, while bouncing a child on her lap (ayla wife 2018). at the same time, stewart blogs, tweets, and posts about her unfair censorship, not because she believes herself to be innocent of the accusations, but because she knows that anti-watchdog, anti-“woke”, free speech sabre-rattling appeals to “recruits” who “might be open to wn” as those stormfront members said of her back in 2015. the complicated, slippery concept of ‘tradition’ stands at the centre of all of these narratives, but is it a call to nation (pettitt), gender (huber), or race (stewart)? tradition is simultaneously difficult to be cleanly defined and functions as a powerful motivating idea, making it fertile ideological ground. as miranda christou explains, “appealing to the importance of maintaining ‘tradition’ is one of the ways in which nationalist rhetoric claims an essentialized and largely a-historical version of culture” (2020). and rather than unpack the ways nationalism traces this essentialized version in a direct line from lifestyle to gender to race, i’ll let a tradwife herself voice the transition. around the same time stewart was doing her guest appearances on radio 3fourteen, lana lokteff aired a few other episodes on the tradwife movement. in one called, “is a traditional housewife the ideal woman?” one of her tradwife guests talks about the meaning of the term: proctor 22 [traditionalism is about] the opposition to women having superiority over men and also the opposition to the idea that women are exactly like men and that we can be exactly like men, so that’s how i first got introduced to the traditional movement. now, when embracing nationalism, i see it more than just an opposition to feminism, of course it is but also incorporating heritage, race, culture, nation, all of these things that go along with it … and i like to look at traditional, the word traditional, holistically, so it’s anti-feminism, it’s antiglobalism, it’s for the nuclear family, it’s for your nation. that’s how i look at it. (radio 3fourteen 2018) a few minutes later as they wrap up, lana says to the two interviewees: “the ideal woman i would say, is probably women like you two, especially for our audience, women that can, you know, bake cookies, have a fashy household, but talk about the jq” (radio 3fourteen 2018). the term “fashy” is how members of the alt-right refer to fascism in a more youthful and hip way. lana’s use of “jq,” however, is much older. jq stands for the jewish question (as in, what to do with them). this “question” and your answer to it, is the ultimate test of whether you are, in fact, a white nationalist. indeed, this is the exact question that the third reich came up with a “final solution” for. not all tradwives are white nationalist fascists, but some are. and unless we address that fact, every time we talk about ‘traditional’ lifestyles, family structures, or marriage dynamics, then we are complicit. if we view all tradwives the same way, as carbon copies of alena kate pettitt churned out by the darling academy, we miss the reality of caitlin huber behind the fun of mrs. midwest. we fail to take the ayla stewarts seriously, despite her consistently showing us that she is a wife with a purpose. we must continuously ask: what “tradition”; what “purpose”; whose “tradition”; whose “purpose”? end notes 1 “fashwave” is an internet-born art style that combines “vaporwave”—a fluorescent collage of 1990s computer graphics and greek classical architecture and statuary—with fascist messaging, including swastikas, black suns, and nazi slogans. 2 the number 1488 is very important in neo-naziism. the 14 stands for the “14 words”—the unofficial slogan for contemporary white nationalism—“we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” the 88 stands for hh (the eighth letter) and signifies “heil hitler.” works cited andelin, h 2020, fascinating womanhood: how the ideal women awakens a man’s deepest love and tenderness, 6th edition, bantam, new 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abstract key words introduction tradwife politics tradwife sexism tradwife racism tradwife platforms tradwife as persona public mediatized performative collective thread: pro-white woman on youtube gives her take on muslim migrants agency, reputation, and prestige conclusion end notes works cited persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 21 the art of notoriety in kanye west’s persona bra ndy monk-pay ton f o r d h a m u n i v e r s i t y abstract persona can be understood as a form of art that highlights different styles of fashioning the self for various media platforms and audiences. this paper explores what i term the “art of notoriety” through the creative pursuits of the notorious hip hop artist, kanye “ye” west. i argue that west’s public embrace of antagonism in american media propels not only his fame but also his increasing notoriety, which is predicated on negative affect made manifest through his persona and artworks. teasing out the complex role that polarising media personas can play in current popular culture; this paper specifically emphasises the negative affect of irritation that orients public response to the figure of the ‘asshole’. i suggest that west’s notoriety is not only due to his attitude and behaviour, the latter of which cannot be separated from his mental health, but is also connected to his penchant for ‘bad’ design at the level of aesthetic form in his artistic endeavours, and especially with his career in fashion. this paper provides a close reading of west’s persona and aestheticized conduct that incites public discomfort. i link the u.s. public’s peculiar relationality to west to issues concerning race and racial difference that amplify his status as a notorious black celebrity subject. ultimately, west’s creativity emanates from an oppositional space and his infamous mediated confrontations with the public confirm his artistic skill as a perennial provocateur. key words race, art, fashion, celebrity persona, affect, notoriety, kanye west introduction on october 3rd, 2022, at paris fashion week, a surprise show took place: the premiere of the yzy collection created by the black american rapper known as ye. during the event, he debuted a t-shirt that read—on the back in bold letters—'white lives matter’. the design was widely criticised and served as yet another example of his increasing contrariness; in this case, his dismissal of the black lives matter (blm) movement, which originated in the context of antiblack violence in the united states (thompson 2022).1 the musical artist, formerly called kanye west, is a cultural icon known for his outrageous antics and caustic public persona (saad 2021).2 during 2022, his social media tirades over his separation and subsequent divorce from socialite-turned-reality tv personality kim kardashian became only the tip of the iceberg for his bad behaviour. in addition to the contentious end to his partnership with gap inc. clothing company, west’s antisemitic rhetoric resulted in the loss of his multi-billion-dollar deal with sportswear manufacturer adidas. espousing hate speech targeted at the jewish population culminated with a second suspension from twitter in early december. west’s escalating propensity for negative exposure – of the aforementioned fashion controversy, he wrote on instagram that “my one t-shirt took allllll the attention” (long 2022) – seemed to become monk-payton 22 uncontrollable in the eyes of the public. indeed, at the yzy season 9 show, he defiantly stated: “you can’t manage me. this is an unmanageable situation” (cartner-morley 2022). without a pr team, west’s resistance to any kind of aesthetic or politic being imposed on him results in a lack of positive publicity. this article reflects on the negative aspects of west’s celebrity image in order to detail how the creative pursuits of the hip hop entertainer exemplify what i term the “art of notoriety.” notoriety can be defined as the state of being well known for a bad quality or deed. chris rojek (2001, p. 31) describes how the status “usually connotes transgression, deviance and immorality”. a person who is labeled as notorious is likely to be publicly reproached, if not outright condemned and shunned. such a “pejorative order of celebrity” ranges from the most morally reprehensible (often criminal) activities to the most outrageously benign behaviours such as individual outbursts that draw attention (epstein 2005, p. 9). notorious celebrities often commit disreputable acts in the public eye; they can be intensely scrutinised, yet ostracised, from society because of their transgressions. over the years, west’s acts of disreputability that circulate within popular u.s. media culture have helped to reinforce what he sees as his marginalised position within contemporary celebrity. commenting on his stardom in a 2013 new york times feature entitled “behind kanye’s mask,” west offers: “i don’t have some type of romantic relationship with the public. i’m like, the anti-celebrity, and my music comes from a place of being anti” (caramanica 2013). i argue that west’s embrace of antagonism propels not only his fame but also his increasing notoriety, which is predicated on negative affect made manifest through his persona and artworks. my examination of west as a celebrity is informed by persona studies with its focus on how the individual ‘publicises’, ‘presents’ and strategically ‘enacts’ their persona” (marshall, moore & barbour 2015, p. 290). in this way, the study of persona emphasises the agency of selfpresentation across technologies of mediation. in the current social media era, celebrities often utilise an intercommunicative strategy of publicity, expressing themselves within both presentational and representational media flows. the turn towards studying persona can help illuminate what p. david marshall determines is the “leaky nature of identity in celebrity culture” and the “contradictions of construction and agency” in the play between the individual and the collective (marshall 2014, p. 166). the issue of identity and subjectivity becomes more complex when exploring the persona of a volatile celebrity like west. the notion of a public self as described by this scholarly field suggests that there is intentionality involved in the coproduction of an individual’s outward appearance in its encounter with the collective. it is here that i want to underscore the collective discomfort elicited by the ambiguous persona of west. i am reticent to definitively ascribe explicit malicious intent to west’s self-presentation for a variety of reasons; most notably, his publicised admission of living with mental illness opens up a conversation about the extent to which his actions should be considered within the context of ‘madness’.3 the discourse on west cannot ignore his bipolar disorder diagnosis. indeed, it seems aligned with the highs and lows of black celebrity itself, what nicole fleetwood (2015) asserts are the cycles of public veneration and denigration associated with racial iconicity. the rapper publicly revealed his bipolar diagnosis for his eighth studio album, ye in mid-2018. the cover of the album features an image of mountains in jackson hole, wyoming overlaid by a phrase in neon green lettering that reads: “i hate being bi-polar its awesome”. west joins catherine zeta-jones, demi lovato and mariah carey in disclosing their battles with the disorder. one track on ye specifically comments on mental health, and like “i love kanye” from the life of pablo, “yikes” is self-reflexive in its emphasis on the machinations of fame, while connecting issues of celebrity and publicity to anxieties around the status of his disorder. the rap relays the experience of being on and off medication, exposing the complexities of his erratic mental state—so complex that he sometimes scares himself. however, west ultimately persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 23 understands his bipolar disorder not as a disability but as a “superpower” that allows for him to maintain the status of artistic genius (o’malley greenburg 2019). such a superpower also inadvertently helps to sustain his notoriety, yet it is important not to excuse his antisemitic and anti-black musings as due to his mental health. rather, west’s bipolar disorder troubles any clear-cut distinctions between whether his antagonistic persona is sincere as a form of selfaggrandisement or is a form of self-harm. thus, this article focuses on how an analysis of persona also crucially becomes a question of aesthetics as it is a form of art that produces different styles of fashioning the public self for various media platforms and audiences. the art of theatrical masking produced the language of persona—the word itself means mask in etruscan (marshall, moore & barbour 2020). west is no stranger to covering his face for aesthetic purposes. for his 2013 yeezus concert tour, west commissioned belgian designer maison martin margiela to create signature masks for his performances. jewels and other shiny tactile objects adorned the elaborate avant-garde coverings. the rapper addressed his unusual wardrobe choice during a performance in london where he commented on his desire to enter the high fashion industry: i’m just saying don’t discriminate against me. because i’m a black man or because i’m a celebrity you tell me i can’t create in that field…stay in your place…do what you’re paid to do!... save face…that’s why i got this fucking mask on. but fuck whatever my face is supposed to mean and fuck whatever the name kanye is supposed to mean (coleman 2014). the rapper refers to how his black celebrity is seen as an impediment to his inclusion in the artistic field of fashion. west’s material self-fashioning in the form of masks, which has continued into the 2020s, serves as an obstruction of the countenance—arguably the most important feature of the celebrity image. west’s masking thus offers an insight into the creation of persona that also attempts to negate celebrity in part though racialised animus towards the public. indeed, the politics of recognition are fraught for the black subject. in the fifth chapter of black skin, white masks, entitled “the lived experience of the black man”, frantz fanon provides an account of his exposure to the white gaze in french algeria. the martinican-born fanon becomes an object of fixation for a young white child, which simultaneously fixes him within what he calls a process of epidermalisation (fanon 1952). such epidermalisation incites for fanon a sense of representational entrapment in which he psychically erupts due to the debilitating condition of a multiply (dis)located self. what might be considered west’s fanonian complex can be seen throughout his career as a hypervisible black subject under the dominant gaze of the white art and entertainment industries. it is important to note that “dissent has been a central theme in west’s construction of his blackness” (brick 2021, p. 160). however, that dissent is not neutral in its real-world effects when wielded by bad actors for nefarious purposes. for example, a display of banners hung from a freeway overpass in los angeles in late october 2022 after his antisemitic remarks, one of which read “kanye is right about the jews”, as demonstrators raised their arms in a nazi salute (rector 2022). west’s current confounding artistic statements cannot be divorced from his political ideologies. the rapper has notably stated in the past that his own life is “like walking performance art” (standen 2016). indeed, jerry saltz (2013) explicitly calls him a “performer of fame” whose public persona increasingly reflects ‘the new uncanny’: an un-selfconsciousness filtered through hyper-self-consciousness, unprocessed absurdity, grandiosity of desire, and fantastic self-regard”. west’s aestheticised conduct that provokes public discomfort and anger must be contended with due to its dangerous political implications. in a number of cases, that conduct might contribute to the normalisation of fascism. on december 1, 2022, the monk-payton 24 rapper appeared in an interview on the american far-right website infowars with conservative media personality and conspiracy theorist alex jones. wearing a black ski mask that completely covered his entire face, west vocalised his admiration of the nazi regime. in a particularly revealing moment, he notes that adolf hitler “seems like a cool guy, he had a really cool outfit, he was a cool architect” (infowars 2022). hitler’s appeal for west, here, is understood through style and form. the extent to which west desires to replicate that same kind of design “skill” and the ramifications of such an art of notoriety is explored in this article. this analysis of celebrity and negativity, as exemplified by west, will tease out the complex role that polarising media personas can play in current u.s. public culture that exceed questions of disidentification and dislike. this article discusses the art of notoriety as it relates to the production of negative affect in cultures of fame. negative affect, here, refers to what sara ahmed describes as an economy of emotion that is “social and material, as well as psychic” (ahmed 2004, p. 121). such an economy derives value through its generation of a maladaptive attachment to a celebrity subject of ire. i specifically emphasise the negative feeling of irritation that orients public response to the figure of the ‘asshole’. additionally, i suggest that west’s notoriety is not only due to his attitude but is also connected to his penchant for bad design – especially within the realm of fashion – at the aesthetic level. finally, i link the public’s peculiar relationality to the rapper to issues concerning race and racial difference that amplify his status as a notorious celebrity subject. “a kanye place”: on fame, micropublics, and cultural injury as marshall et al. (2015) have suggested, examinations of celebrity ‘persona’ seek to understand how famous individuals navigate their multiple positions within media, culture, and society via public presentations. such navigation is strategic and in the contemporary moment frequently centers “digital objects, network connections and mediated expressions” that convey “an individual pattern of negotiating one’s way through institutions and discourses” (marshall et al. 2015, p. 290). in the contemporary era, a celebrity has the ability to create a persona through their social media engagement, generating affective affinity or aversion across micropublics. days after his show at paris fashion week, west tweeted: “who you think created cancel culture?” (west 2022a). the question operates rhetorically and prompts a conversation about the rapper’s grandiose self-concept. what is called cancel culture “is now commonly used in a pejorative sense within mainstream commentary” and can exist within popular media in the form of celebrity cancellations “arising initially due to media content posted or produced by the cancel targets” (ng 2022, p. 5 and p. 8). the discursive practice of ‘cancelling’ refers to the notion that an individual can be removed from public life for expressing an opinion or behaving in a way that causes large-scale offense. west’s tweet suggests that he precipitated the phenomenon of cancel culture through his own perceived cancelling. in these moments, west assumes an antagonistic posture as he commits to organising his public identity around negativity. west can perhaps even be considered a persona non grata – an unwelcome or unacceptable person who, in this case, requires expunging (in other words, cancelling) from society. this status is in part predicated on his rebellious trickster sensibility that was seen as part of his genius for years, but that can now be considered a liability. according to helena bassilmorozow, tricksters express “creative noncompliance” and “at the core of a trickster narrative is the disruption of the order of things” (bassil-morozow 2020, p. 30-31). many icons who emerge from the music industry have also embodied the trickster. such icons are shapeshifters that buck against social norms in their music and image. from david bowie and lady gaga to prince persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 25 and beyoncé, these creative artists play characters as “fans construct and co-create the public identity—essentially the persona—of the popular music star” (fairchild & marshall 2019, p. 2). black fans, as a kind of micropublic, psychically invest in particular high profile african american creative artists (especially music stars) and are faced with the difficult choice to support or abandon them after negativity publicity. rebecca wanzo outlines examples of cultural injury perpetrated by black male celebrities like michael jackson and the negotiations that african american audiences make between the compulsion to defend their attachments and the “affective and social costs” of loss associated with breaking up with these icons (wanzo 2018, p. 99). what should be made of those black male love objects who commit acts of cultural injury that are not associated with sexual harassment and assault, but cause ideological harm that wound black communities in their transgressive quality? as an (in)famous figure, west offends by virtue of his expressive presence that captivates the media. west has steadily become a ‘bad’ object in us black popular culture over the past twenty years. racquel gates (2018) examines the “double-negative” quality of disreputable black media texts and offers an important framework for examining their continued pleasures. in contrast to the black bad objects that gates analyses in film and television, a media figure such as west invites and even courts broader public feelings of displeasure beyond racial identification in his fall from grace from good to bad object. seeming to affirm west’s affective form of negativity in popular media is a sketch with african american actor/musician host donald glover on a may 2018 episode of saturday night live (1975-present) called “a kanye place”. the skit spoofs the apocalyptic film a quiet place (2018), in which society is rendered silent and people are forced to communicate without speaking or making a sound in the face of creatures that hunt by noise. in the sketch, a group of survivors find themselves in harm’s way when david (played by glover) looks at his phone and begins to relay west’s recent antics online. one by one, each person in the group is killed when they outwardly express shock, confusion, and outrage at west. at multiple points, the group questions their investment in west’s social media tirades. someone asks: “why are we talking about this?” to which david ominously replies: “because it’s out there. it’s all out there” (saturday night live 2018). here, the parody highlights west’s almost singular ability to pervade the american media milieu via negative publicity. in this scenario, the amusement provided by west gives rise to cultural anxiety and terror. ultimately, the snl sketch deftly depicts how easy it is to succumb to the pull of west’s shenanigans, becoming part of his internet activity and production of self within the current digital ecology. as moya luckett states: “an affective domain, celebrity prompts emotive public reactions, with fallen celebrities used to provoke anger, hostility, frustration and disappointment” (luckett, 2019, p. 301). emblematic of communicative capitalism run amok, the chaotic descent of west across different mediums of communication persists as a subject of intense fascination yet rebuke. in his online trolling via twitter and instagram and refusal of supposed contemporary groupthink, “he seeks to stir the pot – whatever the ingredients, whoever’s being fed” (bruce, 2021, p. 167). his extreme attention-seeking ignominious behaviour generates an atmosphere in which different micropublics (including other celebrities and fans) are contradictorily compelled to function as both his primary enabler and detractor in the continuous construction of his destructive persona. monk-payton 26 figure 1: screenshot of @kanywest instagram post (west 2022b) figure 2: screenshot of @kanyewest instagram post (west 2022c)4 social media technology is crucial to west’s persona because it facilitates his interaction and connection with various micropublics through online sharing. when his instagram page is “live”, it is constantly being edited as posts are subject to appear, disappear, and reappear within minutes. posts feature images (artistic visuals, memes, as well as photographs culled from the persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 27 web), statements written from the iphone notes app (see figure 1), and even screenshots of text message conversations ( see figure 2). indeed, west is known to expose phone conversations that he has between his family, friends, and associates that exemplifies a context collapse between the interpersonal and the social. brandi collins-dexter relays that west “has a persona that is perfect for the age of internet celebrity. he blurs the barrier between what people think should be private versus public. he does it in a way that feels camp and at times grotesque” (collins-dexter 2022, p. 177). the use of the term ‘camp’ connotes the stylistic and performative, while the use of grotesque indicates something seen and felt as repulsive. in the following, this article aims to examine the influence of both aesthetics and affect on west’s persona as an object of collective vexation. “let’s have a toast to the assholes”: on celebrity, affect, and negativity celebrity studies scholar sean redmond suggests that “to engage with the celebrity requires feelings, the activation of the senses, and the mobilisation of affects” (redmond 2018, p. 12). celebrities can prompt intense reactions from a phenomenological perspective. they can be experienced perceptually by touching both the individual and the collective as they circulate within popular media culture. in this way, the sensations that they generate through their mediated presence can give rise to emotions like love and hate that produce an affective economy of feeling in public discourse. here, i focus on an affective economy of negativity configured as what sianne ngai calls “ugly feelings,” and how they help cultivate notoriety for west as the celebrity subject. “ugly feelings” are minor, low-intensity affects that can transform our encounters with artworks (ngai 2007, p. 6). one of these affects, irritation, can be both a physical and emotional response to an object of annoyance. west elevates notoriety to an aesthetic and relies on forms of negativity in his engagement with the public. west provokes intense affective reactions through what is widely perceived as his offensive behavior, which then breeds emotions like disgust, anger, and resentment amongst various (micro)publics. he has fully embraced the power of negative attention that perhaps reached an apex in april 2018 when he endorsed donald trump as us president, and asserted that african american enslavement was a choice. the public witnesses his monstrous media persona on television and social networking platforms, as well as through his music and other artistic endeavors. in “i love kanye,” an interlude on his seventh studio album entitled the life of pablo, (2016) west playfully laments that he misses the “old kanye” and hates the “new kanye”. the tonguein-cheek track relays how audiences perceive of his transformation from a fresh-faced preppy college dropout making infectious hip hop music to a foul-mouthed entertainer with a “bad mood” who is “always rude” and often a “spaz in the news.” the use of the third person aligns with west’s penchant for navel-gazing and embrace of megalomania. it also gestures to a keen awareness of his own construction and what he calls the “invention” of kanye-as-persona. such an invention is always in process; as kirk walker graves writes, “in truth, it is unclear what he is, exactly, or what he might become” (2014, p. 7). this ambiguity and uncertainty contributes to west’s “it” quality, the quality of abnormally intriguing people. but while the it-factor is often associated with glamour and personality-driven mass attraction, ‘it’ can also be registered through the defilement of glamour. repulsion, too, has a gravitational pull. douchebag and jerkoff. scumbag and asshole. these are all words that west utilised in the chorus of the hit single “runaway” (2010) to describe himself. perhaps the most used term of disparagement from the above assortment, asshole, is the most apt label for west, and this character trait helps to inform his infamy. as aaron james states in his theory of such a repugnant figure, the asshole is entitled and behaves in arrogant and even abusive ways because he “acts out of a firm sense that he is special, that the normal rules of conduct do not monk-payton 28 apply to him” (james 2014, p. 6). many different types of assholes abound in society, but james puts west in the category of the delusional asshole. in this way, the rapper exhibits an “utter failure to appreciate how he is seen” (james 2014, p. 75). self-absorbed to a fault, west fails to realise his limitations, from fantasies of taking over the fashion world to winning a presidential bid. put simply, he genuinely believes his own hype. delusional assholes are exasperating to watch, and thus may occasionally conjure a modicum of sympathy from the public. it is important to note that his own delusional thinking of divine anointing—“i am a god,” he assuredly exclaims on a yeezus (2013) album track —cannot be extricated from his bipolar disorder diagnosis. the figure of the (almost always male) asshole, across different industries and organisations, is someone who causes offense as a source of interpersonal and group conflict. such a figure exists in particular environments as an inflammatory substance. west publicly appears in the same volatile way amidst the hypervisibility of fame and his conspicuousness as an asshole who breeds public frustration. thus, within the current mediatised environment of celebrity, his discomforting star text might be said to “summon the idiom of irritation both to ‘put us off’ and to ‘rub us the wrong way’ (ngai 2007, p. 175). music critic jody rosen (2013) seemingly agrees, arguing that “kanye wants to get under our skin, to rile and appall”. in this way, west is experienced as a metaphorical and literal irritant who purposefully agitates and aggravates the senses. his controversial comments and erratic actions serve as provocations for the public to partake in the attention economy of celebrity whereby his image is seen as an “obscene sore” in its “irritated aesthetic” (ngai 2007, p. 36) a vicious cycle of publicity emerges as his caustic personality comes to be fueled by the seemingly visceral audience reactions to his egoistic shenanigans. in a 2015 interview with the new york times, west waxes poetically about himself through a tale of interior decorating: i have this table in my new house. they put this table in without asking. it was some weird nouveau riche marble table, and i hated it. but it was literally so heavy that it took a crane to move it. we would try to set up different things around it, but it never really worked. i realized that table was my ego. no matter what you put around it, under it, no matter who photographed it, the douchebaggery would always come through (caramanica 2015). the rapper anecdotally discusses the encroaching piece of furniture in his home, where the marble table, installed without his consent, is deployed as a metaphor for west to reflect on his egomania. he describes the piece as an ostentatious object that reeks of the bad taste of the recently wealthy. despite efforts to alter the surroundings in order to make the table look better, its obnoxiousness remained. even a picture taken by a skilled photographer would not be able to hide the fixture’s ugliness from view. west utilises the language of aesthetic judgement to grapple with the public perception of his grotesque celebrity image. through an emphasis on design, he offers up a working concept of an art of notoriety that highlights negative affect and the boundaries of taste associated with infamy. bad design in “could kanye west be the world’s most committed artist?” bernard (2014) remarks that west “is an artist who commits, even when it isn’t prudent, comfortable, realistic, or flattering. it’s hard to explain his behavior at times, but that just might be what makes it relevant” (bernard 2014). west, who initially rose to success as a prolific producer-turned-rapper, has become increasingly preoccupied with the art world, from avant-garde fashion to modern architecture. he has worked on various kinds of imagery for his music and apparel with leading visual artists like takashi murakami, george condo, and arthur jafa. in terms of west’s entrepreneurial ethos, he now considers himself a visionary akin to early twentieth century persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 29 innovators like henry ford, howard hughes, and walt disney (dessem 2016).5 seemingly inspired by disneyland, west even went so far as to trademark the idea of the “yecosystem” – campuses around the country that would be considered mini communities with ye-branded homes and items (roundtree 2022). his passion for design, both concrete and abstract, informs all of his creative ventures. furthermore, west has come to be known for bad design; in this way, negative aesthetic predicaments and perceptions arise from his artistic choices. bad design has multiple meanings in this context and includes 1) a piece of work that is not pleasing to the eye, 2) a piece of work that is poorly conceived and executed, and 3) a piece of work that can be considered mean or cruel. it is in the spirit of the delusional asshole that the success and failure associated with bad design proves integral to—indeed, an organising logic of—west’s notoriety as an artist who experiments across different forms of media with questionable results. bad design manifests in many of west’s artistic ventures. take, for instance, the rap icon’s notable entrance into the world of high fashion. as heben nigatu notes, west belongs to the “long history of black artists who use fashion, art, and a couture-level interest in looking beautiful and self-fashioning as a powerful tool of self-actualization” (nigatu 2013). the emphasis on the sartorial is not new in hip hop, a vibrant and vital element of black popular culture. during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the figure of the hip hop mogul became a dominant presence in mass media. the ascension of the black male rapper from the harsh urban landscape of the ‘hood’ to the upper echelons of fame and fortune indicated individual achievement emerging from an entrepreneurial spirit (holms smith 2003). with an increased cosmopolitan sensibility, the mogul’s success was exemplified by the wearing of jewelry ‘bling’ and street clothing ‘for us by us’. fashion lines like russell simmons’ phat farm and jay z’s rocawear, to name a couple, became a crucial part of the fabric of the hip hop experience. west has become a mogul through his own foray into fashion, beginning with now-defunct brand pastelle and continuing with his successful (albeit heavily criticised) yeezy clothing and shoe line. one of his yeezy shows at new york fashion week was dismissed by the washington post as “worse than bad,” and the critic stated further that “fame is easy. good clothes are hard” (givhan 2016). another commentator wrote of his adidas sneakers that “the yeezy 350 is ugly. deliberately so” (thomas 2016). these reviews seem to suggest that his apparel brand is the antithesis of beauty. in spite of the reactions to his collection and runway shows, west insists upon the inclusion of his urban wear in the haute couture world, demanding a seat at the table with the most coveted designers and validation from vogue editor-in-chief anna wintour, known for her widespread influence in the fashion industry around the globe (voynovskaya 2015). west’s aim to bring clothing to the masses commenced in the development of a business partnership with gap in a bid to become the steve jobs of the fashion industry (caramanica 2013). the yeezy hoodie delivered more online sales than any other product in gap’s history (hartmans 2021). good reviews poured in as another headline attested that “kanye west has actually made people happy” (sicha 2021). implicit in such a statement is that his persona ordinarily engenders negative affects leading to irritation, anger, and hate. west’s desire to create a populist apparel line that is utilitarian and accessible extends to the way in which patrons came to purchase the clothing. the designer caused a stir when it was reported that yeezy gap would be sold in stores, but not in a conventional manner. instead of being hung or placed on shelves, the clothes would have to be picked out of what looked like garbage bags. a caption on the now defunct yeezyxgap instagram page described the function of the stunt: “these are not trash but construction bags intended for customer to informally reach in & help themselves. ye goal is to make life easier. yzygap is the future of fashion” (@yeezyxgap 2022). west’s offering of an alternative and egalitarian retail experience can be considered another bad design in its ill-conceived monk-payton 30 presentation. while many of west’s risky aesthetic decisions have been received negatively by the public, his clothing, shoes, and accessories do sell as their popularity is buoyed by the rapper functioning as his own hype machine for adoring fans. west defended selling his gap clothes in construction bags in an interview on the fox news cable channel, stating that “they had no idea, you know, what you go through as an artist to innovate as a disruptor and just to fight to do something new” (shawn 2022). here, west articulates how his creative work is meant to disturb tradition and ultimately cause controversy. returning to the wearing of the message t-shirt at the 2022 paris fashion show discussed at the outset of this article, the global contributing fashion editor-at-large of vogue gabriella karefa-johnson wrote on instagram that it was “indefensible behavior” and that “there is no excuse, there is no art here” (friedman 2022). remarkably, the ‘white lives matter’ t-shirt did not result in the loss of any of west’s lucrative deals. it was not until his array of antisemitic comments that adidas finally cut ties with the icon; along with gap, the company pulled his product from stores when their own public image was threatened by his notorious persona (meyersohn 2022). then, on december 1, 2022, west tweeted a picture of the nazi swastika inside the star of david and was suspended from the platform (milmo 2022). west’s appropriation of the swastika can be thought of in tandem with his use of the “white lives matter” slogan described at the beginning of this paper. such design choices approximate in popular us media culture what walter benjamin (1968) coined as the aestheticisation of politics. west’s use of art and privileging of fashion and design aesthetics as his primary form of dissent serves as an alibi to absolve him of ideology. for example, on october 6, 2022, west posted an image of italian contemporary performance artist and frequent collaborator vanessa beecroft’s self-portrait white madonna with twins (2006) with a statement below it. though it is unclear if the entertainer wrote it himself, the lengthy caption states that “ye cares about black lives” but that “grand narratives created by politics and media will always be in conflict with the artist. the artist is ultimately above the grand narrative” (west 2022d). here, west seems to espouse a philosophy that removes him and his artistic expression from the perceived constraints of a particular kind of racialised thinking about the world as a black american subject. there are negative consequences for particularly cruel design choices like the antisemitic image, as exemplified by the school of the art institute of chicago revoking the rapper’s honorary doctorate (blanchet 2022). west’s purported challenging of the status quo in his creative direction has led to the aforementioned fashion fallouts and even the shutdown of his donda academy school. when his illusion of invincibility—“adidas can’t drop me. now what?” he bragged to the drink champs american music podcast (wiener-bronner 2022)—was dispelled, west responded by voicing his identity as a persecuted black man. comparing himself to emmett till, an african american boy who became nationally known as a victim of anti-black violence in 1955, west wrote that he had also become a victim of different forms of lynching: both economic and digital (seitz 2022).6 though the comparison can be considered obscene, it confirms how west’s notorious persona is always already an issue of race, even if it sometimes contradicts his own self-presentation. slavery was a choice?: anti-blackness and the production of notoriety a fanonian complex of being “an object among other objects” (fanon 1952, p. 89). provoked by the racialised30 estrangement of masking can be found within west’s art and persona; the ways in which he publicly deals with this estrangement inevitably creates scandal. in his play with masks, west may perform a kind of “off-script blackness” that eschews what he views as the mental enslavement of the african american community (brick 2021, p. 160). even more apt, persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 31 west is what collins-dexter calls the “archetypal black skinhead” who is a “disillusioned political outlier” and emblematic of a “black person who rejects their societal value or cultural identity being defined by their willingness to vote for the democratic party during presidential elections” (2022, p. 57-58).7 in late november 2016, west ranted on stage at the sacramento, ca stop for his saint pablo concert tour, revealing he would vote for donald trump in the 2016 presidential election and stated that: “i am putting my career, my life, my public well-standing at risk when i talk to y’all like this” (tanzer 2016). with this affirmation of another infamous asshole, west’s photo at trump tower in new york city one month later with the then-newly elected president of the united states seemed to be an inevitable event. indeed, west speaks from the standpoint of “populist narcissism” that explains his kindred connection to the real estate tycoon (nigatu 2013). trump’s infiltration of the american political system, spurred by his vocal white supremacist cult following and subsequent rise to the highest office in government, piqued the rapper’s interest as a model for charismatic leadership.8 on may 1, 2018, one month before the release of his next highly anticipated solo studio album, the rapper made headlines with a surprise visit to the tmz live newsroom. after commenting on a recent fashion statement in which he donned a “make america great again” red baseball cap as a symbol of his continued support of trump, he then turned to the topic of african american enslavement: “you hear about slavery for 400 years. 400 years?! that sound like a choice” (tmz live 2018). the fallout from the appearance came swiftly on social media. west’s remark prompted the creation of the hashtag #ifslaverywasachoice that trended on twitter. used by black folks, the hashtag engaged the wrongheaded comment and turned it into a humorous hypothetical, creating fictional scenarios that attend to such a ludicrous prospect (williams 2018). in this way, black publics mitigated west’s damaging message through online comedy. beneath such laughter, however, there seemed to be a sense of irritation amongst some in the black community due to the suspicion that he knew better—his mother had been an english professor and his estranged father was a member of the black panther party—that turned into outright anger. writer roxane gay called him a “moron” and refused to engage his “nonsense” (beaumont-thomas 2018), while diehard fan and music journalist touré commented “ye’s making it harder to keep justifying him but for now, i still do. because i still don’t believe that he really believes any of that conservative stuff” (touré 2018). this desire to recuperate west amongst a subsection of black media audiences stems from an inability to truly reconcile “old” and “new” kanye. african american fans in particular can be dismayed and hurt by his abhorrent viewpoint, but also secretly hope that it is another performance: a façade that can be readily dismissed at the drop of another hip-hop banger. a variety of memes in response to the tmz incident circulated on the internet, graphically asserting how west has now come to reside in the “sunken place”, a metaphorical liminal zone of debilitating anti-blackness emerging from jordan peele’s hit racial horror film get out (2017). similarly, west’s apparent obsession with trump calls into question the double consciousness he expressed in much of his early music, as well as the critical second sight he began to develop with his radical reflections on hurricane katrina (ciccariello-maher 2009). west’s present-day refusal of so-called groupthink and championing of what is termed ‘free thought’ instantiates his racial notoriety. free thinkers (or freethinkers) are said to promote secularist ideas and individual liberty for the common good. west, however, co-opts the term to describe his conservative and reactionary opinions under the ruse of critical insight (heer 2018). the artist wields discourses of creativity and imagination to engineer his opinions about the state of humanity. in response to the criticism around his comment about chattel slavery, west went on the defensive in a twitter rant, commenting that as black folks, “we are programmed to always talk and fight race issues. we need to update our conversation” (west 2018a). west further argues against the purported mental imprisonment of african americans and that his incendiary statement was merely an monk-payton 32 example of free thought: “it was just an idea…once again i am being attacked for presenting new ideas” (west 2018b). west’s increasing technocratic optimism cannot be separated from a deeply-rooted anti-black sentiment that circulates online via conspiratorial thinking. the intersection of race, conspiracy, and celebrity antagonism is captured by west when he tweeted: “kanye vs the media is modern day willie linch [sic] theory” (west 2018c). the artist invokes the perpetually debunked myth of the early eighteenth century slaveowner william lynch, who allegedly made a speech in virginia theorising the making of a slave. the infamous ‘speech’ was posted and circulated on the internet in the early days of the world wide web and gained traction amongst black publics, and especially african american men at the 1995 million man march in washington, dc (adams 1998). since then, historians and journalists have deduced that the text on how to keep the black subject under control and domination is a complete fiction. the fact that west references the hoax in defining his stance against the media confirms his imbrication in economies of tabloidization central to his notorious blackness and negative celebrity image. conclusion when west lost the 2020 u.s. presidential election after officially appearing on the ballot in multiple states and imploring voters to write in his name if not, he simply tweeted: “welp kanye 2024” with a dove emoji and image of himself in front of an american electoral college map (west 2020). thus, his presidential bid became another kind of bad design, but with disturbing implications. brick (2021, p. 159) argues that although “west’s political machinations might appear erratic, they are broadly consistent with the unorthodox position west has assumed within american popular culture”. however, the difficulty in writing about west is the degree to which he wields his notorious stature as an entertainer not just for attention, but for high stakes political purposes that involve harmful ideological stances that promote antiblackness and antisemitism. to be sure, the collective capacity to tolerate west has diminished and this article does not attempt to repair his increasingly volatile persona. rather, throughout this piece, i have explored the affective terrain of his notoriety. — perhaps indeed “a kanye place”, to refer back to the saturday night live skit discussed earlier —that exemplifies toxic celebrity. this article has elucidated how the lack of decorum reflected in west’s persona results in a fundamental friction between his celebrity image and the public. if persona can be thought of as a “sartorial style for moving through public spaces,” (marshall 2016, p. 5) i read the entertainer’s material and conceptual self-fashioning as affectively designed to trouble the senses. west is a prime case study in how negative “visibility, reputation, impression management, and impact are at play as we work and labor on the production of our online and public personas” (marshall 2016, p. 5). he presents a dynamic and extensive online archive of ephemera that exemplifies the perpetual conflict he constructs between what he deems his authentic self and various perceptions of how he is supposed to think and act. west’s creativity emanates from an oppositional space and his mediated confrontations with the public notoriously confirm his artistic skill as a perennial provocateur who incites and inflames within us popular culture. the author wishes to acknowledge leigh goldstein, reem hilu, moya luckett, linde murugan, curran j. nault, melissa phruksachart, jaap verheul, and mimi white, for their vital feedback on this essay during its development. persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 33 end notes 1. the anti-defamation league designated the “white lives matter” slogan as a white supremacist phrase that originated in 2015 in response to black lives matter activism. 2. for the purposes of this article, i will refer to the entertainer primarily using his surname “west”. though he officially changed his name to “ye” in october 2021, the vast majority of news media outlets still refer to him as kanye west. additionally, the account handle @kanyewest is used for his social media presence. he is referred to as “ye” in this piece when he or others have used the moniker since october 2021. 3. for an extended discussion of the relationship between madness and blackness as it emerges with west, see lamar jurelle bruce’s how to go mad without losing your mind: madness and black radical creativity (2021). 4. while both these posts have since been removed, they were widely reposted and reported in entertainment media. 5. upon debuting the music video for “fade” in august 2016 at the mtv video music awards, west gave a speech on stage in which he described himself as a “thought leader” and mentioned his desire to be an “artist-merchant” like these wealthy white male individuals. 6. the october 30, 2022 instagram post contained the historic and widely publicised graphic image of till’s bloodied and bruised face. in the caption, west explains that this is “what modern post social media #blackmirror warfare looks like.” 7. “black skinhead” is also the title of a west rap track. collins-dexter determines that west is a canary in the coal mine for african american citizens who have an alternative conceptualisation of politicised blackness, who “live outside of the bounds of fetishized black political identity” (collins dexter 2022, 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https://www.tmz.com/watch/0-lrudlmxu/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/im-not-done-with-kanyebut-its-getting-hard-to-justify-this https://www.thedailybeast.com/im-not-done-with-kanyebut-its-getting-hard-to-justify-this https://www.sleekmag.com/article/kanye-west-elitism-fashion-industry-adidas/ persona studies 2023, vol. 9, no. 3 37 retrieved 7 october 2022. west, k 2022d, “ye cares about black lives”, @kanyewest, instagram, 6 october, retrieved 6 october 2022. wiener-bronner, d 2022, “after brands dump kanye west, many people ask: what took so long?”, cnn, retrieved 8 may 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/business/adidas-gap-businesses-kanyewest/index.html williams, c 2018, “twitter turns black pain into jokes with ‘if slavery was a choice’ hashtag”, vibe, retrieved 8 may 2023, https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/if-slaverywas-a-choice-hashtag-kanye-west-tmz-twitter-583146/ https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/business/adidas-gap-businesses-kanye-west/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/business/adidas-gap-businesses-kanye-west/index.html https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/if-slavery-was-a-choice-hashtag-kanye-west-tmz-twitter-583146/ https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/if-slavery-was-a-choice-hashtag-kanye-west-tmz-twitter-583146/ persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 55 double trouble: parafictional personas and contemporary art kate war re n abstract across the news and entertainment media there is an increasingly prevalent phenomenon: actors, performers and artists who play “versions of themselves”. this paper explores the entertaining and critical potentials of this strategy, which i term “parafictional personas”. i draw upon carrie lambertbeatty’s theorisation of the parafictional as a critical mode that has developed out of (and in tension with) the “historiographic turn”. parafictional personas are a specific iteration, characterised by two key components: they compulsively imbue every opportunity with layers of interconnections and self-reflexive moments; and they involve artists and performers appropriating their own “proper name”, constructing fictionalised doubles of themselves. while found widely across media, my central focus is contemporary visual art, analysing two key examples, israeli–american artist omer fast and lebanese artist walid raad. these artists are significant because their personas are not simply means of performing themselves as individuals; they are integrated into the ways the artists approach contentious, still unfolding events of contemporary history. parafictional personas have the potential to thoroughly embed fictional constructs within reality, because of the difficulties in separating elements represented by the same proper name. their critical potential lies in the ways that they make visible the difficulties of maintaining clear distinctions between historical and fictional, social and individual narratives. parafictional personas confound cultural desires to order, categorise and “make sense” of historical narratives. they reveal how much we as viewers (and societies) search for ideas of truth and resolution, even if such truths are presented as incomplete, questionable, or irresolvable. key words parafiction; contemporary art; contemporary history; omer fast; walid raad across many forms of news, entertainment, and artistic media, there is a widespread phenomenon that upends and challenges the idea of the “authentic” persona: actors and performers who play “versions” of themselves. from stephen colbert’s recently retired conservative pundit on the colbert report (2005–14), to french author michel houellebecq’s subversive personal fictionalisations across novels and films, or the doubly live-action and animated figure of robin wright in the congress (ari folman, 2013), such personas populate our cultural landscapes in multiple and diverse ways. while artists, filmmakers, writers, and gamers have long made creative use of aliases, pseudonyms, and pen names, this contemporary warren 56 iteration relies on individuals actively appropriating their own proper name—that basic distinguisher of individuality. this article explores the entertaining, critical and subversive potential of this highly selfconscious strategy, which i am terming “parafictional personas”. connections could be drawn between this phenomenon and contemporary forms of social media, which allow individuals to actively and publically present themselves. yet rather than cultivating an authentic or desirable self-image, parafictional personas are characterised by their conscious fictionalisations and unreliability. they immediately reveal the limitations to ingrained cultural desires for truth and authenticity. for this reason, i draw upon carrie lambert-beatty’s theorisation of the “parafictional” as a critical concept, which has developed out of (and in tension with) the “historiographic turn”. under this framework, i consider the implications of appropriating one’s own proper name, analysing two central examples: lebanese artist walid raad and israeli– american artist omer fast. these two artists are significant because their personas are not simply used as means of performing themselves as individuals. rather, they are integrated into the ways these artists approach often contentious, still unfolding events of contemporary history. exploring these practices also illuminates how the parafictional might be deployed as a critical tool. parafictions are seductively dangerous because they threaten the truth status of their referents; constructing a fictionalised version of oneself allows for multiple levels of fiction and reality to co-exist, maintaining a sense of open-endedness and irresolvability. the (seductively) unreliable persona in the developing discipline of persona studies, considerations of subjectivity, identity and authenticity are, understandably, topics of central concern. p. david marshall connects these areas of inquiry to the twenty-first century’s rapidly evolving media landscape, in which individuals’ public selves can be consciously or unwittingly transformed through social media. for marshall, “information and identity formation are moving differently and through layers of media and communication. foundational in this new movement […] is the interpersonal constitution of identity embedded in very powerful online interconnected social networks” (“persona studies” 163). social networks are supplanting traditional “representational media” with “a presentational media and cultural regime”, the latter facilitating widespread cultural preoccupations with publically constructing one’s identity (marshall, “persona studies” 160). contemporary presentational media are grounded in the performance and presentation of the individual, as people (or indeed companies or organisations) present versions of themselves that they desire to be appreciated by others as true or authentic. as barbour, marshall and moore write, through presentational media the “persona” can be considered as “an everyday performance, where the purpose of the presentation of self is to convince the audience […] that the performance is genuine and authentic”. the concept of “authenticity” raises highly complex questions in relation to presentational media and the study of personas more broadly (d’cruz), because despite obvious correlations, authenticity is not equivalent to “truth”. as ruth e. page argues, online identities are “selective and often idealized”, where distinctions between the “fictional” and the “real” are destabilised and complicated (166). nonetheless, page observes that within contemporary self-presentational practices, there remains a persistent assumption of authenticity as being “ontologically grounded in a single self” (166). this is evident in the ways that presentational media explicitly tie their users to signifiers of individuality and authority—such as facebook’s “real name” policy, or twitter’s “verified tick”. thus the inherently constructed nature of online identities can be easily obscured, distorted or forgotten, given that presentational media are often accompanied by social persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 57 “expectation[s] that online identities are authentic representations of an offline self” (marshall and barbour 6). artists and performers, however, are able to undercut this pervasive cultural desire to cultivate an authentic, desirable and unique self-image. contemporary artists—such as richard prince, natalie bookchin, penelope umbrico and myriad others—commandeer the “search, share, and aggregate” capacities of web 2.0 technologies, appropriating and exploiting presentational media in ways that destabilise the prioritisation of the individual and the subjective. these artists often sort through billions of images online, collecting and recontextualising them in various ways (ritchin 6). such practices highlight the culturally coded similarities of the content that people share on social media, undermining the “individuality” of such personal profiles. more interestingly, these artists reveal how the presumed immediacy of presentational media can be subverted and re-positioned, establishing complex feedback loops between marshall’s two media regimes—in other words, how presentational media can be represented, transformed and, even, historicised. other artists and performers intervene more directly with the notion of the “authentic self” by purposefully constructing ambiguous and fictionalised versions of themselves. this phenomenon of creating an unreliable “parafictional” persona is the central concern of my article. these artists and performers engage in processes of fictionalising themselves and in doing so they create levels of misrecognition and ambiguity for their viewers. this sentiment is amusingly expressed in michael winterbottom’s film a cock and bull story (2005), when lead actor steve coogan says: “groucho marx once said that the trouble with writing a book about yourself is you can’t fool around. why not? people fool around with themselves all the time”. winterbottom’s film follows the flawed attempts of a group of filmmakers trying to adapt laurence sterne’s supposedly “unfilmable” novel, the life and opinions of tristram shandy, gentleman (1759–67). a cock and bull story is highly preoccupied with the complexities (and impossibilities) of representing personal stories “truthfully” or “faithfully”. these themes are also embodied in the film’s actors such as coogan, rob brydon, gillian anderson and others, who not only depict characters from sterne’s novel but also portray fictionalised, slightly exaggerated versions of themselves. of course, such overtly self-reflexive strategies are clearly not new; there are extensive traditions of personas, pseudonyms and pen names across artistic, literary and cinematic media. this is particularly evident in films that self-consciously consider the nature of the medium, such as federico fellini’s 8½ (1963) and bob fosse’s all that jazz (1979). director woody allen is also famous for essentially playing himself across his entire career. what distinguishes many recent examples is that, unlike someone like allen, these contemporary fictive personas actively appropriate their own proper names. this phenomenon of actors and performers explicitly playing versions of themselves is widespread across film and television (and increasingly contemporary art). early precursors such as seinfeld (1989–98) and the influential film being john malkovich (spike jonze, 1999) have given way to a raft of recent examples, from larry david in curb your enthusiasm to louis c.k. in louie.i as melanie piper observes in her discussion of louie, such widespread cultural examples “[allow] comedians to speak for themselves through the prism of fiction” (16). in such examples, piper identifies the complex relationship between “acting as” and “being” oneself, arguing that comedians like louis c.k. exist in a “perpetual state of what could be authentic self-performance or a performance of the authentic” (15). however, when performers explicitly play “versions” of themselves, there is also a level of deception involved— not necessarily with malicious intent, but certainly aimed at sowing levels of uncertainty or misrecognition within the viewer. this sense of uncertainty is what accounts for much of their appeal. a common characteristic of many of these personas is that they are not content with warren 58 constructing one or two layers of fiction. these artists, filmmakers and performers often imbue every opportunity with moments of self-reflexivity—layer upon layer of interconnections and self-fulfilling nods and winks. winterbottom adds (at least) a third level of fictionalisation to a cock and bull story, presenting it as the “making of the making of” the film. artist omer fast uses a similar construct in the artwork that i discuss later, take a deep breath (2008). consider also the first episode of season three of house of cards (2013–), in which newly inaugurated (fictional) president francis underwood appears on the television show the colbert report, with the “real” stephen colbert. these are examples of spiralling interconnections between the real and the fictional that such projects revel in. as such, they are informed by a logic of supplementarity. jacques derrida’s conception of the supplement, along with his theorisation of the “proper name”, will prove useful in establishing the appeal and critical potentials of these personas. parafictional supplementarity is “properly seductive”, to use derrida’s words, because its popular appeal lies precisely in its destabilising and irresolvable nature (of grammatology 151, original emphasis). the fictional additions that construct these unreliable personas are an excess or “surplus” to their “original” referents (i.e. the “real” person). however, these fictions also take the place of their objects; the supplement “adds only to replace. it intervenes or insinuates itself in-the-place-of” (derrida, of grammatology 144–5, original emphasis). the fictional additions may overtake the real people or topics, but only because these referents are always already incomplete (derrida, of grammatology 149). in the examples that i consider in this article, the distinctions between fact and fiction frequently prove impossible to decipher, reflecting a sense of spiralling interconnectedness and a chain of supplementation “ineluctably multiplying the supplementary mediations that produce the sense of the very thing they defer” (derrida, of grammatology 157). derrida’s understanding of undecidability and supplementarity help us to recognise that unreliable personas do not simply expose or critique the limits to authentic self-presentation— they often actively resist and flout cultural expectations around “truthful” (re)presentation more broadly. what is critically at stake in considering parafictional personas is the way that they actively contribute to and complicate the interminably complex relationships between documentary, history and fiction at play across our cultural landscape. when performers create doubled personas centred on self-presentation the implications are complex enough. when such doublings are integrated with the exploration of contemporary history and politics, the critical stakes may become even higher and more contentious. this informs my choice of key case studies—walid raad and omer fast—because their fictionalised personas are often integrated into the ways they approach still unfolding events of current affairs and history. for this reason, the “parafictional” is a useful framework for analysing these practices. as a critical concept, the parafictional emerged in the wake of (and in tension with) another influential movement, the “historiographic turn” in art, and i will spend some time briefly contextualising this development. from the historiographic turn to the parafictional from the late twentieth century, there has been a clear movement in contemporary art as many artists turned to history as inspiration and topic of inquiry. this movement has been described under many names: the artist as historian, ethnographer, archivist, documentarian, archaeologist (see godfrey, enwezor, foster). curator dieter roelstraete classifies it more broadly as the “historiographic turn”, arguing that the practices of many prominent contemporary artists are driven by an “[o]bsession with archiving, forgetfulness, memoirs and memorials, nostalgia, oblivion, re-enactment, remembrance, reminiscence, retrospection—in persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 59 short, with the past”. this historiographic turn in art was influenced by now well-established challenges to traditional historiography, by philosophers such as michel foucault. key exhibitions and writings by theorists such as roelstraete, okwui enwezor, mark godfrey and hal foster have established the historiographic turn as an enduring feature of recent contemporary art. artists working in such historiographic modes are guided by a desire to challenge traditional understandings of “objective” historical distance, often concerning themselves with forgotten histories or suppressed narratives. yet many are still highly invested in the notion of truth, hence roelstraete’s emphasis on the archaeological nature of their practices, which he terms “the way of the shovel”. roelstraete argues that these artists are compelled to excavate the past, removing and categorising the strata of history that they encounter. however, contemporary art and entertainment culture have also demonstrated, many-times over, that the past need not be narrated within strict frameworks of “historical inquiry” in order to gain meaning and significance. historical fictions, speculative alternate histories, filmic docu-dramas and mockumentaries have long contributed to cultural and historical understandings of the past by testing the boundaries between fact and fiction. within this context, art historian carrie lambert-beatty has theorised the concept of the parafictional as the “performative version” of the historiographic turn (56). by labelling the parafictional as performative, lambert-beatty is not describing a move towards performing or enacting ostensibly documentary-based approaches. she conceives of it as a disruptive strategy “powerfully and uniquely appropriate to our historical moment” (56), which involves embodying and exploiting the fictive elements inherent to acts of representation and truth seeking. for lambert-beatty, the key to parafictionality is not whether a fictive construct is strictly possible but whether is it plausible. as she acknowledges, fundamental to this process is an element of deception: in parafiction real and/or imaginary personages and stories intersect with the world as it is being lived. post-simulacral, parafictional strategies are oriented less toward the disappearance of the real than toward the pragmatics of trust. simply put, with various degrees of success, for various durations, and for various purposes, these fictions are experienced as fact. they achieve truthstatus—for some of the people some of the time. (54–56) plausibility and believability are defining factors for parafictions because they bind the fictive elements of the project to pre-existing understandings of reality. parafictions create clear epistemological challenges to historiographic practices (academically and artistically), because they intervene within established cultural contexts, always maintaining “one foot in the field of the real” (lambert-beatty 54). lambert-beatty identifies a multitude of parafictional strategies that contemporary artists have used in the early twenty-first century, including “advertising campaigns for imaginary products, a not-really-censored exhibition, hacked museum audio tours, several never-made movies, […] ersatz archives, questionable military units, […] an invented critic, a fictional historian, […] and legions of fake artists, both historical and contemporary” (56). while the plausibility and visibility of parafictions can vary greatly in breadth and intensity, they represent different creative reactions to a particular moment of social and political instability. that moment is the post-september 11 period, which has been considered politically parafictional in its own right. journalist naomi klein described 2003 as “the year of the fake”, where fictional narratives and questionable rationales were systematically mobilised in response to the earlier terrorist attacks. in this light, comedian and political commentator warren 60 stephen colbert coined a term that amusingly but precisely encapsulated this atmosphere: “truthiness”. premiered on the debut episode of the colbert report (comedy central, 17 october, 2005), truthiness describes the tendency to believe in ideas that we feel should be right. as colbert describes it, truthiness is “what you want the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are. what feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support” (60 minutes). truthiness is not simply about blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction; it involves an internalisation of fictional constructs “as if” they were real, because they correspond with the subject’s (or culture’s) established value systems and pre-existing understandings of their world. indeed, colbert’s “truthiness” may have struck such a chord because it also taps into a broader sense of the inherent fictionality of our contemporary culture. the theorisation of “contemporaneity” is one of art history’s most pressing dialogues today. one prominent contributor is aesthetic philosopher peter osborne, for whom the very idea of the “contemporary” is itself a fiction, because it relies upon and projects a non-existent unity of temporalities and subjectivities. as he writes, the contemporary “is an operative fiction: it regulates the division between the past and the present within the present” (osborne 23, original emphasis). osborne theorises the contemporary as a contested moment of negotiation between fictional and historical narratives, going on to argue that artists can “make visible” the fictitiousness of contemporary culture through means of collectivisation and pseudonymity. parafictional personas connect to this strategy but expand it further. they do not simply render the fictional visible; they render visible the difficulties of ever distinguishing accurately between the historical and the fictional. rather than reverting to collectivisation, they destabilise the audience’s understanding of and encounter with the individual. what’s in a name? parafictional personas and contemporary art colbert’s take on “truthiness” was, of course, a critique of the non-critical internalisations of fact and fiction that occur in political spheres. however, he expressed this critique by embodying and exploiting the characteristics of truthiness through his central construct: his fictive alter ego. colbert was a high profile example of what i am terming a “parafictional persona”: a fictionalised presentation of a real person that keeps “one foot in the field of the real” by appropriating the proper name of that individual. the inherently performative qualities of film, television, theatre, or stand-up comedy lend themselves to creating and inhabiting such personas. in the context of contemporary art however, there is an added complication in which the artist’s unique “mark” has long connoted the quality and authenticity of the artwork, as epitomised by the artist’s signature. there has, nonetheless, been a strong history of artists creating fictionalised characters to inhabit (such as marcel duchamp’s rrose sélavy), or as a means of exhibiting anonymously or collectively (such as the fictional artist claire fontaine).ii however as writer and curator david campany observes, “[d]espite its history of pseudonyms and heteronyms, art doesn’t seem to be a field in which either makers or audiences are comfortable with the erasure of the author” (83). furthermore, soojin lee has argued that art history has often ignored the “extra textual” ways that artists construct their identities and personas (27). in the context of contemporary art, fictionalising the self may still represent a radical gesture, even more so when artists construct such personas in order to tell stories of contemporary history. within this context contemporary lebanese artist walid raad (b. 1967) is a significant figure, having transitioned from creating works under a pseudonym to performing under his own name. in 1999, raad established the atlas group as a fictional collective and “foundation to research and document the contemporary history of lebanon” (raad 43). according to texts persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 61 authored by raad/the atlas group, one of the foundation’s aims “is to locate, preserve, study and assist in the production of audio, visual, literary and other artifacts that shed light on some of the unexamined dimensions of the lebanese civil wars of 1975 to 1991” (raad 43). the atlas group maintained its documents, primarily notebooks, films, videotapes and photographs in its self-titled archive, and invited scholars, community organisers, editors, and curators to research and exhibit these documents. osborne discusses raad/the atlas group’s work in detail, as an exemplary example that “renders visible the fictitiousness of the contemporary itself” (33), arguing that raad constructs a “dissemblance” of documentary practice. the atlas group’s political power is due to the “productive ambiguities” that emerge through its works, which rely upon an already present “general ambiguity in the relationship between fictional and historical narratives” (osborne 34). as osborne writes, this is: dependent upon, first, its creative use of anonymity, within pseudonymity, via the “group” form (pseudonymity, one might say, is a condition of historical fictionalization); and second, the exploitation of the documentary, simultaneously, as indexical mark and pure cultural form. (33–4, original emphasis) osborne contends that pseudonymity is necessary for such historical fictionalisation. certainly, it affords artists a veil of flexibility from which to construct their parafictions. in recent years however, raad has extended his practice beyond the alias of the atlas group to exhibit and perform explicitly under his own name, but without abandoning the fictionalising tendencies of his earlier project. this includes the ongoing scratching on things i could disavow (2007–), a project in which raad narrates a pseudo-history of his practice, and its intersections with the (art) histories of “the arab world, its present and future [oscillating] between fact and fiction, documentation and interpretation” (documenta (13)). raad presents scratching on things i could disavow through two key elements: a gallery exhibition that includes a variety of artworks and installations relating to contemporary politics and recent histories of the arab art world, and a series of lectures that raad performs as “walkthroughs” in the gallery space. one of the most memorable artworks in the exhibition is a precise miniature reproduction of one of raad’s previous exhibitions. presented as a 1-to-100 scale maquette, raad has “shrunk every archival document, photograph and video that the atlas group ever published; even the wall text is included in this miniaturized retrospective” (rooney). the exhibition of scratching on things i could disavow consciously anticipates its performative supplement, installed as a series of “stages”, waiting to be activated by raad himself. thus, the alias of the atlas group is amalgamated and folded into the broader persona, constructed over many years, of “walid raad”: the artist and storyteller, caricatured professor, “anxious historian” and parafictional deceiver (sharro). in his performances raad is a compelling figure: precise, engaging and authoritative. when i attended his gallery lecture at the 2012 documenta (13) exhibition, i found myself noticeably oscillating between the real and the fictional, so characteristic of parafictional practices. raad is utterly “believable” as a presenter; yet at the same time, some of the stories that he relates seem so fanciful that i found myself thinking, “this can’t possibly be true”, even about events i later discovered were indeed based on actual occurrences. in my mind the “true” became equally questionable, and the “fictional” became equally believable. writer and curator barbara casavecchia insightfully notes that raad’s project “does its best to get you lost in translations”. scratching on things i could disavow is all the more effective because it is presented not under a pseudonym, but under the name of walid raad, whose role and position warren 62 in the art world is both foregrounded and undermined throughout the exhibition and performances. thus the complex relationship between truth and fiction is always on display in such projects, which goes some way to answering one of the key questions for this article: what is it about personas that makes them such a potent parafictional tool, and what specifically is the significance of attaching one’s own name to this persona? fictive personas are most successful when they are grounded in reality, thus appropriating one’s own name anchors it inherently and inescapably to a sense of the real. it also offers the potential for more open-ended and ongoing forms of pretence, because there is no single moment where the deception is “revealed”. in lambert-beatty’s analysis, the moment of the reveal is crucial, because it triggers the audience to return to the fictive construct, to re-appreciate it with the knowledge of its deception. this characteristic of parafictions can produce complex and potentially ethically problematic effects on viewers, as lambert-beatty notes: “being taken in by a parafiction, after all, is not just epistemologically destabilizing. it is humiliating. […] it changes you, leaves you both curious and chastened” (82). when a performer like raad creates a version of themselves and fictionalises their own name, however, the construct is overtly visible and always on display. it is necessarily based on the assumption that viewers already have some level of understanding of the individual. this required recognisability is not necessarily at the same level of “celebrity” and stardom, which has highly informed the development of persona studies as a discipline (marshall and barbour 9). however, these performances do connect to discourses of celebrity as highly complimentary and “supportive of a wider appreciation of individualism and individualisation” (marshall, “persona studies” 156–7). parafictional personas immediately and specifically challenge the status and assumed primacy of the proper name as a key marker of individuality—which in fact has always been problematic. while a proper name is generally assumed to be a specific designator of a unique individual (or organisation, location, and so on), derrida reminds us that “the proper name was never possible except through its functioning within a classification and therefore within a system of differences” (of grammatology 109). to comprehend something as a proper name is to understand it always in relation to common and multiple signifiers, signifiers that belong to no individual, and are therefore improper (of grammatology 111). if a proper name was truly unique, it could not be recognised as a designator; it must be repeatable. thus, the proper name is constructed from a paradox: rather than referring to a singular thing, it always refers to systems of multiplicity. parafictional personas perform this paradox. all parafictions are repetitions in the sense that they imitate certain subjects, histories or figures. parafictional personas amplify this by foregrounding and appropriating the relationship between the individual subject, and the signs that denote its individuality. as derrida makes clear, even signs like one’s proper name or one’s signature, which are presumed to denote uniqueness or deferred presence, are always conditioned by their iterability, and hence their performativity in different contexts (“signature event context” 7, 20).iii raad’s project embodies this necessary repeatability through his overt acts of doubling (and multiplying) himself symbolically and performatively. by mobilising this parafictional persona to narrate still unfolding politics and current events, raad not only destabilises his own subjectivity, he reinforces a sense of multiplicity that is internal to these complex histories. as a “historian” raad is concurrently convincing and unreliable; by fictionalising his stories as well as himself, raad’s performative double reinforces an understanding of history as a dynamic, shifting, unstable process. in doing so he raises the (uncomfortable) possibility that some “truths” defy understanding, and some histories may never be revealed. scratching on things i could disavow was recently presented at the museum persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 63 of modern art, new york. tellingly, the museum’s website states that raad’s performance “unlocks the meaning of all of the works that constitute the series” (moma). however, raad’s lectures do not “clarify” any singular meaning—they are as informative as they are confounding. thus the museum’s own characterisation exposes the lingering desire to “pin down” meaning, even when it is presented as fictionalised or uncertain. parafictional personas expose such lingering desires, and this is particularly evident in the work of my final example, israeli– american artist omer fast. “omer fast”: confounding certainty the documentary really resides in the fact that the encounter involves two bodies, two people in conversation, one of whom has certain ideas that he or she wants to relate […]. and the other body in that encounter is me: the listener, the interviewer, the confessor, the artist, the filmmaker, the idiot: all sorts of roles that i like to play with and that are there during this encounter. (fast and paulsen) omer fast (b. 1972) is a prominent contemporary artist who works primarily in film and video installation. unlike raad, who actually performs himself physically through his lectures, fast creates his fictionalised personas by writing himself into his videos, typically using actors to portray an “omer fast” or a “director” character. while raad’s projects give the impression of approaching the complexities of history on a macro-scale, fast’s artworks emerge from a micro-level of history and personal experience. most of fast’s artworks are based on interviews that he conducts with individual people, from soldiers to asylum seekers, actors to undertakers. he then uses various strategies of repetition, re-telling, and re-enactment to creatively re-imagine his encounters with his subjects and their stories. because of this reliance on interviews and individuals’ stories of real-world experiences, his practice is frequently discussed within the context of “documentary”. the notion that fast “blurs the boundaries” between fact and fiction is one of the most frequently evoked qualities of his work (cotter, darwent, lebovici). however, as fast’s quote at the beginning of this section demonstrates, his conception of “documentary” is always already entangled with fictionalisation, performance and role-playing. the figure of the “double” is fundamentally important to fast’s practice; as he recently states, “[d]oubling is everything for me. i grew up in two countries with two cultures and languages and have never had a fixed unitary identity. my notion of self is completely polluted by the presence of doubles” (fast and albes). fast’s artistic practice palpably resists the notion of a unique, authentic self—both for himself but also in relation to his subjects and topics of inquiry. my discussion will focus on his dual-channel video installation take a deep breath (2008), one of the first to include an “omer” character. take a deep breath is also significant because it consolidates many creative devices that have become defining elements of fast’s practice, as well as of parafictional personas more broadly: high levels of self-reflexivity; an ingrained use of the fictionalised “artist/director” character; and a shattering of distinctions between documentary and fictional forms. to make the work, fast travelled to jerusalem to interview “martin f”, a medic who witnessed a suicide bombing during the second intifada. martin’s story goes along these lines: after hearing an explosion he entered the bombed-out restaurant and discovered only one victim—a young man with both legs missing. after unsuccessfully administering mouth-tomouth and cpr, the medic later realised that the man whose life he tried to save was the bomber himself (lewis-kraus). martin came to regard his actions as posing a moral conundrum; warren 64 since he carries a gun, he would have shot the young man had he known of his plans, to prevent the bombing (lewis-kraus). two days after his experience, martin wrote an account of the bombing that went viral (lewis-kraus) and over the years this, fast says, “left [martin] with a story that has taken on a life of its own and has even eclipsed him” (fast 43). when fast interviewed martin, the medic recounted his story almost by rote, having lost an embodied, flexible connection to these events. writer gideon lewis-kraus evocatively describes martin’s experiences as “[having] been so hyperactively embalmed that they have become corroded”. martin was no longer bearing witness to his subjective experience, but rather performing the role of the witness, of himself. martin’s ongoing understanding of his experience was shaped by multiple constructs, such as internal narratives of moral dilemmas and “what if” scenarios. he came to adopt various (sometimes-contradictory) subject positions: from good samaritan, to patriotic vigilante, to potential victim of a blood-borne disease. it is clear why fast says that he was drawn to martin’s experience because of its various elements of “mistaken identity” (fast 33). as the quote at the beginning of this section demonstrates, fast considers a performative aspect of role-playing to be fundamental to the encounter between artist and subject. more significantly, fast’s artwork also highlights the shifting roles and subject positions internal to the original event itself. while martin was conscious that as a medic his role was to offer assistance, he hesitated in doing so. in the instance of the event, martin’s moral obligation of what he “should” do clashed with an uncertainty in his role, and a desire to be a mere spectator and onlooker. in martin’s story, there is already a sense of misrecognition and multiplicity of the subject, which fast amplifies and supplements (and indeed overtakes) through his own personal fictionalisations. in the final video, fast interweaves his original interview footage with a separate, fictionalised narrative (which fast scripted): a behind-the-scenes scenario, which follows the mishaps of a group of filmmakers as they attempt to film a re-enactment of these events. take a deep breath is very much about playing roles. just as martin’s testimony is somewhat laboured, the actors’ performances also seem purposefully forced. central to all this is the role of “omer”, the slightly bumbling director whose attempts to recreate the suicide bombing are thwarted across the video’s scenes. fast’s work is always highly self-reflexive, but take a deep breath is arguably his most self-conscious piece, featuring a number of strategies that break the “fourth wall” of representation. it is arranged as a dual-channel video (either projected or on two screens hung side-by-side), which often disrupts the visual continuity of the scenes and breaks the “180degree rule” of camerawork. characters peer into the cameras, drawing attention to their presence, and actors break character at crucial moments. the “omer” figure unconvincingly navigates these semi-farcical scenarios, unable to rescue his project from the issues besetting it. being preoccupied with the difficulties and contradictions of representing “real stories”, take a deep breath narrates failure in a number of ways. the suicide bomber fails to kill any other people, and martin fails to save his life. the video’s three main scenes, trying to re-stage martin’s story, all involve unexpected disruptions. its looped narrative structure—highly characteristic of fast’s practice more broadly (warren)—eludes any form of resolution. failure is not the end of the story though; it is presented as a contingent part of creation, and crucially it informs fast’s use of fictionalised doubles. fast reveals that his use of personas began through a: persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 65 notion of not having moral certitude about what i was doing, understanding that i’m dealing with real people telling me their stories, and as a foil for that, as a buffer, needing to indicate that there’s an [external artistic] agency involved […]. so stemming from this very strong sense of shortcoming and failure, there is this desire to double me into the work. (fast and paulsen) fast doubles himself in response to a sense of uncertainty felt when representing real life. these semi-fictionalised doubles let fast implicate himself in the process of representation, addressing the controversial or questionable decisions that any such process involves without adopting a moralising, alienating or speciously authoritative voice. as fast says, the “omer” “figure is also the fool” (fast and paulsen). fast’s acts of doubling could be read as an example of contemporary art’s general obsession with self-reflexivity, one of the “endless art cliches [sic]” that “[art] should transcend its form”, as one reviewer of take a deep breath observed (johnson). however fast’s personas are not purely inward looking; they break the boundaries of the text and open it to connections that cannot be contained within the artwork itself. once doubled into take a deep breath, fast’s character becomes a destabilising presence. the audience must grapple with a “real” story, restaged by a “fictional” version of a “real” person—what art historian maria muhle describes as a spiralling “re-enactment of the imaginary filming of an impossible real event”.iv take a deep breath knowingly and gleefully collapses the boundaries between documentary and fictional modes. fast’s parafictional persona is not primarily focussed on the contestation of himself as an individual. his self-reflexivity is born out of (even necessitated by) the already conflicted nature of martin’s experience and testimony. fast is highly aware of the difficulties of establishing a representative relationship with the “real life” events recounted, saying that “it is impossible […] to create a direct translation of that […] and so the work proposes a game of substitution” (fast and verhagen 4).v he is understandably sceptical about artists’ and filmmakers’ abilities (himself included) to “realistically” represent real stories. while this may indeed be an impossible goal, it nonetheless often remains a normative ideal of filmmaking. fast repeats this strategy of doubling himself in a number of subsequent videos. in a related project, the artist book in memory: omer fast (2010), he constructs a more open-ended persona. the book is a collection of essays written about fast’s practice, which the artist extensively annotated with a series of, as he says, “partly fictional, sometimes very fictional, sometimes not so fictional notes” (fast and heck). here fast acts as an unreliable commentator, usurping the traditional function of a citation. they do not clarify details or specify sources, rather they open up the text to a raft of plausible narratives, entertaining imaginations and absurdist speculations. fast’s artworks layer his subjects with alternate fictions, veering off into productive (and provocative) new directions; any sense of discovering an original truth is always deferred and thwarted.vi yet, when reading fast’s annotations, or when watching his various “omer” characters, i nonetheless catch myself sometimes trying to “decipher” his spiralling layers of fiction, in spite of the clear impossibilities of doing so. fast’s works rely on this ingrained desire to “decipher” meaning, as do many of the examples in this article. what emerges strongly from the examples discussed in this article are the abilities of parafictional personas to thoroughly embed fictional constructs within reality, particularly due to the difficulties in separating elements represented by the same proper name. parafictional personas allow for multiple levels of fictionality and reality to co-exist; they generate a sense of open-endedness and irresolvability, continually forcing the question within the viewer of what “version” of the person is speaking. they also force the question of what version of history is being spoken, and what version is being received and internalised by the audience. parafictional personas are often extremely pleasurable, but in their inherent warren 66 irresolvabilities they can also frustrate the viewer. in doing so, they reveal how much viewers desire such continuities and how much we intuitively seek for truths, even when such truths are presented as contested, incomplete or problematic. for the discipline of persona studies, parafictional personas may represent an extreme idea of the persona in general, which as marshall, moore and barbour acknowledge always possesses an inherently fictive quality, because “it is a fabrication comprised from an interpretation of one’s identity and how that identity is made into a public entity” (292). marshall, for instance, has explored how actors can be overwhelmed by their characters, transforming into “a blended public person and the related personage” (“seriality and persona”). the examples that i have explored in this article expand this relationship to a new, extreme level. parafictional personas actively perform and amplify these “blendings”, and in fact they go further than “blurring the boundaries”. they have the potential to render these distinctions—between truth and fiction, between an “originary” referent and its “external” supplement—as undecidable. this may be uncomfortable or disconcerting act for some viewers, but it is also the point where their critical potential emerges. stephen colbert expressed this potential early in his career, saying, “i would love people to not know necessarily when i mean what i’m saying. […] [if] they don’t know what side of an issue i’m on at times, that’s fantastic” (60 minutes). it is by way of their inherent uncertainty that parafictional personas address their viewers, potentially opening up spaces for criticality and further investigation. they afford artists and performers opportunities to challenge osborne’s “general ambiguity in the relationship between fictional and historical narratives” (34), because a sense of ambiguity is always already embedded in their construction. conclusion due to their overtly doubled nature, parafictional personas require their viewers to continually evaluate and oscillate between what they perceive as truth or fiction. parafictional personas thus expose a persistent cultural tension: between wanting to pin down meaning and establish concrete “truths”; and the counteracting pleasures (and necessities) of uncertainty. or as lambert-beatty argues, parafictions “train us in skepticism and doubt, but also, oddly, in belief” (78). parafictional personas expose how much we as viewers (and societies) search for ideas of truth and resolution, even when they are explicitly presented or revealed to us as incomplete or questionable. parafictional personas confound cultural desires to order, categorise and “make sense” of fragmented (sometimes incompatible) narratives. the act of appropriating and fictionalising one’s own proper name means that there is no single, overarching ruse to be deciphered. something always remains purposefully unsaid, unexplained, uncertain. raad’s performative lectures, or the various “omer fasts” that emerge across fast’s oeuvre, destabilise assumed distinctions between documentary and fiction. the key point is to emphasise that while this destabilisation does not always or even consistently occur, the fictional can achieve a truth status, as lambert-beatty says, “for some of the people some of the time” (56). parafictions are in this sense “ethically risky” and vulnerable to criticism (lambert-beatty 66), however, their epistemological instabilities account for their appeal. there is an undeniable pleasure found in the uncertainty and undecipherability of these depictions.vii as supplements to reality, parafictional personas are seductively dangerous, being engaging and seditious, entertaining and critical, ethical and unethical at the same time. their inherent pleasure is a potent creative and artistic strategy, and a central driver to fast’s practice for example, who acknowledges his “contradictory responsibility” as an artist: “[you’re] dealing with real sensitive subject matter. but you also have an obligation to do something good with it” persona studies 2016, 2 (1) 67 (fast and heck). this is perhaps a strange articulation, however by “good” fast refers to the responsibility towards creating artworks that have their own internal logic, coherence and appeal to the audience. deploying fiction or parafiction may risk overtaking real subject matters. yet in doing so, these strategies can do justice to their subjects not by attempting the impossible task of faithful representation, but by integrating them into new logics of representation. these artistic recourses to fiction do not reflect an indifference to “real life” issues; they do however posit fiction, at times, as a uniquely productive mode of approaching politically charged situations and historically complex stories. i playing oneself has become an extremely popular vehicle in commercial television; other examples include it’s garry shandling’s show (1986–90), ricky gervais and warwick davis in life’s too short (2011–13), james carville and mary matalin in steven soderbergh’s k street (2003), and less subversive examples like matt leblanc in episodes (2011–). films including coffee and cigarettes (jim jarmusch, 2003), pittsburgh (chris bradley and kyle labrache, 2006), jcvd (mabrouk el mechri, 2008), cold souls (sophie barthes, 2009), paper heart (nicholas jasenovec, 2009), the trip (michael winterbottom, 2010), maladies (carter, 2012), this is the end (seth rogen and evan goldberg, 2013), l’enlèvement de michel houellebecq (guillaume nicloux, 2014) and 20,000 days on earth (iain forsyth and jane pollard, 2014) all revolve around the creation of parafictional personas for known figures. ii contemporary artists richard prince, gregor schneider, lynn hershman leeson, slater bradley, william powhida, roee rosen, iris häussler, grayson perry, and adam broomberg and oliver chanarin have all used personas and alter-egos in their practices. iii interestingly, derrida appeared in ken mcmullen’s 1983 film ghost dance, playing himself. iv furthermore, as with my earlier example of a cock and bull story, fast also encases his behind-the-scenes storyline in another “making of” construct. v here fast is actually referring to a related work, the casting (2007), but the sentiments remain relevant. vi this is key creative strategy found across fast’s entire practice. while beyond the scope of this article, an early video such as spielberg’s list (2003), and a later installation the forlorn lover’s guide to the underground and to doubles (2009–10), are both key examples of works that are utterly disorientating in their multiplicity of truths, fictions and ambiguities. vii i do not, however, want to imply that such personas are always progressive or selfcritical. although beyond the scope of this article two recent examples—artist richard prince’s controversial new portraits (2014) series, and former australian politician mark latham’s “parody” twitter account (@realmarklatham)—both involve the deceptive creation of trolling personas through social media. end notes works cited 8½. dir. federico fellini. umbrella entertainment. 1963. dvd. 20,000 days on earth. dir. iain forsyth and jane pollard. madman entertainment. 2014. film. warren 68 all that jazz. dir. bob fosse. 20th century fox home entertainment. 1979. dvd. barbour, kim, p. david marshall and christopher 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entertainment. 2010. television and film. warren, kate. “gallery repetitions”. le magazine, jeu de paume gallery, 20 jan. 2016. web. 1 feb. 2016. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 71 riding on the “crescendo” of political personas: engendering a female political icon lov ie edwi n ser u & joel mokue di magogwe abstract this study was based on the observation that the construction and presentation of the self is a prominent feature of the life of every politician. that construction of the self is even more pronounced in male politicians, who clandestinely perceive politics as a male preserve. because of the prevailing social order’s agitation for the sharing of power between men and women, men resort to concealing their true and embodied beliefs about gender equality and women’s empowerment by feigning support when speaking in public political spaces. using the idea of persona, a concept that explains the presentation of the self and “masks” that people wear to construct themselves, this study explored the male dominated political system of botswana to identify the “deceitful” and “inauthentic” acts of male politicians. the study also used persona to explore gendered political space in botswana to identify the “true selves” hidden behind male politicians’ public selves as they engaged in political activities. the personas in this study have been uncovered through margaret nasha’s involvement in politics as an important agent and “driver” of the agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment. the choice to use margaret nasha’s political life story as a conduit to identity and explain political persona “masks” that male politicians wore was informed by the multifaceted roles she played to survive political muddles. using document analysis and semi-structured interviewing methods, this study has unearthed that margaret nasha’s involvement in politics exposed her male political colleagues’ hidden selves and the influence of patriarchy in continued gender inequality in botswana politics. key words persona; identity; politics; democracy; empowerment; self introduction margaret nasha has become a household name in botswana’s political arena. despite nasha herself being very sceptical about it, her name would appear on anyone’s list of the most successful and decorated female politicians in botswana. her political success may be attributed to the nuanced and multifaceted roles that she assumed in “driving” the agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment. those multifaceted roles were instrumental in enabling her to overcome male chauvinism and cultural hurdles, and consequently thrive in a rough, overdemanding, and male-dominated political system. as will be demonstrated below, the roles she played were also instrumental in unearthing the personas male politicians adopted to conceal their true and embodied beliefs. in seru and magogwe 72 other words, through her political activism and efforts as a driver of women’s empowerment and gender equality, she exposed inconsistencies between the public political positions of her male political colleagues in the botswana democratic party (bdp) and their covert activities and private beliefs. this included pretending to support an agenda for women’s empowerment and gender equality and adhering to all democratic ideals. thus, the conflict between male bdp members’ public positions and their private beliefs, activities and perceptions about gender equality, democracy and women’s empowerment, resonates with the idea of persona as described by scholars such as glenn d’cruz, p. david marshall, erving goffman, anthony elliott and others cited in this work. while margaret nasha’s roles as “driver” of the agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment, principled democrat, strong-willed and unapologetic female politician, and reluctant factionalist catapulted her political career, it simultaneously and ironically exposed her to ridicule, subversion, and contestation by the men who publicly claimed to believe in what she was fighting for. consequently, her assumed roles uncovered a dichotomy between the men’s public political proclamations and their specific courses of action within the bdp. thus, it is the contention of the authors of this paper that the negative reactions of the male politicians towards her gender equality activism and ambition reveals the wearing of “masks” on their part. persona “masks” are what p. david marshall would call inauthenticity of the characters or personages that the audiences are covertly invited to believe. the objective of this paper, therefore, is to identify how nasha’s everyday political engagements within a male-dominated political space unearthed the true beliefs and perceptions held by the men about gender equality, democracy, and women’s empowerment which had previously remained hidden behind the “masks” that they wore. it should be noted that the emphasis of this study was not on margaret nasha’s political life story per se. rather, her political life story was used to identify and explain the personas evident in the male-dominated botswana political system. it is also important to note that the roles that nasha assumed enabled her to become a diplomat, member of parliament (mp), assistant minister, minister, and finally speaker of the botswana parliament. undoubtedly, these positions represent achievements that everyone who believes in women playing active roles in politics and taking up positions of power would not fail to celebrate. to this end, nasha’s political journey as addressed in this paper, and which inadvertently exposed personas in her political movement, begins with her role as a diplomat and ends with her fights with the leadership of the ruling botswana democratic party (bdp). persona the word persona refers to the social role, self-conceived character, or a person’s character as professed and seen by other people (d’cruz). glenn d’cruz further posits that a persona is a “mask” people wear to conceal their original characters to create an impression upon others. marshall concurs with d’cruz when he posits that persona is the character people espouse, exhibit, or take up. marshall and d’cruz also point out that persona could be based on deceptive or fictitious displays of character. people who wear persona “masks” or assume deceptive roles surreptitiously invite their audiences to believe that those roles are authentic (goffman). in other words, they covertly expect their audiences to believe that the characters they see actually have the personal traits that they espouse (goffman). marshall confirms that, notwithstanding the inauthenticity of the characters or personages that the audiences are surreptitiously invited to believe, the “masks” are often consistent with the real public culture. thus, even though it may seem that the performance displays the character of the performer, the performance often serves solely to persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 73 portray a character relevant to the task being performed, not the true character of the performer (goffman). persona can also be viewed as a deliberate subjugation of real identities for the purpose of identifying with prevailing social order. this kind of suppression of authentic identities is easy to achieve since some identities are socially constructed (seru). seru’s observation that the subjugation of identities is achievable resonates with anthony elliott’s idea that some identities are established through personal activities and choices, and the modelling of thoughts, dispositions, feelings, desires, and subjective experiences in sync with the social context and prevailing social activities. to illustrate this point, elliott observes that: the way in which an individual acts in the presence of family members or loved ones is likely to be rather different from encounters with, say, work colleagues or sporting partners. from family, school and work to shopping, community associations or surfing the internet: all these social fields summon forth, and through them we construct different sorts of selves. (53) elliott further argues that people act out or perform particular roles in relationships with others, and that we have an awareness of identities we want to adopt as we move from one social setting to another, something goffman calls “fronting” (13). like elliott, goffman also argues that the synchronisation of personal life with public life constitutes the core of persona. marshall argues that persona involves the fabrication of roles to achieve particular purposes. goffman raises the same point when he suggests that the individual performances or shows that people put on are done for the benefit of others. this implies that if politicians adopt inauthentic personas this should not be viewed negatively. rather, it should be seen in its positive context; as goffman states, fabrication of roles can be triggered by desirable purposes of changing and bettering people’s lives. goffman further asserts that individuals may deceive other people for what they consider to be their own good and the good of those people. the discussion above demonstrates that, in a broader sense, persona represents enunciation of a range of actions, identities, and socio-cultural practices through which false identity positions could be developed. kevin hetherington argues that the development of new inauthentic identity positions is linked to theatricality in that those identity positions are established and enacted through performances. it should be noted that hetherington uses the term “theatricality” to mean the social construction of self through performances and creation of personas. during the playing out of such theatricality, real selves remain outside such performances and become unobservable and distant to audiences who will believe that the characters they see truly have the attributes being displayed (hetherington). just as goffman suggests presentation of the self is “impression management” (49), hetherington considers presentation of the self to be closely associated with impression management, co-ordination of behaviour, and role assumption. in this way, this theatricality is enacted. in conducting this study, the authors of this paper were therefore interested in the particular roles margaret nasha played to determine the roles other women elsewhere can play for success in politics. this research was also meant to expose political chicaneries and contradictions in men’s perceptions about gender equality and women’s empowerment, especially in african politics. cultural differences, including values and practices, influence the construction and presentation of identities. elliott notes that culturally constructed identities are incessantly bombarded with shifting cultural stimuli and fragmentation of social attributes. given this understanding of the role of culture and context in influencing the construction and presentation of self, this study also sought to find out how the botswana political landscape, and botswana voters’ political orientations and expectations, influenced the construction of seru and magogwe 74 identities and presentation of selves. as already noted, the main idea was not to study margaret nasha’s political life. rather, it was to establish how the roles she played to emancipate women exposed personas in the botswana political environment, and to determine the lessons that other women can learn from and use for success in politics. methods this study used document analysis and semi-structured interview as methods of data collection. with the document analysis method, margaret nasha’s narrations in her memoir, entitled madam speaker, sir!: breaking the glass ceiling, one woman’ struggles, provided a singular document for reading and analysis. the document analysis method focused primarily on her political and professional life stories, with the objective to discover the roles that she assumed in order to attain what many might think was an unachievable feat. most importantly, the objective of this analysis was to show how the roles she played exposed the personas in her political movement. the analysis also sought to establish how the personas adopted by her male colleagues influenced her political career. a semi-structured interviewing method was used mainly to augment the findings of the document analysis method. as a result, the focus of the interview was on her experiences as she spearheaded the agenda for gender equality and women’s empowerment. publicly embracing women’s empowerment, but privately not supporting it the “deceitful” acts of the male politicians manifested through their lack of support for margaret nasha’s activism in the struggle for women’s empowerment. according to nasha, she experienced resistance and contestation from the men who, in public political campaigns, had vehemently professed support for women’s empowerment. the bdp’s political manifestos emphasised candid support for gender equality and women’s empowerment. it was therefore ironic and disingenuous of them to vilify nasha when she became an important agent driving the women’s empowerment agenda in the country. also, as shown in nasha’s narration in the paragraphs quoted below, despite the men’s public proclamations supporting shared power between men and women, and similar statements in the party manifestos, there was a conspicuous absence of involvement from women in decision-making processes in the party. thus, by professing support for women’s empowerment in public political domains and official party documents, and yet at the same time privately resisting sharing power with women, the men were engaged in performative acts which goffman would call the synchronisation of political beliefs with public expectations. the men were surreptitiously constructing different sorts of selves in public political domains and official documents to deceive voters into thinking that they stood for what they (the voters) stood for. on the other hand, nasha’s work and focus on the plight of women and her agitation for their empowerment presents her as the epitome of social change and women’s empowerment. she states in her memoir that there were many signals that men were not willing to solve women’s problems. nasha warns against complacency in the fight for women’s empowerment: until and unless women in this country wake up and smell the coffee, political power sharing will remain a mirage. men are in this business to rule and to be in control. there is no father christmas doling out gifts of leadership positions in this business. if we want power, we must work hard to achieve it. (nasha, madam speaker, sir! 156) with these words, nasha identifies the role of patriarchy in the continued gender inequality in botswana politics. simply put, in the cautionary note above she presents her male political persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 75 colleagues as an egotistical and self-centred lot who privately did not want to share power with their female counterparts. as revealed in her memoir, nasha became seriously involved in the struggle for women’s empowerment throughout her political career. in fact, her memoir indicates that her resolve to agitate for women’s empowerment started when she was in the civil service. for instance, she joined a group called women development planning and advisory council (wodplac) in the 1970s, long before she entered politics. after joining active politics, her distinguished contribution to women’s empowerment came to include being a member of a women’s organisation called emang basadi (which means means “women, stand up” in english (madam speaker, sir! 152)), being the president of the botswana caucus for women in politics, and fighting fervently to get her female colleagues within the bdp into leadership positions (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). the main agenda of emang basadi was power sharing. its specific objective was therefore to identify and agitate for a change in the laws that discriminated against women. the botswana caucus for women in politics aimed to encourage women across the political divide to work hard towards equal political representation (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). during the interview, margaret nasha indicated that women’s empowerment entails having women involved in political decision-making processes for the country at the highest level, as well as the involvement of political parties and other civic organisations the women belonged to at the micro level. according to nasha, the absence, and lack of involvement, of women in decision-making processes led to situations where women’s rights were denied. she lamented how she and the other women in parliament (who have always been the minority) used to witness cases where the men (who have always been the majority) passed policies and laws that favoured them to the detriment of women. she provided an example of a case where, during the drought period, the male parliamentarians wanted the government to subsidise cattle-feed. at the same meeting, the same men vehemently opposed the suggestion by female parliamentarians to have chicken-feed subsidised as well. their support for the subsidisation of cattle-feed, and refusal to have chicken-feed subsidised as well, was an indication of a selfserving mentality. male support for the subsidisation of cattle-feed but not chicken-feed reflects the gendered politics in parliament, as many of the men in botswana (including male parliamentarians) are involved in the cattle industry and the women are involved in chicken farming. the case of the men who publicly proclaimed gender equality but in parliament passed laws favouring themselves rather than women (because men were in the majority) can be considered an instance of wearing persona masks. their deceptive actions in public political spaces were self-serving. the male politicians surreptitiously wanted potential voters to believe that they embraced gender equality and the empowerment of women to gain votes from women during elections. in other words, they wore persona masks for purposes of changing or bettering their lives at the expense of the women they pretended to represent. their actions show that while they “preached” gender equality and women’s empowerment to the voting publics, their real selves remained outside such performances. it is through margaret nasha’s women’s empowerment activism that their real selves got exposed. privately acknowledged, but publicly repudiated despite the existence of factional politics in the ruling bdp, the bdp’s male-dominated leadership publicly denied such factions. they steadfastly and repeatedly invited the voting public to believe that no factions existed in the party. this kind of demeanour resonates with what scholars such as marshall and d’cruz call the wearing of a “mask” to conceal the truth. nasha’s narration of how the leadership of the party untiringly and relentlessly issued public seru and magogwe 76 statements denying the existence of factions within the party just to protect the image of the party presents a persona—the persona of deceiving through denial of the truth to protect party image. that the party leadership knew well that indeed factionalism existed within the party, but went all out to deny it, resonates with marshall’s position that persona is predicated on “deception,” “inauthenticity,” and “fiction.” as mentioned above, goffman also argues that people who assume deceptive roles usually clandestinely persuade their audiences to believe that those roles are authentic. it can thus be argued that by making strongly worded public statements denying the existence of factions within the party, the party leadership was attempting to coerce batswana (people of botswana) into believing what was actually not the truth. contrary to this denial, nasha asserts that when she joined active politics she found factional politics endemic, not only in the ruling bdp, but in the opposition parties as well. she found it baffling and ludicrous that people belonging to the same party, and supposedly holding the same political views and vision, could fight for party positions along factional lines. however, she also admits in her memoir, and in a response to an interview question, that she was introduced into the most powerful faction during her early days in politics and attended factional group meetings under the cover of darkness. in her book, she explains the circumstances that made her get involved in factional politics: “you had to either fight them or join them, and if you chose to join them, then you joined whichever faction that seemed to make sense to you at that time” (nasha, madam speaker, sir! 101). it is also worth mentioning that nasha benefitted immensely from factional politics. owing to her joining the kwelagobe faction (the faction was named after its leader mr daniel kwelagobe), which at the time was the most powerful, she was elected the chairperson of the women’s wing of the party when she was new and politically inexperienced. she defeated a veteran politician whose only “sin” was belonging to a weaker faction (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). also, along factional lines, she represented the party in the gaborone central constituency and eventually became an elected member of parliament in 1999 (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). publicly aligned to democratic ideals, but privately not even though the ruling party leadership publicly claimed to encourage women to take up positions of power within the party and the country, they covertly did not want to see women being elevated to such positions. this was evidenced by their disdain of margaret nasha’s ambition. furthermore, the leadership of her constituency became suspicious that she harboured the ambition of becoming vice president of botswana. the position of vice president would put her at a pole position to become president given the provision of automatic succession to the position of president in the country’s constitution. despite it being her democratic right to compete for any position in the party and the country, her detractors within the bdp did not want to see that happening. they therefore embarked on a spirited campaign to bring her down. the bdp’s opposition to having nasha at the helm of the party and country leadership, when they publicly claimed to adhere to democratic ideals, was not only undemocratic but also akin to wearing a persona “mask.” furthermore, it is significant to note what transpired at a congress during a review of the party constitution. according to nasha, among the recommended changes was one that sought to give the president sole power to expel members of the party who were accused of serious wrongdoing, without following due processes stipulated in the party constitution. as far as nasha was concerned, allowing the president to have such power would be undemocratic, as that would deny people the right to be heard. she vehemently objected to the endorsement of this change (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). as a result, she was denigrated by the party persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 77 leadership who publicly claimed to believe in democracy. this too was not only undemocratic but also predicated on falsehood. in other words, announcing that they believed in democracy while doing the opposite at party level was deceptive to the public. despite proclamations by the bdp leadership that they were democratic, their demeanours (as seen through the narration of margaret nasha) do not confirm that. on the contrary, it is nasha herself who comes across as a principled democrat who held high ideals about empowering ordinary members of the party, and the whole nation. also, what set her apart from other senior members of the party is that she believed ordinary members of the party had to take part in decisions affecting the party. she also believed that ordinary members had to exercise freedom of choice regarding who should be elected into structures of the party (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). this is manifested by her objection at one point to a decision of the constituency committee. the committee aimed to impose the entire structure of the party, including who would and should take positions in the party, on ordinary members. as she states in her memoir: “i honestly did not think that we needed that level of dictatorship in the politics of modern botswana” (nasha, madam speaker, sir! 98). as someone who held high democratic ideals, nasha managed to endear herself to ordinary members of the party (voters). however, that led to altercations with the constituency and party leadership (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). those altercations unveiled a serious dichotomy between what the party leadership wanted the public to believe they cherished and embraced and what they did secretly at the party leadership level. her adherence to the principles that the party wanted everyone to believe that they cherished uncovered undemocratic tendencies within the bdp. given that the party manifestos emphasised democracy, and that democracy formed one of the building blocks of the political mission and vision of the bdp (botswana democratic party election manifesto 2014-2019), the altercations that ensued following nasha’s show of adherence to democratic ideals revealed that the party leadership did not stand by what they wanted the public to believe they stood for. this tendency resonates with what hetherington calls the development of inauthentic identity position. just as hetherington observes, the position that the bdp wanted to portray to the voting public could be likened to theatricality in that it was established and enacted through performance—such as in the writing in manifestoes and other party documents, as well as verbal narrations by the party leadership in public political campaigns. having democracy as their key principle and espousing that in public political spaces at all times while not doing so through inner party operations can be said to be an instance of wearing a political persona “mask.” publicly aligned to the agenda of gender equality, but privately not margaret nasha was aware when she joined active politics that politics would be a struggle, further confiding in the interview that “for a woman the struggle is twice as much.” indeed, during her political activism she had to contend with not only male chauvinism but also with women who, due to their cultural orientations, betrayed women’s struggles. it is safe to say that if she had not adopted an unapologetic stance and maintained a strong-willed personality she would have given up on politics. as mentioned above, she had fights with the men who could not understand how a woman could be ambitious enough to even harbour aspirations of becoming vice president. as far as she was concerned, she qualified to be vice president by birth and education. she therefore could not see anything wrong with wishing to be vice president (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). in any case, she had proven herself by performing exceptionally well as a cabinet minister. she thus openly talked about her “dream” of occupying the second highest office in the land (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). seru and magogwe 78 in her memoir, she highlights how the men used the catchphrase “what does this woman really want?”, meaning “this woman, it seems, wants everything,” just to vilify her (nasha, madam speaker, sir! 98). she was not perturbed by these chauvinist and hateful remarks. as far as she was concerned, she deserved to have what the men wanted to—and could—have, without anybody questioning their abilities (nasha, madam speaker, sir!). the extract below captures nasha’s melancholy about the altercations she had with the men over her aspirations for the position of vice president: such is the reality of a woman’s life in politics, especially in our peculiar situation where women who aspire for positions of leadership and power are detested and viewed with suspicion. sometimes, it does look like we are fighting a losing battle, but as i always say it, someone has to do this job so that up and coming young women know that it can be done. (madam speaker, sir! 120) standing against this strong force of male chauvinism and not being apologetic about it made nasha an embodiment of resilience and, in contrast, presented the men as an embodiment of male chauvinism. nasha’s words above underscore the harsh reality of the life of women in politics and is also an indictment of the ruling party’s double standards. in public, the bdp “preached” gender equality and prided itself on developing a national policy on gender and development (botswana democratic party election manifesto 2014-2019). despite this, they still did not have in place procedures for responding to gender sensitive issues. it thus appears that the development of a policy on gender and development was done to deceptively make the voting public believe that the bdp strived to create an environment where men and women were equal. in other words, the subversion, contestation and ridicule that women who wanted to assume positions of power in the party had to contend with was ironic. this also points to impression management and stage-managed public performances by the bdp and is indeed a replica of what hetherington would call a social construction of self through performances and creation of personas. as mentioned previously, hetherington argues that during such stage-managed performances the real self remains outside and becomes unobservable to people who come to believe that the characters they see truly have the attributes being displayed. in short, even though the bdp’s politicians and manifestos publicly professed gender equality, their actual gender insensitivity remained outside such pronouncements. hetherington’s explanation also suggests that the people who listened to bdp’s pronouncements about gender equity would not believe that the women in the bdp could be ridiculed by the men for aspiring for positions of leadership which men aspired for and occupied. conclusion this study has established that in politics one can benefit from the personas of others. as shown in this paper, margaret nasha capitalised and benefited hugely from the personas of her male political colleagues who incidentally and privately were not aligned to the women’s empowerment agenda and democratic ideals. the male politicians behaved like colonel qaddafi, who would say one thing but go on to do something diametrically opposed to what he said and wanted people to believe (totman & hardy). this study has also shown that public expectations and cultural orientations profoundly influence the construction and presentation of selves in political public spheres. despite privately not aligning with the agenda of gender equality and women’s empowerment, male politicians displayed vehement support for this in public political domains. they knew that botswana voters embraced gender equality and the empowerment of women, hence creating an persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 79 impression that they too stood for those democratic ideals. their courses of action were stage managed so that they could be in line with voters’ expectations and cultural orientations. as shown above, margaret nasha encountered cultural hurdles that included men who did not want to share power with women, and women who betrayed the struggle for women’s empowerment because they too did not believe in political power sharing. in order to overcome these, she adopted the roles of a tireless fighter for women’s inclusion and advancer of public knowledge. to some people, these roles could also be personas. while it is true that women often wear persona “masks” in order to parry political onslaughts and to negotiate the turbulence of cultural beliefs that are inherent in politics, the same cannot be said about nasha. she indicates in her memoir that the roles she played were her honest and embodied beliefs. thus, even though she was able to endear herself to the masses through playing those roles, they cannot be called personas. but, one thing is certain about nasha’s political life story; it represents an “epithet” that women in politics can learn from. moeng reports that during the launch of madam speaker, sir!: breaking the glass ceiling; one woman’s struggle, justice key dingake described nasha’s political story as a good lesson and a reason for women and girls to “walk taller,” and for society to double their efforts in ensuring that there are women in politics and other spheres of life. nasha’s fight for women’s empowerment and her survival in political muddles presents her as a role model for women across the political divide. works cited botswana democratic party election manifesto 2014-2019. gaborone: botswana democratic party. print. d’cruz, glenn. “darkly dreaming (in) authenticity: the self/persona opposition in dexter.” m/c journal 17.3 (2014): n. pag. web. elliott, anthony. concepts of the self. cambridge: polity press, 2014. print. goffman, erving. the presentation of self in everyday life, edinburgh: university of edinburgh social sciences research centre, 1956. print. hetherington, kevin. expression of identity: space. performance and politics. new delhi: sage publications, 1998. print. marshall, p david. “seriality and persona.” m/c journal 17.3 (2014): n. pag. web. moeng, gothataone. “madam speaker sir’ breaks glass ceiling.” the mmegi monitor online, 2014. web. accessed 9 september 2016. nasha, margaret. madam speaker, sir!: breaking the glass ceiling; one woman’s struggle. gaborine: diamond educational publishers, 2014. ---. personal interview. 25 august 2016. seru, lovie edwin. “social masks and dramaturgy in diabetes health campaigns in low resourced and “closed” communities.” international research journal of social sciences 6.1 (2016): 23-36. print. totman, sally and mat hardy. “the charismatic persona of colonel qaddafi.” m/c journal 17.3 (2014): n. pag. web. totman and hardy 80 the presidential persona paradox of barack obama: man of peace or war president? sally totma n and mat ha r dy abstract on a wave of hope and rousing talk of building global bridges, president barack obama won office in 2008, in part on a pledge to end the wars in afghanistan and iraq and to close the guantanamo bay detention facility. in contrast to his predecessor, who launched america into long, costly and ineffectual wars, obama was seen to be more of a dove than a hawk. however, at the end of his two-term tenure america has been in a state of foreign belligerence for all eight years, making obama the longest serving u.s. war president in history. the political persona of obama as a dove originated with his opposition to the 2003 intervention in iraq while he was still a senator. this was then cemented early in his presidency with his 2009 speech in cairo, which seemed to signal a profound and optimistic realignment of america’s intentions towards the middle east and its peoples. this speech was a watershed in defining his political persona and was instrumental in his being the only u.s. president to be awarded a nobel peace prize while still in office. however, during his term the underlying political landscape of the middle east changed significantly, with the withdrawal from then return to iraq, the nuclear agreement with iran, the increasingly chaotic legacy of the arab spring, the continued impasse of the israel-palestinian peace, the disintegration of yemen and libya and the rise of the islamic state as the new threat in the political vacuum of northern iraq and eastern syria, and a resurgent russian role in the region. all of these have provided novel challenges to washington and a president attempting to live up to the positivity of his early days in office. at the end of his presidency obama is faced with a public burned by the disappointments of the iraq and afghanistan campaigns and the new entanglements in the middle east. this paper seeks to offer insights into the juxtaposition of obama’s political persona and reality, as well as exploring what his political legacy might really be. key words political persona; political legacy; middle east; obama; united states on a wave of hope and rousing talk of building global bridges, president barack obama won office in 2008, in part on a pledge to end the wars in afghanistan and iraq and to close the guantanamo bay detention facility. in contrast to his predecessor, who launched america into long, costly and ineffectual wars, obama was seen to be more of a dove than a hawk and aspirations were high that he would steer america and the world on a more positive trajectory. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 81 this political persona of obama as a dove originated with his opposition to the 2003 intervention in iraq while he was still a senator and was cemented early in his presidency with his 2009 speech in cairo, which seemed to signal a profound and optimistic realignment of america’s intentions towards the middle east and its peoples. this speech was a watershed in defining his political persona and was instrumental in his being the only u.s. president to be awarded a nobel peace prize while still in office. but has this early persona been justified over the eight years of his office? there is a long and profuse academic history of examining political leaders and the way they shape their public images. academics such as john street and w. lance bennett have written extensively in this area, looking at everything from how leaders use story-telling and speeches as part of their image construction to the way news is framed by journalists and the mass media to support (or undermine) their image management. the consensus of such research demonstrates that the character of political figures is a constructed fiction, with the persona of all political figures fabricated and contrived for political gain. what is lacking in most academic examinations of political persona and its construction is an in-depth study of how a leader’s persona as viewed by the public can differ from the reality of their actions (or inactions). this paper is not concerned with re-hashing the academic literature detailing how political personas are constructed, but rather with undertaking an in-depth analysis of how the constructed persona of a political leader can withstand the realities of politics to build a legacy and reputation far removed from their actual performance. the nature of a politician's legacy becomes important to them (and commentators) towards the end of their career. for american presidents, their interaction with the middle east region is often seen as a hallmark of their tenure. did they handle the challenges of the region well? did they have a positive effect on the problems and tensions therein? was their reign peaceful or dogged by conflict? for jimmy carter, it was the iranian revolution and subsequent hostage crisis that hobbled his presidency right to the end. ronald reagan's lebanese and libyan entanglements and the iran-contra affair were significant episodes in his two terms of office. both bush senior and junior are indelibly linked with conflicts with iraq. bill clinton's handshakes on progress between israel and palestine were seen as momentous products of his diplomatic skill. indeed, since the 'eisenhower doctrine' of 1957, the importance of the middle east to america has become a truism for presidents and their success or failure in that region becomes an inevitable part of their legacy. barack obama will fare no differently in this regard. within a few weeks of taking office in 2009 president obama had signalled that his administration would place an emphasis on interaction between america and the islamic world, and the middle east in particular. as part of his first overseas trip as president, obama visited turkey in early april before flying on to iraq. in a forerunner of his more well-known cairo speech, obama addressed the turkish parliament: i know there have been difficulties these last few years. i know that the trust that binds the united states and turkey has been strained, and i know that strain is shared in many places where the muslim faith is practiced. so let me say this as clearly as i can: the united states is not, and will never be, at war with islam. (applause.) in fact, our partnership with the muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people. i also want to be clear that america's relationship with the muslim community, the muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. we seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual totman and hardy 82 respect….there's an old turkish proverb: "you cannot put out fire with flames." america knows this. turkey knows this. there's some who must be met by force, they will not compromise. but force alone cannot solve our problems, and it is no alternative to extremism. the future must belong to those who create, not those who destroy. that is the future we must work for, and we must work for it together. (remarks by president obama to the turkish parliament) in this speech, and his cairo version in june 2009, obama outlined his vision for a new era in u.s.-muslim relations. his kenyan heritage and indonesian residency were mentioned but it is telling that when he gave specific examples of what he was aiming for in this new relationship with islam, the middle east and afghanistan/pakistan were the emphasis. the muslim world beyond those strategic interests was mentioned only generically. in this sense, obama's new era was very much concerned with the same set of geographical preoccupations as most of his predecessors. however, in contrast to the interactions that george w. bush had overseen, obama attempted to couch these interests in peaceful terms in his speeches. this was in line with his dove-like persona and 'new broom' image. key points of these early presentations included: iraq: disentangling america from iraq was a key plank in obama's election platform. dissatisfaction with the years of loss there and the seemingly unending quagmire was rising and obama made it clear that america's military presence was coming to an end: "america has a dual responsibility: to help iraq forge a better future—and to leave iraq to iraqis" (remarks by the president on a new beginning). israel-palestine: the stalled road map and the intransigence of the parties in the peace process was something obama, like so many presidents before him, aimed to address: "i intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires… all of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of israelis and palestinians can see their children grow up without fear…" (remarks by the president on a new beginning). iran: seen as an implacable enemy to u.s. interests since 1979, iran and its nuclear potential was third on obama's list of priorities in his cairo speech: "i've made it clear to iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward…it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. this is not simply about america's interests. it's about preventing a nuclear arms race in the middle east that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path" (remarks by the president on a new beginning). terrorism: the presence within, and export of violent ideologies from, the middle east had been a bugbear for american presidents since the days of ronald reagan. linked with concerns such as iran and an unstable iraq, obama's early speeches pre-date the rise of the islamic state and instead focus on al-qaeda and those localities that provided haven and support for the group. it is notable that the cairo speech did not include a single mention of the word 'terrorism', which some interpreted as a means of distancing america's vision of the middle east from that of the bush era and the conflation of the war on terror with a broader war on islam. democratisation and freedom: strong democratic institutions, personal freedoms and the rights of women also figured in obama's avowed policies. however, burned by the bungled attempts to impose democracy on iraq, obama's remarks were shaped by a sense of middle persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 83 eastern realpolitik: "there are some who advocate for democracy only when they're out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others…you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy" (remarks by the president on a new beginning). such observations would become ironic given the next few years and the journey of the arab spring, particularly in egypt itself. such ambitions were received with general positivity in the middle east and the west. the title of the cairo speech—a new beginning—was taken by optimists at face value. reactions in the middle east were positive, both from leaders in the region and commentators. at the other end of the spectrum were those who saw the speech as empty rhetoric or who were cognizant of the extreme difficulties such lofty aspirations would face in the realities of the middle eastern political system. further still along the continuum were those abroad and at home who were outraged by obama's words and saw them as a patronising lecture, a betrayal of israel, or a capitulation of america's interests. for example, house republican leader in congress, john boehner, said "[obama] continues to say he will sit down with the iranians without any preconditions, i just think that that puts us in a position where america looks weak in the eyes of their rulers" (bbc). the wider world was even more approving of obama's diplomatic overtures. world opinion of obama has been consistently high over the years (as obama years draw to close, president and u.s. seen favorably in europe and asia). in october 2009, after only a few months in office, he was awarded the nobel peace prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." the committee placed emphasis on obama's "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons" (norwegian nobel committee). this made obama only the fourth american president so honoured. moreover, the other three laureates (teddy roosevelt, woodrow wilson, and jimmy carter) were all recognised towards the end (or after) their terms and for substantial actual achievements. but it was not 'the muslim world' or norwegian intellectuals who elected obama to two terms of office. it was american voters who installed him in the 2008 elections and then opted to double down in 2012. measuring their reactions to their president is critical, not just for his tenure and legacy, but also if we are to understand what role middle eastern foreign policy has in the mind of the american public and whether it has a substantive impact on image and reputation. whilst lofty foreign policy goals such as solving the israel-palestine deadlock or bringing democracy to iraq may fascinate observers, do such ambitions 'play in peoria'? does success or failure in the world's great political challenges have any real impact on voters or the projected persona of a president? public opinion and obama's actions given the approbation that his 2009 speeches received, it is worth examining how the aspirations obama expressed measure up to the subsequent years of actions. by comparing some of the same points he raised then and assessing what actually ensued, the contradictions between obama's benign image and his real legacy are illustrated. data on public opinion relating to these events is offered as a means of exploring why his actions have had little impact on a largely positive public persona. the scrutiny of public opinion polls as a catalyst for examining u.s. foreign policy is long established (dieck; foyle; mueller). there are various models and hypotheses regarding the totman and hardy 84 extent to which public opinion influences foreign policy and presidential direction. however, public opinion can be particularly important when it comes to committing american forces to conflict and what the nature of such an intervention might involve (dieck). for example, whilst the public might favour some form of intervention, support for full scale ground occupations may be limited compared to support for aerial campaigns or peace-keeping type deployments. ignoring public opinion is not uncommon for presidents when interacting with the middle east, but it has its pitfalls and failing to heed the mood of the public may have repercussions for longterm approval. public opinion polls can therefore be critical to the management of political persona and long-term legacy formation. there is a long tradition in social sciences of using public opinion data (donsbach and traugott) for analysing political support and this paper draws upon that established foundation. our intention is not to present and debate the literature surrounding this sub-field of political science but to instead focus on the case study of president obama and how his actions in the middle east are reflected in public opinion polling. a myriad of polls and question sets will be generated during any american president's term, so in examining obama's eight years of middle east interaction this paper will focus mainly on those produced by the pew research center. as a non-partisan entity that specialises in u.s. public opinion, pew has a strong reputation for credibility and conducts large sample polls via established methodologies. by presenting the relationship between words, deeds, and public perceptions, this paper will attempt to demonstrate that for obama the realities of the middle east have not managed to tarnish the fantasies of his image. iran arguably the biggest foreign success of obama's presidency has been involvement in the joint comprehensive plan of action (jcpoa) deal reached with iran over the islamic republic's nuclear ambitions. addressing years of uncertainty and hostility over iran's nuclear activities, obama described the jcpoa as "the most consequential foreign policy debate that our country has had since the invasion of iraq" (remarks by the president on the iran nuclear deal). opening the path to further dialogue with iran and being potentially the biggest positive change in u.s. relationships with the region in decades, the afterglow of the signing was short-lived for obama and the american public. strident criticism of the jcpoa from republicans and pro-israel voices as a 'green light' to iranian aspirations for a nuclear weapons program quickly cast the deal as a humiliating surrender for america. despite the very detailed explanations from the white house as to the severity of the inspections regime, a pew survey found that only 33% of the public approved of the agreement when it was announced, while 45% disapproved and 22% had no opinion (support for iran nuclear agreement falls). that is, two thirds of the american public either disapproved or did not care about the jcpoa. approval dropped to 21% in the following six weeks. similar levels of approval were exhibited in other polls, though results varied according to how much the respondents had heard about the deal or had it explained to them. generally, those more informed about the jcpoa were more likely to be approving. those who knew little or nothing about the deal were more reflexive in their disapproval. distrust of iran and, by extension, american leaders who make deals with that nation, is apparently endemic in the u.s. in the most recent annual survey (2015) of u.s. public opinion on iran only 14% of americans exhibited a favourable opinion of the islamic republic, down from only a marginally better score of 21% when obama took office in 2009 (opinion of iran. do you persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 85 have a favorable or unfavorable view of iran?). so predictable is this mistrust, iran is one of only three countries that pew seeks favourable/unfavourable opinions on annually (the others being russia and china). given this data, it would seem any president setting his course towards agreement with iran cannot expect to be applauded for it. the majority of american voters either have no interest in such lofty foreign policy goals or else see such deals as a zero-sum game, where american interests are harmed by any handshake. the paradox here is that obama may have suffered a public opinion loss for engaging in a deal that actually furthered the cause of peace. iraq and intervention in the middle east the long involvement with iraq stemming from the 2003 invasion has not created a positive impression among americans or enamoured them of military entanglement in the middle east. with the benefit of hindsight, by early 2014 only 38% of americans felt that the historic iraq intervention had been the right course of action and 52% felt that america had "mostly failed" to achieve its goals in that country (drake, more americans say u.s. failed to achieve its goals in iraq). importantly, these pew figures show a marked decline during obama's presidency, indicating that voters (and particularly democrat voters) were unenthusiastic about further american involvement there. obama's 2009 pledge in cairo to leave iraq to the iraqis would have been in tune with such sentiment. the chariness over middle east intervention was evident during the crises in libya and syria. in the chaos of the arab spring, only 27% of americans polled in march 2011 felt that the u.s. had a responsibility to act in libya (public says u.s. does not have responsibility to act in syria). however, 50% approved of the u.s. participation in airstrikes on gadhafi's forces as an appropriate course of action. the relatively swift deposition of the dictatorship meant that by september 2011 polls showed 49% of the u.s. public felt approval for obama's actions in libya (libya: steady views, declining interest). the dilemma posed by this sort of feedback is that the american public may only be supportive of quick, clean air campaigns that are rapidly successful. even then, majority approval is not in evidence. as with the iran nuclear negotiations, support for intervention is higher among those who are bigger consumers of news coverage concerning the middle east. this demographic is quite small, though. in september 2011, only 17% of americans polled reported that they had followed news from libya closely in the week before they were polled, and in this group 63% felt that airstrikes were the appropriate recourse (libya: steady views, declining interest). the vast majority of americans were not following events in libya and had more mixed feelings about intervening (35% approval) or no opinion at all (24%). remote warfare as the publicly preferred manner of intervention is evidenced by other polls during obama's presidency, with backing for drone strikes to combat terrorists abroad trending in the mid-50 percent region (drake, obama and drone strikes: support but questions at home, opposition abroad; public continues to back u.s. drone attacks). under obama, the use of drone strikes has seen a ten-fold increase in comparison to the george w. bush years, with nearly 3,500 people killed (zenko). through this clandestine war, obama has managed to conduct a ruthless and far-ranging extermination campaign against potential enemies, whilst at the same time keeping on the right side of public opinion and avoid tarnishing his anti-war image. totman and hardy 86 however, public reluctance for overt actions in the region posed challenges for obama's responses to the syrian crisis. fettered by the un security council deadlock, the same pathways of coalition airstrikes used in libya were not available in syria. public opinion too was on par with that towards intervention in libya. in march 2012, only 25% of respondents felt america had a responsibility to act in syria, and by december 2012 this was still only at 27% (public says u.s. does not have responsibility to act in syria). obama's setting of a "red line" in syria over chemical weapons use and then failing to commit to war when this line was crossed was something of a reputational loss internationally, but domestic public opinion was still ambivalent. the mixed feedback generated a muddled approach to syria that deepened the crisis in intensity and duration but kept obama clear of being seen as a warmonger. unfortunately, the repercussions of this sideline position on syria would then emerge in iraq. having left "iraq to the iraqis" for a while, the ground taken by the islamic state (is) mid-2014 invoked the other clause in obama's speech: "to help iraq forge a better future." the failure of the increasingly autocratic maliki regime to foster unity in iraq was also part of the problem and in discord with obama's rhetoric about democracy and pluralism. america's investment in iraq, the need to secure the country and placate regional allies meant that washington felt the need to act. commentators also quoted the 'pottery barn rule' (you break it. you own it), implying that the u.s. had a moral obligation to shore up the country that their intervention had arguably shattered. the american public, however, did not see it that way. a 55% majority felt that the u.s. had no responsibility to act in iraq, with only 39% supporting intervention (most think the u.s. has no responsibility to act in iraq). this was despite 45% of respondents reporting they had heard 'a lot' about the violence in iraq and the takeover of large parts of the country by the islamic state forces. by way of contrast though, 57% of americans said that same week that they had heard a lot about the recent influx of illegally immigrating unaccompanied minors across the u.s.-mexican border. the comparative awareness between domestic 'threat' and middle eastern crisis is stark, again showing that big picture geo-strategic events are of less concern to voters than domestic issues. as the crisis in iraq deepened, however, support for the fight against is increased. by the start of 2015, 63% of those surveyed said they approved of a "campaign" against islamic militants in iraq and syria. the issue of what sort of campaign was a little more divisive, with a fairly even split between those who did (47%) or did not (49%) support the commitment of u.s. ground forces to this action when polled in february 2015. this was still a marked increase from october 2014, where respondents to the same question were more clearly opposed to u.s. ground intervention (only 39% approval versus 55% disapproval) (growing support for campaign against isis – and possible use of u.s. ground troops). this indecision over ground troops is also reflected in attitudes towards how best to deal with violent extremism around the world. democrat voters are markedly wary of the use of military force as a solution. in the february 2015 survey, two thirds of democrat supporters felt that "relying too much on military force to defeat terrorism creates hatred that leads to more terrorism." only 22% of republican voters held the same opinion. concerns over the effectiveness and duration of intervention were also expressed, with a fairly even split between respondents' "biggest concern" being that either the u.s. would not go far enough to stop the militants (49%) or that it would go too far in getting involved in the situation. the spectre of the iraq occupation is evident here. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 87 such ambivalence posed a problem for obama. not getting involved in syria early in the uprising was reflective of the iraq experience. yet the lack of response allowed a civil war to sputter along and irredeemably fracture syrian society. when is grew out of these cracks and marched towards baghdad, obama's slow and piecemeal re-commitment to iraq was a product of the electoral tightrope he had to walk. voters did not want to see a large scale "iraq 2.0" deployment (mathes). the choice of an air campaign and the increased backing of local militias is also a classic democrat option, despite the probable ineffectiveness of this strategy to definitively defeat is. having inherited the iraq predicament from his predecessor, obama had to be wary about saddling the next democratic candidate with a newer version; especially when the majority of the voting public seem opposed to such adventures. low-key action was the solution, notwithstanding the fact that obama was actually re-committing to protracted conflict in the very nation that he had lambasted his predecessor's martial involvement in. israel–palestine if there is a chimera among american presidential ambitions in the middle east, it is in seeking a lasting solution to the israel-palestine issue. from bill clinton's grandiose rose garden moment with yasser arafat and yitzhak rabin, through george w. bush's annapolis conference, to obama's own 'personal pursuit' of peace, many presidents have foundered on the shoals of this dispute. like a grail quest, this elusive objective is pursued almost out of custom. however, the reality of public opinion indicates that voters do not really care about this most intractable of world problems. indeed, any solution that seems to disadvantage israel—as any compromise surely must—could actually be a handicap for a president. opinion polls show consistent favour for israel among americans. when asked with whom they most sympathise with, or favour, in the conflict, steady figures of around 60-72% have indicated israel (more express sympathy for israel than the palestinians; saad). favour for palestinians hovers around the high teens to low 20 percent mark. these trends have been consistent throughout obama's presidency, and for years beforehand. there is little doubt that american public opinion is firmly on the side of israel. while democrats are traditionally less supportive in this regard, it would still be foolish for any president to pursue a line of policy that could be construed as detrimental in this area. despite obama and benjamin netanyahu's worsening relationship over the years, the israeli prime minister can count seemingly on the support of the american public. this is borne out by obama's distinct lack of action on the israel-palestine impasse. despite saying he would pursue progress with "patience and dedication," obama has never significantly challenged netanyahu's intransigence. solving this problem is, of course, not as simple as two leaders working things out between them. but palestinian hopes for viable statehood have diminished significantly under obama's tenure. this is again at odds with his benevolent image. conclusion throughout his two terms, obama's overall approval rating has fluctuated without any evident link with his policies towards the middle east. despite a multitude of crises in the region, these fluctuations have stayed within a narrower range than most of his post-world war ii predecessors but follow broadly the same trend lines when mapped against years of tenure. high and low points in obama's presidential approval figures have more clearly been the result of domestic affairs such as the passing of obamacare or budgetary deadlocks. totman and hardy 88 regardless of the emphasis that is placed upon u.s. foreign policy towards the middle east by many academics and commentators, interactions there have no real resonance with the american public. indeed, foreign policy as a whole is of no great interest in comparison to domestic issues. most americans do not closely follow events in the middle east, and even those who do are not overwhelmingly approving of too much intervention there. this confusion and ambivalence about the middle east on the part of the american public is demonstrated in a december 2015 poll where 30% of respondents indicated support for bombing agrabah, the fictional middle eastern city in disney's film aladdin (public policy polling). president obama's successor would do well to heed these findings. solving middle east peace dilemmas is a lofty ambition, but 'all politics is local'. the american public does not express a strong interest in middle eastern affairs and they do not want their leaders to become involved in conflict there or risk national prestige in compromises. in his eight years of office, president barack obama has been relatively successful in treading this line, despite the fact that he has been involved in various states of belligerency for all the days of his presidency. in may 2016, he passed the milestone of having been at war for longer than any other u.s. president in history (landler). he is unlikely to be popularly remembered in this manner though, with pundits instead focussing on other aspects of his presidency, such as domestic reforms and his status as a ground-breaker for people of colour (new york magazine). in the middle east the result is that obama's actions (or relative lack of them) have left little legacy, except for the deepening of problems that were already germinating when he was sworn in. despite his good intentions and the hopes of the nobel prize committee there has been no significant gains in middle east peace during obama's white house stay. this may be lamentable, but from the perspective of public opinion, was a politically shrewd strategy. obama himself seems to find the reasons for the nobel prize he was awarded mystifying. appearing on the late show with stephen colbert in october 2016, president obama was asked what he received the nobel peace prize for and he answered “to be honest, i still don’t know.” despite being a satirical interview, it is perhaps an insight into the fact that even obama realises his political reputation and recognition does not correlate with his actual achievements. marshall and barbour argue that today we see the “false nature of presentation in politics” but it appears that for president obama the persona he has constructed as a man of peace withstands all comparisons with reality. this paradox might be his greatest achievement and real political legacy. works cited bbc. reaction: obama's cairo speech. web. 4 june 2009. bennett, w lance. news: the politics of lllusion. tenth edition. chicago: university of chicago press, 2016. print. dieck, helene. “public opinion and u.s. military interventions: the president's room for maneuver after the cold war.” conference papers -american political science association (2010): 1-33. donsbach, wolfgang and michael w traugott. the sage handbook of public opinion research. london: sage, 2008. print. drake, bruce. more americans say u.s. failed to achieve its goals in iraq. web. 12 june 2014. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 89 ---. obama and drone strikes: support but questions at home, opposition abroad. web. 24 may 2013. foyle, douglas c. counting the public in: presidents, public opinion, and foreign policy. new york: columbia university press, 1999. print. landler, mark. for obama, an unexpected legacy of two full terms at war. web. 14 may 2016. marshall, p david, and kim barbour. “making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective.” persona studies 1.1 (2015): 1–12. web. mathes, michael. us congress wary of greenlighting 'iraq 2.0'. web. 12 september 2014. mueller, john. war, presidents and public opinion. new york: wiley, 1973. print. new york magazine. 53 historians weigh in on barack obama’s legacy. web. 11 january 2015. norwegian nobel committee. the nobel peace prize for 2009. 2009. press release. obama, barack. remarks by president obama to the turkish parliament. 2009. press release. ---. remarks by the president on a new beginning. 2009. press release. ---. remarks by the president on the iran nuclear deal. 2015. press release. pew research center. as obama years draw to close, president and u.s. seen favorably in europe and asia. web. 29 june 2016. ---. growing support for campaign against isis – and possible use of u.s. ground troops. web. 24 february 2015. ---. libya: steady views, declining interest. web. 8 september 2011. ---. more express sympathy for israel than the palestinians. web. 28 august 2014. ---. most think the u.s. has no responsibility to act in iraq. web. 18 july 2014. ---. opinion of iran. do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of iran? web. 2015. ---. public continues to back u.s. drone attacks. web. 28 may 2015. ---. public says u.s. does not have responsibility to act in syria. web. 14 december 2012. ---. support for iran nuclear agreement falls. web. 8 september 2015. public policy polling. trump lead grows nationally; 41% of his voters want to bomb country from aladdin; clinton maintains big lead. web. 18 december 2015. saad, lydia. seven in 10 americans continue to view israel favorably. web. 23 february 2015. “stephen colbert helps president obama polish his résumé on the late show.” cbs, 18 october 2016. television. street, john. “the celebrity politician: political style and popular culture.” media and the restyling of politics: consumerism, celebrity and cynicism, edited by john corner and dick pels, london: sage, 2003, 85 –89. print. zenko, micah. obama’s embrace of drone strikes will be a lasting legacy. web. 12 january 2016. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 1 scientific personas in theory and practice – ways of creating scientific, scholarly, and artistic identities kirst i nis ka nen, mi ne ke bos ch, ka at wils the concept of scientific persona was developed by historians of science at the max planck institute in berlin fifteen years ago in order to understand how science works and how it can be conducted in a credible way. the latin word persona means mask and the discussions of the term were elaborations of marcel mauss´s introduction of the concept in an article published in 1938 (mauss 1938). in mauss´s conceptualisation, persona was a feature that characterized societies in an evolutionary stage—a stage where members of the society had started to perceive themselves as individuals, but were still expected to fulfill certain, culturally defined roles. in such contexts, persona was not a mask to cover the ‘real’ self of the performer, but a mask that enhanced certain features of the person. transferring mauss’s approach to the scientific world, lorraine daston and otto sibum (2003) defined, in an often cited article in science in context, scientific persona as an intermediate between individual biography and social (scientific) institution: it is a cultural identity that forms the individual in body and mind, and creates a collective with a shared and recognizable physiognomy (ways to be and to behave). daston and sibum characterized scientific personas as templates that emerge and develop in historical contexts and used the concept to investigate the creation of certain types of scientists: when, how and why have distinct “scientific personae” emerged? scientific personas are historical constructions; they are not just a mask or a role that individuals assume or shape and are shaped by. they are collective entities, a kind of cultural and social repertoires on how to be a person of science. in the creation of, or habituation to, a persona, imitation and adaptation play an important role (goffman 1959). in many cultures, personas are incarnations of a tradition, and creating a new persona is a delicate balance between old and new cultural forms (daston & sibun 2003). in addition to the need to create a personal identity, constructions of persona are important because they exemplify new ways of being in the world, and also form the basis for the creation of trustworthiness, reliability, and predictability on social interaction. especially in scientific communities, trust in one´s person is essential because it is impossible for us to solely rely on our own observations—that would mean that every claim would have to be tested over and over again and each empirical or archive-based information be subjected to control, as mineke bosch (2013) has noted. the above mentioned special issue of science in context presented historical examples of scientific personas: the aristocratic independent scientist; the religiously inspired, ascetic, and sickly genius; the absent-minded professor (the repertoire of “learned forgetfulness”); and the modest, humble, self-taught scientist. with the professionalisation of science at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, new forms of scientific being were developed, influenced by american entrepreneurial examples and promoted by new forms of research funding (shapin 2008). in this perspective, it is interesting to ask: how do collective niskanen, bosch, & wils 2 constructions of scientific personas emerge and develop in changing historical contexts? in what ways are these constructions cemented, and transferred across national borders and to subsequent generations? how do scientific personas shape, and are shaped by, the individuals who incorporate them? what purposes do these constructions serve? and what is the relationship between the scientist, or the scholar, as a person and the content of science? empirical work and discussions on the concept have burgeoned since daston and sibum introduced the term in 2003. one example is a research group at leiden university directed by herman paul. tying in with the field of historical epistemology, paul developed a more specific understanding of the concept “scholarly persona” or “scholarly self” as a set of discipline specific virtues and skills that are deemed necessary in order to work and to be recognized as an academic historian (paul 2014, paul 2016a, paul 2016b). the articles presented in this special issue of persona studies represent another expansion of the concept. while gathering insights from earlier discussions, the essays elaborate new kinds of theoretical and empirical uses of the term. several contributions in this issue result from an international research project, scientific persona in cultural encounters (spice). the project has nuanced and complicated the concept of scientific, or scholarly, persona in (at least) two important ways. firstly, our investigations are (following shapin 1994, 2008, goffman 1959, butler 1990, bosch 2013, 2018) based on the idea of a dynamic relationship between credibility in scientific assertions and the ways in which researchers perform and embody their identities as trusted and credible scientists, and how their personas are influenced and shaped by social categories such as class, gender, ethnicity and/or religious affiliation. following the literary scholar lies wesseling’s (2004) analysis of the developmental psychologist judith rich harris, bosch (2016) shows in an investigation of dutch historians that rather than a historical cavalcade, it is more fruitful to explore scholarly personas as bricolage where existing, old repertoires, ideals and academic identities are performed, overlap and mix with new ideals, depending on the specific persons and contexts involved. secondly, a component of our research deals with the very definition of scientific (or scholarly) persona, and the empirical contexts, source materials and methods used to study the creation of academic identities. scientific persona has so far mostly been studied at the individual level and perceived as an individual self-formation, imitation, and adaptation to the available and current scientific repertoires, norms, and value systems. our empirical results have led us to partially redefine the term. scientific personas are also created by institutions and institutional conditions. in addition to a person´s self-conception, persona is also about office, those personal qualities, roles and responsibilities which are associated with holding a scientific position, at a particular historical time and place (condren, gaukroges, hunter et al. 2006). an example of a persona shaping scientific position is a professor´s chair − a position with the succession of office holders − which even today can provide the person who conquers the chair with a reputation and a certain aura, like william clark (2006) notes in his discussion of academic charisma. our investigations demonstrate that internalization and institutionalization of research influenced the scientific landscapes of the first part of the twentieth century by creating new forms of funding, related to specific research areas. through selection and evaluation processes, these new economic structures contributed both to defining what was ‘good’ and ‘important’ research and who were perceived as ‘good’, recognized scientists. spice has so far studied research policy and selection mechanisms focusing on the belgian american educational foundation (baef) in belgium (huistra & wils 2016), the rockefeller foundation's scholarship programs in sweden (niskanen 2016, 2017) and the international federation of university women's research and scholarships programs aimed at women researchers (cabanel 2015). the studies show that research funders have acted as gatekeepers, that they have persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 3 defined what a “good” scientist or scholar looks like (both literally and in a figurative sense), and that they therefore have influenced the creation of scientific identities. the contributions the essays in this issue demonstrate the richness and variety in which the persona concept can be used as a tool for studying the creation of scientific, academic and research oriented selfconceptions, and professional and vocational identities, as well as how institutions contribute to the shaping of scientific ways of being. they also show that knowledge creation, be it strictly scientific, vocational, or artistic, is embedded in social categories of gender, class and race. the seven articles that make up this issue discuss and develop the use of scientific persona concept empirically and theoretically. they can be grouped into themes that highlight different approaches to scientific identity formation. the first theme is about embodied knowledge, the intertwining of knowledge, the creator of knowledge as a person, and the object of knowledge. the issue opens with josephine hoegaert´s article “chewing demosthenes´s pebbles: embodied experience making the scientist´s persona, ca 1830-1910”. hoegaert illustrates how the field of knowledge about voice and its functions were, literally, based on bodily experience of the experts who developed the area into a scientific field during the last part of the nineteenth century. since the study objects of laryngology and phoniatry were inside the body, inaccessible for observation, non-normative bodily experiences, such as stammering, could be mobilised to construct a credible scientific persona. the reliance on embodied experience opened opportunities for non-conventional scientific actors—including women—to assert themselves as experts in the field. lisa svanfeldt-winter's article “writing a folklorist’s persona in the field: how defining the object of study defines the scholar” also encourages reflection on how the creation of scholarly persona is related to the scientific object of study. folkloristics played an important role in the creation of national identity in the early 20th century finland. the discipline's method was to document and explore the ‘authentic’ national cultural heritage by collecting poems, songs and dialects in meetings with informants in the field, often in the rural areas of eastern finland, which was perceived as ‘unspoiled’. svanfeldtwinter shows how young folklorists´ scholarly persona was shaped through processes of identification with, and distance from, the research object, i.e. informants in the field. the second theme deals with autobiographical representations of scholarly and professional persona. in both rozemarijn van de wal's article “constructing the persona of a professional historian: on eileen power´s early career persona formation and her year in paris, 1910-1911” and in amy rubens´s “enacting self and scientific persona: models for women health professionals in dr. s. josephine baker´s fighting for life, the discussion about autobiographical performativity plays a central role. eileen power became professor of economic history at the london school of economics and a renowned medieval historian, and josephine baker was a pioneer for women health professionals in new york in the 1920s. although they deal with different contexts, both articles show how autobiographical acts— notes and diaries in power's case and an autobiography in baker´s—facilitate the interaction between individual identity (a person) and cultural template or model (a persona). van de wal shows how power began to shape her own academic and professional identity during her year in paris by incorporating elements from different areas—from feminism, history and the arts— and how this process was the start of the creation of her scholarly persona as an oxbridge scholar. this required being well-connected, well-versed in the arts, as well as trained in the newly developed, professional, document-based history of the famous school of langlois. similarly, rubens shows how baker built up a scientific and professional persona by adopting prevailing personas for women health professionals but also by altering the dominant model for niskanen, bosch, & wils 4 female doctors. baker´s reformulation of a prevailing concept of scientific motherhood in her work among immigrants in new york, in a class-based context, marked a reshaping of available personas for women health professionals. a third, related theme deals with the gendered opportunities for women to create a recognized, credible scientific and artistic personas at a time when women were prevented from, or not expected, to have visible and authoritative positions in the public sphere. julia dahlberg´s s article “when artists became intellectuals: science as a significant other for the female artistic persona” shows how the artist, writer, and social activist helena westermarck created a public intellectual persona by borrowing status and authority from the scientific persona of her brother, internationally renowned philosopher and professor of sociology, edward westermarck. the grounds for the creation of a scientific persona were several for the protagonist of sarah erman´s article. “a teacher, a scientist, a wife: the complex self of joséphine schouteden-wéry (1879-1954)”. schouteden-wery was married to a well-known scientist but she was also a teacher and popular science writer who combined repertoires from the different fields in order to carve herself a place in the scientific community. the final article in the issue deals with the question of how organizations and their cultures contribute to creating and shaping academic identities. women entered universities and institutions of higher education slowly during the first part of the twentieth century. as anna cabanel shows in “how excellent … for a woman? the fellowship program of the international federation of university women (ifuw) in the interwar period”, the international federation of university women was founded as a counterweight to the organizations that mainly supported men. its aim was to provide women researchers access to scholarships and research opportunities that opened the way to academic positions. cabanel demonstrates that the fellowship programme was meant to function as a meritocratic and excellence-oriented system. deliberately understating aspects of gender and developing a strictly meritocratic discourse, the federation promoted a “disembodied" type of scientific persona as a strategy aimed at overcoming a long-standing bias against the alleged amateurism of women scientists. last but not least: the concept of persona is, of course, used not only in the history of science, but also in cultural studies where persona studies has established itself as a research field at the side of celebrity studies, this journal being an example of this development. we pride ourselves on the opportunity to edit the journal´s first special issue with focus on history and the history of science. works cited bosch, m 2013. “persona and the performance of identity: parallel developments in the biographical historiography of science and gender, and the related uses of self narrative”. l’homme. europäische zeitschrift für feministische geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 11-22. bosch, m 2016. “scholarly personae and twentieth-century historians: explorations of a concept”. bmgn-low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 33-54. bosch, m 2018. “looking at laboratory life, writing a (new) scientific persona. marianne van herwerden's travel letters from the united states, 1920”. l’homme. europäische zeitschrift für feministische geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 15-33. butler, j 1990. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity, london. https://www.rug.nl/staff/mineke.bosch/research https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/publications/persona-and-the-performance-of-identity(15487699-d936-471e-814d-5091d89cd3a1).html https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/publications/persona-and-the-performance-of-identity(15487699-d936-471e-814d-5091d89cd3a1).html https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/publications/persona-and-the-performance-of-identity(15487699-d936-471e-814d-5091d89cd3a1).html https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/journals/lhomme-europaische-zeitschrift-fur-feministische-geschichtswissenschaft(703ba25a-b318-4101-8a1d-7807a20def02).html persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 5 cabanel, a 2015. “pionnières du nord – universitaires norvégiennes et réseaux féminins internationaux (1882-1940)”. genre & histoire. la revue de l’association mnémosyne, vol. 15, http://journals.openedition.org/genrehistoire/2110. clark, w 2006. academic charisma and the origins of the research university. chicago, university of chicago press. condren, c, gaukroger, s & hunter, i 2006. the philosopher in early modern europe: the nature of a contested identity. cambridge university press, cambridge. daston, l & sibum, o 2003, “introduction: scientific personae and their histories”, science in context, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1-8, doi 10.1111/hith.10717. goffman, e 1959. the presentation of self in everyday life. garden city, doubleday. huistra p & wils k 2016. “fit to travel. the exchange programme of the belgian american educational foundation: an institutional perspective on scientific persona formation (1920-1940)”. bmgn-low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 112-134. mauss, m 1938. “une catégorie de l’esprit humain: la notion de personne. celle de ‘moi’. un plan de travail”. journal of the royal anthropological institute ch, pp. 236-281. doi: 10.1522/cla.mam.cat niskanen, k 2016. “searching for ‘brains and quality’. fellowship programs and male constructions of scientific personae by the rockefeller foundation in sweden during the interwar period’. paper presented at the 7th international conference of the european society for the history of science , 22-24 september, prague, czech republic. niskanen, k 2017. “snille efterfrågas! rockefeller foundation, forskarpersona och kön vid stockholms högskola”. scandia vol. 83, no. 2, pp. 11-40. paul, h 2014. “what is a scholarly persona? ten theses on virtues, skills, and desires”. history and theory vol. 53, pp. 348-371. paul, h 2016a. “sources of the self. scholarly personae as repertoires of scholarly selfhood”. bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 135-154. paul, h 2016b. “the virtues and vices of albert naudé: towards a history of scholarly personae”. history of the humanities, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 327-338. shapin, s 1994. a social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century england. university of chicago press, chicago. shapin, s 2008. the scientific life: a moral history of a late modern vocation. chicago, university of chicago press. wesseling, e 2004. “judith rich harris: the miss marple of developmental psychology”. science in context, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 294–314. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 1 five dimensions of online persona chr ist ophe r moor e, kim ba rb our, a nd kat ja lee before facebook, twitter, and most of the digital media platforms that now form routine parts of our online lives, jay bolter (2000) anticipated that online activities would reshape how we understand and produce identity: a ‘networked self’, he noted, ‘is displacing cartesian printed self as a cultural paradigm’ (2000, p. 26). the twenty-first century has not only produced a proliferation and mass popularisation of platforms for the production of public digital identities, but also an explosion of scholarship investigating the relationship between such identities and technology. these approaches have mainly focussed on the relations between humans and their networks of other human connections, often neglecting the broader implications of what personas are and might be, and ignoring the rise of the non-human as part of social networks. in this introductory essay, we seek to both trace the work done so far to explore subjectivity and the public presentation of the self via networked technologies, and contribute to these expanding accounts by providing a brief overview of what we consider to be five important dimensions of an online persona. in the following, we identify and explicate the five dimensions of persona as public, mediatised, performative, collective and having intentional value and, while we acknowledge that these dimensions are not exhaustive or complete, they are certainly primary. key nodes of research the scope of research in this field is wide and varied, fruitfully informed by multiple disciplinary perspectives. here we trace only a handful of scholars and concepts, focusing in particular on work that is foundational or influential in our formulations of the dimensions of online persona. harrison rainie and barry wellman (2012), for example, advance the notion of ‘networked individualism’, which helps to acknowledge and account for the connections between online activity and the formation of subjectivity. they remind us that communication technologies, media platforms, and digital services are not isolated objects or discrete entities, but are voraciously incorporated into the lives of individuals as part of the extant identity assemblage that is undergoing continuous revision, updates, and patching as we form connections and exchange information with other people and other systems. zizi papacharissi’s (2010) media and communication perspective presents us with another elaboration of the ‘networked self’, a term which she uses to indicate the construction of a subjective performance across multiple and simultaneous streams of social awareness that expands autonomy, potentially reduces agency, and which requires constant self-surveillance and monitoring. philosophers alexander galloway and eugene thacker (2007), have expressed a ‘nostalgia’ for a time when there was no need to produce quantitative data about the self but, drawing on the work of alfred north whitehead, mark hansen (2015) argues that within any performance of subjectivity—human or nonhuman—there is a generalised subjectivity that inheres within quantitative data; a “dispersal of agency across networks” (2015, p. 3) that is a marker of the elemental character of contemporary media. according to hansen, whitehead’s speculative philosophy, along with his insistence on the universality of subjectivity as the basis for a re-anchoring of human experience within media networks that have become substantially decoupled from direct human perception, helps us to appreciate the irreducible sensory dimension of the “data-fied” experience: ...subjectivity acquires its power not because it incorporates and processes what is outside, but rather through its direct co-participation or sharing in the moore, barbour & lee 2 polyvalent agency of myriad subjectivities. our distinctly human subjectivity is the result of a complex assemblage of overlapping, scalevariant microsubjectivities functioning distinctly and autonomously” (hansen 2015, p. 12). hansen draws on whitehead’s speculative approach and metaphysical scheme to substantiate the understanding of the neutrality of subjective qualities as being powerfully valuable in theorising the everyday experience of digital, networked and social media. other key researchers, such as nancy baym, have examined how interpersonal media forms of communication accelerate new constitutions of “personal connection” (2010, p. 1). baym’s work on digital identity draws on donath’s (2007) useful notion of signalling, which works to locate social position within an information-saturated society. using facebook and it’s templates as a case study, laurie mcneill’s work (2012) has explored the collaboration between non-human and human components in producing online autobiographical acts. anna poletti and julie rak (2014) offer a similar orientation of a networked identity within biographical and autobiographical studies in identity technologies: constructing the self online, an edited collection that argues such technologies are a fundamental part of the online world in the contemporary era. these writers and thinkers, among others, have advocated novel means for considering the construction of identity within a technologically diverse social order. they have begun to examine how the individual is intimately connected to the presentation of their public selves within online culture, through digital connections to social institutions, and via the networked organisations of everyday life that are fundamentally different to what has come before. absent from these discussions, however, is persona and yet persona is both the product of and interface for the movement of the individual into online activities. as the first editorial for this journal noted (marshall and barbour 2015), it is these very activities that have yielded the contemporary ‘proliferation of personas for both presentation and strategic purposes’ on a massive scale (2015, p. 1): ‘persona-making as a practice’, we noted, has become ‘pandemic’ (2015, p.9). across the various contributions to this journal since then contributors have readily taken up persona as a critical lens through which to understand identity practices and performances in online contexts. the five dimensions of online persona explored here—the public, the mediatised, the performative, the collective, and intentional value—build upon that work and, we contend, form a productive means for understanding the configuration of online identity in the contemporary era. the public dimension of online persona publicness is the first dimension of contemporary online personas. while there still exists a lingering sense of early-to-mid 1990s utopian ‘net’ philosophy with its libertarian discourse about anonymity and freedom afforded by early internet technologies like multi-user experiences and web forums, much of the obscurity between a user’s online presentation and offline selves has been obliterated over the past decade. the eradication of anonymity has been achieved by the ‘real name’ requirements and end user license agreements of online game services, social media terms of service contracts, and the ubiquitous presence of browser-based tracking cookies. this trend has been strengthened with government-sanctioned and metadata enabled state surveillance, resulting in an online experience that is almost always public in some way. the user of a web-enabled service—from wearable technologies like a fitbit, or an app-based experience which incorporates a google search query, or public api interaction—is almost always an extension into a wider public. rainie and wellman (2012) describe networked individuals at the centre of what marshall (2013), and barbour et al. (2014) have labelled as ‘micro-publics’, the extended social network of the individual that includes personal friends, professional associates, plus their networks, and the systems and platforms that connect them persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 3 all. this approach advocates for taking into consideration all the technologies, devices, apps, api’s and the physical as well as digital infrastructure that encapsulates contemporary public networked identity. this first dimension of an online persona is comprised of a particularly wide-ranging spectrum of ‘publicness’ and at each point along its traversal exists the very real potential to go from a small public of close and intimate friends to a massive and global public audience, enabled by the act of sharing. this potentiality parallels the historical notion of the production of the public self such as when celebrities and stars start out performing to small public audience, but later attain a larger audience as they become more popular and well known. this trajectory gives us insights into the dynamics of online persona creation, which always anticipates this shift from small to larger scale publics. in this industrial model of the individual, the public self is the ‘official’ version that the celebrity offers up to the world, a highly polished, scheduled and controlled version that is produced and performed for launches, premieres, speaking engagements, and other live and mediated promotions, appearances, and events. high-profile celebrities and public figures have teams of publicity assistants and staff that work to maintain consistency in this public persona because, as turner, bonner, and marshall (2000) note, the celebrities (and their personas, we would add) are “commodities, produced to be marketed in their own right or to be used to market other commodities. the celebrity’s ultimate power is to sell the commodity that is themselves” (2000, p. 12). organisations, brands, institutions and commercial entities similarly have this public-facing dimension of their online persona with teams of social management operatives conducting licensed online persona management, and a range of employees with quasi-official public selves connected to these identities. celebrities, brands, and organisations are all especially important public figures because of their pedagogical functions, as they help us to identify new aspects of agency and risk. in the past, the media gatekeeping of celebrity would have relegated figures like kim kardashian to tabloid notoriety, but the degree of agency provided by control over the public presentation of the self online has meant a global celebrity built on careful management from her initial public notice (through the leaking of her ‘sex tape’) into a fashion, music, marketing, and promotional career. as marshall (2014) suggests celebrities act as pedagogical markers providing replicable frameworks for the conduct of the public presentation of the self. this mediatised identity is organised through multiple commercial applications, networks and platforms, which is not only shared to a personal public by the individual, but becomes a source for information harvesting, advertising, and massive commercial sharing (marshall 2015). mediatised dimension of persona the mediatised dimension of persona follows on from the first dimension of publicness, as an expression of the self. this is not a new phenomenon: individuals have been mediatising themselves via communication technologies in perpetuity from rock painting, portraits, journals and letters, to ham radio call signs, autobiographies, and social media profiles. the contemporary assemblage of persona now combines multiple media technologies: even a simple selfie requires mobile screens, cameras, digital image compression algorithms, and communication across wireless or telecommunication carrier signals, apis, and hashtags. billions of daily social media users, across facebook, wechat, twitter, and instagram demonstrate an unparalleled scope of skills and degree of comfortability with public mediatisation and express unprecedented levels of actual and potential public exposure (see marshall 2015; 2016; 2017). mediated persona operates under the modulation of commercial interest and corporately governed structures that individuals have become acclimatised to, many in the hope of sharing in the benefits of a widely proliferating self-image that was once only the province of individuals in film, television, print, and radio. the codes of conduct and the practices of the mediated public often conflict, but they also mirror the conservative values of moore, barbour & lee 4 the once dominant ‘press,’ such as facebook and instagram’s ban on the female nipple. what is new in this mediatisation of the self, however, is the naturalisation of platform censorship and the negotiation between the personal, corporate, and institutional agency. celebrity is an important pedagogical firmament in the relationship of individuals to their extra-textual dimensions of mediatised public identity, which is, as marshall (2017) reflects, part of the primary work of the actor. whether stage actress, radio performer, television presenter, news anchor, or hollywood a-lister, actors undergo an incessant and structured construction and presentation of the self for the purpose of promotion well beyond that of the theatre, show, or movie text being offered for consumption. for many actors, the work of professional performance and the products of marketing and advertising become paratextual components to their public identity (see naremore 1991, dyer 2004). the many iconic roles of actors like tom cruise, harrison ford, scarlett johansson, or charlize theron, for example, are also paratextual components of their star celebrity persona. developed from the narratological theory of gerard genette (1997), paratexts are liminal devices or conventions (like red-carpet poses, characteristic facial attributes, instagram habits, or facebook pages) that form a threshold of meaning between text and audience. genette describes paratexts as heterogeneous practices and discourses acting as thresholds between author, publisher, and audience. the mediatised identities of online persona are formed by the accumulation of paratexts over time; appearances at film festivals and award ceremonies, for example, are an important paratextual mediatisation of celebrity identity. these paratexts circulate as performers use their identities to proselytise themselves and the productions they are part of, becoming visible as a mediatised figure, via traditional media distribution channels and newer and more personal social media platforms. affect is naturalised in this mediatisation of the self through individualised platform paratexts including likes, favourites, shares and retweets. furthermore we are witness to the massive proliferation of dedicated channels for the remediation of traditional broadcast media paratexts (editing methods, generic conventions, and other mise-en-scene) that are formed through meta-mediatisation via platforms such as youtube and twitchtv. performative dimension of persona just as the mediatisation follows on from the public elements of online persona, performativity, the third dimension is also essential requirement and extension of the first two. to present a publicly mediated persona, we must perform our identity, our profession, our gender, and effectuate our tastes, interests, and networks of connection, through activities like commenting on posts, liking other’s contributions or framing a selfie. this performative identity does not make claims about the ‘real’, or a self that is somehow less produced or implemented, or more complete in some underlying way. the public performance of the self is neither entirely ‘real’ nor entirely ‘fictional’. the accomplishment of performativity means that a persona connects together and meshes all the various characteristics that are staged and presented in the everyday and intended to interact with others. erving goffman (1959, 1971) documented what can be understood as the recurring patterns of performativity and accounted for the methods of impression formation and management within a dramaturgical model of the presentation of the self that differentiated between the public ‘front stage’ and the private ‘backstage’. goffman conveyed an understanding of the degree to which we all present ‘faces’ and act outwardly depending on any given situation and its expectations. the performance of self varies between the identifiable roles, from parent to employee, friend to a colleague, teacher to student, and none are any more ‘real’ or ‘fictional’ than the others. as papacharissi (2010) observed, any interactions between a performed self and the performed self of others, can quickly become a pattern of action which then becomes routine, creating and then normalising a narrative of expected behaviour in any given situation: in an earlier editorial lee (2015) explored this pattern for persona performance persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 5 in work contexts. we come to rely on this patterning of interaction, both offline and online, in order to help regulate and make predictable our networks of interactions: we understand that images of family shared via facebook are going to be liked by the extended networks of friends and familiar relations, while news stories relevant to our given professions will be liked by colleagues and peers, and that there may be some overlap occurring between the two groups depending on proximity, familiarity, and so on. social media and mobile technologies are now old enough for us to understand that different generations of users have developed different approaches to the performativity of the self that may appear to blur the front and back stages, but this merely reminds us that the methods of performing the self are not fixed (see danah boyd 2010). judith butler’s (1999) approach to gender extended the notion of identity performativity and our understanding of the degree to which core elements of our public self are constructed for and by us. butler’s model contests the idea that gender is ‘natural’, ‘real’ or ‘innate’ to a fiction or a projection that is applied to and by individuals who are fundamentally negotiating their public selves through an articulation of power. she argued that the presentational quality of (gendered) identity is neither biologically determined nor individually produced, but rather both enabled and constrained by the institutions, technologies, networks, and cultures in which the public self is assembled and performed. performativity has also been considered in speech act theory (see austin 1975, berns 2014 (whose earlier work influenced bulter), marshall 2017), which considers speaking as a component of identity formation. the performance of speech—whether verbal, physical, textual or otherwise—is a part of the movement of identity in action and interpretation, and this theoretical framework has been featured in ethnographic and anthropological discussions of identity (berns 2014.). the habermasian interpretation of the ‘lifeworld’ (1987) is also productive as a means of understanding the performance of the public self online. for habermas, the lifeworld embodies the symbolic reproduction of society, thus the lifeworld of an online identity is one comprised of media platforms, mobile technologies, multiple communication channels, and modes of behaviour. to perform the lifeworld is to wrangle these elements together, to manage the self across a diverse range of structures, institutions, technical performances, frames, and stages. this doesn’t necessarily need to be a complicated exercise of online habitus: ken hillis points to the simplified performance and naturalised ideology of the “pull-down menu” (2009, p. 29), which has become so normalised in our everyday performances of the self when we sign up to a new app, social media service, or online video game world. hillis reminds us the performance of gender, height, age, profession, location, attitude, and relationship to others is purely ritualised as result of the limited options available to users in the system (hillis 2009). the performative dimension of persona marks a high degree of agency in the public presentation of the self online, but this agency is inevitably contested. as marshall notes, it is through the performativity of presentational media that individuals are encouraged, invoked, and even “seduced” into more elaborate constructions of public presentation”, and they are “drawn into a performativity that operates as a continuous marketing of the self’s value” (marshall, 2010, np). the acts of performing the self online are so diverse that an individual may pick and choose the aspects of the role that best suits their intended performance (barbour 2015), but this performance is a balancing act between multiple registers ranging from the personal and intimate to the public and professional, and must be carefully articulated to remain sincere and authentic. collective dimension of persona the fourth dimension of persona is one that works to produce, seek out, and move between connections, resulting in a collective. this dimension is observed across all forms of social media (see boyd & ellison 2007) as persona is mediated and then publicly distributed across the connections and networks that users manage via services and platforms. moore, barbour & lee 6 participation in these online networks results in multiple publics that are significantly different from the public associated with traditional broadcast media or political association. no longer is the individual 'part' of a collective, but rather the individual is connected to multiple publics, making the collective dimension of persona a meta-collective complex. in each public, the individual is a node, but they are also simultaneously orbiting nodes in other networks. the complex overlapping of networks, however, can still be thought of as having a central point, which is the user's persona. this networking of activity from friends and followers across all these intercommunicating networks can be described as a ‘micro-public’ (marshall 2014; barbour et al. 2014). similar to the notion of a ‘personal public’ (schmidt 2013), the concept of a micropublic is one that takes into account the practices of social media such as sharing, tagging, and mediated expression in the forms of personal images, memes, likes, and dislikes. the intercommunication between micro-public activities occur as part of the interpersonal communication of the self, where self-mediations are linked to self-promotional activity across multiple platforms, sites, and services (marshall 2015). take, for example, the eponymous selfie, which is framed using an internet-connected device and distributed via multiple platforms each with their own, possibly overlapping audience. instagram is designed with this purpose in mind, offering the user the capacity to send the image to facebook, twitter, flickr and other services at the point of self-publication. micro-publics have a tremendous porousness, connecting to other networks effortlessly and with often unpredictable and unforeseen consequences. the concept of micro-public is crucial to persona studies as a core means for describing the collective dimensions of online persona and the ways that groups, associations, and networks have become central to contemporary cultures. micro-public formations are explored in various other interactions by researchers including theresa senft (2008), alice marwick (2013) and alice marwick and danah boyd (2011), where the term serves as a means to highlight a new duality. personas can tap into a potentially massive audience and can feature tens, hundreds, thousands and even millions of individual followers, who are all nodes in a massively personal network. micro-publics are micro, not in terms of scale, but with regards to the nature of the network that is regularly and privately updated by a central identity. a micropublic is attached to a unique persona that is personally producing, responding, and broadcasting in the tradition of previously dominant media institutions, which makes the micropublic a quasi-public network. to grapple fully with the emergence of the online persona, we look closely at the strong connections between individuals and the multiple overlapping micropublics to which they are central. twitter is an important platform for micro-public formation. for example, twitter is heavily relied on by journalists to develop followings and build affective connections to listeners, viewers, and readers who may never visit or consume their home publications. similarly, the public personas of such journalists are not like the standardised cutouts of representational culture, but living and breathing presentational figures who have direct and often unfiltered connections their audiences. the dynamic of the audience is complicated by the friending and following relationship that amplifies the affective bond between author and audience (or celebrity and fan, politician and voter, and so on) that has contributed new interpersonal dimensions to cultural expression, governance, and consumption. we can see this emerge in what marshall (2014) describes as the intercommunication industries which service micro-publics, both massively large ones achieved by popular artists and those smaller but equally vibrant and successful ones set up by more independent operators who are still central to their own networks and maintain modest, vibrant, and active followings. professional social media sites such as linkedin and academia.edu are examples of platforms which service the operation of micro-public formation and management. public persona emerges from and across these presentational media forms and their micro-publics intercommunicatively, forcing a renewed focus on the management of reputation (barbour & marshall 2012). the very complex construction of publics as micropublics intersects with larger and well-established media and communication systems that persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 7 produce powerful cultural tropes, which contribute to a new orientation of value and agency which can be seen in the last dimension of online persona. value dimension of persona the final dimension of persona that we discuss here relates to the idea of value, and how that value is dependent on agency, reputation, and prestige. collectively known as varp (marshall 2016), this dimension recognises that personas are created with a particular intention. the intent to create personas can vary from the personal or intimate (designed to facilitate personal or familial relationships) to the professional (more associated with work), or the public (produced by those who wish to claim a level of fame or notoriety). personas are not fixed to the original intention which led to their creation, but rather slip between registers of performance (barbour 2014), a process that is facilitated by the mediated, collective nature of persona production. in that recognition of the intent behind persona production is encoded an understanding of the agency involved. although working within the affordances and constraints of technology, power structures, and social and cultural norms, those producing personas are still making active and important decisions in how they perform that persona to their micro-publics. the mask of persona is adopted through its performance, and the persona can then become a ‘thing’ through which other ‘things’ can be achieved. the production of networks happens through the actions of the producer(s) of the persona, and members of those networks might equally contribute to that persona through their choices and actions. para-textual actions such as ‘liking’, or sharing particular content, are active contributions to a public or quasi-public identity, and demonstrate the importance of the choices we make when engaging online. how we understand the value of the personas we produce can influence how we understand the significance of the reputation those personas maintain. specific characteristics may be emphasised in online spaces to produce a particular type of reputation, and research conducted into the aspirational nature of online identity performances (yurchison, watchravesringkan & mccabe 2005; zhao, grasmuck & martin 2008; whittkower 2014) appears to support the idea that aspirational characteristics are often eventually subsumed and incorporated into an offline persona, even if they were initially exaggerated online. although we do not see online personas as necessarily ‘fake’, this could be understood through the adage of ‘fake it ‘til you make it’. the prestige associated with the persona is significant in that it draws together, and is reliant on, the previous elements of this dimension (value, agency, reputation), as well as all the other dimensions of persona explicated above. the prestige associated with personas as understood by those who create them is bestowed by the persona’s micro-public, and the fact that prestige itself relies on widespread positive affirmation means that, in this case, having a larger micro-public to provide that affirmation would certainly influence how prestigious a persona could be considered to be (or consider themselves to be). however, as with all elements of online persona creation, size of micro-public is relative: producing an active, engaging persona for an admiring extended family group may be felt as prestigious for one person, while another may be dissatisfied with an enthusiastic twitter following numbering in the hundreds of thousands. here, we return to ideas of agency and intent: when the intent is to connect with certain others through a persona, the value of that persona will be measured by its ability to achieve that aim. moore, barbour & lee 8 in this issue through this journal, we have continued our original project to engage with “comprehending, analysing, and critiquing persona” (marshall & barbour 2015), and in this open issue, the papers attend to this project in distinct and fascinating ways. in ‘”get off my internets”: how anti-fans deconstruct lifestyle bloggers’ authenticity work,’ sarah mcrae examines how communities of ‘anti-fans’ coalesce in online forums around different lifestyle bloggers. these communities, mcrae’s research demonstrates, are particularly attentive to the persona performances of the bloggers, and actively monitor and evaluate how authenticity is performed according to ever shifting constructions of legitimacy. in ‘the persona in autobiographical game-making as a playful performance of the self,’ stefan werning introduces us to the niche but growing genre of autobiographical video games. these games, his work suggests, make quite literal the playful possibilities of persona construction and performance within the constraints and affordances of the technologies and platforms. such playfulness extends to both game-makers, who design an iteration of self that can be occupied, amended, and played, and for gamers who take up and play or inhabit these personas. patrick osborne’s ‘constructing the antichrist as superstar: marilyn manson and the mechanics of eschatological narrative’ focuses on construction of manson’s controversial persona as an ‘antichrist’ in the 1990s and the crucial role that christian organisations and ideological frameworks played in not only crafting that persona, but infusing it with meaning and value. the persuasiveness and popularity of manson’s persona, osbourne suggests, owes much to that backlash. in ‘the hyphenated persona: aidan quinn’s irish-american performances,’ loretta goff guides us through how ‘irish-americanness’ has been performed across the twentieth century, and how it continues to be performed in american contexts today. using aidan quinn as a case study, goff’s work emphases not only the flexibility and the multiplicity of persona performances, but also their strategic commercial and affective value when redeployed in the appropriate venues to certain publics. the creative practice contribution to this issue comes from anastasia salter and bridget blodgett. their work of hypertext literature – part social media experience, part game, part choose your own adventure – embeds the reader/player in the us twittersphere during the final months of 2016 and january 2017. the work explores the everyday struggles of a twitter user in this time, challenging and discomforting the reader/player as choices in how to engage with the online space trigger responses in the form of changing follower counts as well as interactions with colleagues and strangers. in inhabiting the persona of a twitter user at this specific moment in recent history, the artists challenge us to think about how social media persona creation impacts on, and is impacted by, other embodied presentational practices. across this issue, we can trace a recurring interest in the role of networked publics in the construction of the persona. while not all of these contributions are concerned specifically with the formation and function of such networks and connections in online contexts, all are attentive to the thresholds marking persona, performance, and publics, and, importantly, the dynamic interplay between these constituents. such play is quite literal in both werning’s work and salter and blodgett’s creative work which highlight how publics are, in certain digital platforms, not only encouraged to interact with personas but play constitutive roles in persona production and performance. we are reminded by these works of the potential porousness of the thresholds that mark and distinguish personas and publics, and the richness of experience and play that is possible on such platforms. goff’s work on the mobility of hyphenated personas persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 9 and the multiplicity of publics that make and take meaning from such persona performances is a useful reminder as well that publics are not just porous but overlapping. moreover, the persona that transverses such publics is a dynamic, mobile, and inherently flexible construction capable of performing and signalling differently as needed. such mobility is, in quinn’s case, an asset with clear commercial value but in the case of lifestyle bloggers, mcrae’s work points out, such flexibility and inconsistency can be a liability. the community of ‘anti-fans’ that mcrae investigates are highly critical of contradiction and code inconsistent performances as hypocrisy and inauthenticity. yet, because the mechanisms for signalling authenticity are always on the move, the lifestyle blogger must continually adapt and shift their performances. as with the christian publics who took issue with manson, the performative nature of persona and its capacity to operate as neither ‘real’ nor ‘fiction,’ is ofttimes flattened out by critical publics oriented by an agenda to evaluate and oppose. in manson’s case to make his persona performance ‘real’ gives life to these publics, and a tangible, measurable, stable ‘threat’ against which they can work; in the case of lifestyle bloggers, the anti-fans arbitrate what are real and what are faked performances. at the heart of both, is not only a desire for a correspondence between performance and ‘real world’ identity, but also accountability. to hold manson or lifestyle bloggers accountable for their performances is to acknowledge their agency and strategy, but it is also a practice that, at least in these cases, is predicated upon publics marking firm thresholds between persona and public, assuming an oppositional stance in that network, and presuming an authority that is often moral or moralising in its execution. as both osborne and mcrae demonstrate, such practices might easily overlook the complexities of the networks that bind personas and publics, and, in particular, the capacity of the publics to play roles in persona production and performances. when we are mindful of these collectives and networks and the play that happens within and through them, and attentive to the performances, the mediations, and the mechanisms of acquiring and distributing value through persona, as the articles in this issue are, it is inevitable that we consider as well the structural and structuring components that condition and constrain the person production and performance. in his examination of autobiographical games, werning is attentive to how the technological constraints of the game platforms and game-maker designed limitations (in behaviour, discourse, and so on) give structure to the play. mcrae’s work looks to the structuring role of genre in not only persona performance but also, crucially, how publics orient themselves and respond to such performances. in both goff and osborne’s work, the structures are ideological and are not only capable of summoning publics into networks of relations with personas, but, in some cases, providing particular and rigid scripts that condition the interplay between them. the structures that condition persona are crucial considerations but they can, if we are not careful, rapidly overwhelm or overdetermine how we make sense of personas. we are now, perhaps, habituated to discussions of the constraint and affordances of technology and social media platforms in the production of public digital identities. in this article, we have proposed five clear dimensions of online persona that can be useful in assisting with the analysis of the presentation of the public self. while we acknowledge these dimensions are not exhaustive, we argue for their usefulness as a way of considering relationships between technology and public 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2017, vol. 3, no. 2 51 teenagers, fandom, and identity pilar lac asa, jul i án de la fue nte, mar ia ga rci a-per ni a, a nd sara cort es abstract this paper analyses collective and individual identity construction processes in adolescent fan communities mediated by multimodal discourse. the theoretical framework relies on jenkins, itō, and boyd (2015), holland and lave (2009), and marshall, moore, and barbour (2015). our approach is rooted in participant observation and supported by ethnographic work with teenage girls who belong to music communities built around one direction, justin bieber, and magcon. firstly, we will show how participating in communities of practice such as through undertaking tasks which give meaning to group activities contributes to the construction of a social and cultural identity supported by the interpretation, production, and dissemination of texts. secondly, we will examine how subjective and personal identities related to feelings, emotions, and situations are supported by the fan community, which is organised around the celebrity’s public persona. key words fans; community; adolescence; subjectivity; intimacy; identity; individual introduction this paper analyses identity construction processes in adolescent music fan communities mediated by multimodal discourse. relationships between young people allow for communication about interpretations of the world, values, and knowledge, which contribute to establishing group and individual identities. the concept of persona (marshall & barbour 2015; marshall, moore & barbour 2015) allows for an understanding of the production, dissemination, and exchange of public and personal identity. here we incorporate persona studies with other theoretical frameworks (jenkins, itō & boyd 2015; holland & lave 2009) to expand notions of the construction of fan identity. this process is organised around the public persona of celebrities, focusing on how these people present and represent themselves (barbour 2014) in public spaces. we consider fans to be people who have a positive emotional relationship with something or someone famous, such as a celebrity. fans may express admiration by recognising the celebrity’s style or creativity within the framework of popular culture. fans are often involved in specific communities which give rise to certain practices and social roles (duffett 2013). in addition to this, and above all, fans are interpreters of texts, with these texts underpinning the construction of their identities (jenkins 2013). it is clear that fans’ everyday practices, particularly their relationships with texts, contribute to defining their identities, which can be understood as a performance of a persona. this is the way a personal reaction is transformed into a social response. fans construct their identity and subjectivity as a person who feels like a fan in a contradictory context. they receive lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 52 both support from the community and criticism from certain groups, while also often being stereotyped, and produce their fan identities in adverse conditions (jenkins 2014). furthermore, specific community practices support the personal and collective identity construction process, which is organised around celebrities. marshall and barbour (2015, p. 9) define celebrities as “public presentations of the self and they inhabit the active negotiation of the individual defined and reconfigured as social phenomenon”. our aim in this paper is to examine how teens interact with the celebrity’s persona to build their own individual and collective identity as fans. we focus on the celebrity’s persona, which is presented via multimodal text and rebuilt by adolescent girls. this multimodal celebrity persona affects the configuration of the teen fans’ own identities. theoretical framing considering the fans’ identity construction process in light of a number of theoretical approaches to persona and identity performance allows us to understand how the fans interact with the celebrity persona. reflecting on data and theoretical interpretation allows us to look more closely at the fans’ identity construction processes. firstly, as we have already highlighted, the fans’ contact with the celebrity’s persona contributes to the construction of their individual and collective identities (holland & lave 2009). this interaction takes place online most of the time. there, the celebrity’s self is presented on a public stage and closely linked to social networks. celebrities organise what they want fans to perceive. they build a public personality, which we understand as a persona, a public self that is extended among fans. this public persona is supported by emotion and sentiment, and takes both individual and collective forms (marshall 2014a). we are also interested in how the texts provided by celebrities or other members of the fan community are reconstructed. in the context of this public dimension of the celebrity’s identity, the concept of registers of performance (barbour 2014) is of particular interest. registers of performance are related to the impression that a performance seeks to, or manages to, produce in the audience. these registers refer to three areas: public, private, and intimate. the performance acquires different features in relation to each of these areas. secondly, we will interpret the practices of one direction fans. these fans participate in collective enterprises within their fan community that give meaning to their activities. in our study, some of the adolescents are involved in more than one community. in all cases, the fans generate shared goals, which gradually give rise to a group identity. this is also related to the development of a civic imagination, which is linked to the origins of political consciousness (jenkins, itō & boyd 2015). interaction within the community is supported by the interpretation of multimodal texts (jenkins 2013). those texts are produced by the celebrity’s persona, and understood in relation to his/her public identity (barbour, marshall & moore 2014). screenshots are particularly useful to allow us to explore the presentation of these texts and the fans’ interpretive practices (moore 2014). thirdly, based on the justin bieber fan community, we will explore how reconstructions of the celebrity and the celebrity’s music contribute to the identity construction process through personal and collective memories. we define these reconstructions in relation to meetings that occur on more than one occasion, creating the impression of a continuous presence (goffman 1990). we will show how young girls become productive global and local actresses whose public and private feelings intersect, which contributes to generating their identities as individuals (wargo 2015). the concept of micropublics (marshall 2014a) is relevant to this analysis, as it helps us understand how the celebrity is configured through the community. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 53 methodology in this study, we look at fans’ practices, both in the physical world and on social networks, which we understand to be part of fan culture. we adopt an ethnographical approach. as participant researchers, we are present in two music fan communities—one direction and justin bieber—which has allowed us to observe the evolution of the young fans’ identities. in both communities, relationships between fans are mediated by the creation, distribution, and interpretation of multimodal texts (kress 2003). a presence in the field and daily contact with the participants are essential in ethnography (hammersley & atkinson 2007; manning & adams 2015). participant observation involves, firstly, a commitment to the activities, and, secondly, data recording using specific instruments. the data collection strategies need to be planned, although the researcher must be flexible in terms of modifying or expanding them. we recorded the conversations in audio and, occasionally, in video. we always used a professional recorder, an iphone, and an ipad. under no circumstances did these instruments cause distractions or become a focal point themselves. our data, from which we will extract a series of examples, comes from research undertaken in these contexts. subsequently, we will provide more detailed descriptions relating to each of the two communities in which we participated. the analysis reported here stems from data collected during fieldwork within these fan communities. firstly, the researcher’s summaries were compiled each day, and include descriptions and interpretations of what has happened in the field; secondly, the researchers collected audio, photographs, and videos related to multimodal fan discourse (kress 2010); and thirdly, transcripts and audio recordings of discussions with fans were analysed. data analysis interprets the fans’ meaning-construction processes. to make this possible, the data and the meaning-construction process need to be examined in the social and cultural contexts in which our research takes place: the fan community. building an identity from a community created around the celebrity’s persona the case we address here is an ethnographic study carried out during the 2014–15 european academic year. after meeting the five participants—girls aged 13 and 14 years old— at workshops carried out in formal and informal education environments (see lacasa, de-lafuente & martín-garrido 2016), we had repeated contact and held informal conversations and interviews through the study (lacasa, méndez & de-la-fuente 2016). the girls were friends and followed different music groups of which they openly declared themselves to be fans. there are the two bands and one solo artist at the core to this study: firstly, one direction, a pop band formed in 2010 comprising five london-based teen boys. one direction have crowds of highly active followers who participate in numerous social networks. secondly, the study participants were fans of magcon, a music group formed of much less well-known teenagers aged between 16 and 20. magcon are famous thanks to videos posted on the internet (twitter, instagram and vine) and the members have achieved fame both individually and as a group. fan communities contribute significantly to the presence of these celebrities on social networks. approaching music fan communities here, we explore how the process of identity construction takes place in the framework of a community; how it is inseparable from the interaction of the self with others, including the celebrity’s persona; and finally, how the fans—the text’s interpreters—build their personal and public identities with, and through, the celebrity persona. lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 54 teen fan communities organised around music celebrities are often considered an example of counterculture, opposed to adult values. people who follow and admire a celebrity may belong to these communities. while the internet has transformed these communities, several aspects remain unchanged, such as musical fascination, romantic ideology, and an emphasis on the idol or idols (duffett 2014). the notion of a fan community can be extended and developed through various theoretical perspectives. lave and wenger (1991) focused on communities of practice, which are groups of people who share values, goals, and ways of acting. within fan communities, these groups are organised around the celebrity or text. sometimes, fans in the community are guided by other members who are more experienced in certain types of tasks. for example, members with the greatest number of followers can become models to imitate and retweet for the lessexperienced. usually, those who teach are distinguished with a certain social power. this power, which is not always explicit, contributes to configuring social relationships. we can take this analysis further still. jenkins framed his own academic career through the fan community. his explanation of his evolution is based on that community, which is focused, in one way or another, on the idea of participation associated with civic engagement. he speaks of "civic imagination" and refers to the possible sources of political consciousness (jenkins, itō & boyd 2015, p. 152). in this context, fan communities inspired jenkins’ proposal of the concept of participatory culture linked to digital society. participatory culture is one with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement which provides strong support for creators through mentorships (jenkins et al. 2009). figure 1. fans around the celebrity: a text on social network the fan phenomenon is old, but has been transformed by today’s social networks, which are part of digital and participatory culture. as we shall see, texts are transmitted and transformed through social networks. from another, complementary, perspective, marshall (2014a) approaches social interaction in digital networks by focusing on “micropublics”, represented by individuals communicating online. these individuals may be friends, followers, or fans in the case of this work. they are considered to be personas presenting “the self on and through digitally networked spaces, where the self presented is an extension of an individual” (barbour 2014, p. 3.). for example, figure 1 shows various elements that may be considered in a fan community today, as adolescents participate in digital society as micropublics. in the photograph, we can see the celebrity coming out of a car while his fans, young people, use the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 55 cameras on their mobiles. in addition to this, two or three older people seem to protect niall horan, one of the musicians in one direction. figure 1 suggests several ideas. firstly, the people surrounding the celebrity represent the community that has emerged from a shared sense of admiration for the celebrity. only some fans are present physically, but they represent many others who do not have the opportunity to be as close to the celebrity and instead learn about his activities through social networks (lave & wenger 1991). secondly, the fans have mobile devices that allow them to record images of the moment and share them online so other fans can access them (kress 2003; moore 2014). thirdly, some people seem to be protecting the celebrity’s person; in this case, they are seeking to ensure his physical safety, but they could also represent producers protecting their business interests. in short, fans are placed in new contexts comprising new places and practices through which they can develop personal and collective identities. interacting with the celebrity’s persona the celebrity projects certain images, both offline, through direct or indirect contact with fans, and online, through the way they present themselves on social networks. fans construct their identities by addressing the celebrity’s persona. that construction is mixed with feelings of admiration and affection for the celebrity. we uphold that identity construction can be defined as a dynamic process, rooted in a person’s history and providing the backdrop for their actions. it is also associated with motivation and emotion. figure 2. fans and popular culture an example of approaching the celebrity can be seen in the two images included in figure 2, which have been shared by the celebrities to construct a public persona. both were relevant for one of our teenage participants. the one on the left was stored in her iphone, and the one on the right was retweeted. the images reveal that belonging to a fan community does not preclude a fan from admiring several other celebrities: in the case of this teenager, one direction and magcon. the images in figure 2 show both the power of the celebrity and the community in the adolescent fan context. both express her ideals and values. these two images unify the community at the same time as they reinforce personal feelings, contributing to the fans’ personal and collective identity construction. both images appear on the official accounts of two celebrities and are valuable to the girl. the image on the left is related to @harrystyles, a member of one direction. in the picture, he's making a joke and sharing it with his audience because he knows it's relevant to their fans. the image on the right lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 56 is a photograph of one of the girl's favourite singers, shaun mendez. here, the celebrity appears in the foreground in front of the fans at a concert in spain. this location is visually represented by the flag that appears in the image. at that time, the celebrity’s offline persona, during a concert in madrid, is being presented through a tweet. the picture was also tweeted by one of the members of one direction, and retweeted by the fans. it is another example of the interaction achieved through the presentation of the celebrity persona. interpreters and producers of texts in order to understand fan communities and the interaction they have with the celebrity persona, we need to focus on the texts that circulate among the participants. in these texts, fans constantly rebuild their values, feelings, and knowledge. jenkins (2013) considers fans to be interpreters of texts; they are people who are part of a culture, approaching certain values, ways of being, and feelings, all expressed through texts. jenkins recognises the influence of two theorists in developing his own ideas. the first is pierre bourdieu (1984), who considers that these particular feelings are associated with social experiences. feelings are reinforced by exchanges and meetings, mediated by texts, which represent an education in terms of becoming part of the fan community. the second is michel de certeau (1984), who shows how authors and readers are immersed in a confrontation over who owns the text itself and who has control of its meanings. from this perspective, jenkins argues that behind fans’ activities there are transgressive practices that go far beyond what is standard in middle-class communities. what is essential, perhaps, is that popular texts have the same value as canonical texts. fans talk of artists where others see only commercial products. fans see transcendent meanings where others see banalities. they see quality and innovation where others see only convention. to be a fan, jenkins (2013) argues, is to assume a subordinate position within a cultural hierarchy. it is to accept an identity that is constantly criticised by institutions like schools and academia, which are considered as being representative of a particular culture. jenkins understands fans as active, manipulative producers of meaning. they build their social identity by borrowing and transforming mass media images, which are sometimes hidden by the dominant media culture. jenkins (2013, p. xxix) defines fans as people who construct their identities in affinity spaces, mediated by texts. they are text nomads. reading in fan communities is a social process, where individual interpretations merge through discussions with other readers, which expands the text beyond the initial consumer experience. they are also considered text pirates, as they physically reconstruct them. in any case, the meaning-construction process is dynamic. fans choose texts because they seem more able than others to express specific feelings, not only feelings of fascination, but also of frustration. this antagonistic motivation is what causes them to engage with the text. fans understand that although they transform the texts, they do not own them exclusively. in understanding this transformation of texts, we must also look at how texts circulate throughout the community and contribute to enhanced emotional support among members. figure 3 offers an example of this, demonstrating how this emotional support generates a collective identity around the celebrity’s persona. the people who retweeted the image are an example of the micropublic that participate in social networks, reconstructing the text.. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 57 figure 3. texts circulate and are reconstructed software applications (apps) and mobile devices, which mediate relationships between fans, give rise to these new types of relationships in fan communities. social networks create new ways of generating and distributing messages and connecting with like-minded others. in addition to this, these scenarios involve the use of specific discourses. audio-visual codes have greater importance than writing or drawing, although the latter two have not disappeared. communication scenarios and the discourses used have been transformed, as have the channels that make them possible. figure 3 shows how content is transformed through the network. it combines two photographs, both of which were supplied by jack johnson, on the singer’s official account. both were then retweeted, as shown in the image of google search results above. if we look closely, we can see that the same image is accompanied by different written messages. figure 4. sharing feelings and multimodal discourses social networks also facilitate the social expression of personal feelings. figure 4 shows how social networks are used to express fans’ shared feelings. the image on the left is a tweet comprising a selfie and text. it focuses on nash, the celebrity to whom the fan dedicates her selfie, even though the celebrity always “ignores” her direct messages. the tweet on the right is a remix, including both an image and words. the text, which says "i miss the old #magcon. i love you so much", expresses regret as a feeling. the images and written text included in figure 4 are an example of how the girls built their feelings around the celebrity’s persona. we found two different approaches. the first lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 58 image, on the left, shows that the girl is looking for a personal online relationship: a direct message to her that never arrived. the second image expresses a feeling of nostalgia. it was built from photographs representing the members of magcon at a given moment in the history of the band. however, some band members left and were replaced by other people while the group kept the same name. the teenager misses them; she preferred the old members. figure 5. national identity in the fan community other examples show how the one direction fan community is also a platform to share values which sometimes extends to socially important topics. figure 5 shows a sense of national identity. it features spanish flags and other symbols that show how the adolescents recognise themselves not only as fans, but also as members of a specific national community. the images are also a remix of various different moments when the celebrity’s persona appears alongside symbols of national identity. for example, the image on the left shows one direction wearing the t-shirts of the spanish national soccer team as well as t-shirts of the two most famous teams in spain, barcelona and real madrid. these photographs are interspersed with those of their concerts. moreover, in the image on the right, the musicians display the spanish flag. this could be interpreted as a feedback process: first, how the musicians appear in front of their fans supporting their national identity and, second, how the fans assume the message and retweet it. to summarise, these images show how people participating in fan communities have shared feelings and values, and participate in specific practices created around the celebrity’s persona mediated by digital tools. these shared endeavours generate a collective consciousness and are a point of support for the construction of personal identities. although the phenomenon is not new, what has changed are the practices used in the community to establish contact with the celebrity and between the fans themselves to share their hopes and desires. social networks have opened multiple doors in terms of how to establish these relationships, achieve certain goals, and allow participants to offer each other emotional support (marshall & redmond 2016; duffett 2014; redmond 2014). music as a milestone of memories and personal history cultural identity, which is generated from specific communities, is intertwined with the construction of personal subjectivity (holland & lave 2009). although holland and lave analyse environmental activities, the concepts they use can be applied to the fan community, conceptualising “personal identities as psychological formations […] as complexes of memories, sentiments, knowledge and ideas of environmental action that one can evoke via cultural persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 59 symbols of identity” (2009, p. 8). therefore, personal identity is rooted not only in action, but also in the memories and the feelings associated with that action. marshall and redmond (2016, p. 9) note that stars and celebrities can provide the interest “glue” that can bring people together in the first place; ongoing fandom can provide the social setting for a range of shared (subcultural) activities (…); and one's memories, spectacle events, and rituals can be marked by the inclusion or incorporation of celebrity texts and contexts. celebrities are our common companions; they are a key “narrative” in the intimacies we make, and in the stories we tell and share. celebrity therefore serves as a “glue” at the collective level. it contributes to raising awareness about certain cultural practices which are present in personal narratives such as memories. we will look at the role of the celebrity’s persona in the construction of the fans’ personal histories. we will focus on what it means for the girls to be fans and the role of the celebrity’s persona in the construction of their personal and collective identities, based on the stories we were told by the teenagers. our examples will come from a different fan community, organised around justin bieber. one of the researchers established a deep, personal connection with a number of fans prior to a justin bieber concert held in madrid on 23 november, 2016. the week before the concert took place, the researcher spent four hours a day with the girls on the street as a participant observer. this was the starting point for an ethnographic study (lacasa, méndez & de-la-fuente 2016) which is currently underway. studies by denzin (2014) and marshall, moore, and barbour (2015) consider people as if they are performers. in this case, both the researcher and the fans are considered as performers. a written summary of the researcher’s interpretations of what happened each day was added to the recordings. the fragment below includes the researcher’s reflections taken from the summary she wrote on the last day: fragment 1. the researcher’s summary i must admit that being close to these girls for almost four hours a day for a whole week gave me a different view to the one i had held since i began interacting with one direction fans. justin’s fans were expecting to see him really soon, and emotions were running high. something they had been waiting a long time for was about to happen. in some way, i almost became a justin bieber fan myself. for example, i had to use their terminology to refer to the singer, calling him simply justin, enquiring about his personality, and above all about his music. that changed my perspective as a researcher. i couldn’t be at home analysing what academic texts say about fans, when a hugely relevant event for this fan community was happening practically on my doorstep. madrid, 23 november 2016 the text above shows how the researcher, who simultaneously undertakes her work as a participant observer and as a performer (goffman 1990; denzin 2014; marshall, moore & barbour 2015), was introduced into the community and gradually became familiar with the fans, even adapting some dimensions of her own personal identity as a researcher (lave 2011). also, she explains that the circumstances under which the interview was carried out gave rise to certain aspects that were, perhaps, not present in her relationships with other fan communities. this could be interpreted as situated cognition (lave 1997) and performance (goffman 1990). to gain a deeper insight into this researcher’s perspective, we analysed the two pictures in figure 6, which summarise her presence in the community. lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 60 figure 6. the researcher’s perspective of the fan community the photographs, taken by the researcher, show the fans’ situation during the week prior to the concert, and the material elements that contributed to the organisation of their daily life. in the left image, the fans appear sitting on the street in small groups. at the time the photograph was taken it was almost dark. there are bags containing supplies to help them camp until the next day. the image on the right shows the mobile phone, essential in this situation, both for the fans and the researcher. it kept fans in touch with the community, as well as with their families. moreover, it was a companion for the researcher to take notes and record the situation. the researcher’s reflections and the pictures above show how her participation in the fan community changed over time. she participated in fan culture through her presence and interactions with the fans in individual and small group interviews. the researcher is a performer reconstructing her public persona among the girls (marshall & barbour 2015). her reflections, written and recorded, also reveal the role of material objects, and even a sense of the physical environment that was created over the days leading up to the concert. the researcher interviewed the girls informally and accessed their social media accounts on the same day that the interviews were carried out. from that moment onwards, weekly contact was established with the girls through twitter and instagram. identity and memory in the fan community goffman (1990) links the construction of identity to the concept of the person who is present in a community. the construction of the self also relies on actions and goals. these are demonstrated through activities that can be described as performances, forms of human conduct that provoke an emotional reaction in another person when an encounter takes place. in this sense, fans can be viewed as performers when other people recognise their identities. that is, the individual fan must act to project the image that he/she wants to convey as a public persona (barbour 2014). let's see an example of the fan’s interview to see how this happens among justin bieber’s fans: fragment 2. being in touch with beliebers we knew beliebers through twitter. we participate in competitions and organise meetups for the concerts. also, through there we met a lot of people, and we created a whatsapp group to talk about justin, his songs, the concerts, the awards… to catch up. juana, madrid, 22 november 2016 persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 61 juana participated in the beliebers fan community using twitter. by presenting herself as a belieber, she created a public persona sharing goals and values with other people with similar interests. in some ways, she was performing to be part of the community. moreover, she was happy to have more personal relationships with some of these people using whatsapp. we will take bakhtin’s work as our starting point to go deeper into other examples and explore the identity construction process. the process through which the fans construct their personas is what bakhtin (1981) would call a dialogue, both with themselves and with others. dialogue is understood as the possibility of cohabitation and interference among different voices, as the interaction between points of view. focusing on his concept of dialogue, bakhtin reflects on how identity goes beyond the individual persona and is related to people’s activities and goals in the context of personal and group scenarios (morson & emerson 1990, p. 216). this means that identity is not given to people, but rather it is created, which means it is dynamic. following bakhtin’s understanding of identity, we see identity creation is not so much a question of building a sense of wholeness; rather, the consciousness requires goals and values. in addition, that consciousness can be expressed from an autobiographical standpoint; one divides oneself in two to be able to dialogue with oneself. in neither biography nor autobiography does i-for-myself determine the crucial moment of form. they cannot do so, because both genres tell a story of the self from the outside. in autobiography, the story is told by a sort of double, projected and assembled by the i-for-myself; in biography, real others tell the story. if one imagines an ideal biography of oneself, it would be told not by oneself, but by “that potential other” who is “with us when we look at ourselves in the mirror, when we dream of glory, when we lay down the external plans for our life” (morson & emerson 1990, p. 217). one way of becoming aware of one's own identity is to convey it through an autobiography, which differs from a biography or a confession. it is a form of dialogue with “the other”, which sometimes involves splitting “the i” in two. in our study, when the girls speak of themselves as fans, we believe that they are making a confession. in bakhtin’s words: “in confession, the self is unfinalizable; it does not even admit of another who could consummate it" (morson & emerson 1990, pp. 216-217). autobiography, in contrast, is closer to finalisation; people are perhaps seeking an ideal “i”, which does not appear to be a factor in the identity awareness shown by fans. to demonstrate that this tends to be the case, we present the reflections of áfrica, another girl who explains her evolution as a fan more explicitly. fragment 3. being a fan as part of your identity before i used to be (...) a massive fan, it was quite extreme, like, i'd buy 40,000 photos, if a t-shirt came out i'd buy that too, i don't know, any trinkets there were, bracelets, badges, anything, i'd buy anything. but i have matured now, i mean, i'm interested because i like his music and stuff and the way he is as a person, but it's not as extreme as it used to be. and well, i still like him because he is justin bieber and he's part of me... i love him, he is a great artist and i love him. áfrica, madrid, 23 november 2016 these ideas are useful to interpret the image that fans have of themselves and the image that they want to project onto others. this example is drawn from the interviews, as are all the examples provided over the following pages. for example, rosa (madrid, 22 november 2016) appreciates justin bieber’s music. this is not because she’s objectively interested in it, or lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 62 because she analyses it critically, but rather because it generates a specific emotion in her; it was part of her adolescence, and this is true of most of these fans. as rosa mentioned, “'you've never met him personally', people always say that and you say, 'i know, but his music has been with me when i didn’t know who to be with', i mean (...) you create a bond without meaning to”. she recognises that this is often not what people mean when they talk about fans. what áfrica and rosa convey in their interviews is a confession, according to the terms used by bakhtin (morson & emerson 1990). they describe their relationships with justin bieber, mediated in both cases by his music. the artist’s persona becomes part of the adolescent identity, either because he contributes to marking the stages of the evolution of that identity, as in rosa’s case, or because material objects linked to him contribute to configuring their identity, as in áfrica's case. seeking an example and a source of support in this final part of the paper we will analyse how, among the beliebers, the celebrity and his music represent a source of support to help the adolescents overcome difficulties at certain times in their lives. this is experienced more at the personal than at the group level. in this context, hassan's (2014) work is relevant. hassan’s study explores the role of musical activity in the daily lives of a group of adults with learning difficulties. the difficult situations in which these people live force them to overcome conflicts like the ones that justin bieber's fans occasionally mention. we will now look at how justin bieber’s fans also refer to the role of the music and the singer in helping them overcome their own difficulties. the girls are aware of this role and express it verbally. the two transcribed fragments below, coming from an interview, are good examples of this. fragment 4. almost a friend he makes me feel good, sometimes when i have felt really bad he's made me feel as good as a friend would have done. i don’t know. and i've been listening to him for a really long time, i basically grew up with him, that is, whether you like it or not… i don’t know. before (now not so much) i was such a fan of justin, a huge fan of justin bieber. he is pretty much my adolescence and my pre-teen years, so i don’t know, he reminds me of a lot of things… luisa, madrid, 21 november 2016 music is a mediator between shared memories, actions, the act of overcoming difficulties, and a common sense of belonging to the group. it can therefore be a personal and social tool to help achieve multiple goals. loving music is an integral part of communication and of the identity construction process for many people who have occasional difficulties. hassan's work (2014) shows the importance of seeking new research approaches to fan practices. below is another example: fragment 5. it helps us to overcome problems when you feel alone or you’ve been through a bad time, you think, if he’s been able to overcome all he’s been through, then why shouldn’t i? it makes you feel stronger, you can listen to one of his songs and it cheers you up. you go: come on, i have to do this, i have to get there. maría josé, madrid, 21 november, 2016 in this case it is the singer, who has had difficulties in the past, who provides a role model for overcoming struggles. this feeling is almost interlinked with the experience of listening to his music. justin bieber presents his difficulties through the lyrics of his songs and thereby becomes an example for his fans. it is important to note that fans are different from casual spectators. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 63 fans make a significant emotional investment in cultural objects, in this case the musical text itself, which involves a subjective reconstruction. conclusion this study analyses the construction of collective and personal identities in fan communities organised around the celebrity’s persona. we adopted an ethnographic approach based on a process of interaction between the data and certain proposed theoretical models. our goal was to advance the design of a model that contributes to understanding teen practices in fan communities. this model comes from reflecting on the data that came from our presence as participating observers. the model is also inspired by several authors: marshall, who looks at the celebrity; jenkins, who explores the fan community through the texts circulating in it; and duffett, who focuses on the emotional dimension of fan activities. it should be noted that we wanted to look for what complements these models. each one is rooted in different theoretical traditions and brings its own gaze, converging at some points and differing at others. in short, we have explored the celebrity persona and the fan communities that are organised around it, considering the elements that contribute to the construction of the fans' collective and individual identity. the fan community is organised around the celebrity, who projects a public persona which gains meaning in a social world (marshall 2014b). the celebrity contributes to building collective representations that arise when fans share values and goals, agglutinated to some extent around it. they identify as part of a group that shares goals, values, and feelings, organised and articulated around the celebrity (duffett 2014; marshall & redmond 2016). for a collective identity to be created, the fans must look to interact not only among themselves, but also with the celebrity persona, who in turn maintains that contact, contributing to the generation of this collective identity. the cultural industries support the process (marshall 2014a), for example, by spreading their messages through social networks. they transmit multiple facets of the celebrity such as his/her daily life, family, or affective relationships, etc. they also present the celebrity’s public persona, built collectively, for example, images of the concerts where all the attendees respond to the celebrity, supporting their own individual identity. in this context, multimodal texts are particularly relevant. they act as mediators in the contacts for building a collective identity. this is all bound together through the production of collective texts, not just one but many texts shared on social networks. in this sense, fans are considered as nomads and pirates of texts (jenkins 2013). the fans are an interpretative community immersed in certain traditions. today the community extends over the internet and texts are rebuilt. remaking and publishing them indicates a form of social commitment. individual interpretation or authorship is less relevant than the recognition of a collective production (jenkins, itō & boyd 2015). however, the fact that fans show a sense of belonging to the community does not mean that they forget the role that the celebrity has played in their personal and individual lives. when we invited the girls to think about what that celebrity meant to them, they told us that it was linked to the memories of a certain moment in their lives. they approached the celebrity from the music, since they had built their own identity as individuals around it (duffett 2014). our interpretations and findings are in alignment with the findings and theories of other researchers (morson & emerson 1990; goffman 1990; marshall & redmond 2016). we looked lacasa, de la fuente, garcía-pernía & cortés 64 at the role of memories in the construction of the self, from the perspective of a subjective identity in which both personal and collective dimensions are present. for fans, the celebrity was more than a musician because the music becomes a vehicle for intimacy around which the adolescent identity is organised as a way of living in and understanding the world. emotions were intense, and, in most cases, were linked to the music, although there is also an attraction to the celebrities themselves. furthermore, at an individual level, celebrities can become a model and even a form of support for the teens’ feelings. music not only evokes common values, but also similar experiences. both the celebrity and the fans need to overcome difficulties in their own personal lives. being part of a community of fans creates situations that allow individuals to overcome personal problems (hassan 2014). other fans, and even the difficulties that the celebrity has experienced, become an anchor for help to surmount personal problems. in short, we believe that the data explored in this paper and the interpretations coming from different theoretical models open new doors to examine the relationships between the celebrity persona and those who recognise themselves as their fans. especially relevant are the practices of teenagers, particularly adolescent girls, who spend a great deal of their free time participating in 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oaks, ca. duffett, m 2013, understanding fandom: an introduction to the study of media fan culture, bloomsbury, new york. ——— 2014,’fans worlds’, in m duffett (ed.), popular music fandom: identities, roles and practices, routledge, new york, pp. 146-164. goffman, e 1990, the presentation of self in everyday life, doubleday, new york. hammersley, m & atkinson, p 2007, ethnography: principles in practice, routledge, london & new york. hassan, n 2014, ‘hidden fans? fandom and domestic musical activity’, in m duffett (ed.), popular music fandom: identities, roles and practices, routledge, new york, pp. 55-70. holland, d & lave, j 2009, ‘social practice theory and the historical production of persons’, actio: an international journal of human activity theory, vol. 2, pp. 1-15. jenkins, h 2013, textual poachers: television fans and participatory culture, 2nd edn, routledge, new york. ——— 2014, ‘why do we need to “understand” fans?: a conversation with mark duffett’, confessions of an aca-fan, the official weblog of henry jenkins, weblog post, 3 march, retrieved 2 may 2017, <http://bit.ly/2mhdmwm>. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 65 jenkins, h, itō, m & boyd, d 2015, participatory culture in a networked era: a conversation on youth, learning, commerce, and politics, polity press, malden, ma & cambridge, uk. jenkins, h, purushotma, r, weigel, m, clinton, k & robison, aj 2009, confronting the challenges of participatory culture: media education for the 21st century, macarthur foundation, retrieved 2 may 2017, <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/confronting-challengesparticipatory-culture>. kress, g 2003, literacy in the new media age, routledge, london. ——— 2010, multimodality: a social semiotic approach to contemporary communication, routledge, london. lacasa, p, de-la-fuente, j & martín-garrido, b 2016, social networks and adolescents, itunes, retrieved 10 october 2017, ebook library database, <http://apple.co/1qijypl>. lacasa, p, méndez l, & de-la-fuente, j 2016, ‘fandom, music and personal relationships through media: how teenagers use social networks’, journal of the international association for the study of popular music, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 44-67. lave, j 1997, ‘the culture of acquisition and the practice of understanding’, in d kirshner & ja whitson (eds), situated cognition. social, semiotic and psychological perspectives, lawrence erlbaum associates, mahwah, nj & london, pp. 17-36. ——— 2011, apprenticeship in critical ethnographic practice, university of chicago press, chicago. lave, j & wenger, e 1991, situated learning. legitimate peripheral participation, cambridge university press, cambridge, ma. manning, j & adams, te 2015, ‘popular culture studies and autoethnography: an essay on method’, the popular culture studies journal, vol. 3, pp. 187-222. marshall, pd 2014a, celebrity and power: fame in contemporary culture, 2nd edn, university of minnesota press, minneapolis, mn. ——— 2014b, ‘persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self’, journalism, vol. 15, pp. 153-170. marshall, pd & barbour, k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective’, persona studies, vol. 1, retrieved 2 may 2017, <https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/ps/article/view/464>. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2015, ‘persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies’, celebrity studies, vol. 6, pp. 288-305. marshall, pd & redmond, s 2016, a companion to celebrity, john wiley & sons, chichester, west sussex, uk. moore, c 2014, ‘screenshots as virtual photography: cybernetics, remediation and affect’, in pl arthur & k bode (eds), advancing digital humanities: research, methods, theories, palgrave macmillan, basingstoke, pp. 141-162. morson, g & emerson, c 1990, mikhail bakhtin: creation of prosaics, stanford university press, stanford, ca. redmond, s 2014, celebrity and the media, palgrave macmillan, basingstoke, hampshire, uk. wargo, jm 2017, ‘every selfie tells a story …: lgbtq youth lifestreams and new media narratives as connective identity texts’, new media & society, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 560-578, doi 1461444815612447 persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 66 persona in mmo games: constructing an identity through complex player/character relationships oska r mil i k abstract studies of online interaction involving identity can be divided into two distinct categories. on the one hand, there is the study of the players, which often asks questions of a psychological or economic nature. on the other hand, there is the study of characters, which looks at issues of language or culture, and critical theory topics such as gender, class, and race online. while these two approaches have created a field of digital games research that provides many valuable resources and research projects, the separation between these topics is also limiting due to the complex and intertwined nature of online and offline interaction in the modern age. this paper presents a new definition of persona as an additional methodological concept that can be used to observe interaction in the online world, particularly as it applies to the presentation of an identity to others. this construct serves as a joint identity of character and player, combining these otherwise separate topics to allow for a greater depth of understanding of the actions and reasoning behind the characters and players of digital games. it is also applicable to other online contexts, such as social networking, livestreaming, and forum use. key words identity; online interaction; methodology; qualitative research; digital games introduction the digital realm of interaction is a quickly growing and significant part of our lives. it is also becoming an increasingly important target for research and theoretical debate. one area of research that is of particular interest to researchers is online gaming identity practices. many, if not most, of these research projects can quickly be divided into two categories. first, there is the study of the player behind the screen. these studies tend to ask their participants questions regarding their motivations and personality characteristics (barnett & coulson 2010; chang & zhang 2008; yee 2006), personal histories and psychologies (ducheneaut & moore 2005; williams et al. 2011), and the economic impacts of their online experiences (lehdonvirta & ernkvist 2011). the second area of research is typically focused on the character inside a virtual social context. these types of studies focus specifically on social interaction and language online (moore, ducheneaut & nickell 2006; paul 2010), culture in online groups (boellstorff 2008; milik & webber 2016; taylor 2006), and some particular branches of critical theory, such as gender and race (bergstrom 2012; grundy 2008; kerr 2003; nakamura 2009). it is uncommon, milik 67 however, for these different social realms to be viewed simultaneously. one such attempt was to mesh large quantitative datasets with ethnographic data (ducheneaut et al. 2010). however, the vast collection of data made analysis at the final stage very disorienting. there are limits to any collection of data. for example, there are only so many different factors that can be included in a data set, and collecting an entire set of data for a character and another for a player may end up being prohibitive in terms of time and resources. this paper offers a solution in the form of a methodological paradigm: persona. this methodological model has been crafted to allow for a relative amount of organisation and generalisability for studies pursuing future research online. persona as a tool allows for the analysis of the region of social interaction that lies between the character and the player, but includes the actions of both. this construct serves the purpose of unifying an otherwise complex relationship that includes varying degrees of anonymity and permanence. in order to accomplish this, this paper is arranged in three parts. first, it looks at the different types of character-based interactions that an individual may encounter in a virtual world. of particular interest are the complex relationships generated when character accounts are shared, or when a single player uses multiple characters to engage with the game world. in the second part, the ways in which a player engages with a digital realm will be observed. rather than focus only on interactions that occur through an avatar, it will be shown that many players engage with others through multiple interactional tools, including forums, social media, and even through in-person meetups. after showing the potential problems that stem from the current dynamic, the final section introduces persona as an interactional tool and offers some ways of understanding how persona can be used as a device to generate better and more valuable data in future research projects on online life. this paper is grounded in the meeting space between several different disciplines. the theoretical grounding for this project lies in between the fields of social psychology—namely the focus on identity theory by researchers such as burke and stets (2009)—and the discipline of sociology—specifically, the work on dramaturgy by erving goffman (1959). the examples used in this paper are based on a five-year study (2011-2016) of large massively multiplayer online (mmo) games (namely world of warcraft (2003) and eve online (2001)). this study involved participant observation, with the researcher involved as a player and a member of several self-described “hardcore” organisations via a character named daisarn (see figure 1 and figure 2). hardcore play is defined by pargman and jakobsson (2008) as playing competitively and spending at least twenty hours a week in-game. data was collected through digital ethnography figure 2. daisarn in eve online figure 1. daisarn in world of warcraft persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 68 (boellstorff et al. 2012), ethnomethodology (garfinkel 1967), and autoethnography. the names of participants have been anonymised to comply with ethical requirements. erving goffman’s (1959, 1974) works have been used in many different research projects, particularly those involving ethnographic research methods (milik 2015). this project uses the conceptual framework of dramaturgy, specifically the purposeful presentation of the self, which goffman refers to as impression management (1959, p. 208). using this perspective, the individual is responsible for generating and maintaining a social self that they relay to others. goffman describes the active “selves” that are displayed based on the active region, which is the social context of a particular interaction (p. 106). the front stage, for instance, is a region that is visible to the largest audiences and therefore is the most deliberately crafted to influence the viewer. for instance, a doctor will include artifacts in their office that display medical competence to calm and reassure patients. artifacts such as diplomas, awards, and medical textbooks are commonly used as context in the front stage. alternatively, the back stage is the place where a different version of the self is allowed to be visible. customer service staff taking lunch in a break room, for instance, are free to speak to each other in a different way to the type of speech they would use when out on the floor within earshot of customers. for the purposes of looking at interaction between individuals in an online setting, such as eve online or world of warcraft, these two ‘stages’ fit neatly into the different simultaneous experiences of a digital actor. on the one hand, there is the character—a front stage construct wherein identity is actively crafted so that it can be shared with others. the character can potentially change its appearance, pick up different conversational affects (such as trying to speak more like a leader) (milik 2015), and even change entire identities through mechanisms in the game world (such as changing weapons to use a completely different set of attacks in guild wars 2). this malleability is what differentiates the character from an avatar in a digital game. once crafted, an avatar retains its core identifying features, such as race, sex, name, and so forth. the character, on the other hand, is a social construct that can, for instance, serve as mesh between different game servers. at the same time, however, the individual is also the player—a person who is sitting in a chair at a desk or on a couch, looking at a screen and executing certain actions and behaviours that may or may not be directly connected to the digital interaction. the actions conducted by this aspect of the self correlate with the concept of the back stage: a situation where an individual presents a less crafted version of the social self (goffman 1959, p. 108). while the two stages, front and back, cover much of the research that is done on interaction and identity online, it is the purpose of this project to present a “metastage”, wherein the persona is shown to be the active social entity, socially encompassing the actions of both a character and a player. the concept of persona used for this project is that of a heuristic that allows for faster communication. it can, for instance, offer a quick method of encompassing multiple characters into a single social actor, allowing for social interaction to occur swiftly and meaningfully. this concept takes the persona developed by researchers such as p. david marshall (2010, 2014) and directs the focus towards interaction rather than presentation. the use of persona in this paper refers to multiple facets (moore et al. 2017) that create complex social interactions, which in turn gives the concept analytical use (marshall & barbour 2015). in particular, persona can be crafted into a methodological tool, as has been done by marshall and barbour (2015), but instead of focusing on presentation of a public self, the approach here concentrates on the interactions that occur through different forms of digital media. goffman discusses the presentation of the self and the presentation of identity to others (1959, p. 19). for the purposes of this paper, the concept of identity is theorised in the terms milik 69 discussed by burke and stets (2009). identity theory, in their perspective, describes an individual as a whole series of different identities (such as daughter, mother, spouse, professor, gardener, sister, and so on). all of these identities have some amount of value to an individual, but they will be ranked, with some identities coming to the fore while others recede to the background. the ranking will change based on the situation, so the individual may primarily present a mother when speaking to a child, but a professor when speaking to a student. using this paradigm, the individual is not linked to a singular identity (a unified self), but instead is tied to a selection process through which their identities are defined and used in socially significant ways (carter & fuller 2016). this perspective on identity meshes well with the theoretical framework of dramaturgy. it helps to address a criticism aimed at goffmanian sociology, which asks where do these roles come from (denzin 2003)? at the same time, it preserves the different forms of presentation (the front and back stages), which can be intrinsically linked to the different identities that come to the fore in an interaction. these stages can be used to display which identities are important to the individual in any given situation. lastly, burke and stets’ (2009) non-unified concept of identity shows how goffmanian analysis applies to a new age of social media and digital communication (bullingham & vasconcelos 2013; hogan 2010). the character as dramaturgical front the use of an avatar—through which an individual experiences and presents social interaction in an online game—is standard for most mmo gaming experiences, from early text-based multi user dungeon (mud) games, to ultima online, to world of warcraft used in this research. serving as the focal point of the in-game camera, as well as the source of action and interaction between the player and the game world, the avatar is often considered the embodied self—the character—of the player. in fact, embodiment is an important part of the game design process, particularly in single player games where emotional investment is important, such as in telltale’s the walking dead series (taylor, kampe & bell 2015). in the context of a mmo game, embodiment can be the entire point for some participants as well. role playing (rp) servers on world of warcraft (wow) are known for enticing players who dedicate much of their time and energy in-game into crafting their character and immersing themselves within the game world (taylor 2002). the significance of the connection between the individual behind the screen and the character that is presented in-game can be seen in the difficulty individuals have in choosing a character name. the name is a central point of initial presentation of identity, and many players admit spending a long time finding the right name for their character (hagstrom 2008). this problem demonstrates the difference between interacting through an avatar and having a character. players who change servers often in wow, for instance, often keep the name, even when they change classes or races on new servers (servers refer to the sub-region within a game that allow characters to interact. players on different servers would not be able to meet or communicate in-game). the role of the character in representing the qualities of the player behind the screen is important to other players inside the game. following the introduction of “garrisons” in wow, where individual players have access to in-game spaces that exclude others from being able to interact with the character inside, many players expressed disappointment about not being able to “show off” their accomplishments to others in the game. as one player stated, “i have all these transmogs [visual costumes for the character] and mounts, but with garrisons there is never any social contact or ability to share them with others”. with this connection between player and avatar being so clearly defined in these examples, it makes sense that others would see this relationship as simple. the idea that a single player accesses a personal computer, activates a persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 70 single account with a single character, and engages with the game and others through a single avatar is often incorrect. in practice, the actual form of play tends to take a vastly different route (especially in mmo games), and there are far more complex relationships between player and character. even in the case of a player using only a single character for the majority of their play (in an mmo this is known as a “main” character), there are often incentives to use other characters (known as “alts”) as a means of creating additional value for the main. these alts are usually created with a particular purpose in mind. for instance, wow players will experience limited inventory space and have a “bank alt” or an “ah (auction house) alt” for economic exchange. similarly, eve online players will have “industrial alts” or “marketing alts” for the same purpose (see figure 3). these alts can often be identified through a lack of concern for the naming structure that is so important for the main. alts will often have names connected to the main, such as the character “terris” using “terrisbank”, or “milo” using “milothree” or “milofour”. when directly placing auction house prices to beat out a competitor that they want to keep as friends, players will often use names meant for complete anonymity, such as “homemade” or “buyme”. in dramaturgical terms, a player interacting in this way with others will often communicate as their main characters, even when actively playing the game with an “alt” character. in one example, a player being asked to participate in an event responds “i can go. let me switch. i’ll need a summon, i’m stuck in sw [stormwind, a city]”. when the player says “i” here they are referring to their main character, demonstrating that playing on the alt is not a socially relevant aspect of the interaction. the primary character is the persona, regardless of the avatar or embodied entity that exists within the game world. therefore, to only observe active characters as the focus of research, as is customary in linguistic approaches or studies of power relations, may lead to incomplete data and ignores the complex relationship an individual may have with their alt and main characters. the example of character/player interaction above is not the only way that gameplay is experienced in groups that consider themselves “hardcore”. for instance, it is very common to be required to play multiple characters which have the same level of commitment as a main character. in wow, guilds may require a player to choose between different characters to maximise the team’s chances of success in a particular encounter. this means that each of those characters must be at a level of maximal performance, the equivalent of having two or three main characters. in eve online, many players will use multiple characters and “multi-botting” figure 3. character selection in eve online with multiple active characters milik 71 (using multiple game clients simultaneously to have multiple characters active, often via automated systems for ease of use) as a means of protecting trade routes, bringing numbers to a fight, or otherwise maximising profit from economic projects. one player explains that during a fight with his main character, “i need money though, so i have a miner [alt] on right now to buy my plex [in-game resource used to buy game time]”. multi-botting also exists in wow, where one player explains: we managed to kill him [an in-game boss]. just the two of us with six characters and you know… that was one of my more favorite accomplishments just because of what it took to do that with just the two of us. it was not easy at all. but you know, again, we still have toys and it still makes me smile after the fact. the use of multi-botting creates a different relationship between player and character. rather than being represented by an avatar, the individual is instead represented by a series of actions performed by a number of avatars. one final limitation of character-based study is the ability for multiple people to use the same character in the game through account sharing. while this is against the terms of service (tos) of most games, it can still occur. the most common example is when a family member takes control of a character, either as a favour (bringing a character to a guild event when a spouse is running late) or just to share the gaming experience with a child. this is an important aspect of communication in the game, and often requires clarification when contacted by other players. one player responds to a query by saying “hey, this isn’t sunny. i’m her husband, just doing dailies. want me to relay a message?” in terms of reflective action, such a response makes it clear to the other players that the words and actions of the character do not necessarily reflect that of the main user of that character. however, a character may receive social sanctions due to the action of the temporary user, without the player having performed the sanctionable offence. this can have a particular impact when the loss of control of a character comes as a result of an outside event, such as the character being hacked. in that case, friends and guild mates may attempt to contact the player outside of the game. in one shared e-mail, one player tells another: “hey, i think you’ve been hacked. saw your account logging on all of your characters for a few minutes and not responding to any messages. i sent a report to blizzard but you should check and report it too”. the fact that there can be temporary disconnects between the character and the social actor that is supposed to be responsible for his or her actions shows that there are more complex interactions in the game world than are sometimes studied. from a dramaturgical perspective, it is important to note players will attempt to hide aspects of their offline identity when interacting with an online character. in presenting the character as a front, certain stigmatised aspects of the self may act as hindrances to accomplishing goals in the game. in mmo games, where the average age of a player tends to be higher, at 27 years old for wow (yee 2006) and at 31 years old for eve online (ccp quant 2014), being a very young player can be viewed as a negative that may limit the options the character experiences. to navigate their social world, players will come up with techniques to avoid that stigma. as one participant explains, i’m in college now, but started raiding at fifteen. back then i knew i’d get kicked if i ever spoke up in chat, so i stayed quiet. if i had to talk i totally did that low voice thing [deepening of voice] ‘hey guys’ [laughs]. when looking at the character as a dramaturgical front stage, it makes sense that the individual will attempt to maximise impression management. they will also try to ensure that stigmatising persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 72 factors, such as age, don’t impact the character in-game as they might if the player was fully exposed to the virtual world. gender also comes into play in the complex interactions between player and character. while it is perfectly acceptable for a male to play a female character in the game, there is a social expectation that they will readily reveal this information in social interaction. if this expectation is broken it can be very disorienting for the others in the interaction. in one case, a male player played a female character, jules. due to the lack of voice communications in the early years of wow, this player never revealed himself as male. jules had many friendships and relationships in the game, but always through the female character. it was only after voice chats became mandatory for play that jules had to explain that he was male. many of jules’ friends expressed discomfort with being deceived, with one stating that “my trust in jules was based on a falsehood”. the reaction was so strong that it wasn’t long before jules left the server to join a new one under a different name, and to start new relationships within the game. jules as a player became defined by the features and actions of jules the character. this indicates that the interaction between character and player is two-way. the persona here, as meta-stage, incorporates both the character and the player, but also impacts the core identities and social meanings of both. while the player has a central role in defining the aspects and traits of the character, the character can also greatly influence how the player is perceived by others. the player as dramaturgical background the common perception amongst players, media agencies such as gaming journals and blogs (matticus 2009), and researchers (kerr 2003) is that the many entanglements and relationships between an individual’s actions within and outside of a game can be considered independent of each other. players in particular argue that, even when embodiment is a goal in a game, they will not consider themselves as actually in the game world. a player of battlefield 4, for instance, explains that “i’m okay with shooting people in the game because i know i’ll never actually shoot someone in real life”. this person is treating their identity as separate from their actions because they see the virtual experience as being separated from their offline self. this mindset also helps to explain “griefing”, which is a form of trolling behaviour in mmo games. the ability to separate the player’s identity from a character’s actions can be very important; in the words of one wow player, “i wanted to live something as different from my real life as possible, that’s why i’m horde [an in-game player faction], i wanted to be the bad guy”. the player prevents cognitive dissonance by establishing that their player-self is a good person, even if their character-self is “evil”. identity theory argues, however, that regardless of how many identities we may have active as social beings, there is still seep-through between different identities, as they always present themselves in varying levels in an interaction. even when an action may only happen in the virtual world, its consequences can impact the individual in the offline world as well. one way in which this can occur is by realising that all virtual world interactions happen through the services of a company. in the case of league of legends (lol) the company, riot games, has had to monitor player behaviour extensively after the reputation of the game was damaged by online players’ “toxic” behaviour. if a player is considered sufficiently toxic, it is possible for them to be permanently banned from participating in the game in any way (mamiit 2016). the consequences of online behaviour for the offline person show that the attempt to separate the player from the character is impossible and therefore problematic for research. the qualities of the character will also shape the reactions a player experiences offline in both subtle and direct ways. in one famous example, angry players targeted a researcher who milik 73 studied reactions to griefing behaviour online by acting inappropriately on a public server using a character named twixt. after the release of his findings (myers 2008) upset players attempted to damage his reputation by sending complaints and demands for action to the university where he worked. while anonymity is a large part of many online social networks and online games, continued anonymity is no longer a guarantee. in a world of security breaches and doxing attacks (deliberate leaking of identifying information online), there are many challenges to anonymity that may affect an individual in both the online and offline worlds. what is it that defines a player, then? as much as the character is a social construct created by an individual through a game client, so too is the player a social construct. the identity features that are used in the player’s case, however, come from the offline-world context the individual experiences. the player, while interacting online, is not a professor, or a researcher, or a farmer, or a plumber. instead, they are an individual who projects certain identity features through language and behaviour: the dramaturgical process of impression management. in this dramaturgical understanding, the player is just another aspect of the character’s identity while online, and the character is a temporary identity for the player (as seen in the above example in battlefield 4). in an interaction, then, the character and player occupy the same social space—the persona—and a researcher needs to account for both aspects of the individual to get the highest quality data and results from their work. at the intersection of the player and character is the dramaturgical concept of back stage interaction, and in particular the ability to be a member of a team (or group) and be “in the know” (goffman 1959, p. 83). as the relationships created in an online setting, which are often based on anonymity, gradually become intimate, more player identity features (i.e. motherhood, employment, abuse history) will become part of the character-identity conveyed to their online friends. as more of the player leaks into the character’s interactions, the character becomes a social actor with a real person behind them. the meshing of character and player can be seen in the popularity of real-world gettogethers for online groups and games. in the eve online alliance test, the community put together a yearly “testival” to bring their membership together. these types of events have become particularly popular with game companies that design large online games. blizzard, for instance, hosts blizzcon, which was originally meant for wow players but has expanded to the whole game portfolio of the company. ccp games (the makers of eve online) similarly have a fanfest, where they bring players together in iceland for events based around their game characters. the continued popularity of these types of events shows that online relationships are complex. individuals not only accept but even seek out a meshing of social information between their online self and their identities in the physical world. players are not surprised by the influence that feedback mechanisms from online interaction can have on the player in the offline world. in fact, seeking a means of bettering oneself is used by several players as a reason for their continued participation within a game world. in the words of one self-described shy person, he was “always afraid of going out and talking to people. i wanted to start somewhere where no one would see me, to get more comfortable talking to them. that was years ago. i think the game has really helped me in getting this job and just making friends in general”. another person, whose first language was not english, said a significant reason that he played the game was to work on his language skills. he explains that “it’s hard to talk in person, people talk so fast. it’s much easier to talk to people on here”. the connections that these individuals create between the interactions performed by a character online and the qualities of themselves as a player behind the screen demonstrates that they have a good sense of how these worlds are intertwined in their lives. for someone persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 74 researching or observing these players, it becomes necessary to bring in both of these aspects of the self to properly understand players’ actions. social actions and cultures are impossible to study without putting these together, and with the rise of virtual worlds that contain a sense of permanence, there is increased need for these types of studies. the concept of persona, then, is a tool that allows for the study of the individual as well as the relationship between the online character and the offline player, all within a singular social concept. the persona as meta-stage of dramaturgical identity given these descriptions of many potential problems and pitfalls concerning researching individuals in the virtual world, the concept of persona becomes a potential discussion point for the further development of social scientists’ research into individuals and groups online. persona is a social front, in the dramaturgical sense, based upon an individual’s accessible features. rather than being an avatar with their actions wholly online, or a “real” person walking around in the “real world,” a persona is a construct that assists the individual to create consistent communications with others. the persona is easy to see in action in many different situations. the ceo at a press conference needs to present a persona that simultaneously encapsulates both himself and the spirit of his entire company. similarly, pewdiepie on youtube is not felix kjellberg. felix may show up at a tv interview and adopt a pewdiepie persona, but in the same interview a viewer may notice that he slips from that persona back to a felix self, depending on the question being asked. the reason for this is that the persona provides a social actor with relative consistency for interaction that isn’t inherently based on qualities of the self, but rather on adopted qualities in other social constructions. for the digital citizen, then, the persona can incorporate aspects from different social networks and digital games, and put them all together into an actor who can interact with others successfully. to connect more neatly with the concepts of character and player, i will continue to focus on the digital gamer, but it is clear that research into other online locales, such as social networks and forums, could also use the concept. in an mmo game, it can be helpful to see how naming conventions work for an individual in the game. while each of a players’ characters will have a unique name (as mandated by the structure of the game), attempting to know multiple names for every group member is difficult. as such, players become known by a singular name and referred to as such regardless of which character is active at the time. in my own history, for instance, i would respond to the name “dai” regardless of which of my characters were active at the time, whether it was “astellus”, “daisarn”, “gahyris”, or “tempname”. this is a common and taken-for-granted part of communicating in these games, with many players adopting naming conventions to make the process easier (starting all their characters’ names with the same three letters, for instance). these persona-based naming systems are very stable as well. as an example, there was a player named elise who played a mage in wow for the first year of play. after that year, however, elise was no longer used, and the player was more active as a priest named leylein. the friends that she made in the first year, however, continued to refer to her as elise ten years later, even though any new friends would know her as leylein. the durability of this name would create difficulty if the study only observed the character, given that the names changed but the accepted persona and name remained the same. there are also official means of collecting persona-based information that have been constructed by games developers running mmo games. blizzard, for instance, has converted their battle.net system to be a social communication tool as well as a games client. rather than linking their system to a character, however, blizzard connects each account to a singular battle.net account. as such, it is possible see that “leylein1568 has come online”. this account name will bring together different characters under a shared identity, which can become a milik 75 short-hand version of a persona. in eve online, there is a similar resource in the eve application program interface (api). a group leader will often request the api from all applicants, allowing them to see the history of every character that is on an account, rather than rely on just the history of the particular character applying. while there are specific names that are primarily used to call attention to a persona, most players are happy to respond to any of the names that are linked to their particular persona. the social expectations for each of them should be similar, due to them being linked in the same way. there are, however, exceptions. in eve online, for instance, spying is a very important part of organisational warfare. as such, many players have alts that are used to spy. these players attempt to keep their persona hidden when acting on these particular spy characters, but the durability of the persona may still affect them. the largest groups will have counterintelligence teams, who will study interactions performed by questionable characters, connecting them to public forum posts and discussions by a known persona to uncover a mole or an enemy operative. this also happens in wow sometimes, with some players attempting to hide alts from others because they worry that they are not as proficient with using them. in order to preserve the reputation of their persona, they will refuse to acknowledge a character that would not perform to the same level. these examples, and the work that players will put into protecting their persona, demonstrate that this concept helps to account for a greater permanence in online interactions than are often accepted in research projects. while the character is assumed to be relatively mobile (a player can drop a character from their identity by merely logging off, or deleting the character), a persona continues to exist beyond that character’s interactions. therefore, as online systems of communication and interaction continue to grow more complex, the different concepts that we use to observe them need to encapsulate the greater attention and energy that individuals will put into their virtual life. in order to bring the persona into dramaturgical focus, it helps to differentiate it from the character as front stage and player as back stage. goffman explains that these stages are socio-psychological constructs that define the scope of interaction. in frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience (1974), he explains that social actors adopt different roles to ensure the smooth flow of interaction. the player is active in out-of-game conversations and interactions. for example, if one was to call a guild mate to remind them of an in-game event, it would be awkward to greet them using their character name. therefore, in such a scenario, the player is the active social front. the character is a useful tool for immediate interactions, such as meeting another player’s avatar in combat or attempting to make a purchase at a public part of an in-game town. it is understood that players typically have more than one character (carter, gibbs & arnold 2012). if we only observe character-based interactions then only these temporary and fleeting interactions would be the result. instead, a player will expect that a person will, in some ways, act consistently across different characters and over a series of connected interactions. if one character acts in a certain way, then it would make sense that other characters connected to them through a persona will act similarly. this is, after all, the basis of a persona (baden et al. 2009). persona serves as a heuristic to allow for quicker understandings between interactants, and for easier categorisation of others. for the researcher, then, it makes sense to seek out the basis of this heuristic and to use it much as the player does: to increase the understanding of social interactions. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 76 conclusion studies of character and player have managed to get sufficiently interesting and important findings so far without persona. however, there are still many research opportunities enabled by using a more expansive paradigm of the digital social actor. whenever an individual enters an online world, they establish another layer of personal identity. cumulatively, these layers of persona create a measure of permanence online that can remain partially separate from the offline self. the individual can participate with others using their character, but still have a sense that interactions and relationships will be longer-term and more meaningful. these concepts are tied to a greater sense of connection to their character and to the game. as we become more invested in our online social networks and digital games, persona will become an increasingly valuable tool to analyse interaction in the modern era. without the concept of persona, observations of online interaction can be unnecessarily confusing. the character is just too malleable, and the player is considered too much of a permanent entity who spends most of their time offline. in adopting persona, then, the social action researcher can analyse online actions without needing to delve into the minds of actors offline. at the same time, by looking at the persona as a tent within which multiple characters exist, the researcher is able to understand more about players, online organisations, and cultures that can grow out of online interactions. after all, all interactionists should wish to move away from analysing people’s rationales after-the-fact and instead 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exploratorium: using large-scale data and computation techniques for communication research’, communication methods and measures, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 163-180. yee, n 2006, ‘the demographics, motivations and derived experiences of users of massivelymultiuser online graphical environments’, presence: teleoperators and virtual environments, vol. 15, pp. 309-329. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 57 from rock star to political star – curious case of paweł kukiz’s persona power tomas z ol czy k a nd ja ce k was ile ws ki abstract the 2015 presidential election was a turning point in a history of celebritisation of politics in poland. rock vocalist paweł kukiz unexpectedly finished third with 20% of votes, the highest result of any celebrity–candidate in presidential elections. he achieved that, campaigning mostly on facebook, without any significant power base and financial support. kukiz set up his own political organisation, which gained a 9% backing in the parliamentary elections. he achieved that with no political platform, no media backing, and no party structure. we argue that his persona was a crucial asset in his political success. we will show how kukiz created, managed and performed his persona, how he used it to mobilise three million voters and then to create and brand his “kukiz’15 movement.” finally, we analyse limits, traps and contradictions of persona power. analysed material includes paweł kukiz’s and his opponents’ facebook posts, televised political advertisements, performances in celebrity tv shows and debates. key words persona; celebritisation of politics; celebrity power; electoral campaigns paweł kukiz’s pathway from celebrity rock singer to presidential candidate and member of parliament is unusual in several respects. unlike other celebrities who have turned into successful politicians, he is operating outside pre-existing political structures. moreover, he created his own grassroots political organisation from scratch. the “kukiz’15 movement” is probably a unique case of successful political institutionalisation of the celebrity capital. it is very difficult to find ideological consistency either within the movement's platform or among its voters’ political views. we argue that in the absence of organisational resources and coherent ideology kukiz strategically used his celebrity persona to create, and manage, his political capital. in order to capture the core elements of the kukiz persona’s power, we performed comparative analysis of the style and content of his online and televised communication. we identified qualitative differences between the singer’s persona and those of his main opponents, the run-of-the-mill politicians. we analysed the ways kukiz performed the ‘ordinary outsider’ persona in his online communication and used various stylistic devices to create parasocial bonds with his followers. moreover, we examined performative techniques he exploited in debates and tv shows to differentiate himself from the bland, technocratic communication style olczyk and wasilewski 58 of the incumbent president. we then analysed the relationship between kukiz’s persona in his televised advertisements and the collective needs and emotions of his followers. as a result, we can describe various communication, rhetorical and performative devices and techniques kukiz used to create the synergy between his anti-establishment message and the various aspects of his persona. this article is divided into four parts. in the first part, we present kukiz’s celebrity, his career in popular culture and the most important steps in his pathway to politics. in the second part, we present the methods and data we used to analyse kukiz’s persona. in the next part, we describe the ways in which kukiz created and managed his persona and communication within four channels: facebook, tv shows, tv debates and tv political advertisements. in the last part, we discuss paradoxes, limits and contradictions of persona as a source of political capital. in this part, we also present kukiz’s case in the wider context of celebrity politics studies. kukiz’s celebrity and road to politics paweł kukiz’s road to politics can be divided into four periods. until 1997, he had been focused on being a vocalist and the leader of a rock band and had not engaged in any significant political activities. as of 1997, he started to publicly endorse various political parties and candidates. around 2013, he became a vocal critic of the political class and an advocate of voting system reform. after 2014, his political career quickly accelerated. in two years’ time, he had won the election for the local council, run for the presidential elections, created his own political organisation and become a member of parliament (stankiewicz 1-30; palade). born in 1963, kukiz reached adulthood in the late communist era in poland. his initial punk rock musical projects were alternative to the pop music mainstream controlled by the communist authorities. in 1989, after the downfall of communism, his work became diversified and, at the same time, popular and folk. after 1989, he remained quite a popular musician, though he would not be named as one of the top artists of the polish pop scene. kukiz also featured in a few movies and theatre plays (i.e. che guevara in evita) (stankiewicz 1-30). the political profile of his work cannot be easily defined as either right wing, or leftist. in 1997, his anticlerical song directed against the right wing provoked a scandal. seven years later, he became famous for his uncompromising political song, which hit the leftist post-communist party. kukiz’s greatest hit was “skóra” (“skin”), a love song with anti-discriminatory overtones, created in the 1980s. kukiz’s texts have no common ideological denominator, but are rooted in his opposition to the current political and cultural mainstream (stankiewicz 1-30). kukiz’s way into politics was, at first, a typical political pathway of a celebrity (street 437-438; marsh, ‘t hart and tindall 327). he started his involvement as celebrity-endorser. in 1997, he supported the right-wing solidarity electoral action coalition. in 2005, on the other hand, he backed the liberal civic platform (cp). during the cp’s rule (2007-2015), he gradually came to turn away from it, while seeking a political niche for himself. he started getting involved in a grassroots movement meant to promote the change of the voting system to majority voting with a single-member district. he stepped in to openly criticise the cp for not fulfilling its promise to reform the voting system. in 2014, he became a celebrity candidate and won a seat in regional council. a group of his closest advisers and associates came up with the idea of kukiz running for the president in the following elections (stankiewicz 1-30). the presidential elections turned into a referendum on the cp’s governance. after five years of incumbent president bronisław komorowski’s presidency, and eight years of the cp’s rule, voters started to look for an alternative. for many of them, this alternative was the persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 59 conservative law and justice (l&j) party with its young and dynamic presidential nominee, andrzej duda. nonetheless, many people were disappointed not just with the party at the helm, but also with the entire political class. in february 2015, kukiz officially declared his candidacy for the presidential elections. he framed his presidential bid as an advocacy campaign. he declared that his goal was not the presidency itself, but the reform of the political system through changing the voting system from a proportional to a single-member one. lacking the financial and organisational backing of a political party, kukiz’s staff utilised communication and organisation strategies typical of the grassroots campaigns of candidates from outside the establishment (trippi 2009). his associates organised an online collection of the much-needed signatures in support of kukiz, which allowed him to officially register as a candidate. kukiz himself was using facebook as the main channel of communication. an acute criticism of the political elites together with his stage charisma, which was on display during his meetings with the voters, started to attract the attention of voters who were disenchanted with the structured parties. in march, his backing was 2%; in april, it reached 6% (palade). ultimately, he obtained 20.8% of the votes. his rivals, the incumbent president and his main challenger, andrzej duda, received 33.77%, and 34.76%, respectively (the national election commission, “wybory prezydenta rzeczypospolitej polskiej 2015”). since none of the candidates managed to achieve an absolute majority, the end of may saw a second round of voting. the incumbent president, while seeking the support of three million of kukiz’s supporters, declared a referendum on a single-seat constituency. the main goal of kukiz’s advocacy campaign seemed to have been achieved. kukiz and his inner circle strived to exploit the success of the presidential elections in the following referendum and in the october parliamentary elections (palade 2015). the goals of the organisational structure initiated were to co-ordinate the referendum campaign and to make an official debut during the parliamentary elections. in kukiz’s narrative, “political party” was synonymous with cynicism and lack of authenticity. therefore, he emphasised his new organisation as a grassroots social movement. the name of the organisation, “kukiz’15 movement”, availed of the brand name “kukiz’15” that had been launched at the presidential elections. this way, kukiz broadened the classical typology of celebrity politicians; he became a celebrity–political organiser. the early polls showed an uptrend of “kukiz’15 movement.” it seemed that, spurred on by the referendum campaign and by the cp crisis, kukiz’s initiative stood a chance of becoming the second force in the parliament. however, in the following months kukiz’s movement started to lose some of its support. the september referendum on a single-seat constituency proved to be an utter disaster. the turnout was the lowest in the history of the 3rd polish republic’s referenda (państwowa komisja wyborcza, “referendum ogólnokrajowe 6 września 2015”). support for the “kukiz’15 movement” began to approach 5%. ultimately, in october 2015, the kukiz movement made its way into the parliament with 9% of the votes, just a third of the backing declared in june of that year (państwowa komisja wyborcza, “wybory do sejmu i senatu rzeczypospolitej polskiej 2015”). looking for the kukiz persona in our analysis, we approach the kukiz persona in several ways. firstly, by referring to the works of jung, we analyse paweł kukiz’s persona as a strategic public identity, which is “the arbitrary segment of the collective psyche” (jung 157; marshall and barbour 3-4). in our opinion, kukiz’s success in the presidential elections can be interpreted as a casus of an effective “acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks” (jung 157). we shall demonstrate the olczyk and wasilewski 60 relationship between the kukiz persona and the collective needs and emotions of its followers. a key mechanism in the process was the successful activation of the rebel archetype in kukiz’s persona (mark and pearson 123-127). following mark and pearson, we define archetypes as culturally structured clusters of needs (4-6). we shall describe the kukiz persona by referring to the concept of the twelve brand archetypes and contrast it with his main opponents. another way of capturing the kukiz persona relates to the performative aspect. we define performativity in two ways. in line with austin’s speech act theory, performative acts are used to create a social reality, for example marriage vows or naming a child at a baptism ceremony (6-7). our second understanding of performativity relates to the actions that become a social message having a sense other than literal by means of a contract or conventions. examples of this type of performativity may be a flash mob, an art performance, and other ritual actions that change the definition of a social situation (schechner 28-30, 46-48). here we shall demonstrate how kukiz exploited the stage resources of his persona to create new definitions of situations in the pre-election debates and in a celebrity talk show. the main criterion in selecting the research material was the capacity to make comparisons in three dimensions. the intention was to compare the rock leader’s persona with other presidential candidates. we also wanted to see how different media channels affected the shape of kukiz’s persona. ultimately, comparing the messages from the presidential campaign (may 2015) and the parliamentary one (october 2010) allowed us to observe the evolution of the persona over time. we have chosen to compare kukiz’s persona with his two most popular rivals: the incumbent president, bronisław komorowski (cp), and his main challenger, andrzej duda (l&j). kukiz constructed his message and his persona in contrast to the main political forces in poland—the civic platform and law and justice—which komorowski and duda represented in the presidential campaign. we have analysed four channels of kukiz communication: online communication (facebook), live television broadcasts (debates, a celebrity talk show), and televised advertisements. facebook was an especially important channel for kukiz, who used it as a way of meandering through the filters and frames of the mainstream media, which he constantly criticised. we have analysed the posts on kukiz’s official facebook profile published during the time of the presidential, referendum, and parliamentary campaigns (400 posts in total). we have compared this material with bronisław komorowski’s and andrzej duda’s facebook communication during the presidential campaign (364 and 449 posts, respectively, were published from december 2014 to may 2015). we have also analysed kukiz’s performance in a television celebrity talk show hosted by kuba wojewódzki, and compared it with the subsequent appearance of bronisław komorowski. furthermore, we have examined kukiz’s participation in the pre-election debates. additionally, we have compared televised political advertisements—mainly the exposure of kukiz’s and his opponents’ personas—broadcast on the first and last day of the campaign. performing persona online: facebook communication comparison of kukiz’s and his main opponents’ facebook profiles in the presidential elections has led us to conclude that in kukiz’s internet communication was qualitatively different from the communication of a typical presidential candidate in numerous ways. to test this hypothesis, we have enriched the primary comparative material by adding posts from the main candidates in the 2012 (olczyk, “serwis społecznościowy”; “facebook”) and the 2016 persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 61 united states presidential elections. consequently, we have created a catalogue of the unique characteristics of kukiz’s internet communication. first of all, unlike his rivals, kukiz signalled strong emotions through various stylistic devices. he often multiplied punctuation characters; he used ellipsis, exclamation marks, and question marks. additionally, his posts were often full of repetitive smileys. for example, upon posting a link to the post of a rival party’s mp, kukiz wrote: “just have a look at this!!! :):):) mrs krystyna’s reply to my post. (…)” (kukiz, “dobre‼! wpis pani krystyny dot. mojej wypowiedzi”). another frequently used signal of emotion was the application of capital letters. no other polish candidate exploited capitalisation in their online communication. in the american campaigns, we have found it to be true only in donald trump’s case, but not as intense as in kukiz’s posts. capital letters were used in emotionally laden posts, such as when the polish soccer team won a match: “thank god! thanks, lads!!!! it’s just so important for us right now!!!! p o l a n d !!!!” (kukiz, “dzięki ci, panie! dzięki chłopaki‼‼”). other signals of emotions and authenticity were common typos, minor spelling or stylistic mistakes, especially repetitions. while his opponents used to direct their posts to the collective reader, kukiz frequently addressed individuals. on top of that, his words directed to individual followers were rather informal as far as the polish language standards are concerned. kukiz addressed his readers by their forenames, only at certain times using the formal expression “pan” or “pani” (“sir”, “madam”). for example, in a post explaining how to resolve the problems of the pension system, kukiz addressed his follower in the following manner: “one of the followers asked me whether i have a solution for the pension system problems. [...] yes, tomek, i have [...]” (kukiz, “jeden z internautów zapytał mnie, czy oprócz...”). moreover, kukiz often used informal expressions addressed to the collective reader. contrary to his opponents, who used the formal expression “dear sirs,” kukiz used address forms such as: “boys and girls,” “friends,” “birdies” or, jokingly alluded to an old religious song, “people, my people!” unlike his opponents, kukiz commented on the posts of ordinary people and he reacted to other people’s replies to his own posts. kukiz’s comments on discussions regarding his own posts further emphasised the impression of leading an informal conversation with the candidate. kukiz treated his facebook profile as a tool of dialogue not just with his followers, but also with people “outside of facebook.” to the host of one television show, he wrote: “thanks, kuba” after the showman declared his support for the single-seat constituency idea. when, due to kukiz’s political involvement, sony opted out of their co-operation with him, kukiz addressed the company’s representative directly: “hey man… which part of the election campaign are you talking about???” (kukiz, “człowieku... jaki element kampanii wyborczej???”). kukiz, contrary to the other candidates with whose facebook communication we have compared his, very often used restricted code (bernstein 81-112). restricted code assumes that the sender and receiver of a message share the assumptions, the knowledge and understanding of the theme of communication. using this type of communication code signals similarity and stronger ties between the communicating individuals (granovetter 204-205). in contrast to kukiz, his rivals applied elaborated code. their communication was not based on the assumption of common knowledge. they instead delivered a lot of additional contextual information. the best illustration of this difference is in posts about various sporting events in which the polish teams took part. duda and komorowski, apart from congratulating the sportsmen and manifesting their joy over the victory, also posted contextual information about the events (the type of sport, which competition, and which result is concerned). in contrast, kukiz’s post commenting on the performance of the soccer team consists mostly of a series of exclamation marks, emoticons, and this message: “got to play to the end” (kukiz, “:::::::::------- olczyk and wasilewski 62 )))))))))))))”). kukiz did not provide any contextual information, as he assumed that he and the recipients share the knowledge of the event. to add to this, kukiz frequently used his official profile to post links with just an emoticon or a very concise comment. kukiz’s facebook communication was unique not only in its stylistic aspects; it stood apart not just through its form, but also through its contents. first of all, kukiz used words generally recognised as vulgar or insulting. this is especially true of kukiz’s descriptions of the political class as a whole, most frequently depicted as bandits or thieves. for instance, commenting on an article on raising taxes, the rock singer wrote: “mother f…kers have not had enough yet!!! go ahead, raise our forced tribute even more! for your travel expenses and receptions... […] thugs…” (kukiz, “mało sk..synom‼! podwyżcie jeszcze nasz haracz!”). kukiz’s posts contained text that we would fail to find on the official profiles of his rivals. these are, for instance, amateur memes or jokes from online entertainment services. their common element was unsubtle, and often vulgar, jeering the representatives of the political class and, particularly, the leading party of the coalition—the civic platform. kukiz not only ridiculed his opponents; unlike his rivals, he also demonstrated self-irony and made jokes of himself, especially those relating to his looks. upon linking an article with the polls survey and a rather unattractive picture of himself, he wrote to his followers: “don’t show the photo to the children or they won’t be able to sleep :)” (kukiz, “dzieciom nie pokazujcie zdjęcia bo nie zasną”). the content of kukiz’s profile was clearly amateur in nature. there were no professional graphics on the rock singer’s wall, unlike those so typical on his rivals’ facebook walls. there were no heavily photoshopped images of the candidate, no professional infographics depicting the main points of his political platform. the latter only appeared in the second half of september, prior to the parliamentary campaign. the images of the candidate at meetings with voters were very rare, when compared to duda and komorowski. because of its contents, kukiz’s facebook resembled a profile of an ordinary user, rather than that of a presidential candidate in a country with a population of thirty-eight million. this amateurish impression is best illustrated by the post from the high point of the referendum campaign, in which kukiz wrote: “i’ve been silent for a couple of days because... i didn’t have internet access” (kukiz, “przez kilka dni milczałem bo ... nie miałem netu”). when compared to that of his main opponents, kukiz’s facebook communication seemed much more natural and emotional. mistakes, the choice of words, and the discussions of his own posts all created a strong sense of authenticity of the persona created online (marwick and boyd 149). both the form and the content of his posts were contrastingly different from the sterile, carefully thought-out posts by his opponents’ marketing advisers. this intensified the impression that kukiz was the real author of the posts published on his profile. not only was his persona authentic, but it was also similar to the persona of an ordinary social media user disappointed with the political class. kukiz’s facebook communication was emotional and phatic (marwick and boyd 148), rather than persuasive or informative. he used facebook as a tool of creating and managing emotional bonds with his followers. while most celebrity politicians try to create authenticity and an intimate relationship with fans and followers by exposing their private life, kukiz achieved this goal through playing his own online persona in a particular way; not through any intimate content, but through a communication style signaling an intimate relation. kukiz’s way of intimisation was very subtle, and the political content provided almost en passant like in this case: persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 63 “and so i am in dublin! :) onto the airport came the irreplaceable grzesiu zatorski…. and then, we went to a luscious lunch to conrad… martha (conrad’s wife) made….an absoultely delicious thing! :). tomorrow we are starting off our meetings. and now, by the way, i am providing conrad’s link from facebook .. party bandits have no self-restraint. what a horror …” (kukiz, “i już jestem w dublinie!”) because of this style, kukiz’s profile was not another top-down election communication channel, but a tool of constructing a parasocial relationship between the candidate’s persona and his internet fans. rebel with a cause: activating brand archetype through persona following mark and pearson, we define archetypes as culturally structured bundles of needs. according to mark and pearson, these needs can be depicted on two axes. one is affiliation-independence; the other is stability–risk. various combinations of motivations produce twelve fundamental archetypes of brands (mark and pearson 22). activating an archetype in a brand opens a way to the sense and the intuition of the group, and serves to create emotional bonds and identifications (mark and pearson 18-22). in terms of persona theory, activated archetypes allow individuals to represent arbitrary segments of the collective psyche. from a voter’s viewpoint, a campaign is the process of comparing candidates (popkin). voters construct an image of a candidate, seeking out differences and similarities. from a narrative point of view, the personas, as the participants of the media drama, enter into conflict with the other personas of the drama. thus, to describe the system of meanings, as activated by kukiz during his presidential elections campaign, it would be necessary to compare it with meanings as they were constructed by his two main rivals: bronisław komorowski and andrzej duda. our analysis focuses on their political advertisements, which serve to construct clear-cut images of the politicians and frequently position them within a certain archetype. komorowski ran his campaign under the slogan “agreement and security.” in his rhetoric, the incumbent pointed to threats to security and stability that the election of his main opponent could potentially evoke. in his ads, komorowski repeated: “at stake in this election is the most important issue—safety. safety is the primary need of poles. […] we want poland to be a safe home for our children. i hear it every day at my meetings with voters” (“audycja wyborcza kw bronisława komorowskiego”). both visually and verbally komorowski attempted to activate the archetype of the ruler who protects from chaos throughout his reign of power (mark and pearson 245) and whose goal is making life as predictable and stable as possible (mark and pearson 206). andrzej duda, with his slogan “a dignified life in secure poland,” was also addressing the need for security in his ads. unlike komorowski, he emphasised that the role of the president is also to take care of the weaker segments of society. in his ads, duda said: “the fundamental duty of the president of the republic is to take care of the nation, take care of the society,” and “his main responsibility is to serve the polish society, this is the primary concern!” (“audycja wyborcza kw andrzeja dudy”). the verbal declarations were congruent with the main themes of his spots. a significant part of the l&j candidate’s political ads was devoted to the history of poverty-stricken parents whom he assisted when the court tried to take their children away. the father of the family said: “andrzej duda helped to get back our children that had been sent to an orphanage” (“audycja wyborcza kw andrzeja dudy”). the spots of the l&j candidate abounded with announcements of assistance grants to senior citizens and reinstating an earlier olczyk and wasilewski 64 retirement age. caretaking was framed not only as a part of a politician’s role, but also as duda’s character trait. his wife, endorsing him in spots, declared: “andrzej is a very caring father and husband […] who gives me and our daughter a sense of security” (“audycja wyborcza kw andrzeja dudy”, may 21). duda tried to activate the archetype of the caregiver who “anticipates the needs and reacts in such a way, so that the people may feel safe and taken care of” (mark and pearson 207). while both of kukiz opponents decisively advocated the need for stability and security, kukiz found his niche on the opposite side of the security-risk axis. in his presidential ads, kukiz just declared that “a vote for him is a vote for the change of the system.” 93% of time in his advertisements was dedicated to describing “the system” with simple, persuasive, animated infographics. “the system” or, more often, “particracy” served in kukiz’s communication as a short description of all the dysfunctions of polish politics, as well as the cause of social and economic problems. according to kukiz, party elites manipulate people’s emotions by creating artificial divisions. they secretly co-operate and realise their own interests, which are most of the time contrary to the interests of the society, the nation, and the state. in effect, the “party oligarchy,” not being subject to an effective democratic control, fails to resolve the real political, economic and social problems. “particracy” is possible due to the proportional voting system. according to kukiz, the proportional system that allows party leadership to decide about the composition of the list of candidates limits both active and passive voting rights of the common people. the solution, around which kukiz attempted to construct his social movement, was a majority system with a single-seat constituency. in his view, in such a system the citizens would be able to opt for specific candidates, and the passive voting right would not be limited by the party oligarchs who draw up the election lists. changing the voting system would dismantle the “particracy” and would overthrow the party oligarchy. only then other social and economic problems could be solved. kukiz strongly and repeatedly presented this message in all the media channels during his presidential campaign. in line with the predictions of the 12 archetypes theory, the rebel in particular gets his message through to young people who are entering the adult life and alienated from the dominant culture (mark and pearson 128). the survey data indicate that the most distinctive feature of kukiz’s electorate was the age. in the presidential elections, predominantly, he got the votes of the young people. in the 18-24 age group, he received 46% votes, more than any of his opponents (boguszewski 1-2). in the elections taking place some five months later, kukiz lost more than half of his supporters from the presidential elections; nevertheless, the age factor remained to be the main distinctive characteristic of his electorate. the average age of those voting for the “kukiz’15 movement” was 37 years—the youngest electorate in these elections. the average age of the winning l&j party was 51 years, and the average age of cp supporters 49 years (badora 3-4). according to surveys carried out after the parliamentary elections, 53% of the voters of the “kukiz’15 movement” were people under 34. only 2% of the voters over 60 years old supported the kukiz movement (baran). there are two important differences between the ways kukiz exploited his persona in the presidential campaign and in the parliamentary campaign five months later. the first one is quantitative and relates to the relative focus on the personas of candidates in their advertisements. we built a simple index of persona salience to measure the relative focus of the ads on personas. the index is the ratio. the numerator of this index is the duration of candidate's appearance (a candidate seen or heard) in their advertisements. the denominator of the index is the total duration of a candidate’s ads. the index of persona salience is the first measurement divided by the second. the index ranges from 0 (a candidate is not shown or heard at all in his ads) to 1 (a candidate’s appearance occupies the whole duration of his persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 65 advertisement). this index for kukiz in presidential advertisements is very low—0.067. his opponents dominated their ads with the persona salience index of 0,58 (komorowski) and of 0.57 (duda). kukiz’s presidential campaign was focused on describing “particracy” and advocating single-member districts. interestingly, in his parliamentary advertisements, kukiz’s persona salience index was 0.68. paradoxically, in the more personalised presidential elections, kukiz exposed his persona over ten times less than in the parliamentary advertisements of his movement. this difference exemplifies the role of his persona in creating his organisation. in terms of the meaning transfer theory (mccracken 313-314), he invested in a unique system of meaning created around his persona in the brand of his political movement (which, we should emphasise, is called “kukiz’15 movement” and has the very same logo as kukiz’s presidential campaign). the qualitative difference between his persona in the presidential and the parliamentary ads is even more telling. in the presidential campaign his “personal front” (goffman 14) consisted of a grey jacket and a shirt unbuttoned at the top. in contrast to his opponents’ black suits, white shirts and ties, that was enough to signal his difference and outsider status. parliamentary campaign ads emphasised kukiz’s rock and stage roots. his image was accompanied by an arsenal of semantic markers, signalling his stage, rock, and antiestablishment past. in the background, one could see a percussion set, floodlights, a microphone, and kukiz in doc martens boots and black clothes. during other parts of the ad kukiz was shown at campaign meetings singing the election’s anthem “poland awakens, wearing our dreams…” accompanied by a rock band. it is worth noting that during the five months between elections kukiz engaged in “politics as usual”: he started visiting mainstream media, conversing with mainstream politicians and building an organisation which, on the surface, looked like yet another political party from the realm of “particracy.” he started to lose his outsider status and his rebel image. the support for his movement dropped from 25% in may to 7% in september (palade). it seemed that by emphasising his rock star roots he wanted to convince the voters that they still had something to do with the “old” kukiz; that is, the rock singer, the outsider, the rebel, who would lead the cohorts on their way to break down the old system and bring back power to the ordinary people. quantitative and qualitative differences in the exposure of the kukiz persona in both campaigns demonstrate the significance of his outsider-celebrity status, and how important a resource it was in creating the social movement and its brand. a lot of conscious effort was invested in the attempt to reconstruct the outsider persona and the rock singer/rebel image. the kukiz persona in the presidential campaign served as vehicle of a single issue: voting system reform. in the parliamentary campaign, it became the focal point for followers of the social movement and a source of the meaning’s transfer to the “kukiz’15 movement” brand. the performing persona: a tv celebrity talk show and debates comparing paweł kukiz’s and the residing president’s appearances on one of the most popular polish celebrity talk shows (kuba wojewódzki show) depicts which resources the rock singer used in performing his own persona. by comparing the appearances of the two candidates we have pointed to the roles played by them, their language, the way of framing problems, and non-verbal expressions and performativity. the most significant differences are illustrated in table 1. olczyk and wasilewski 66 paweł kukiz bronisław komorowski (the incumbent president) role a man with a mission a clerk language personal technocratic framing social and political problems an episodic frame – focused on specific people a thematic frame – focused on macro processes and abstract social forces emotional mode dynamic intonation, emotional commitment, citing songs and poetry monotonous intonation, emotional distance performativity forces host of the show to sign declaration supporting his single member districts reform, rich kinesics lack of performance, figure just sits and talks, limited kinesics table 1: comparison of candidates’ kuba wojewódzki show appearances in his kuba wojewódzki show appearance, kukiz built the authenticity of his persona and of his message in opposition to the official discourse of the incumbent president. framing his presidential bid as a campaign to give power back to the common people, he invoked the myth of cincinnatus. cincinnatus was called by the homeland and came to its rescue, then once the task is completed, he gave the power back and returned to his ordinary activities. or, in the case of kukiz, to the stage. in the show, kukiz said: “my aim is not the office. i swear on everything dear to me [...] i want to give poland back to the people. then i go back to the stage.” during the tv show, kukiz successfully positioned himself as someone who understands and represents the ordinary people, which contrasted with the technocratic discourse and persona of komorowski (“natalia siwiec i paweł kukiz”). komorowski played the role of a professional clerk and spoke that language (“bronisław komorowski i paweł domagała”). kukiz described social and political problems using an episodic frame (iyengar 11), focusing on specific people, their stories and emotions. the incumbent used a thematic frame, focusing on abstract, impersonal social forces and processes. in combination with rigid and poor non-verbal communication, he came across as a bored bureaucrat. on the other hand, the contents of the anti-systemic message and persona of the rebel were congruent with the non-verbal and performative component of kukiz’s communication. kukiz was performative in richard schechner’s sense; he was in the show to create social facts. throughout the entire programme, he was trying to force the host—one of the most popular celebrities in poland—to sign a declaration of support for single–member districts. komorowski, on the other hand, limited his presence on the show to evaluations and reflections. during the debates, kukiz reiterated the fundamental narrative elements of the “particracy” frame and listed the advantages of single–member districts. however, it was the performative measures that made him stand apart from the run–of–the–mill politicians he was debating. during a televised debate with the candidates for the presidential office he took out a folded chair and placed it next to the podium (“debata dziesięciorga kandydatów”). he said that it was an empty place for the absent, residing president, running for re-election. the empty chair visualised the absent candidate. a theatrical sign of absence appeared, accompanying the participants of the debate until the end of the programme. a similar gesture was used by clint eastwood with respect to obama during the 2012 presidential campaign. during the debate, persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 67 kukiz quoted a fragment of the letter from the parents of krzysztof olewnik, who had been kidnapped and murdered in unexplained circumstances, to the absent bronisław komorowski. kukiz’s persona’s emotional expression in live interviews, celebrity talk shows, debates, and even in televised political spots, was coherent with the emotional expression of his facebook posts. on the internet, kukiz used to describe politicians as “bandits and mother f…kers”, whereas during kuba wojewódzki show he cited the line “just how i hate you, bitches” from his scandalous song about the political left wing. on facebook, he constructed the persona of an ordinary outsider by applying the restricted code, and in the talk show debate he created the same impression by stressing that his children would have to pay back prime minister kopacz’s debts. the television performativity was transferred smoothly onto the online sphere. after kukiz finally forced wojewódzki to sign the declaration of support during the tv show, he published a “spoiler” photo on facebook. his outsider and celebrity status meant that kukiz could afford to cross the informal borderline of behaviour respected in the public discourse and respected by his opponents, the political insiders. operating beyond this borderline made kukiz look reliable and authentic. different, but still coherent elements of the persona communicated by various media created the effect of transmedial synergy and authenticity. lessons from the kukiz case: the power of celebrity persona, its limits and contradictions the history of paweł kukiz demonstrates at least two paradoxes of the persona power. modern politics seems to be trapped in a spiral of cynicism, in which it is portrayed as a game and perceived as an unauthentic, staged ritual. the spiral of cynicism generates a rising mistrust towards the media and political elites (cappela and jamieson 10-19). paradoxically, the stage persona of a rock star and vocalist proved to be a guarantee of the reliability and authenticity of kukiz’s political involvement. the second paradox is in the fact that kukiz based mass and grassroots movement on his own public identity. analysis of his electorate from the presidential elections clearly indicates that it was not united by any commonly declared values or by ideological ties and bonds (boguszewski 15). in accordance with the name of the movement, the kukiz persona was the focal point binding his electorate together. there are parallels between the various elements of kukiz’s trajectory and other stories in the history of celebrity politics. kukiz's presidential bid against cp and l&j candidates resembles wrestler jesse ventura’s campaign for governor of minnesota against democrats and republicans (west and orman 11; lentz). a strong appeal to the youngest voters, a message of change and a strategy based on grassroots movement are resemble obama’s 2008 campaign (sabato). there are also similarities between kukiz’s and donald trump’s messages, communication styles and celebrity personas. kukiz even wrote a letter to trump offering cooperation in a fight against “the monopoly of corrupted elites” (dubiński). one can argue that, like donald trump (and earlier ventura), kukiz was taken literally but not seriously by the establishment, and seriously but not literally by his supporters (zito). literal understanding of kukiz’s campaign message (voting system reform) led the incumbent president to announce the referendum. kukiz’s supporters took his anti-establishment, populist message seriously and treated his persona as a focal point of their negative attitudes towards the political system. at the same time, they did not care much about the detailed solutions kukiz proposed. therefore, the referendum turnout was lower than the support for kukiz in the presidential elections. the celebrity persona, even when institutionalised by a political organisation, again proved to be a better tool for steering attention and emotions rather than a vehicle of political solutions. olczyk and wasilewski 68 celebrity persona power has numerous limitations and intrinsic contradictions. the celebrity outsider status as a source of authenticity and, in effect, of political capital, rapidly gets depleted. kukiz became a victim of this process when the support for his movement started to fall, along with the increased involvement of the leader in the traditional political game. an attempt to retrieve political capital through a re-authentication strategy—for example by emphasising the celebrity aspects of the image—demonstrates both the strength and the limitations of the persona. advocating the persona, and in particular, the rebel archetype, probably rescued the election result of the “kukiz’15 movement.” at the same time, however, this move eliminated the chances of any effective broadening of the political base beyond the labile millennials. hence, the leader persona has become a trap, limiting the options of 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of their scientific persona as an expression of their expertise. although women were increasingly entering the scientific realm at the time, few succeeded in obtaining such fellowships. in this article, i shall take a closer look at the fellowship programme of the international federation of university women during the interwar period, which was specifically designed to enable women to continue their research abroad. by focussing in particular on the selection process, as evidenced by the minutes of committee meetings and the fellows’ files, i shall explore the implicit norms and expectations to which candidates were subject in order to reconstruct the ideal type of woman scientist. the fellowship programme was meant to function as a meritocratic and excellence-oriented system, in which personal and non-scientific characteristics did not serve as criteria in the allocation of funding. deliberately understating aspects of gender and developing a strictly meritocratic discourse, the federation promoted a “disembodied" type of scientific persona as a strategy aimed at overcoming a long-standing bias against the alleged amateurism of women scientists. whereas other funding bodies such as the rockefeller foundation contributed to the shape of a masculine persona, the ifuw sought to promote a universal model, in which women could be recognised as legitimate scientists. key words scientific persona; gender; fellowship program; women scientists; internationalisation; interwar period introduction in 1926, hundreds of women holding a university degree gathered in amsterdam on the occasion of the 4th international conference of the international federation of university women (ifuw). the main aim of this congress was to reflect upon the “practical problems for university women”. in her opening speech, virginia gildersleeve, dean of barnard college in new york and one of the founders of the ifuw, addressed her audience thus: persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 89 the greatest need of the university and professional women of the world at this moment is that they should achieve work of absolutely first rate quality – of distinction; work for which no apologies or explanations are necessary, work of which the world may say – not: “how excellent for a woman”, but merely: “how excellent!” (ifuw: bulletin 1926). in her view, the only way for women to be recognised as true scientists was for them to produce “so much scholarly work of real distinction” that questions related to sex would no longer arise when a woman applied to an academic position. all too aware of the common assumptions and biases that hindered the recognition of women scientists, gildersleeve here synthesised the aims and ambitions of the ifuw. founded in 1919, the federation strove “to promote understanding and friendship between the university women of the nations of the world, and thereby to further their interests and develop between their countries sympathy and mutual helpfulness” (ifuw: minutes conferences 1920). apart from the international conferences that took place every other year, one of its main strategies for achieving these goals was to grant women the opportunity to conduct research abroad. as early as 1924, an international fellowship programme was established, and the first fellowship was awarded a few years later to anne-marie du bois, a swiss biologist, who conducted research in genetics at the kaiser wilhelm institute (berlin). in the course of the interwar period, about 50 fellowships and grants were awarded by the ifuw to women in the arts and sciences. funding scientists to conduct research abroad became common practice at the beginning of the 20th century, when the emergence of new actors—non-governmental organisations, and more particularly those founded by american philanthropy—reconfigured the international academic scene. the organisational principle of (american) philanthropic foundations was to promote international understanding and to act as arbiters for peace following the first world war, but they also had a substantial impact on science (tournès 2010). not only did they contribute to the internationalisation of science by supporting researchers’ mobility and the transnational exchange of ideas, they also participated in shaping a new type of scientific identity. they did so through programmes of international fellowships, selecting and funding the most qualified candidates. yet how did funding bodies influence scientific identity, and what types of ideal scientists did they fashion through their international funding policies? in recent developments in the history and philosophy of science, scholars have sought to address such questions, shifting attention from the great names and major discoveries in science to the analysis of a collective and cultural image of the scientist, using the analytical prism of persona (condren 2006). pioneering this new research trend, lorraine daston and otto sibum have defined scientific persona as a “cultural identity” located in-between the individual biography and the social institution. a persona both affects the individual in body and mind and creates a “collective with a shared and recognizable physiognomy” (2003, p.2). the concept constitutes an interesting tool with which to question the link between scientific authority and legitimate knowledge (shapin 1994), and current researchers use this concept as a means to different ends. while some focus on the epistemic virtues that are cultivated within a specific scholarly community (paul 2016), others argue in favour of an understanding of the concept of scientific persona in which embodiment and performance play an important role (bosch 2016), analysing the impact of social categories such as gender, class or race in order to form a picture of the ways in which a scholar’s reliability and credibility are constructed. this paper borrows from the latter theoretical trends and addresses the concept of scientific persona formation from an institutional perspective. cabanel 90 as personas are contingent upon time and space, their emergence or disappearance reflects structural changes. institutional perspectives on persona formation have served to highlight the different forces at work in this process. herman paul, for instance, has argued that external pressures, such as the “scholarly or scientific reward system”, played a role in shaping scientific personas (2016, p.137). during the interwar period, the expansion of funding bodies introduced new forms of scientific reward systems (huistra & wils 2016) and “grantsmanship” (i.e. the “art of acquiring peer-reviewed research funding”) thus became an influential feature of the modern scientific persona, functioning as a token of reliability. but what about a “grants(wo)manship”? funding practices, indeed, seemed to have been instrumental in promoting a masculine scientific persona and thus strengthened gender imbalance in science, reflecting the gender orientations of university structures and wider cultural contexts (niskanen 2016). although cultural representations of “what it takes to be a scientist” were grounded in masculine norms, the progressive feminisation of universities’ recruitment policies from the turn of the 20th century entailed a greater representation of women in science (von oertzen 2014). between the wars the presence of those “university women” was no longer exceptional. however, as the historian margaret rossiter has shown in her pioneering study of women scientists in america, they rarely won “any awards from or held any office in major professional associations” (1984, p. 267). the fellowship programme of the ifuw, launched as early as 1920, was one female reaction to this gender imbalance. it aspired to give women opportunities equal to those of their male counterparts, in an era when research funding and international experience played a major role in the scientific world. on the basis of the above discussion, this paper aims to study the contributions of the ifuw in moulding and promoting a scientific persona for women through its funding policies in the interwar period. what norms and expectations were instituted in the selection procedure, and how did members of the fellowship award committee define the “ideal type of woman scientist”? how did ifuw members deal with the particulars of gender and the roles that come with it? after situating the ifuw in the landscape of research funding in this period and showing its specificity, this paper will further explore the federation's selection process to lay bare the type of model it produced, before finally questioning the manner in which selectors dealt with gendered and sexual parameters in order to legitimise the place of women in science. the ifuw in the landscape of research funding in the interwar period researchers focusing on women’s academic mobility have pointed to the existence of a transatlantic female elite from the late 1880s (von oertzen 2014), when university women in the anglo-saxon world began to organise themselves into local and national organisations. in 1918, the two main associations of university women in the united states joined forces to form the association of collegiate alumnae (later called the american association of university women, or aauw), appointing, for the first time, a committee on international relations. in her autobiography, virginia gildersleeve, then dean of barnard college and chairman of the new committee, recalled the first meeting she had with m. carey thomas, president of bryn mawr college, where the idea of an international association of university women was first mentioned (1954, p. 127). it was further developed a few months later when two english women, caroline spurgeon, professor of english literature (university of london), and rose sidgwick, lecturer in history (university of birmingham), visited the united states within the scope of the british universities mission. appointed by the british government alongside other british academics to develop closer ties with north american universities, spurgeon and sidgwick also acted as representatives of the british federation of university women (bfuw, founded in 1907). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 91 together with their american counterparts they decided to establish the international federation of university women. in 1919, the members of the american and canadian associations were invited to meet in london, and university women from several other countries were also contacted. a year later, on the occasion of the first international conference, representatives from eight organised national federations and delegates from seven other countries gathered in london, and the ifuw was formally launched. the number of affiliated branches quickly increased, reaching about 40 members before the outbreak of wwii. unlike other international women’s organisations that were—in theory—open to all women of the world (rupp 1997), the ifuw set strict membership conditions. only "university women” could apply for membership, but the founding members had great difficulty in deciding exactly what constituted a university woman and the international dimension of the federation necessitated the added complexity of comparing different national academic standards. they eventually agreed on defining a graduate as “a woman holding a university degree or its equivalent” in either the arts or the sciences. the profiles of the ifuw presidents reflect the international and interdisciplinary dimension praised by the ifuw. apart from the two founders, gildersleeve and spurgeon, representatives of both the anglo-saxon sphere and the arts, the other interwar presidents were eminent scientists from other countries, such as the norwegian biochemist ellen gleditsch and johanna westerdijk, the dutch specialist of plant pathology. the ifuw endeavoured simultaneously to promote women, science, and internationalism. like most international organisations during the interwar period, the ifuw’s members inscribed their work and aims in line with internationalist ideals and general beliefs on the role of education in the peace process (walton 2010; van oertzen 2014). in her opening speech as president in 1924, caroline spurgeon expressed her vision of ifuw members using a metaphor borrowed from lord bacon’s utopian novel the new atlantis. spurgeon pictured future ifuw members in the same way as bacon's imagined adventurers, “merchants of light” who travelled worldwide, gaining knowledge and bringing it back to their own countries, opening their minds to new cultures and people and fostering an international mindset dear to the ifuw spirit (ifuw: bulletins 1924). the internationalist orientation of scientific institutions in the first part of the 20th century, however, often functioned in the pursuit of more practical and scientific ambitions. in the case of the rockefeller foundation (rf), for instance, christian fleck and hella beister argue that even though the official motto of the organisation was to work toward the “well-being of mankind throughout the world”, its fellowship programme sustained a more scientific argument: “to serve the advancement of the best and prevent junior faculty members from abandoning research because of their teaching loads” (2011, p. 41). the advancement of knowledge was associated with the advancement of humankind in the ifuw's rhetoric, which also stressed the participation of women in this process (van oertzen 2014). given that the newly founded league of nations provided, through its committee on intellectual co-operation, a space for the engagement of culturally elite women (goodman 2012), one can wonder to what extent ifuw members took advantage of this internationalist trend to promote a "universal science” in which women might be fully integrated. apart from the international conferences, organised in different locations at two or three years intervals, various committees were established in the course of the interwar period to promote the causes and achieve the goals of the federation. one of the committees was in charge, for instance, of “establishing an equivalent standard for admission to the federation in every country”, while another dealt with matters concerning intellectual cooperation (ifuw: cabanel 92 standards committee 1924). as part of their work, members of the ifuw’s various committees conducted several international investigations, using scientific methods such as comparative studies or quantitative analysis. in 1934, norwegian lilli skonhoft, chairman of the committee on standards, published the results of her comparative study of the educational system in 36 countries and her work was used by the league of nations (skonhoft 1934). such scientific studies supported the promotion of the ifuw’s work, and helped to affirm its legitimacy. among these various committees, two were dedicated to the establishment and functioning of the ifuw international fellowship programme: the fund appeal committee, to investigate the ways of raising funds, and the fellowship award committee. empowering women scientists: an all-female fellowship programme the ifuw founders contemplated the idea of financing international fellowships as early as their first meeting in 1920. the american and british associations already had their own national fellowship programmes and the european fellowship of the aauw had been giving american women the opportunity to study in european centres of learning since the 1890s. the ifuw fellowship programme followed the model of these existing all-female programmes. gildersleeve, in 1920, justified this single-sex dimension by pointing out the fact than even those men most sympathetic to the work and aspirations of women might not think of them when “the question of an exchange professorship or sending students abroad comes up” (ifuw: bulletin 1920). based on this observation, she spoke in favour of the participation of women in (mixed) funding bodies or a women’s committee to insure equal opportunity for university women. the ifuw programme was thus run by and dedicated to women only and the members of the fellowship award committee met once a year to select the fellows. the british biochemist, ida smedley maclean, acted as chairman of the committee. as one of the founders of the bfuw and as member of its academic sub-committee, she had experience in selecting candidates for fellowships. her committee comprised the current and former presidents, such as gleditsch, westerdijk mentioned earlier, the british professor of physiology, winifred cullis (president of the ifuw from 1929 to 1932), and other eminent academic women, such as the austrian physicist, lise meitner, who worked at the kaiser wilhelm institute and who, in 1926, became the first woman full professor of physics in germany. the members were all highly respected in their disciplines and had opened the doors of academia to women. most of them had international experience, and the expertise gained during their years abroad had been a key factor in their academic and scientific recognition. the ifuw fellowships were open to women fulfilling two requirements: they had to be a member of one of the national associations affiliated with the ifuw and they had to be willing to go abroad for a year. in order to empower women in the different stages of their careers, two types of fellowships existed. similar to other funding bodies, the ifuw had “junior fellowships”, designed for researchers no older than 30 years who had been “engaged in research work for at least one year and who intended to do independent research work”. considering the case of more “mature women” in science, those yet to succeed in breaking into the academy, a “senior fellowship” was also established for candidates "preferably not older than 45” (ifuw: fellowship award committee 1934). although the international federation was an all-female organisation, it did not seek to create a separate sphere for women in science. to the contrary, its strategy was to change the (male-dominated) professional habitus of the scientific community by making women scientists more visible and by pressuring men to acknowledge their work and potential. by sending fellows into laboratories and universities worldwide, where they would have to collaborate with men, the ifuw participated in the persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 93 professionalisation of scholarly women and, in this way, countered the traditional perceptions of women as “amateurs”. in the course of the interwar period, about 350 applications were submitted for consideration. to evaluate applications that came from various countries and covered a wide range of scientific disciplines, the members of the fellowship award committee called on the expertise of a “panel of judges”, comprised, according to the statues of the committee, of women who “ought to be considered of the rank of a professor and also ought to have done research work” (ifuw: fellowship award committee 1926). the fact that the ifuw did not require judges to be professors, but to be worthy of being professors, demonstrates its consciousness of the underrepresentation of women within the highest ranks of the university hierarchy. the type of “hierarchical” discrimination that women had to face (rossiter 1984) did not mean that there were no qualified women. rather, by not making professorship a determining factor, the ifuw members avoided reproducing or reinforcing the prevailing gendered imbalance within the academic community, and by empowering competent women to act as experts, the ifuw bolstered the visibility of capable women already engaged in science. the reputation and fame of the “selectors” was important, as it redounded on the ifuw's reputation and on the fellows themselves. the ifuw leaders regarded their task of encouraging women to conduct scholarly research abroad as the most “vital and necessary” work of the organization (ifuw: bulletins 1924). they were well aware themselves of the different advantages of providing women with travelling fellowships, having personally experienced the importance of scientific mobility and international experience to the successful trajectory of a scientific and academic career. spurgeon, for instance, referred to her study trip to paris in 1911 as an “intellectual and emotional turn” (ifuw 1920). she had earned a degree at the sorbonne and the scholarly publications following her doctorate made her eligible to hold a chair in english literature. her appointment at bedford college in 1913 marked an important step for women in higher education, as she was the first woman to be elected to a professorship in london, and only the second in england. ellen gleditsch, third president of the ifuw, was particularly aware of the necessity for women from “peripheral” countries to go abroad and, in a book published by the norwegian association in 1932, emphasised the importance of scientific travel by describing her own experiences. thanks to a small norwegian fellowship and the support of her mentor, the professor of chemistry, eyvind bødtker, gleditsch went to paris in 1907 and worked at the marie curie laboratory for five years. trained as a radio-chemist at the curie laboratory and the sorbonne, she had the opportunity to conduct first-rate work in collaboration with marie curie, something which attracted international attention. her stay in paris was not only fruitful in terms of research, but also gave her the opportunity to extend her network. while working in marie curie’s laboratory, she met eva ramsted, future president of the swedish association, with whom she kept in close contact and with whom she collaborated over the years. as she wrote in 1932, “you return from such a stay abroad with a treasure—not literally of gold but something precious nevertheless” (gleditsh 1932 p. 246). in 1914, she was awarded a fellowship from the american-scandinavian foundation to study for a year at yale university. historians have shown that her international network and close connection to a scientific celebrity such as marie curie were a deciding factor in her favour when, some years later, she applied for a professorship position (lykknes et al. 2005). thanks to her expertise in radioactive minerals, a field important to her country’s industries, gleditch managed to become the second woman appointed professor in norway. cabanel 94 beside the financial advantages and the possibilities these fellowships offered in terms of training, one of the highest rewards of such opportunities lay in the prestige bestowed upon those awarded. to quote a member of the aauw, iva l. peters, in 1930: “to have been chosen by a learned committee when in competition with one’s peers, gave entrance to many doors which otherwise might remain closed […]. this is a value that lasts” (aauw: international fellowship, washington d.c. 1930). as researchers in the sociology of science have demonstrated, the award of a fellowship also confers prestige, reliability, and scientific authority to those awarded (bourdieu 1976; paul 2016). the institutions that awarded fellowships or prizes in recognition of scientists thus had a strong influence in shaping scientific persona. historians working on scientific funding bodies have shown that funding practices contributed in shaping a masculine ideal type of scientist. rossiter, in her study of the rockefeller foundation of new york city and the national research council fellowships, demonstrates that the selection procedures of these institutions did much to define the ideal fellows as “bright, young men” (1984, p. 269). in the case of the rf in sweden, niskanen has showed that the rf selectors aimed to select candidates with the potential to become leaders of their field. she argues that the rf identified the ideal fellow as male, as “the supply of women in most areas was small or inexistent’ (2016, p. 15). unlike funding bodies supported by (american) philanthropy, the ifuw had great difficulty in raising funds. in 1924, the ifuw endorsed a plan for the foundation of an international fellowship with the aim of collecting a million dollars to create an endowment fund, the income from which, it was hoped, would finance some thirty fellowships per year. the target of a million dollars that was presented in christiania, however, proved to be too ambitious, and was reduced to the capital sum of £6000 needed for one fellowship (ifuw: bulletin 1926). by way of comparison, the carnegie corporation was founded with an original endowment of 125 million dollars, and the rf enjoyed 182 million dollars capital (niskanen 2016). while the value of a rf fellowship in the 1930s was $1800 a year (about $25,800 today), the ifuw awarded £250 per fellowship (the equivalent of $8,300 today). between 1924 and 1939, the rf was able to award around 600 fellowships to scholars from europe and the british crown colonies (fleck & beister 2011), whereas the ifuw supported some 50 international fellowships. from this perspective, the ifuw exerted far less influence than better endowed funding bodies in science, yet we must take into account how few women there were among the fellowship holders of these other institutions. between the wars, in sweden, for example, there were only 2 women among 150 rockefeller foundation fellows, while in the case of the belgium american educational foundation (baef), only 50 out of 471 fellows were women (niskanen 2016; huistra & wils 2016), suggesting that for women in science the impact of the ifuw was far from negligible. defining an ideal-type of woman scientist in order to sustain and maintain the international federation’s ambitions, the selection of the "best scholars” was essential. not only would future fellows act as representatives of the ifuw, affecting its reputation and credibility, they would serve as ambassadors for women in science and as mentors for the next generations of students. on what basis were the fellows selected? what (implicit) norms and expectations were instituted in the selection process? a better understanding of exactly what kind of scientific persona the ifuw shaped and promoted can be gleaned from analysing the debates and official regulations of the fellowship programme and from scrutinising the selection procedure itself. in 1957, ruth tryon stated in the aauw’s commemorative book on the fellowship programme that “two things only were considered [for selecting fellows]: the capability of the applicant, and the usefulness of the grant for her growth and development” (1957, p. x). during persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 95 the council meeting of 1924, the board of the fellowship committee discussed in detail the criteria that should constitute the basis of the selection process. in one of her speeches, smedley took as an example large, existing endowments for travelling research fellowships. she saw the rhodes and the commonwealth fellowships, which selected their candidates based on personal characteristics—“especially on their power of making easy and pleasant contacts”—as a counter-model to the ifuw fellowship programme, while the beit or the rockefeller fellowships, “awarded almost entirely on the standard of scientific achievement”, constituted examples to follow (ifuw: bulletin 1926, p. 116). according to smedley, women should be selected on the same grounds as men in order to compete effectively with them – in other words, on the basis of their academic and scientific qualifications. the close analysis of archived minutes from the interwar meetings of the fellowship award committee give a better sense of the selection procedure. the archives include a summary of all correspondence, debates relating to the regulations of the fellowships and lists of applications received for the different fellowships to be awarded, with basic personal information about each candidate as well as the judges’ reports. collecting and transcribing every application mentioned in the committee’s minutes—successful or not—into a database has enabled me to pay special attention to the use and frequency of the expressions used by the panel of judges, in order to determine which qualities the ifuw members valued the most and, by extension, illuminate the type of scientific persona shaped through the selection procedure. table 1 below summarises the most important words used to describe the characteristics of the scientific persona that the ifuw promoted through the selection of the best applicants. before analysing the results outlined in the table, it is important to note the formal nature of the ifuw reports. the transcribed material was concise and the authors were clearly mindful of the language they employed, conscious, it seems, that that their written reports would eventually be available for other academics to read. this might explain the apparent objectivity of written material from the ifuw, in contrast to other founding bodies like the baef, for example, where the remaining notes appear more informal and thus subjective. the numerous occurrences of expressions such as "outstanding", "first-class", “excellent”, "brilliant" and “expert" highlight the excellence-oriented and meritocratic dimension of the ifuw’s selection procedure, but also testify to the large amount of qualified women in need of funding. what is more interesting, however, is the importance accorded to the publication records presented by candidates. such criteria helped distinguish professional scientists from amateurs (guillemain et al. 2016), a distinction of which fellowship award committee members were well aware. one of the most prominent features of the modern scientific persona is scientific “authorship”. taking hold in early modern history with the printing revolution and the advent of scientific journals, publishing and signing with one's own name quickly became crucial in establishing the status of a scientist (shank 2015). with the rise of professionalism and increasing competition in science, publication in a first-rank journal became a benchmark of the modern scientific persona. the ifuw committee and its external experts carefully scrutinised the journals in which candidates were published. the scientific reputation of the review served as proof of the quality of the applicants’ research, and, in turn, of their qualifications. although the scholarly literature regarding publishing does not clearly address issues of gender, it is questionable whether publishing was any less biased a process than either the funding of awards or the appointment cabanel 96 table 1 – occurrences of the expressions used by the award committee to evaluate the candidates between 1925 and 1939, according to the type of qualities. of academic positions. indeed before the 1940s, in those academic publications implementing a system of peer-review system, anonymity only applied to the reviewers, and not to the authors (spier 2002; baglioli et al 2003). the absence of a “gender-blind reading” might well have played against female scientific authors, although this question begs further research. those awarding the ifuw fellowships paid attention not only to the content of candidates’ publications, but also to their scientific style of writing. certain styles of writing or rhetoric choices could function as “signs or stigma of amateurism” (guillemain 2016, p.222). therefore, while the austrian physicist marietta blau was awarded a fellowship in 1932 on the grounds that she had “submitted a number of publications, given good evidence of her ability to continue carrying on independent research work”, in 1935 another candidate was eliminated because her writing was “of a journalistic [tone] and could not be considered as really scientific” (ifuw: fellowship award committee 1932; 1935). the intellectual independence of candidates constituted another important criterion in the selection process. because women tended to be regarded either as amateurs or merely assistants to professional scientists, it was much harder for them to make a name for themselves in science. rossiter underlines this issue of recognition for women scientists, often relegated to the role of subordinate, almost invisible associates. when otto hahn received the nobel prize in 1944 for research he had undertaken in collaboration with lise meitner, he mentioned the latter only as his “mitarbeiter” (subordinate co-worker) when she was a professor and an equal (sime 1996). the judges and fellowship award committee members for the ifuw thus looked carefully not only at applicants’ publications, but also at their letters of recommendation to ensure that those finally selected were able both to produce “original research” and “to work independently”. research quality and output number of references intellectual qualities number of references traits of personality number of references publication records 35 ‘outstanding’, ‘firstclass’, ‘excellent’, ‘brilliant’, ‘expert’ 44 mature, advanced 27 originality of the research 30 qualifications, training 27 initiative 10 research promising, of promise 27 able to work independently 21 serious 8 research project 23 able, competent 20 adjectives relating to personality and temperament 3 achievements, accomplishments 20 merit 8 international attitude, mind 2 critical, logical mind 3 talent, gift 3 imagination 3 total occurrences: 135 (40%) total: 129 (38%) total: 77 (22%) persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 97 what about the personality of the applicant? in the rare cases personality was mentioned by the fellowship award committee, it was used to decide between two candidates of equivalent merit and scientific achievement. even then, the emphasis was put on the “international” attitude of the applicants. in 1930, for example, the committee finally selected magaretha mes, as “personally, she appeared to be admirably adapted to hold a fellowship in a foreign country”, whereas gertrud kornelft failed in 1934, for, although she submitted “excellent scientific work”, the selectors felt that she was “personally less suitable as a promoter of international understanding” (ifuw: fellowship award committee 1930; 1934). such internationalist ideals were shared by most of the main funding agencies in the interwar period, and contributed to the promotion of the ‘“scientist ambassador” as the new ideal type of scientist (huistra & wils 2016). but what, in the eyes of the ifuw selectors, made one fellow more “international” than another? while the ifuw archives provide no clear answer to this question, the application form offers some indications. candidates, proficient in foreign languages and above all in english, or those who had already travelled abroad during the course of their undergraduate studies were perceived to be more likely to adapt to a new culture. by emphasising such social—almost diplomatic—attributes, the ifuw shaped and promoted a persona in accordance with the ideal of internationalism characterising this period. but in comparison to the fellowship allocation procedures of other funding bodies, observations about the personality of candidates are remarkably absent in the ifuw fellowship award committee records. if the “pleasant personality” and “charm” of candidates were mentioned in candidacy evaluations for the baef, for example (huistra & wils 2016), the ifuw selectors seemed to avoid making similar references, at least in writing. yet the question of appearance was crucial for being taking seriously, in science as well as in other fields, and especially for women (noakes 2008). some, such as marie curie, appear to have deliberately promoted uncomely versions of themselves, using their lab coat as a gender-neutral scientific uniform. the absence of remarks regarding appearance in the ifuw records, partly due to the formal nature of the reports, might have been a deliberate strategy to prove the seriousness of the selection process and thus ensure the credibility of the candidate selected. such motivations were certainly not explicitly articulated, but it does seem that the selection committee aimed to act within even stricter parameters than any other existing, mixed organisations. the fellowship allocation procedure was thus mainly dependent on criteria relative to research abilities and intellectual qualities, or, to use categories developed in herman paul’s work, on “clusters of virtues and skills” defining “what it takes to be a scholar” (2016). if paul’s theoretical framework is insightful, other factors, such as gender, race, and class, also played an important role in establishing the reliability and credibility of an individual (bosch 2016; niskanen 2016). a “disembodied scientific persona”? underplaying gender as a strategy the ifuw selection procedures gave priority to qualities and skills, such as internationalism, authorship, and so forth, and while the sex of the applicants was the first determining factor in the selection of fellows, characteristics related to sex or gender as such were not mentioned during the selection process. to what extent did the ifuw expressly underplay gender as a strategy to legitimise women in science? how did they deal with more practical issues regarding women’s private lives, such as marriage and motherhood? other funding programmes promoted an ideal type of researcher who could be fully engaged in research work without being disturbed by external elements. with regards to personal life and family ties, the rockefeller foundation, for instance, considered wives to be a distraction and cabanel 98 encouraged married fellows to leave their families behind. all in all, the rf reinforced research practices that fitted men better than women (niskanen 2016). historians have shown that the vast majority of women who engaged in a scientific career were single (boudia 2011; raynercanham 1997), largely as a consequence of the doctrine of the separate spheres, in which work and family were viewed as incompatible for women (abir-am 1996); it was also partly due to the disproportion of men and women in the general population after the first world war (nicholson 2007). the composition of the fellowship award committee reflected this general trend: with the exception of chairman ida smedley maclean, who was married and had two children, all the other members were single. in her investiture speech, gleditsch spoke in favour of celibacy when engaged in a life of research: research requires first and foremost a tranquil atmosphere, opportunity to think in peace and quiet, and to concentrate on a particular problem. material worries, concerns for a husband and children who are left at home without adequate help or care, will kill all chances of a first rate effort (ifuw: bulletin 1926). yet reconciling the professional and personal lives of professional women was a recurrent theme at the ifuw’s international conferences and while the personal circumstances and marital status of fellows make no appearance in the official minutes of the fellowship award committee, the fifth question on the application form was “are you married?”. unfortunately, as not all candidacy files have been preserved in the ifuw archives (only a few of those individuals successful in their application), precise statistics on the marital status of the applicants is not available. the prosopographical study of fellows in the interwar period, however, shows that a large majority were single at the moment they received their award, and most of them never married. married women or mothers were not discriminated against as such, but in no case did the ifuw committee make special arrangements for women with families. the candidates were judged according to their merit, and their personal situations never held sway. the outbreak of the second world war entailed certain changes, as the conflict had repercussions for fellows; some had to postpone their trips or return earlier to their respective countries. it is remarkable, however that even when facing a period of great turmoil, the ifuw kept close to the core premise of its fellowship programme. confronted with a significant rise in the number of the german (jewish) applications, for example, the ifuw did not give them priority, instead creating a specific emergency fund in 1936 to assist and help exiled german academic women (von oertzen 2014). underplaying gender was a strategy to counter common discriminations against women in science, but it went hand in hand with increasing the very presence and visibility of women, which is why the ifuw aimed to enhance women’s opportunities in science and in academia through a single-sex fellowship programme, and sought in turn to give its fellows a better chance when applying for professorship positions. this was certainly the case of magaretha mes, a student of prof. westerdijk, who was granted a junior fellowship in 1930 to spend a year at berkeley university, where she trained in one of the most important research laboratories for plant physiology studies. from this experience abroad, she became an expert in plant physiology, and was appointed to conduct research in this particular field in a south african university in 1944. she then wrote a letter to the board of the ifuw to share the news and express her gratitude towards the federation: here it means a noteworthy victory for women[…]. i ascribe my success in being appointed firstly to the training i received from professor j. westerdijk, past president of the ifuw […]. secondly to the chance the international junior persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 99 fellowship of the ifuw gave me to visit and study at universities in the usa and incidentally to discover what was being done and had been achieved by women in your country. in this an ideal was fashioned for me and i only had to try and live up to it […] (bfuw: academic sub-committee 1944). if the ifuw developed strategies to counter “hierarchical discrimination”, to what extent it did it challenge the second type of discrimination conceptualised by rossiter, namely the “territorial discrimination” defined as “the little prestige accorded to those fields in which women were prevalent” (1984)? what type of “science” and scientific practices did the ifuw favour through the selection of its fellows? generally speaking, it seems that the board of selectors was certainly aware that the choice of research field might impact a fellow’s career. the fellowship regulations, which clearly stated in which fields candidates could apply, show that the ifuw did not favour “feminised fields” or “female enclaves” (rossiter 1997), such as home economics, but rather tried to integrate women in to already established—and masculinised—fields. in the case of science fellowships, most of the candidates who applied did so in the fields of biology (45%), chemistry (19%) and physics (18%), branches that offered relatively more opportunities to women as historians have shown (abir-am 1996; rentetzi 2004). since the last third of the 19th century, abir-am argues, women had found more opportunities in “observational sciences”, such as botany, zoology or astronomy, disciplines that were traditionally more open to “amateurs”. how open certain fields of research were at the time to the integration of women might simply reflect contemporary cultural images of gender, such as women’s “natural inclination” for botany or medicine (jordanova 1989; schiebinger 1989). conversely, mentors or female role models explain the presence of women in some disciplines, especially the “experimental sciences”. three serious applications in the field of radiography, for example, were received from collaborators of stefan meyer, director of the institute for radium research, whereas in the aforementioned case of mes, the role of westerdijk as a mentor and role model was, according to mes herself, decisive. both meyer and westerdijk were known to have been supportive of women scholars (bosch 1994). cultural, institutional, and political contexts play an important role in the representation of women in science (rentetzi 2004), and women certainly did not benefit from the same opportunities everywhere. in 1938, the award committee created a special fellowship, intended for unsuccessful applicants who came from “poorer countries where women had little opportunity for academic achievements” (ifuw: fellowship award committee 1938). the research projects themselves were also carefully evaluated by the selectors. not only did these have to correspond to the highest scientific standards, they also had to be “valuable”, “important”, and “useful”. based on the fellows’ files, it seems that the fellowship award committee favoured “pure research” as a strategy to help women gain recognition as true scientists (keller 1985; oreskes 1996). as westerdijk stated in a speech in 1934, women sometimes faced prejudices questioning their ability to conduct “original, independent labour in the high altitudes of the academic or scientific world”. she thus emphasised the necessity for women to show they were able to “devote their energy to pure research” in order to combat this “easy generalisation” (bfuw: academic sub-committee 1934). the hungarian erzsébet kol fulfilled the two-fold purpose of the iufw, namely supporting the advancement of knowledge and the advancement of women by “aiding gifted women in equipping themselves to play a part in that advance” (aauw 1937). she had received a fellowship in 1936 to collect and study snow algae in north america and in a letter sent to thank the selection committee, she expressed her ambitions: cabanel 100 i must do a good piece of work—so good that the male scientists will recognise it. then they will see that a woman can really be a scientist. then it will be easier for all women who wish to be scientists in my country (aauw 1937). on rare occasions, however, the ifuw valued the practical application of scientific research, as shows the case of the only indian fellow, kamala bhagavat. applying for a fellowship in 1938 to work on ‘‘milk and pulses’’, she was reported by the selection committee to be “the best of the remaining candidates in the light of the subjects chosen for research and the significance of the contributions the candidates were likely to make in the future to the scientific development of their own countries” (ifuw: fellowship award committee 1938). indeed, her research proved to be of valuable importance to india, as she eventually received the rashtrapati award (president’s award) for her research on “neera”, a drink for malnourished children. conclusion whether we consider the ideal type of fellow that was defined in the ifuw discourses or in its practices, what is remarkable is that that the federation aimed to function as a meritocratic and excellence-oriented system. by rigorously basing the selection of its fellows on their intellectual abilities and scientific research, the members of the fellowship award committee demonstrated their intention to put the ifuw on par with the most influential funding organisations in science at the time. indeed, in comparison to other fellowship programmes, such as the baef, which historians have shown partially based its selection process on personal contacts, the ifuw seems to have shaped an even more scrupulous version of the prevailing persona. this strictly meritocratic image of the federation’s programme, however, is partly the result of the formal and rather impersonal nature of its reports and only further study will uncover whether other criteria such as age, social ties, and cultural background played a less visible but equally influential role, or to what extent the resolve to promote only the highest intellectual standards perpetuated existing privilege. the essential point here, however, is that the ifuw fellowship programme tried to curtail the impact of personal, non-scientific characteristics or traits in the allocation of funding, promoting a “disembodied scientific persona” as a strategy to counter the traditional bias against women’s alleged amateurism and to legitimate women as professional scientists. not only did the federation challenge the masculine scientific persona shaped by other programmes, it also sought to prove that women could wear the same mantle as men. by eradicating certain markers and gender assumptions from the selection procedures for its fellows, the ifuw staked out room for women within the parameters of the existing norm, and in so doing sought to reshape the accepted masculine model into a universal one. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 101 works cited abir-am, pg 1996, ‘women in modern scientific research: a historical overview’, unesco world science report. aauw 1937, aauw fellows, aauw, washington d.c. bfuw, minutes of the academic sub-committee [1928-1994], bfuw archives, london school of economics, london. biagioli m, galison p (eds.) 2003, scientific authorship: credit and intellectual property in science, routledge, london. bosch, m 1994, het geslacht van de wetenschap. vrouwen en hoger onderwijs in nederland 18781948, sua, amsterdam. bosch, m 2016, ‘scholarly personae and twentieth-century historians’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 33-54. boudia, s 2011, marie curie et son laboratoire: sciences et industrie de la radioactivité en france, archives contemporaines, paris. bourdieu, p 1976, ‘le champ scientifique’, actes de la recherche en science sociales, vol. 2, no. 2-3, pp. 88-104. condren, c, gaukroger, s & hunter, i 2006, the philosopher in early modern europe: the nature of a contested identity, cambridge university press, cambridge. daston, l, sibum, o 2003, ‘introduction: scientific personae and their histories’, science in context, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1-8, doi 10.1111/hith.10717. fleck, c, beister h 2011, a transatlantic history of the social sciences : robber barons, the third reich and the invention of empirical social research, bloomsbury academic, london. gildersleeve, v 1954, many a good crusade, the macmillan company, new york. gleditsch, e 1932, ‘kvinnelige akademikere – utenlandsophold og stipendier’, in nkal, kvinnelige studenter 1882-1932, gyldendal norsk forlag, oslo, p. 244-248. goodman j 2012, ‘women and international intellectual co-operation’, paedagogica historica, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 357-368. guillemain, h, richard, n 2016, ‘introduction. towards a contemporary historiography of amateurs in science (18th – 20th century)’, in v. barras, h. steinke (eds.), the frontiers of amateur science (18th-20th century), gesnerus, vol. 73, n°2, pp. 201-237. huistra, p, wils, k 2016, ‘fit to travel. the exchange programme of the belgium american educational foundation: an institutional perspective on scientific persona formation (1920-1940)’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 112-134. ifuw, bulletins [1920-1926], ifuw archives, atria, amsterdam. ifuw, minutes of the committee for the award of international fellowships [1925-1988], ifuw archives, atria, amsterdam. ifuw, minutes conferences [1920-1990], ifuw archives, atria, amsterdam. ifuw, standards committee [1924-1989], ifuw archives, atria, amsterdam. jordanova, l 1989, sexual visions: images of gender in science and medicine from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, university of wisconsin press, madison. keller, ef 1985, reflections on gender and science, yale university press, new haven. lykknes a, kvittingen l & børresen ak 2004, ‘appreciated abroad, depreciated at home. the career of a radiochemist in norway: ellen gleditsch (1879-1968)’, isis, vol. 95, no. 4, pp. 576-609. nicholson, v 2007, singled out: how two million women survives without men after world war one, penguin, london. niskanen, k 2016, ‘searching for “brains and quality”. fellowship programs and male constructions of scientific personae by the rockefeller foundation in sweden during the interwar period’(paper presented at the eshs conference, prague). noakes, l 2008, ‘“playing at being soldier”?: british women and military uniform in the first world war’, in j. meyer (ed.), british popular culture and the first world war, brill, leiden & boston, pp. 123-145. cabanel 102 oertzen (von), c 2014, science, gender, and internationalism: women's academic networks, 1917 – 1955, palgrave macmillan transnational history, basingstoke. oreskes, n 1996, ‘objectivity or heroism? on the invisibility of women in science’, osiris, vol. 11, pp. 87-113. paul, h 2016, ‘sources of the self. scholarly personae as repertoires of scholarly selfhood’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 135-154. rayner-canham, mf, rayner-canham, gw 1997, a devotion to their science : pioneer women of radioactivity, mcgillqueen’s university press, montreal & kingston. rentetzi, m 2004, ‘women scholars and institutions: introduction’, in s. strbanoca, i.h. stamhuis, k. mojsejova (eds.), women scholars and institutions. proceedings of the international conference, research centre for the history of sciences and humanities, prague, pp. 581-589. rossiter, mw 1984. women scientists in america, johns hopkins university press, baltimore. rossiter, mw 1997, ‘which science? which women?’, osiris, vol. 12, pp. 169-185. rupp, l 1997, worlds of women, the making of an international women’s movement, princeton university press, princeton. schiebinger, l 1989, the mind has no sex? women in the origins of modern science, harvard university press, cambridge. shank, jb 2015, ‘les figures du savant, de la renaissance au siècle des lumières’, in d. pestre (ed.), histoire des sciences et des savoirs. tome 1, editions du seuil, paris, pp. 43-65. shapin, s 1994, a social history of truth: civility and science in seventeenth-century england, university of chicago press, chicago. sime, r. l 1996, lise meitner: a life in physics, university of california press, berkeley & los angeles. skonhoft, l 1934, types of university training, lie&co, oslo. spier, r 2002. ‘the history of the peer-review process’, trends in biotechnology, vol. 20, no. 8, pp.357–358. tournès, l 2010, l'argent de l'influence: les fondations américaines et leurs réseaux européens, autrement, paris. tryon, r w 1957, investment in creative scholarship: a history of the fellowship program of the american association of university women, 1890-1956, aauw, washington d.c. walton, w 2010, internationalism, national identities, and study abroad: france and the united states, 1890-1970, stanford university press, stanford. rademacher 90 trump and the resurgence of american noir vir ginia ne whall ra dem ach er abstract this essay examines the political persona of donald trump as mediated by the imagery of hardboiled detective fiction and film noir. by evoking and distorting noir’s challenge to the status quo, its suspicion of systems of power and questioning of dominant norms, trump has fashioned his political persona in ways that deliberately revise the popular conception of the hardboiled hero as brash-talking rebel at the margins of a corrupt system. reading trump’s persona through the mediating function of noir exposes how trump’s rhetoric plays on, and benefits from, a theme of citizen estrangement while simultaneously reinforcing political expediency and self-interested power. moreover, it is not only trump who uses noir imagery provocatively to shape his political image. the media have also participated in crafting images of trump as either entertaining disruptor or more darkly destabilising. as responses to crises of capitalism, corruption, and social fracture, noir narratives provide critical ways of investigating periods of disequilibrium and their resurfacing in the present. analysing the production, expression, and reception of trump’s political persona through the historical and discursive structures of noir underscores the salience of the study of persona to reveal underlying fissures in current american politics and society. key words noir; persona; u.s. politics; donald trump; mediated identity; hardboiled detective fiction this essay considers the political persona of donald trump as mediated by the imagery of hardboiled detective fiction and film noir. as responses to crises of capitalism, corruption, and social fracture, noir narratives provide critical ways of investigating periods of disequilibrium and their resurfacing in the present. trump’s campaign for the u.s. presidency has confounded the traditional power bases of the political establishment and disrupted norms of political discourse. the decision to analyse trump through a noir lens also emerges from the differing ways in which both trump and mainstream media have depicted this disruption of political norms in terms we might readily associate with noir. while the media have alternately presented trump as entertaining provocateur or more dangerously destabilising, trump has cast his political persona as defiant outsider, exposing a dark vision of american vulnerability. analysing the production, expression, and reception of trump’s political persona through the historical and discursive structures of noir underscores the salience of the study of persona to reveal underlying fissures in current american politics and society. drawing from john cawelti’s analysis of the transformation of noir as a mode of interrogating the cultural myths that it embodies, i analyse the persona of trump as fake hardboiled hero and examine how trump’s rhetoric plays on, and benefits from, themes of citizen estrangement while persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 91 simultaneously reinforcing elite networks of power. both trump and the media use noir imagery provocatively to shape his political image. i examine to what extent these representations of his political persona sensationalise trump or turn him into a caricature that avoids deeper questioning, and how noir’s psychological framework may help to explain the appeal of trump’s political persona among his supporters. as a narrative and analytical mode of social criticism, noir provides a medium for investigating darker views of reality and human nature through character study and sociological investigation. through what he refers to as noir’s “transformational grammar,” a “term rhetoricians use to refer to the ability to intuit the meanings below the visible surface,” christopher wilson argues that “[n]oir allows its writers to interrelate deep structures of a political landscape—often to sort out its audible or silent voices—or to sense a hidden social syntax beneath public discourse” (489). applying this conceptual framework, my analysis involves not just the role of noir as narrative vehicle, or its relevance as social critique, but also its function as mode of inquiry into the construction of trump’s political persona and its discursive layers. trump’s persona as hardboiled anti-hero through noir’s dual functions to expose and critique social realities, i examine how trump’s political persona draws from and deforms the archetypal image of the hardboiled protagonist, and how demythologising this revision of the genre’s code and symbolism serves as potent social analysis. wilson observes that “[n]oir is perhaps best understood as a mode of examining the connections between outer, elite networks of power that struggle for dominance and the interiorized (and phantasmal) states of citizen estrangement that come to life within that struggle” (488). originating in the pulp magazines, formalised in interwar literature, and then further popularised in noir films of the 1940s and 50s, the hardboiled protagonist has continued to find resonance in contemporary american cultural production. as conceived by raymond chandler or dashiell hammett, the hardboiled hero is a tough-talking outsider who operates at the margins of law and civility as he navigates a corrupt society. frequently a private investigator with “no qualms about violence and questionable attitudes toward women,” he is willing to break the rules and to use violence if necessary in order serve his own code of justice (cober-lake). on at least a surface level, trump appears to reference and play upon established conventions of the hardboiled tradition in crafting his political narrative as selfreliant outlaw hero: here comes the guy who is all rage against reason, action rather than armchair deliberateness, a brash-talking, shoot from the hip truth-teller who is not afraid to go where others won’t. in their introduction to the first edition of persona studies, p. david marshall and kim barbour observe the “enormous activity and energy in the production, construction, and exhibition of personas” that has “led to this intensive focus on constructing strategic masks of identity” (1). donald trump is an example of someone who is profoundly aware of his own role in creating and “performing” this strategic public self. in his cover article in the atlantic, “the mind of donald trump,” dan mcadams observes how “trump seems supremely cognizant of the fact that he is always acting. he moves through life like a man who knows he is always being observed.” trump’s adoption of the hardboiled persona reflects various performative strategies. john corner has argued that political personhood is mediated in three primary ways: iconically (displaying the “demeanour, posture and associative contexts of the political self”), vocally (“such that the significance of what is said becomes more interfused with how it is said and the rademacher 92 political and the personal are thus more closely articulated”) and kinetically (the “political self in action and interaction”) (388). notably, trump uses all three approaches—iconic, vocal, and kinetic—to fuel his noir narrative and present himself as hardboiled protagonist. within this self-fashioned narrative, he confronts a failed and corrupt political system, comes into conflict with representatives of the official machinery, uses street-smart vernacular to shoot straight with those who feel disenfranchised from the political establishment, and is a man of action— constantly moving and doing—rather than contemplating. trump is not only absorbed with his public image or celebrity, but with shaping his political personality through confrontations that capitalise on perceived weaknesses in ways that he believes bolster his own comparative strength and status. “i never had a failure,” trump said in one interview, despite his repeated corporate bankruptcies and business setbacks, “because i always turned a failure into a success” (barbaro, "what drives donald trump?”). for example, as part of the cover and in the content of his 2015 book crippled america: how to make america great again, trump comments on the process of carefully curating the persona to be profiled on the cover of this book: “some readers may be wondering why the picture we used on the cover of this book is so angry and mean looking. […] in this book we’re talking about crippled america. unfortunately, there’s very little that’s nice about it. so, i wanted a picture that reflected the anger and unhappiness that i feel, rather than joy” (ix).i figure 1: cover image for crippled america noting that “people say that i have self-confidence,” trump contends that he has just been carefully building a case to defend himself against myriad potential critics; including the “relentless and incompetent naysayers of the left,” politicians who are really “losers,” lobbyists “lining their pockets,” “biased media,” “illegal immigrants” who have “taken jobs that should go to people here legally,” lawyers and judges who “recklessly appointed themselves,” and a presidency and executive branch marred by “incompetency beyond belief.” in response to their criticism of ideas such as building a huge wall along the mexican border, trump contends, “i have proven everybody wrong. everybody! […] i’m not playing by the usual status-quo rules […] i am telling it like it is” (crippled america 9). reading trump’s persona through the mediating function of noir exposes and demythologises “the hidden social syntax” within the discursive model. to examine trump’s political persona through the mediating function of noir as narrative and analytical mode also demonstrates intersections with broader cultural and political discourses around gender, race, and citizenship. as justin cober-lake observes in his review of christopher breu’s hard-boiled masculinities, “these [hardboiled] men aren’t simply literary archetypes, they both influence and persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 93 represent conceptions of masculinity that play out in the real world.” in a similar fashion, trump’s performance with these rhetorical strategies, as constitutive of his political persona, has public and political significance beyond questions of self-representation. through differing modes of “generic transformation,” john cawelti considers how appropriating the conventional genre elements of noir and applying them in an altered context allows us to perceive these traditional forms and images in a new way (504). he identifies the hardboiled tradition—“a pattern of narrative known throughout the culture and presented in many different versions by many different tellers”—as an important part of the popular mythology of american identity (499). yet, as cawelti suggests, the significance of testing, challenging, and even subverting the traditional conventions of genre coincides importantly with times of cultural transition. using the 1974 film chinatown as an example (this period referencing another time of deep distrust and upheaval in american politics), cawelti notes that despite how “close a resemblance” chinatown bears to the hardboiled formula, the film “deviates increasingly from the myth until, by the end of the story, the film arrives at an ending almost contrary to that of the myth” (501, emphasis added). it is my contention that we could say this similarly of trump’s adoption of the hardboiled archetype and the noir narrative he has used to justify his political persona; despite resemblance to the myth, “there is something not quite right, something disturbingly off about it” (499). while trump constructs his political persona in ways that play to the image of the hardboiled protagonist, the underlying syntax simultaneously undercuts key facets of this symbolism, challenging trump’s control over its communication and signification. by evoking and distorting noir’s challenge to the status quo, its suspicion of systems of power and questioning of dominant norms, trump maintains that he is simply exposing truths no other politician has the guts to acknowledge. in fashioning this political persona, trump deliberately revises the popular conception of the hardboiled hero as brash-talking rebel at the margins of a corrupt society, instead using nostalgia over “lost greatness” to justify violence and to assert political expediency as a means of self-interested power. employing cawelti’s modes of generic transformation, i consider how trump’s surface play and performance of his hardboiled political persona undermine conventional symbolism and meaning to reinforce a political construction “almost contrary to that of the myth” (cawelti 501). in this way, noir mediates the construction of trump’s political persona in ways that challenge and destabilise his dominant self-narrative. if we think of noir as both a style and as a mode of seeing the world with suspicion that something hidden, often something darker, lies beneath the surface, then we can see how trump’s noir styling of his persona coupled with a noir methodology invites us to interrogate the construction of this persona and to expose veiled meanings. in what ways is trump’s political persona a “narrative of falseness and fiction” and how does the rhetoric of noir mediate this construction? i want to concentrate on three particular aspects of his self-fashioned “strategic public identity” (marshall and barbour 4): 1) hardboiled toughness; 2) the use of nostalgia; 3) the american success myth and biggest “losers.” cawelti observes how one way that a genre’s conventional meaning is demythologised and shown to embody an “inadequate and destructive” myth is by deliberately invoking the basic characteristics of a traditional genre, but in ways that subvert its original meaning (507). as i have suggested, trump’s tough guise plays on the established conventions of the hardboiled archetype. psychologist dan mcadams comments that trump’s political narrative “is saturated with a sense of danger and a need for toughness. […] the world is a dangerous place. you have to be ready to fight.” mcadams identifies that many questions have been raised about trump’s “use of inflammatory language, his level of comfort with political violence.” he observes: “at campaign rallies, trump has encouraged his supporters to rough up protesters. ‘get ‘em out of rademacher 94 here,’ he yells. ‘i’d like to punch him in the face.’ from unsympathetic journalists to political rivals, trump calls his opponents ‘disgusting’ and writes them off as ‘losers.”’ this rhetoric reinforces trump’s conception of his political narrative as one shaped by his pre-emptive strikes against a series of potential threats to his image or position. be tough, or suffer the consequences in this lost, dingy world is how hardboiled protagonists of noir see their options. ken hillis contends that these characters’ performances are less about the existential ideal of being able to decide and assert their own subjectivity in a tough world than “commodity-identities” (brands, if you will) that come at the price of their own emptiness and loss of connection (hillis 31). within this view, noir toughness reflects the individual’s relative impotence, the view of oneself as up against a crushing, overwhelming opponent—of wealth, of industry, of governmental power. while this perception of hardboiledness may help to explain trump’s appeal to the disenfranchised (largely male, largely whiteii) voters who support him, it does little to coincide with the reality of his own class position and constant expressions of superiority and social dominance. the performance of toughness in noir—what hillis refers to as a “masking of the self” and a strategy frequently depicted as “making do”—is a surface posture, a defensive “mask-as-identity” that is intended to buffer oneself against the difficulties of achieving self-importance due to unequal access to economic opportunities and failed expectations (8, 31). within this classical noir paradigm, then, hardboiled toughness is a persona that masks perceptions of powerlessness and loss. as hillis writes, “[d]onning a tough persona, or performing it obsessively so that it becomes the self, compensates for having internalized the belief that one has failed [to be fully in the know]” (30). similarly, noir narratives often focus on the intersections between common citizens and powerful figures intent upon perpetuating or extending their social domination, “quite often tracking ‘little people’ who tried to tap into such a circuit but ended up being caught in its corruption” (wilson 488). yet, the noir appeal of hardboiled toughness stemming from failure within the capitalist endeavour, or finding oneself struggling and marginalised within it, seems particularly incongruous with trump’s narrative, by which business/capitalist success and net worth is equated with the moral superiority of “winners” and justification for dominating others. within trump’s paradigm, aggression provides further justification for ensuring social dominance, rather than its refutation. much of the way trump’s discourse subverts the image of hardboiled “defender of the little guy” that he ostensibly emulates in crafting his political persona has to do with issues of agency. the noir hero’s alienation and anger stem largely from the limits of individual agency against a corrupt world of consolidated power. the hardboiled protagonist is excluded partly out of rebellion, but partly also out of his exclusion by the power-brokers. the noir protagonist’s rootlessness, his physical and emotional lack of connection, are related to an anxiety of place, an awareness not only of injustices but of the personal inability to alter those realities. while these perceptions of frustrated agency and authority to remedy failed expectations may be reflective of many of trump’s supporters, there is little indication of trump’s sympathy or ability to relate. “for the most part,” biographer michael barbaro quotes trump as saying, “you can’t respect people because most people aren’t worthy of respect” (“how donald trump mastered twitter”). while trump incorporates the rhetoric of outsider rebel to his political persona, he simultaneously accords himself absolute agency. defending why “so many millions” tuned in to hear him in the primary, pre-nomination debates, he boasts, “why do you think people tuned in? to hear the nasty questions? to watch a bunch of politicians trying to pretend they are outsiders (like i truly am) so they can be more successful? the fact is that i give people what they need and deserve to hear—exactly what they don’t get from politicians—and that is the persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 95 truth” (crippled america 8). the underlying subtext is not one of rebelliousness against systemic power, but rather the boastful assertion of authoritative knowledge writ large. in examining this relationship between the self and the social in trump’s construction of his individual narrative, mcadams likens trump’s political persona to that of that of jung’s archetypal warrior. mcadams observes [the warrior’s] “typical response to a problem is to slay it or otherwise defeat it; his greatest fear is weakness or impotence. the greatest risk for the warrior is that he incites gratuitous violence in others, and brings it upon himself.” similarly, jj jonas notes that “[t]his archetype helps us to set and achieve goals, overcome obstacles, and persist in difficult times, although it also tends to see others as enemies and to think in either/or terms. the warrior is relatively simple in their thought patterns, seeking simply to win whatever confronts them, including the dragons that live inside the mind and their underlying fear of weakness” (“twelve archetypes”). jung, however, posited that there is also a “shadow” archetype, which reflects the unknown or hidden dark side of the personality. this shadow uses warrior skills of toughness “for personal gain without thought of morality, ethics, or the good of the whole group,” and is “active in our lives anytime we feel compelled to compromise our principles in order to compete, win, or get our own way. […] it is also seen in a tendency to be continually embattled, so that one perceives virtually everything that happens as a slight, a threat or a challenge to be confronted” (“twelve archetypes”). this association of trump’s persona with the warrior archetype, then, reveals both his persona as strategic mask—the effort to “impress and conceal” (through his self-narrative of relentless winner)—and a darker side of subjectivity (the shadow) that his persona cannot fully obscure (jung, qtd in marshall and barbour 4). nostalgia, loss and the american success myth i want to connect these conceptions of the warrior and its shadow with the uses of nostalgia and the success myth that also form prominent subtexts mediating trump’s noir-like narrative and persona. cawelti refers to the demythologising function of nostalgia that is “powerfully evoked” but in a way that simultaneously undercuts its supposedly comforting message, revealing instead an “inadequate or destructive myth” (507). trump embeds as a key facet of his political persona his capacity to “restore” the american dream, the assurance that he will “make america great again” (crippled america 8). if nostalgia draws from the “sense that something important that one once possessed has been lost” (gilmore 121), trump has built his political persona around the image that he is uniquely capable of restoring this ineffable imaginary, this missing object of “greatness”—whatever that might mean. richard gilmore observes that nostalgia pervades film noir because it underlies the genre’s characteristic desperation and violence: wild risks are taken because of a desperate faith that the game can be won, that the lost thing can be recovered. the ‘thing’ in the idea of nostos is home, or, more accurately for film noir, some romanticized idea of what would constitute a sense of finally being home. i am using home now for as a word for feeling like you are where you belong. […] one longs for this precisely because one feels its absence. (121) noir’s hardboiled protagonists identify with that sense of loss and alienation, the fracturing of the subject between where it is and where it aspires to be.iii in noir, this sense of loss is not confronted directly, but rather projected onto another who can be assigned responsibility or absorb the blame for this absence or failure. hillis similarly argues “the noir world indicates how modern notions of subjectivity […] are deployed to reject the explanation of the power of fate (frequently suggested in these films as equal to gender and class position) in favor of rademacher 96 instrumental notions of personal failings. this displacement leads to the constellation of class and gender-ridden ‘blame the victim’ strategies on view within noir” (11). in constructing his political persona, trump actively leverages this combination of nostalgia and racial/gendered/xenophobic anxiety, projecting responsibility for this lost sense of power and subjectivity on a host of “othered” antagonists. noir can function as both “trenchant social analysis” and “thinly veiled ethnic and/or class resentment” (wilson 504). within this dual mode, intersections with broader cultural and political discourses around gender, race, and citizenship manifest a “potent but often unconscious estrangement from civil society, typically expressed through the white detective’s phantasmal border work with threatening racialized or gendered others” (wilson 487).iv trump’s constant promise to “bring back” things that have been “lost” represents american possibility as defined by external threats and the need to defend against powerlessness in the face of them. he claims, “i’d bring back waterboarding. i’d bring back a hell of a lot worse” (democracy now). in externalising the “pervasive sense of loss among many of his supporters— the belief that the changes molding modern america have marginalized them economically, demographically, and culturally,” and placing blame elsewhere, trump’s use of nostalgia allows him to “evoke a hazy earlier time when american life worked better for the overwhelmingly white, heavily blue-collar coalition now drawn to him” (brownstein). in this manipulation and expansion of a sense of powerlessness in the face of circumstance, trump reinforces the deepening of social and economic anxieties and divisiveness often reflected in noir. as ronald brownstein observes: the growing groups long eclipsed in american life have no idealized past moment they are longing to restore. a young hispanic lawyer or middle-aged professional woman might not think they are treated equally today, but few are likely to believe people like them enjoyed more opportunities decades ago. the same is true for other racial and religious minorities, gays and transgender people. for all of these groups, the past that trump evokes is one that kept them subordinate, in the shadows, or worse. just as in classical noir the hardboiled hero’s tough exterior is a posture against his awareness of his relative lack of social power. his external projection of that anger and frustration onto women and others reflects his own deeply divided subjectivity and self-misrecognition over the limits of agency. that is, the hardboiled protagonist struggles with the conflict between internal desires and what he (or, rarely, she) is outwardly able to achieve. by manipulating this sense of powerlessness and loss in the crafting of his political persona, trump directly undermines the meaning of the hardboiled narrative he seems to adopt. robert reich maintains that “the economic stresses almost a century ago that culminated in the great depression were far worse than most of trump’s followers have experienced, but they’ve suffered something that in some respects is more painful—failed expectations. […] add fears and uncertainties about terrorists who may be living among us or may want to sneak through our borders, and this vulnerability and powerlessness is magnified.” in turn, trump has leveraged these lost expectations not out of identification but to define a political persona based around “restoring” social dominance and winning. “by winning,” franklin foer comments, “trump means asserting superiority. and since life is a zero-sum game, superiority can only be achieved at someone else’s expense.” in “crime, guilt, and subjectivity in film noir,” winfried fluck describes three versions of the noir protagonist that each define issues of guilt and responsibility differently. in the first, the one we would most closely associate with the “self-reliant outlaw hero,” the hardboiled protagonist only masquerades as a lawless tough guy but is never at any real risk of moving over to the dark side. rather, his apparent contempt for the law is actually an expression of his persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 97 strong inner-directedness and striving for autonomy (401). under this view, the performance of toughness in noir is indeed a “masking of the self” (hillis 8). since society is regarded as irredeemably corrupt, the noir hero is left alone to find another source of worth and selfrespect. his dilemma “is how to adapt methods and skills from the semantic field of ‘badness’ without becoming corrupted by them” (fluck 387). within this conception, the hardboiled noir protagonist “never lacks self-knowledge and never loses control over his role-play” (fluck 401). yet in appropriating this narrative of self-preservation and conflating it with selfinterest, trump both distorts and loses control over it, demonstrating it as a contrivance that begins to fall apart. absent any connectivity to the real social drivers that underlie the noir persona that he constructs, it becomes virtually an empty or malleable sign, open to be defined by emotion, impulse, and contingency. in turn, rather than affirming the warrior archetype, trump exposes the shadow-warrior aspects of his persona. by focusing on winning as an end in itself, “without thought of morality, ethics, or the good of the whole group,” trump’s warrior narrative fails to tell us much about what he actually believes in or “where he might direct his energy and anger […] beyond winning at any cost” (mcadams). while trump has sought to posit all sorts of suspicious externalities and malevolent subterfuges that are subverting his political success, to cultivate a narrative that individual business success will beget success for the country, and to incriminate others as losers and failures, these narratives have progressively spun out under his inability to control his own destructive impulses. elaborating on the emptiness of trump’s “warrior-ness,” mcadams comments: “it is as if trump has invested so much of himself in developing and refining his socially dominant role that he has nothing left over to create a meaningful story for his life, or for the nation.” gatekeepers and trump’s noir persona as gatekeepers of public political identities, the media have played a powerful role in the construction and mediation of trump’s persona. it is not only trump who uses noir imagery provocatively to shape his political image. media images frequently present trump through distorted angles, extreme close-ups, dark lighting, and contrasting light and shadow characteristic of noir (see figure 2). at the same time, by benefiting from the promotion of (source: damon winter/new york times) (source: andrew hamik/ap) (source: nick cote/new york times) (source: gage skidmore) rademacher 98 figure 2: media images of trump trump-as-spectacle, the media have also been self-interestedly complicit in facilitating trump’s narrative and hardboiled political persona, and in turn have further substantiated its mutually exploitative and publicly noir character. trump has maintained that his relationship with the mainstream media is symbiotic: “the cost of a full-page ad in the new york times can be more than $100,000. but when they write a story about one of my deals, it doesn’t cost me a cent, and i get more important publicity. i have a mutually profitable two-way relationship with the media—we each give each other what we need” (crippled america 11). he’s argued that journalists are “like sharks, hoping i’ll put some blood in the water. i try to oblige” (crippled america 149). and he’s claimed that even when the press is negative, it still enhances his “brand”: i don’t mind being attacked. i use the media the way the media uses me—to attract attention. once i have that attention, it’s up to me to use it to my advantage. […] so sometimes i make outrageous comments and give them what they want—viewers and readers—in order to make a point. i’m a businessman with a brand to sell” (crippled america 11). by so unabashedly representing his political persona as a negotiated construction, a kind of “deal” (“deals are my art form” art of the deal 3) that he orchestrates with the press, trump emphasises its discursive nature. in contrast to the hardboiled protagonist who holds true to a core set of values as a mainstay in an unreliable world, trump’s “resignifications of identity” rely on “playing” and “performing” to what sells (marshall and barbour 5). numerous analysesv have commented both on trump’s unusual media dominance and the way that the mainstream media have cultivated trump’s political rise in the pursuit of their own ratings. referring to him as “arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee,” harvard political scientist thomas patterson found remarkable “that the media seemed to give him front-runner status even though he was not atop the polls and was far down the fundraising list,” which was vastly more coverage than his rivals. neal gabler reflects that “trump was indeed gaining ground. but here’s the thing: he was gaining ground in some measure, probably a large one, because the media were awarding him disproportionate coverage. it was yet another post-modernist twist: the media jacked up by their own jacking up.” notably, the media benefited the most from trump’s most outrageous or incendiary statements. cbs chairman les moonves said trump’s candidacy “may not be good for america, but it’s damn good for cbs.” (politico). gabler further comments that “[p]romoting trump, creating trump, makes the msm [mainstream media] relevant again. whatever damage it does to our politics is, apparently, a small price to pay for higher ratings.” for both trump and the media, his persona has been perceived as a product, a marketable commodity, and its performative sensationalism as good business. this symbiosis between trump’s self-interest and the media deepens the noir picture of america. the noir symbolic of trump’s persona and of his candidacy are further confusingly embedded in american political culture because he invites a chicken and egg problem. the new york times’ mark leibovich questions: “was trump the logical byproduct of a cancerous system in which american democracy has mutated into a gold rush of cheap celebrity, wealth creation, and narcissistic branding madness? or has he merely wielded the tools of this transformation— his money, celebrity and dominance of the media—against the forces that engendered this disgust in the first place?” that is, trump’s persona of aggressive disruptiveness can be alternatively read as emblematising both sides of noir. on the one hand, it can be conceived of as a brazen willingness to oppose the old-guard establishment and entrenched political power. on the other, it can be seen as further substantiation of trump’s own media-embeddedness and persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 99 exploitation of his pre-campaign wealth and power. as jill lepore suggests, “trump is the last person to credibly claim to be an outsider. he is a media emperor, tweeting from his tower.” in promoting his seemingly unscripted and instinctual style (what mcadams has referred to as “the very best weaponry for an entertainment industry”), both trump and the media play off his strategies of volatility, unpredictability, and immediacy. john corner categorises three broad cultural and performative dimensions of mediated political persona. the first, political publicity, projects politicians favourably or unfavourably depending upon ideology and party affiliation. we could associate this with political “spin.” the second, interactive newsmaking, involves politicians (or their surrogates) participating in news commentary. and the third, what he calls “journalistic revelation” is when stories emerge (often without any political cooperation at all, or through leaked information) which are critical of a politician (395). what is notable is the way that these categorisations try to delineate the borders of privacy (the private self of the politician) from the public and performative persona. part of the performative noir aspect of trump’s persona is his brash expression of the seemingly private in the most public of ways. noir is a mode that claims to look beneath the surface to show us the murkiness underneath. trump both externalises and embodies this dark confessional. what would typically be repressed (in a conventional candidate and citizen) is exposed and capitalised on, both in an effort to bolster trump’s own brand (and its relationship to political persona), and also to benefit media ratings. through the almost constant mediated promotion of both his political and private self (via twitter and other social media), trump further muddles the public/private delineation. trump’s use of social media as a more direct and unfiltered method of communication with the public, as compared to conventional media, can in some ways be seen as democratising. however, he more frequently uses it derisively, not as a form of connection but of imposition. “i can let people know they were a fraud,” he argues. “i can let people know that they have no talent, and that they didn’t know what they were doing. you have a voice” (barbaro, “how donald trump mastered twitter”). commenting on trump’s forceful use of his @realdonald trump tweets as personal and political weapon, oren tsur et al analyse his “proclivity for using twitter to launch personal attacks on specific individuals” (“twitter takeover”). according to the new york times, over the past 16 months and nearly 4000 tweets, trump has aimed insults at as many as 282 different targets (lee and quealy). on many occasions his social media bursts have gone far beyond his followers to dominate the news for days. promulgating his hardboiled outsider role, he has tried to both use and get around the constraints of mainstream media, reconfiguring himself as his own gatekeeper within this participatory online culture as forms of “revelation and performativity that allow the social to move into the previously private” (marshall and barbour 5).vi moreover, trump’s distinctive on-screen rhetoric and body language have provided particularly strong evidence both of his effort to present an aggressive public posture in line with his hardboiled persona and of the way he has frequently distorted and lost control over this public persona. in each of the three presidential debates, he was easily provoked into personal attacks profoundly unrelated to public governance. his derogatory comments about television personality rosie o’donnell, or his under-the-breath, but on-camera critique of clinton as a “nasty woman” are cases in point. in the second “town hall” style debate, he physically shadowed clinton around the stage in a manner that seemed aimed at projecting dominance to throw her off her game. however, this instead resulted in him appearing predatory, more insistently uncomfortable and out-of-place rather than forceful. his facial rademacher 100 expressions also fail to contain his private disdain, contrasting with the focused sarcasm of the hardboiled protagonist, whose private life and internal subjectivity remain firmly guarded. despite the importance of persona to articulate the relationship between the “individual and the social” (marshall and barbour 1), the media have tended to evaluate trump’s persona in ways that neglect this broader dynamic and that thus distort his influence, assigning him too much agency or too little. cawelti observes how the resurfacing of noir reflects shifts in culture or exposes the limitations of its myths. if trump’s political persona reflects in many ways a resurfacing of noir in its unbridled exposé of self-interested expediency, it also reflects new indeterminacies and uncertainties over how to respond. as mark leibovich comments: “what i saw was polite routines and traditions breaking down as the political order reoriented itself around a new center of gravity.” burlesque is one strategy that has transformed noir and encouraged us to reconsider and adapt its contemporary role to comment on and critique social reality (cawelti). under this formation, the characteristic toughness and vison of the hardboiled protagonist are “undermined through irony or parody and shown to be insufficient” (506-7). early in trump’s presidential candidacy, especially, there was a tendency among many pundits to read trump as nothing more than a joke—a clown or buffoon. leibovich notes the media’s “fear of abetting a circus,” and his own prior conception of trump as a “cartoonish demagogue.” in perhaps more benevolent fashion, maureen dowd comments, “i enjoy trump’s hyberbolic, un p.c. flights because there are too few operatic characters in this world. i think of him as a toon. he’s just drawn that way.” alternatively, trump’s economic and political abuses of power and moral decrepitude have been depicted in terms of a destructiveness and evil that eludes any moral complexity— “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul” (mcadams). yet, in envisioning trump as either a laughable buffoon or an all-powerful villain, to what extent do these representations merely sensationalise trump or turn him into a caricature that avoids deeper questioning of what is behind the “strategic mask”? various analysts have noted the seeming emptiness of the self behind trump’s persona. in his biography of donald trump, michael d’antonio reports “it was donald trump playing donald trump. […] there was something unreal about it.” leibovich states that “trump might be the single most self-involved yet least introspective person i have ever met in my life, in or out of politics. […] it’s unsettling to encounter a prospective leader whose persona is so conspicuous and well-defined and yet whose core is so obtuse.” reflecting on his political campaign and persona, trump himself frames it in these terms: “some people think it will be good for my brand. […] i think it will be irrelevant for my brand” (leibovich). this hollowness suggests one of the central ways trump discredits his persona as a hardboiled protagonist. rather than hardening himself externally because of the internal loss of trust in a world gone awry, trump empties this existential malaise of its meaning, making it all about marketed image and brand identity. moreover, persona studies affirms its relevance not only through what the construction of trump’s persona reveals about the inner trump (whoever that may be), but also in the interplay with the wider cultural and political discourses of our time. one psychological argument that may underlie support for trump is voyeuristic pleasure in seeing trump break the rules and “get away with” things that frustrated individuals might feel guilty for expressing themselves. for those who oppose him, there may also be selfcongratulatory pleasure in his take-down, the moral superiority that affirms someone else’s guilt and one’s own relative innocence.vii yet, in noir-like realities, “closure” remains elusive; even if individual crimes can be solved, “the inequities in the status quo commonly remain in place” (wilson 487). even if we could solve all the mysteries of trump, the underlying social and persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 101 political fractures which have substantiated his rise would not miraculously go away. “in noir,” as nicholas seeley highlights, “the problem is not an individual: the problem is the world.” the mediation of trump’s political persona through the cultural imagery of noir communicates the significance of this identity as both emblematic of a noir-like context and a call for how a noir mindset is needed to examine difficult underlying realities his candidacy has exposed. as metacritical modes, both persona studies and noir narratives provide potent vehicles for contesting surface meanings and laying bare hollowed out rhetoric. persona studies invites us to investigate and articulate “the play of persona historically and in contemporary culture” (marshall and barbour 1) from a point of suspicion with respect to the public self. similarly, at its best, noir—as a mode of investigation—“changes what we think we know or think we can hear; it rewrites the lines of causation we think we can discern” (wilson 489). taken together, both can remind us of abuses of power, but also the importance of culture that questions the imposition of meaning and authority and defiantly keeps those in play. end notes i notably, trump published a paperback version of this same text eight months later, entitled great again: how to fix our crippled america, with a cover markedly less noir and more symbolically nationalistic. what i find especially interesting about this is how, with no change to their textual content, these covers could be so diametrically different within an eight-month span. ii a december 2016 washington post analysis found that trump’s supporters skewed male, white, and low-income. the male-female gap was 19 percentage points (47% men versus 28% women) (cited in “who are donald trump’s supporters, really?”, the atlantic 1 mar 2016). similarly, a washington post-abc news poll suggests that trump's supporters are not just overwhelmingly white. they are also largely male. in the post-abc poll, nearly two out of every three people supporting trump were men (“what we mean when we say donald trump’s supporters are ‘struggling’” washington post 13 may 2016). iii the data on white male trump supporters cited above (endnote 4) may also help explain why trump's supporters are so nostalgic for bygone times. a recent poll by the pew research center found that three out of every four people supporting trump said life in america was better "for people like them" 50 years ago. among all voters, fewer than half agreed (cited in “what we mean when we say donald trump’s supporters are ‘struggling’” washington post 13 may 2016). iv see also rabinowitz 2002; entin 2010; auerbach 2008; breu 2006. v the examples are too numerous to cite. for an interesting overall analysis, see: “the case against the media. by the media”: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/caseagainst-media.html. vi of interest, too, is jill lepore’s argument that “as social media ties loosen the old, elitist bonds on politics with their immediacy and increased participation, they reach a point where they outpace our ability to process the information they provide. as a result, they subvert rather than aid in our understanding” (gabler). in what has often been referred to as “post-truth” culture, individuals are trying to process so much information from so many different sources, that they can’t effectively prioritise what’s true. noir emerges in a context of moral and http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/case-against-media.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/case-against-media.html rademacher 102 epistemological uncertainty that seems to be deepening in our times, and of which trump is just one prominent example. vii in an effort to explain why the “dramatizations of self-dissolution” of film noir should be so popular, fluck suggests that “one reason for the appeal of the ‘low’ may be sought in the fact that it permits the articulation of impulses that may still be considered ‘extreme’ but are nonetheless ‘tempting.’ fluck notes, “film noir has a highly performative dimension that invites pleasure in imaginary participation without actual emotional involvement” (404-5). works cited abrams, jerold. "space, time, and subjectivity in neo-noir." the philosophy of neonoir. ed. mark t. conrad. lexington: university press of kentucky, 2007. 7-20. print. auerbach, jonathan. "noir citizenship: anthony mann's 'border incident.'" cinema journal 47.4 (2008): 102-20. print. barbaro, michael. "pithy, mean and powerful: how donald trump mastered twitter for 2016." web. 5 october 2015. ---. "what drives donald trump? fear of losing status, tapes show." the new york times. web. 25 october 2016. breu, christopher. hard-boiled masculinities. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2006. print. brownstein, ronald. "trump's rhetoric of white nostalgia." the atlantic. web. 2 june 2016. cawelti, john. "chinatown and generic transformation in recent american films." film theory and criticism (1992): 498-511. print. cober-lake, justin. "hard-boiled masculinities." pop matters (2016). web. collins, eliza. "les moonves: "trump's run is damn good for cbs"." politico. web. 29 feburary 2016. corner, john. "mediated persona and political culture: dimensions of structure and process." european journal of cultural studies 3.3 (2000): 386-402. print . davies, william. "the age of post-truth politics." new york times. web. 24 august 2016. detrick, paul. "donald trump's win on super tuesday proves he's terrifyingly real." reason.com. web. 5 march 2016. dowd, maureen. "trump the disrupter." new york times: sunday review. web. 8 august 2015. edsall, thomas b. "purity, disgust and donald trump." the new york times. web. 6 january 2016. ehrenfreund, max. "what we mean when we say donald trump's supporters are struggling." the washington post. web. 13 may 2016. entin, joseph. "'terribly incomplete things': no-no boy and the ugly feelings of noir." melus 35.3 (2010): 85-104. print. fluck, winfried. "crime, guilt and subjectivity in film noir." amerikastudien/american studies 46.3 (2001): 379-408. print. foer, franklin. "donald trump hates women." web. 24 march 2016. gabler, neal. "how the media overthrew politics." moyers and company. web. 6 july 2016. giddens, anthony. modernity and self-identity: self and society in the late modern age. stanford: stanford university press, 1991. print . gilmore, richard. "the dark sublimity of chinatown." the philosophy of neo-noir. ed. mark t. conrad. lexington: university press of kentucky, 2007. 119-136. print. hillis, ken. "film noir and the american dream: the dark side of enlightenment." velvet light trap 55 (2005): 1-18. print. jonas, jj. the twelve archetypes. n.d. web. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 103 lee, jasmine and kevin quealy. "the 282 people, places, and things donald trump has insulted on twitter: a complete list." the new york times. web. 23 october 2016. leibovich, mark. "donald trump is not going anywhere." new york times. web. 29 september 2015. lepore, jill. "the party crashers: is the new populism about the image or the medium?" the new yorker. web. 22 february 2016. marshall, p. david and kim barbour. "making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective." persona studies 1.1 (2015): 1-12. print. mcadams, dan. "the mind of donald trump." the atlantic (2016). web. patterson, thomas e. pre-primary news coverage of the 2016 presidential race: trumps; rise, sanders' emergence;, clinton's' struggle. 2016. web. "post-truth politics: art of the lie." web. 10 september 2016. rabinowitz, paula. black and white and noir. new york: columbia university press, 2002. print. reich, robert. "an american fascist." chicago tribune. web. 8 march 2016. schuler, jeanne and patrick murrary. ""anything is possible here": capitalism, neo-noir, and chinatown." the philosophy of neo-noir. ed. mark t. conrad. lexington: university press of kentucky, 2007. 167-182. print. seeley, nicholas. noir is protest literature: that's why it's having a renaissance. web. 27 april 2016. siegel, lee. "the selling of donald j. trump." the new york times. web. 9 september 2016. thompson, derek. "who are donald trump's supporters, really?" the atlantic. web. 1 march 2016. "trump leads gop charge embracing torture: i'd bring back a lot worse than waterboarding." democracy now. web. 8 february 2016. trump, donald. crippled america: how to make america great again. new york: simon and schuster, 2015. print. trump, donald with tony schwartz. trump: the art of the deal. new york: random house, 1987. print. tsur, oren et al. "the data behind trump's twitter takeover." politico. web. 29 april 2016. wilson, christopher. "when noir meets nonfiction." twentieth-century literature 61.4 (2015): 484-510. print. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 13 get off my internets: how antifans deconstruct lifestyle bloggers’ authenticity work sar ah mcrae abstract this paper examines the nature of authenticity labour in personal lifestyle blogging through a case study of travel bloggers. specifically, it looks at how participants in the blogging anti-fan community get off my internets (gomi) identify and deconstruct lifestyle bloggers’ efforts to perform an ‘authentic’ persona. within the broader context of online micro-celebrity, self-branding, and persona, i examine authenticity as a kind of labour that is necessary for lifestyle blogging ‘success,’ where success is measured by metrics like heavy website traffic and brand sponsorships. lifestyle bloggers perform authenticity partly by narrating the process of cultivating personal authenticity through the ongoing process of selfimprovement towards an idealized goal. this personal authenticity is based on existentialist notions of ‘being true’ to one’s essential nature and personal commitments. in the gomi community, bloggers’ representations of the inner life are frequently viewed with suspicion, and interpreted as ‘staged,’ and therefore inauthentic, performances of authenticity. bloggers are also expected to demonstrate a commitment to ethical authenticity, and, subsequently, attempts to monetize their content through sponsorships and affiliate links are viewed with suspicion. lastly, authenticity work in lifestyle blogging involves emphasizing one’s ordinariness alongside one’s extraordinariness, resulting in what i call ‘aspirational extra/ordinariness.’ by observing trends in how travel bloggers perform authenticity and how anti-fans deconstruct these performances, it becomes apparent that critical publics identify inauthenticity in moments where the constructedness or performedness of authenticity is most apparent, indicating that while micro-celebrities rely on authenticity labour for their popularity, this very labour can detract from a persona’s perceived authenticity when it becomes obvious to publics. key words authenticity, persona, micro-celebrity, blog, anti-fan this paper examines the authenticity discourses surrounding personal lifestyle blogs, which i define as autobiographical blogs focused on aspects of ‘living well,’ usually dedicated to ‘niche’ genres like travel, parenting, fitness, etc. specifically, it looks at how participants in the blogging anti-fan forum get off my internets (gomi) identify and deconstruct lifestyle bloggers’ efforts to perform an ‘authentic’ persona. within the context of online micro-celebrity, i examine authenticity as a kind of labour that is necessary for lifestyle blogging success. ‘success’ in this case is defined as social and monetary capital acquired through heavy website traffic and brand sponsorships. i include a case study of gomi’s ‘travel blogging’ subforum in order to give an mcrae 14 example of how lifestyle blogger ‘anti-fandoms’ draw on genre expertise to negotiate what makes bloggers appear inauthentic within the context of their blogging niche. from observing how the participants within the ‘travel bloggers’ subforum talk about authenticity, i observe, first, that bloggers’ narratives of ongoing self-improvement and self-fulfilment in the pursuit of existential authenticity (conceived of as being true to oneself and one’s personal commitments) are frequently viewed with suspicion, and interpreted as ‘staged’ (and therefore inauthentic) performances of authenticity. secondly, i note that bloggers are criticized for not adhering to a discernible, consistent personal ethic, such as when they promote products for sponsors in a seemingly forced or inauthentic manner. lastly, it is apparent that, across lifestyle genres, authenticity work involves curating a persona that is aspirational, but ordinary, attracting followers with the narrative that the extraordinary lifestyle being presented can be achieved by the average person, if they follow the blogger’s example. because anti-fans are especially attentive to evidence of the constructedness of microcelebrity persona, gomi discourse gives us insight into the numerous ways in which artifice is registered: the trends mentioned above suggest that doubts about micro-celebrity authenticity can be distilled to concerns about the inauthenticity of authenticity labour. once bloggers are perceived to be actively working to present an authentic persona, the success of this work is jeopardized. one way in which authenticity labour becomes obvious to publics is through the use of unoriginal or generic strategies. as emerging genres develop enough to have their own norms, tropes, and dedicated followers who become ‘genre experts,’ some kinds of posts become so familiar that they appear unoriginal or inauthentic. as joshua gamson observes in his study of contemporary american celebrity culture, “yesterday’s markers of sincerity and authenticity are today’s signs of hype and artifice” (1994, p. 144). further, if a blogger shares content that does not fully align with previous representations of who she is and what she claims to value, this might be taken as evidence that there is no substance or ‘authentic self’ behind her persona, and that the blogger simply adapts her identity to fit the exigencies of the moment, whether that means sharing the right intimate disclosure at the right time, or accommodating the demands of sponsors. when publics perceive evidence of unoriginality and inconsistency in bloggers’ personas, they are less likely to accept personas as authentic, recognizing instead that personas are constructed. through an exploration of trends in how gomi participants identify inauthenticity in lifestyle bloggers’ persona work, it becomes clear that online micro-celebrities’ ability to perform authenticity is most jeopardized when the fact of persona as something that is performed is most discernible. why study get off my internets? the front page of the website get off my internets features news-style updates on content posted by popular lifestyle bloggers, highlighting the ridiculous or obviously insincere aspects of bloggers’ updates, with writers and commenters delighting in picking apart bloggers’ lapses in judgment. what is particularly fascinating about this website, however, is the forum attached to it. the gomi discussion forum is divided into subforums based on different lifestyle blogging genres, where participants criticize individual bloggers, picking out and tearing apart examples of all things staged, insincere, unethical, exaggerated — in short, all things inauthentic. how should we define an online community that appears to exist for the sole purpose of expressing dislike for online micro-celebrities? henry jenkins’ term “participatory culture” (1992; 2006) provides a starting point. this term refers to the influence of networked media in the movement from a one-to-many culture of passive audiences/consumers, to a many-to-many culture where consumers of digital products and users of digital services can actively respond and disseminate their own ideas and creations using the same sites. however, jenkins’ framing of participatory culture tends to focus on the potential for civic and creative engagement from participants in online culture, avoiding less friendly forms of participation like parody and trolling. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 15 i propose that we can think of gomi as peculiar subset of participatory culture called the ‘anti-fandom.’ anti-fan communities are similar to regular fandoms, in that they provide “a semistructured space where competing interpretations and evaluations of texts are proposed, debated, and negotiated and where readers speculate about the nature of mass media and their own relationship to it” (jenkins 1992, p. 88). in his work on anti-fans, jonathan gray looks at what he calls “sarcastic criticism” or “snark” in the form of acerbic commentary and summaries of tv shows and episodes considered bad (2005, p. 846). he observes that anti-fans form their own communities or “hijack” existing fan communities (2005, p. 847). liz giuffre describes anti-fandom as “a system of community and identity formation based on an agreed upon disapproval of a particular artist, genre, movement, or piece” (2014, p. 50). she differentiates it from the term “hater,” arguing that “unlike hate, which is arguably a destructive process, antifandom can be a constructive form of engagement” (2014, p. 53). for example, anti-fan critique influences future directions in production of content, and still generates traffic for the person being discussed. performing a case study of a sub-community of gomi’s anti-fan forum gives insight into publics’ expectations for how micro-celebrities should perform authentic personas. the ‘travel bloggers’ subforum of gomi is relatively new, and was created in response to user demand in 2015. compared to the more popular ‘healthy living’ and ‘diy’ forums, where some discussion threads for the most popular blogs are thousands of pages long and updated by the minute, the ‘travel bloggers’ forum has a smaller community of genre experts, with only a handful of bloggers inspiring multi-thread pages. although it is less active than other subforums, the travel blogger forum provides us with examples of the kinds of authenticity discourses that occur in discussions of other blogging genres, but on a smaller scale that makes it possible to give an overview of trends and topics specific to a particular genre. i would argue that in order to understand how gomi works as an anti-fan discourse community, it is essential to recognize how this community breaks down into several smaller discourse communities (subforums). in order to effectively participate in a particular subforum, participants demonstrate knowledge of the bloggers beings discussed, as well as the broader context of the blogging niche in which they write. my observation of activity in the ‘travel bloggers’ forum reveals some recurring trends in how authenticity is evaluated within the travel blog genre. travel bloggers are judged based on moments of ‘staged’ existential authenticity, questions of ethical authenticity, and their failure to provide a convincing presentation of ‘aspirational extra/ordinariness.’ i propose that, while each of these components are also relevant to other lifestyle blogging genres, it is important to recognize that the specifics of how these elements manifest vary according to genre. this case study is meant to give an example of how participants within gomi subforums negotiate casual metrics for evaluating authenticity with specific reference to the norms of a blogger’s niche genre, which lends crucial insight into how lifestyle bloggers must manage their personas according to genre-specific codes of authenticity. looking at how the gomi community pinpoints inauthenticity along genre lines helps us understand the inherently fluid, negotiated nature of authenticity work within online micro-celebrity persona construction and performance, and contextualizes the need for precision in carving out such personas successfully. in order to understand the labour that goes into micro-celebrities’ performances of authenticity, it is helpful to have an idea of what publics expect from these performances. early writing in the emerging field of persona studies has articulated a commitment to studying individual agency in persona work: in their introduction to the first issue of persona studies, marshall and barbour differentiate the objective of persona studies from other work in cultural studies that focuses on audience agency by proposing that, rather than focusing on “collective configurations of meaning” within communities and subcultures, persona studies should look at “how the individual gains or articulates agency” as a response to “the complexity of mcrae 16 reconfigured structures of power in this differently constituted era of personalization” in online social life (2015, p. 8-9). i agree that contemporary online social life makes it essential that we focus on the work behind individual personas, but i propose that we can add productive nuance to considerations of the decisions that go into persona work by looking at feedback from publics, feedback that introduces some the recurring discourses and criticism that influence lifestyle bloggers’ authenticity work. gomi participants’ critiques might appear trivial or, perhaps, be received as yet another example of the insidious vacuity of internet comment culture (e.g. lovink 2011), but if we look closely, these acts of irreverence reveal extensive genre knowledge within distinct lifestyle blog niches, advanced understanding of the rhetorical exigencies of performing a persona across different social media platforms (each with distinct norms and affordances), and a high level of investment in the idea that digital micro-celebrities should be, above all else, authentic. publics’ expectations for how authenticity will be performed shift according to platform and genre, and, importantly, evolve with time as common tropes and strategies for persona cultivation become familiar. these evolving expectations give us insight into the rhetorical exigencies of authenticity work in online persona, and the extent to which individuals must carefully manage and continually adapt strategies for presenting a ‘natural,’ ‘real,’ ‘relatable,’ authentic self. whether or not they are aware of gomi, skilled lifestyle bloggers understand that publics are consuming their content in relation to other bloggers’ content in the same genre, and critiquing their work with an eye for authenticity. lifestyle bloggers as micro-celebrities micro-celebrities (and social media users in general) construct ‘authentic’ online personas using practices similar to those employed by ‘traditional’ celebrities. p. david marshall’s 2014 introduction to celebrity and power acknowledges the fact that networked digital practice has led to the increased relevance of celebrity practice for ‘normal’ individuals. he writes that, “through technology, the socially networked individual has become more prevalent in the creation of contemporary culture and a linchpin in the organization and flow of cultural forms and practices” (p. xxiv). new networking technologies introduce “new metrics of fame” including measurements of followers, likes, and views across different sites. as a result, more people are “engaged in processes of an attention economy that used to be the province of celebrities” (p. xxiv). theresa senft defines micro-celebrity as “the commitment to deploying and maintaining one’s online identity as if it were a branded good” (2013, p. 346). alice marwick defines micro-celebrity as “a state of being famous to a niche group of people” as well as “a behaviour: the presentation of oneself as a celebrity regardless of who is paying attention” (2013, p. 114). boyd and marwick view celebrity as a “an organic and everchanging performative practice” (2011, p. 140) and “a continuum that can be practiced across the spectrum of fame” (2011, p. 141). we might then think of celebrity and micro-celebrity as forming parts of the same continuum, and sharing a common set of practices that include “ongoing maintenance of a fan base, performed intimacy, authenticity and access, and construction of a consumable persona” (boyd and marwick 2011, p. 140). although lifestyle bloggers employ similar tactics to mainstream celebrities in managing their online presence, looking at gomi’s lifestyle blogger anti-fandom elucidates how online micro-celebrity is accompanied by publics’ expectation that these personas, unlike ‘traditional’ celebrity personas, are held to a higher— or at least a different — standard of authenticity. this is partly because micro-celebrities are presumed to be ‘normal’ people and therefore are expected to have more in common with their readers in terms of lifestyle, shared experiences, and inner life. when we think about how online micro-celebrities manage their personas, ‘authenticity’ emerges as a site of value and a form of labour: it is thus appropriate when richard a. peterson uses the term “authenticity work” (1997, p. 223) to describe the effort that goes into presenting oneself as authentic. because ‘authentic’ performances of subjectivity are persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 17 an important self-branding strategy for building and maintaining an online audience, we might think of authenticity as a form of labour (hearn 2008, genz 2015, marwick 2013) aimed at accumulating socio-cultural capital, which, for bloggers, can sometimes be exchanged for monetary gain in the form of sponsored posts, ad revenue, and even book deals. in the production and marketing of goods, conveying an aura of ‘authenticity’ in a product increases its value, and marketing literature suggests that strategies for ‘rendering authenticity’ in a product are important part of any business model (gilmore & pine 2007). this marketing logic also extends to the commodification of authenticity in online micro-celebrity. micro-celebrity online practice has some similarities to how celebrities manage their media accounts: for example, in their examination of celebrity twitter practice, boyd and marwick (2011) observe that, for both celebrities and micro-celebrities, online practice requires managing multiple audiences, encouraging a sense of connection with fans through the use of shared codes, fostering intimacy with one’s audience by revealing personal details, and performing authenticity and sincerity. however, expectations for micro-celebrities differ in some key respects. one notable difference is the fact that micro-celebrities do not have the same reputation-management resources as traditional celebrities. there are no teams of people working to maintain the micro-celebrity’s online brand. in her study of youtube personality jenna marbles, emma maguire observes that, “in contrast to print media autobiographies that rely on publishing houses and agents to market an authorial self, the self-brand of a youtuber relies on the absence (or at least the appearance of the absence) of commercial or corporate interference” (2015, p. 78). for this reason, according to marwick, micro-celebrities are expected to be more authentic, “presumably because they are not subject to the processes of the same star-making system” (marwick 2013, p. 119). senft highlights another way in which micro-celebrity is different from traditional celebrity, when she suggests that audiences’ interest in online micro-celebrities “takes an ethical turn” when, “rather than speculating on who a web personality ‘really is,’ viewers tend to debate the personality’s obligations to those who made her what she is. this is because on the web, popularity depends upon a connection to one’s audience rather than an enforced separation from them” (2008, p. 25-26). what becomes apparent when we think about how ‘authenticity’ in online micro-celebrity is distinct from traditional celebrity authenticity, is that micro-celebrities must avoid acting as though they think they are real celebrities, no matter how much their experiences and practices might resemble those of traditional celebrities. reading gomi: ‘lurking’ as method this case study of gomi’s ‘travel bloggers’ subforum uses an “academic lurker” methodology (gray 2005, p. 847), contextualizing the authenticity work of micro-celebrity personas in lifestyle blogging genres through a close look at how audience expectations for micro-celebrity authenticity are negotiated within the publics surrounding different blogging genres. in order to collect material, i read through all the active (one page of posts or more) threads in the ‘travel bloggers’ subforum, and familiarized myself with the travel blogging genre by reading several of the most popular travel blogs (as determined by mentions on gomi, as well as top search results on google, and mentions on ‘best of’ travel blog lists). as an academic lurker, rather than an interviewer or a surveyor, i focus on what forum participants make publicly available through their forum contributions, which primarily take the form of text commentary with occasional accompanying images (emojis, reaction gifs, etc). i propose that analysing feedback requires a degree of familiarity with the norms or ‘rules’ of posting on different sites and in different communities. in many cases, understanding audience feedback requires taking the time to read extensively within the discourse communities (swales 1990) formed by publics. these kinds of discourse communities tend to materialize in forums or the comments sections of different posts on the same website, so that often a casual reader who is not familiar with the posting culture will feel confused or irritated mcrae 18 by seemingly nonsensical posts. an example of this kind of confusion would be when geert lovink appears to be disturbed by what he perceives as youtube commenters’ “hostile anxiety to engage with other neighbouring voices” which results in “an avalanche of random and repetitive comments” (2011, p. 58). i would like to emphasize instead that it takes extensive reading and observation within an online genre and the audience networks connected to it, to comprehend how meaning is negotiated within those networks. in the gomi forums, posts often reference ongoing or ‘insider’ jokes when responding to new content. these jokes are specific to the community, and the nuances of what is being said can only be understood after reading through much of the earlier posts and comments. for example, a norm within this community is for posters’ usernames to contain references to earlier jokes or discussions from the forums. as a result, usernames like ‘tiger anus selfie’ appear nonsensical and troll-ish, but are often references to particularly memorable forum discussions. in the above example, the apparently random username is a reference to a discussion in the ‘travel bloggers’ forum where users critiqued the ‘about me’ page of living in another language, which at the time (june 2014) featured a photo of the blogger reclining against the rear side of a sedated tiger (a popular tourist activity in south east asia, which gomi participants critique as inhumane). blogging intimately: existential ‘backstages’ until the twentieth century, the word “authenticity” most often referred to whether something (usually a text) could be trusted as true, verifiable, or genuine, or to whether something (an artwork, for example) constituted an “accurate reflection of real life” (‘authenticity’ oed). over the last hundred years, authenticity has come to be associated with the inner life, and how habits of inwardness and introspection manifest in outward performance. the concept of authenticity as applied to human beings emerged alongside the rise of individualism, inwardness, and the related literary genre of autobiography, and relies on the assumption of a distinction between inward and outward, private and public individual. as a philosophical and ethical concept, it involves “putting one’s behaviour under reflexive scrutiny” and is associated with reflections on “the good life” (varga 2013, p. 3). authenticity is sometimes used interchangeably with sincerity, or “the quality of truthful correspondence between inner feelings and their outward expression” (oed). lionel trilling argues that authenticity and sincerity, though related, are nevertheless distinct (1972): while sincerity is a matter of saying what one means, authenticity refers to being true to whom one is. whether or not gomi participants are aware of the philosophical heritage of this conception of authenticity, they nevertheless are frequently interested both in whether bloggers are sincerely expressing their inner feelings, and in the degree to which bloggers are true to personal commitments despite external pressures. within the anti-fan community gomi, ‘authenticity’ is seldom invoked explicitly. however, reading through the forums quickly reveals that participants’ dislike of certain bloggers is intimately related to conceptions of personal authenticity, which means that, in their own way, the irreverent anti-fans of this forum are participating in a centuries-old discussion about what it means to live authentically. in the twenty-first century, however, questions of what it means to live authentically are inseparable from questions of what it means to manage one’s online persona authentically. posters are often concerned with whether a blogger’s intimate disclosures about personal victories and dilemmas are sincere or fabricated for effect. they are also suspicious of whether a blogger appears to be acting in a way that is true to her personal commitments despite external factors (i.e. economic incentive or the constraints imposed by a blogging genre or site). a common critique used when casting a blogger’s authenticity into doubt is to question whether that person ‘stands’ for anything or whether they simply adapt depictions of who they ‘really are’ in order to meet audience demands. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 19 these publics do not seem to expect micro-celebrity bloggers to demonstrate perfect satisfaction with the degree of existential authenticity they have achieved — on the contrary, it is potentially more ‘authentic’ to represent the journey toward personal authenticity as a struggle. sarah banet-weiser suggests that self-disclosure is an important online branding strategy for communicating authenticity, writing that “digitally-aided disclosure [...] relies on traditional discourses of the authentic self as one that is transparent, without artifice, open to others” (2012, p. 60). the travel bloggers i look at in this study frequently use these kinds of disclosures to foster intimacy with their audience and invite spectators into their inner quest for personal fulfilment (a tactic that gomi participants view with scepticism). popular personal bloggers like to invite readers ‘behind the scenes’ of their personal life as part of their authenticity work. critical publics are sensitive to the ways that such invitations could be staged. authenticity and authenticity discourse has been an ongoing debate in tourism studies for decades. within that field, the concept of ‘staged authenticity’ in tourism is wellknown. dean maccannell uses goffman’s dramaturgical model (1959), which argues that people perform for others as though on a stage, giving ‘backstage’ access to only some. he adapts this model to the tourism industry’s production of ‘authentic’ attractions aimed at tourists, arguing that tourists’ demands for authentic experiences are met by the tourism industry with false backstages, or ‘staged authenticity.’ these fake backstages are designed to reveal the “inner workings of the place,” yet there is a “staged quality to the proceedings that lends to them an aura of superficiality, albeit a superficiality not always perceived as such by the tourist” (1999, p. 98). borrowing this concept of authenticity as something that is staged for others in a way that is meant to give the appearance of an ‘insider’s’ look, i propose that lifestyle blogs can be thought of as stages where bloggers perform authenticity in ways designed to be easily consumable for their target audience. one strategy travel bloggers use to perform authenticity is creating content that invites the public ‘behind the scenes’ of the travel blogging lifestyle, a lifestyle that, according to bloggers, consists of much hard work, doubt, and loneliness. whether this authenticity is a real window into the actual and existential labour that makes up the blogger’s life, or into a staged backstage, is up for debate. as is usually the case, gomi participants are not convinced that these performances are sincere, due to what they perceive as the constructedness of ‘behind the scenes’ moments in travel blogs. it is obvious to commenters in the ‘travel bloggers’ subforum that bloggers try to appear authentic by talking about the hardships of their lifestyle and by fostering intimacy through personal disclosures. these performances appear staged to gomi participants, whether because the blogger is using tropes common to their subgenre, or because the performance in question is inconsistent with the blogger’s previous expressions of identity. gomi participants’ scepticism towards obviously constructed performances indicates that micro-celebrities are perhaps not viewed as performers in the same way as traditional celebrities, in the sense that any evidence of strategy or pre-meditation in their self-disclosures takes away from the authenticity of these personas. within the travel blogging genre, there is a subgenre of posts where bloggers ‘confess’ that (no matter how glamorous it may look to others), they do not always like their job because of the uncertain nature of the work and accompanying lifestyle. efforts to convey the travel blogger life as difficult work seems to grate on participants who do not find bloggers’ descriptions to be convincingly onerous (that the gomi community in general does not consider travel blogging to be a legitimate occupation is clear in the subforum’s sarcastic subheading: ‘because vacations are a full time job’). one of the most frequently discussed blogs in the ‘travel bloggers’ subforum is adventurous kate by kate mcculley. gomi participants balk at a post titled ‘on living in perpetual motion,’ which is a reflection on missing the conveniences of ‘settled’ life, and includes the example of “spilling red wine on a white cashmere sweater and pouring the white wine and vinegar on it, as they’re both stocked in your pantry” as an everyday mcrae 20 thing that kate used to take for granted. anti-fans describe the posts as full of “humble brags” and “first world problems.” amanda of living in another language attracts negative attention from gomi participants when she writes about the hardships of travel blogging in ‘travel blogging isn’t for the faint of heart.’ her points include the fact that travel blogging is harder to monetize than other genres of lifestyle blogging, that it is hard to find good wi-fi while travelling, and that “some readers have a certain disdain for travel bloggers” because they believe bloggers have acquired the wealth needed to travel through luck. in response to this accusation, amanda maintains that travel bloggers work hard to fund their travel, whether their funds are acquired through travel blogging itself, or through previous employment. gomi participants are unimpressed with the travel blogging backstage amanda presents: one poster snarks that they cannot accept what they call the “poor pitiful me” attitude, and stipulates that “either you love travel and travel writing enough to write a travel blog or you’re so desperate for handouts that you can start another shitty lifestyle blog instead and get all of the free mason jars you can glitterglue” (‘travel bloggers’). another poster adds that “there’s a difference between lifting the veil on the struggles and challenge[s] faced by professional travel bloggers and being a whiny spoiled entitled brat” (‘travel bloggers’). in response to similar posts by liz carlson of the young adventuress, one participant writes you can try all you want but you can’t make your life sound hard. oh noyou tell people you are going on a trip so then you are committed to writing about it? yes, that’s how jobs work, we have to commit to stuff. you only get a few hours sleep because you are off on wonderful tours all day? oh nopoor you! (‘travel bloggers’) another poster adds, “girlfriend, you seriously have no idea what it’s like to travel for real work as part of a real job” (‘travel bloggers’) intimate disclosures about travel bloggers’ existential ‘backstage’ are not always focused on the hardships of freelance writing. in the ‘adventurous kate’ thread, there is much discussion of kate’s romantic entanglements. gomi participants appear to have conflicting expectations with regards to how bloggers should share the intimate details of their personal life. at times, participants are annoyed by kate’s reticence, and indicate that she could make herself appear more authentic if she was more forthcoming about the events of her private life. after kate makes a vague post about having left her fiancé, one participant writes that she “would love to know details but i guess she is too #headtravelblogger to share those kind of details. which is a shame, because readers do love to see different sides to the bloggers they follow.” when kate finally shares the desired details about her break-up, it is in a facebook comment on her fan page (which a forum user promptly screenshots for dissection in the thread). in their discussion of kate’s representation of her break-up, forum posters go back to kate’s initial gushing engagement post and point out inconsistencies. kate expressed satisfaction in the initial blog post about how the engagement happened, but in a later instagram post, she recalls how mortified she was that the proposal happened in a public place. posters interpret this contrast in tone in the two descriptions of the same event as a sign of inconsistency, which is taken as evidence that the blogger is first and foremost a performer that caters her intimate disclosures to the demands of the moment. the indication here is that publics want intimate expressions of emotions emerging out of the blogger’s personal life, but expect that those expressions should be consistent over time, similar to how a blogger’s general content is supposed to adhere to a distinguishable and consistent self-brand. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 21 blogging ethically: authentic branding in order to perform existential authenticity, travel bloggers should appear to have a personal ethic that must be followed despite external pressures (these pressures often coming from the demands of the blogging industry itself). lifestyle bloggers acquire income through advertisements, sponsorships, free products, paid speaking invitations, and book deals. bloggers are allowed, even expected, to show some uncertainty with regards to their personal life. but the expectation appears to be that bloggers should know their personal brand, only promote products that seem consistent with this brand, and talk about these products and the fact of being sponsored with transparency and apparent sincerity. indeed, among gomi’s antifans, monetization and authenticity are seldom allowed to co-exist. a problem bloggers face in their authenticity work is that, blogging success (built largely on a self-branding strategy that incorporates the performance of authenticity) weakens the blogger’s ability to present the appearance of authenticity. banet-weiser gestures towards this paradox when she observes that “within contemporary consumer culture we take it for granted that authenticity, like anything else, can be branded” (2012, p. 13) while also maintaining that “what is understood (and experienced) as authentic is considered such precisely it is perceived as not commercial” (2012, p. 10). this is particularly true for travel bloggers, who perform authenticity partly by narrating their cultivation of existential authenticity through the ongoing process of selfimprovement towards an idealized goal (making an income through continuous travel) that paradoxically harmonizes an anti-capitalist desire to forgo material comforts in favour of a nomadic lifestyle with the conspicuously capitalist ideal of the expertly-branded entrepreneurial subject capable of supporting herself independently. common to all lifestyle genres is the difficulty of generating income from one’s content while still presenting oneself as authentic. acquiring sponsorships (usually, getting free stuff in return for reviews — for travel bloggers, this means free hotel stays, guided tours, and travel gadgets) is a coveted sign of success for many bloggers, but it is a challenge to incorporate sponsored posts into one’s content seamlessly and transparently. liz of young adventuress in particular seems to struggle to accept sponsorships in a manner that satisfies her followers. in response to a post where liz talks about “facing fears” in travel (carlson 2017), one poster doubts that liz’s travel is authentically fraught with risk, asking how can you have fears when pretty much all of your trips are now sponsored? when someone’s looking out for you and making sure you're safe and having a good time so you’ll write about it positively, you’re not having the same experience/fears as someone who genuinely goes there as a solo female traveller. (‘young adventuress’) liz’s partnership with starbucks via instant coffee is cited as a particularly egregious example of clumsy affiliate posts. participants are particularly annoyed with the posts, because liz has elsewhere talked about the importance of “being in the moment” and using social media authentically. in response to a viral parody instagram account, socality barbie, that features a barbie doll staged in some of the most trope-ish settings common to lifestyle-themed social media accounts, liz writes that what socality barbie so cleverly draws attention [to] are people who are using the wildly popular #liveauthentic hashtag on instagram, who are, well, anything but authentic because they all take the exact same photos. it all blurs together into one giant feed of dark green hues and beards. (carlson 2014) liz goes on to remark of such posts, “is that truly authentic living or did you just stage everything in your instagram feed to seem authentic?” in response to liz’s meditation on social media authenticity, a gomi poster writes, “were liz’s sponsored starbucks via instagram shots mcrae 22 and placements in her blog [...] truly authentic and ‘living in the moment’?” (‘travel bloggers’) another poster complains that affiliate posts in travel blogs generally appear desperate, with bloggers accepting any kind of sponsorship they are offered in an attempt to monetize their blogs, with the result that “most of the content is so bat shit obvious you want to slap them” (‘travel bloggers’). another tactic bloggers employ for performing authenticity is to call attention to the inauthentic performances of other people — usually travel bloggers, or, in the case of the heavily-criticized young adventuress post mentioned above, social media users in general. participants are quick to point out liz’s hypocrisy, arguing that she is guilty of the very ‘poses’ she criticizes, and frequently posts pictures of herself ‘looking out into the distance,’ an instagram trope that is supposed to make the subject of the photo appear adventurous. one poster writes: “she moans about people not being in the momentshe has a selfie of herself swimming next to a turtle! talk about not being in the moment!” (‘travel bloggers’) another poster draws attention to the constructedness of liz’s photos of herself — “who is taking your photo liz and how is that being in the moment if you’re posing for your own photos?” (‘young adventuress’). by pointing out liz’s hypocrisy and drawing attention to how her instagram resembles the social media accounts of other bloggers, gomi participants make an argument for liz’s inauthenticity based on her lack of originality as a travel blogger, suggesting that the persona she presents through the images on her instagram account is nothing more than a patchwork of borrowed tropes. monetizing persona work is a particularly difficult terrain for micro-celebrities to navigate, with authenticity factoring so heavily into the likeability of their persona, and any evidence of sponsored posts rendering publics immediately sceptical of the blogger’s authenticity due to the association of sponsorship with money, money with work, and work with the labour behind persona construction. blogging the [not too] good life: aspirational extra/ordinariness lifestyle blogs are, by nature, supposed to be aspirational — that is, to some degree readers are meant to long for the lifestyle being represented, whether that lifestyle is a life of perpetual wanderlust (travel blogs), maternal accomplishment (mommy blogs), or visible abdominal muscles (fitness blogs). but ideally, lifestyle bloggers strike a balance between presenting a lifestyle that is aspirational and yet ordinary. like other lifestyle blogging genres, travel blogging relies on representations of ‘aspirational extra/ordinariness’ for much of its appeal. usually, travel bloggers present the persona of someone who, despite having once led a perfectly average middle-class life chasing wealth through a typical 9-5 office job, has shifted her priorities in order to lead a life of frequent-to-constant travel funded by travel blogging and other freelance work. the content should be aspirational — desirable for readers, and the object of longing ‘what if’s — but still authentic and accessible. not surprisingly, achieving a convincing balance of aspirational and ordinary is difficult, and gomi participants frequently criticize bloggers for being either too average or not average enough (or both simultaneously). anti-fan critiques indicate how bloggers’ attempts to appear ‘average’ are so common that they have become tropes within the travel blog genre, and how attempts to be aspirational rely on making the unoriginal appear original. in the ‘travel bloggers’ thread, one poster summarizes all of her disappointments with travel bloggers in general. her post reflects several of the most common reasons participants cite for finding travel bloggers annoying to read, and often these annoying qualities of travel blogs can be linked back to a perceived lack of aspirational authenticity (formatting my own): persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 23 things travel bloggers do that annoy me: -quit their jobs to travel forever and ever because they are so unique and will never go back to a regular life like the rest of you sheep. [...] [...] -think they travel ‘off the beaten path’ when they go to all the same places everyone else does. -claim they are not lucky, they just worked really hard for this. i’m sure they did but there is a whole lot of luck involved in even having the chance to travel and blog (not being born into severe poverty in asia, for example). -presume everyone else hates their job/life and everyone wants to be like them. i can understand a dissatisfaction with life/job/society (it especially seems common with american travel bloggers who are perhaps frustrated with lack of vacation days, expensive healthcare) but still, not everyone in the us is dissatisfied with their job or life! these points all target what seems to be travel bloggers’ attempts to perform aspirational extra/ordinariness. travel bloggers should portray a unique or aspirational lifestyle, but evidently this gomi participant gets irritated when bloggers spend too much time telling readers that the lifestyle is extraordinary and should be desired. as indicated by the post quoted above, one way that travel bloggers are critiqued for being too average has to do with their unoriginal travel itineraries. participants’ grievances focus less on the decision to visit and write about frequently touristed destinations and more on the ‘adventurous’ persona bloggers attempt to project when they are, in fact, travelling on welltrodden tourist paths. one poster targets liz of young adventuress, complaining that “this blogger considers herself a ‘travel writer,’ and an ‘adventuress,’ because she writes about her basic b***h travels to places like spain and new zealand” (‘travel bloggers’). another participant writes of liz that what irks me about her is that i just don’t think she is an ‘adventuress’. she’s travelled to some amazing places but she is actually quite often on an organised tour! it’s not like she’s backpacking alone through a remote area. (‘travel bloggers’) in the ‘adventurous kate’ thread, a few participants make sure to put the ‘adventurous’ part of of the blog’s title in quotations, with one user making sure that ‘adventurous’ is always followed by ‘lol’ in parenthesis, in order to indicate that she cannot use the two words together without breaking into laughter. both adventurous kate and the young adventuress are micro-celebrity brands that rely on the category of the ‘adventurer,’ drawing on the image of solo female traveller as one that is automatically remarkable because it is less common to travel alone, and even less common to travel alone as a woman. anti-fans easily recognize that these bloggers are trying to market their personas as ‘adventurous,’ and deconstruct their performances of the lone female adventurer persona, suggesting instead that these bloggers are unoriginal and unremarkable, or ‘basic.’ conversely, travel bloggers are often accused of not being ordinary enough, most often because the ability to travel long-term in the first place is perceived as the result of uncommon privilege. failure to address the privileged circumstances that allowed them to make the decision to travel long-term in the first place interferes with bloggers’ ability to represent their mcrae 24 lifestyle as aspirational for readers. the issue seems to be that, the more bloggers try to preemptively deflect criticism based on privilege by insisting on their ordinariness, echoing each other with similar narratives of achieving an extraordinary lifestyle through hard work and clever strategy, the more obvious the labour of appearing simultaneously aspirational and ordinary becomes to publics, so that such performances are registered as unoriginal, insincere, and inauthentic. some of the most commonly recurring posts in travel blogs are variations of ‘how i afford to travel’ or ‘how you can afford to travel’ post. these kinds of posts are often targets of criticism, with participants frequently objecting to bloggers’ suggestion that anyone can afford long-term travel if they simply alter their priorities and spending habits. many participants feel that bloggers’ attempts to pass off their lifestyle as achievable are dishonest, and harmfully downplay factors like class, education, nationality, racialized background, and [dis]ability. bloggers sometimes provide lists of ideas for how to cut expenses and re-channel money into a travel savings account. gomi posters discuss a post on a blog called true colours, which (according to the forum discussion) gives a list of suggestions that includes calling internet and cable providers to try to get a better deal on these services, and doing freelance work on the side (neither the blog nor the original post appears to be online currently). a participant in the gomi ‘travel bloggers’ thread responds, “what if you don’t already pay for luxuries like cable and you work more than 40 hours a week in a job that doesn’t really allow you to save and all savings you do have to go towards making sure your car can get you to work?” another poster gripes that “a lot of travel bloggers seem to magically forget that they’re white first-worlders with a degree and parents to fall back on.” by presuming that travel is a decision that anyone can make with just a few changes, travel bloggers isolate large swaths of readers who do not have the same ability to save large sums of money by making ‘a few simple sacrifices.’ by insisting they are ‘just like everybody else,’ travel bloggers fall into tropes common to their subgenre and direct attention to the authenticity labour that goes into distracting from privilege, inadvertently detracting from their ability to present authentic personas. gomi participants in turn suggest that the unique privilege bloggers attempt to hide renders other claims of uniqueness unconvincing, and bloggers’ efforts to represent themselves as having unique insight into the art of living well are undermined by critics’ perception that it is easy to live well when you are born into circumstances that allow for the decision to drop everything and travel. conclusion: evolving authenticity lifestyle genres capitalize on ‘authentic’ personas that perform existential, ethical, and extra/ordinary authenticity in ways specific to genre, platform, and moment. expectations evolve as publics notice and become dissatisfied with patterns and tropes, so that bloggers must adapt to the shifting demands of their genre, or risk being perceived as inauthentic. one way that bloggers can adapt their strategies for authenticity work is by being aware of how online persona is partly articulated through an individual’s deployment of the technological affordances and cultural scripts available to them, and partly through the feedback provided by the networked publics that surround online persona — from likes, shares, and comments on the individual’s platform[s] of choice, to feedback located ‘off-site,’ as in the case of gomi. whether they like it or not, ‘hate’ comments like those posted on gomi become a part of the blogger’s brand that the blogger does not intend, but cannot escape. liz of young adventuress embraces the hate, and includes a reference to gomi in the 2014 edition of her annual ‘best hate comments’ post, with the succinct response, “don’t you love it when people summarize your own life and tell it back to you?” (carlson 2014). instead of trying to defend herself, liz incorporates hate-comments about her inauthenticity into her authenticity work — by persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 25 demonstrating how her content gets her in trouble with certain audiences, liz indicates that, compared to other bloggers, she does not hold back. gomi participants critique, among other things, liz’s lack of sensitivity, but liz implies that this lack of sensitivity that attracts hate-comments is actually evidence of her authenticity. her personal brand emphasizes the fact that she has anti-fans, and declares that it is liz, not her readers, who gets to decide what ‘authentic’ looks like. this example not only shows us how authenticity work evolves in response to shifting expectations from publics, but gives an example of how it is negotiated and contested between bloggers and their followers in a continuous process that suggests that questions of what authenticity looks like, and who has the authority to decide, cannot be fully resolved. it is clear, however, that it is partly the conspicuousness of authenticity as constructed or performed — as something that is strategized with a desired outcome in mind, or pieced together out of existing genre tropes — that causes anti-fans to deconstruct micro-celebrity personas as inauthentic. when authenticity labour becomes too laboured, the ‘authentic’ persona is perceived instead as a performer’s mask. i’ve used the example of travel blogs to show how strategies for performing authenticity emerge within lifestyle genres as bloggers adapt their performances in response to criticism (such as the ‘how i afford to travel’ posts that responds to accusations of privilege) and in response to what other bloggers in the same genre are doing. i’ve used the example of an anti-fan community to help conceptualize the evolutions by which signs of authenticity become signals of constructed authenticity, which get translated by critical publics into markers of inauthenticity. while not all readers are anti-fans and, perhaps, general publics are slower to note evidence of authenticity labour in persona, i would argue that the trends observed in this study have relevance to persona construction (and deconstruction) at all levels of the celebrity scale. to some extent, we all craft personas with a real or imagined critical audience in mind (even if most of us do not have a dedicated anti-fan following). when parody accounts like ‘socality barbie’ surface, for example, micro-celebrities and casual users alike are made to 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gomiblog, forum thread, 24 june 2014, retrieved 2 march 2017, <http://gomiblog.com/forums/new-travel-bloggers/travel-bloggers/>. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 27 trilling, l 1972, sincerity and authenticity, harvard university press, cambridge. varga, s 2013, authenticity as an ethical ideal, routledge, new york. ‘young adventuress’, gomiblog, forum thread, 2 oct 2015, retrieved 2 march 2017, <http://gomiblog.com/forums/new-travel-bloggers/young-adventuress/>. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 1 editorial: design personas – new ways, new contexts lene nie lse n design personas have, since their origins in the late 1990s, been recognised as a design tool to foster ideation and empathy with different user groups. the method originates from software development and has since its instigation become a widespread method adopted in many design disciplines and processes, such as innovation and ideation of it products, user experience design, agile systems developing, communication, and marketing (nielsen 2012; pruitt & grudin 2003). to get product design closer to the everyday lives of the users, design personas are a means to capture the everyday experiences and needs of users and customers. focusing on the user or customer in the design process is in opposition to an artistic understanding of the designer as someone who, by experimentation with materials and form, gets inspiration to create unique products. to develop personas that aid in design decision-making is not a trivial task, yet despite this there are few resources on persona generation (see cooper et.al. 2007; mulder & yaar 2006; nielsen 2014; pruitt & adlin 2006 as key texts in the field). all these books include thoughts on data gathering, data analysis, persona descriptions and implementation, but there is no common definition of what a persona is, except that it is a description of a fictitious user. the scientific foundation upon which the method was built is in its essence qualitative, and has a holistic perspective on humans as being specific and dependent on the context in which they participate. the qualitative core has changed over the years: with the access to big data, experiments to use quantitative data as foundation for persona descriptions are developing as can be seen in the article ‘are personas done? evaluating the usefulness of personas in the age of online analytics’ (salminen et al, this issue). as noted above, the common understanding of the persona method is that a design persona is a description of a fictitious person (pruitt & adlin 2006; cooper 1999) based on data. the main way to represent a persona is as textual description of a fictional user, and this textual description is accompanied by a photograph depicting the persona. the relationship between data and fiction is contested in writing on the method, and varies from a one to one relation, where every part of the description relates to data (pruitt & adlin 2006), to the use of certain fictitious elements to promote empathy (cooper et al. 2007; nielsen 2012) to the use of pure fiction with no relation to data (blythe and wright 2006). the perceived benefits of the design method are that personas help product designers to remember that they differ from the end-users and that personas enable designers to envision end user's needs and wants, which increases a design focus on users. furthermore, the persona descriptions provide direct design influence and lead to better design decisions and definition of the product’s feature set. finally, the method is perceived as an effective communication tool (cooper 1999; cooper, et.al. 2007; grudin & pruitt 2002; long 2009; ma & lerouge 2007; miaskiewicz & kozar 2011; pruitt & adlin 2006). the method has been criticised for empiricism, especially the relationship between data and fiction (chapman & milham 2006; chapman et al. 2008). in line with this, more specific nielsen 2 criticisms include the method being too founded on qualitative data and therefore ‘unscientific’; it is difficult to implement; it does not describe actual people as it only portrays characteristics; and finally, it prevents designers from meeting actual users (bak 2008). moreover, the unsolved question about how many users one persona can represent is perceived as problematic (chapman 2006). since their introduction, design personas have developed from being a method for it systems development to being applied in many other contexts, including development of products, marketing, communication strategy, and service design (nielsen 2012). the persona method has also developed into many forms from ad hoc personas built more or less on assumptions (norman 2004) to fully fleshed out, empirically researched personas. the three papers presented in this themed section of this issue of persona studies represent novel areas of application, novel ways of getting data to overcome the critique of personas as can be seen in the papers, and introduce a novel theoretical approach towards data gathering and representation to a design persona context. the article ‘getting under the(ir) skin: applying personas and scenarios with bodyenvironment research for improved understanding of users’ perspective in architectural design’ (tvedebrink & jelić) discusses the introduction of design personas to architectural students. traditionally, architects have been more occupied with the scale and proportions of man as guidance for design, and understand the human subject as a mind-body dichotomy. the authors argue for a need to develop a more research-informed user perspective. this can be done by teaching students a ‘design empathic’ understanding and how to get an immersion in user perspectives through the use of personas. a way to create change is to introduce personas in the teaching of students of architecture, thus transforming the mindsets of architects to be. as the persona method spreads to new areas it is worth considering if we shall use traditional research methods. the article ‘creating personas for political and social consciousness in hci design’ (wilson et al.) discusses whether we should apply a phenomenographic approach to data gathering and analysis when the context of design is software for areas associated with social and political goals, such as political aspirations, social values, and the will or capacity of the different personas to take action. it also challenges the traditional purpose of personas of bringing a product to market, and the focus on needs and goals adapted from human computer interaction. the final paper in this issue, ‘are personas done? evaluating the usefulness of personas in the age of online analytics’ (salminen et al.), examines whether online analytical data are useful for persona generation. the use of online analytics benefits from powerful computational techniques and novel data sources. thus, the authors develop a method to overcome the long development time of personas. the authors take a point of departure in the criticisms mentioned above that personas are not thoroughly grounded in data analysis, and engage with arguments for and against the use of personas using real-time online analytics data about customers. contributions together, the contribution of the three papers lies within the domains of application, data gathering, and persona description. these three important areas encompass persona generation and utility. the novelty in domain is covered by the first two papers ‘getting under the(ir) skin: applying personas and scenarios with body-environment research for improved understanding of users’ and ‘creating personas for political and social consciousness in hci design’. in the first persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 3 contribution the novelty lies in the domain it describes—using personas as a vehicle for architects to understand the people occupying buildings, but also in the transformation of people versus buildings in architecture as such—from the standardised conceptions of the human body to enabling an understanding of the relationship between people, atmosphere, and emotions. addressing political and social goals is an area we have not encountered before with persona research, thus the paper ‘creating personas for political and social consciousness in hci design’ moves the method into new territories. the contribution on data gathering found in the article ‘are personas done? evaluating the usefulness of personas in the age of online analytics’, and lies in the presentation of critical arguments against personas in the context of online analytics, while tying these developments to existing persona criticism. moreover, the authors introduce the importance of conceptually differentiating between traditional and digital data-driven personas as they each have their area of usefulness: individual data is optimal for automated decision making, whereas aggregated data such as personas are best for decisions at the strategic level. finally, the analysis of users’ beliefs and values, found in ‘creating personas for political and social consciousness in hci design’, moves the persona descriptions away from a focus on consumer needs and problems, and ties this to the necessary avoidance of stereotyping. the focus on variations and commonalities moves beyond typical impact of local cultural contexts, and instead shows differences across and within local contexts. works cited bak, j., nguyen, k., rissgaard, p., & stage, j. 2008, 'obstacles to usability evaluation in practice: a survey of software development organizations', proceedings of the 5th nordic conference on human-computer interaction: building bridges, pp. 23-32, doi: 10.1145/1463160.1463164. blythe, m. a., & wright, p. c. 2006, 'pastiche scenarios: fiction as a resource for user centred design', interacting with computers, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 1139–1164. chapman, c. n., love, e., milham, r. p., elrif, p., & alford, j. l. 2008, 'quantitative evaluation of personas as information'. the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting, new york., vol. 52, https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120805201602. chapman, c.n., & milham, r. 2006, 'the personas' new clothes: methodological and practical arguments against a popular method', proceedings of the human factors and ergonomics society annual meeting, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 634–636 https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120605000503. cooper, a., reimann, r. & cronin, d. 2007, about face 3.0: the essentials of interaction design. wiley publishing, indianapolis. cooper, a. 1999, the inmates are running the asylum: why high-tech products drive us crazy and how to restore the sanity. sams publishers, united states of america. grudin, j., & pruitt, j. 2002, 'personas, participatory design and product development: an infrastructure for engagement', proceedings of pdc 2002, pp. 144-161. long, f. 2009, 'real or imaginary the effect of using personas in product design'. irish ergonomics review, proceedings of the ies conference 2009, dublin. ma, j. & lerouge, c. 2007, 'introducing user profiles and personas into information systems development', amcis 2007 proceedings, retrieved 1 november 2018, from https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1747&context=amcis2007 https://doi.org/10.1145/1463160.1463164 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f154193120805201602 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f154193120605000503 https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1747&context=amcis2007 nielsen 4 miaskiewicza, t.,& kozarb, k. a. 2011, 'personas and user-centered design: how can personas benefit product design processes?', design studies, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 417–430. mulder, s., & yaar, z. 2006, the user is always right: a practical guide to creating and using personas for the web, new riders press, berkeley. nielsen, l. & hansen, k. s. 2014, 'personas is applicable: a study on the use of personas in denmark', proceedings of chi'14, pp. 1665-1674, doi: 10.1145/2556288.2557080. nielsen, l. 2012, personas user focused design. ebook, springer. norman, d. 2004, ‘ad-hoc personas and empathetic focus’ jnd.org, retrieved 27 october 2018, https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/adhoc_personas_em.html. pruitt, j., & adlin, t. 2006, the persona lifecycle: keeping people in mind throughout product design. morgan kaufman, san francisco, ca. pruitt, j., & grudin, j. 2003, ‘personas: practice and theory’, proceedings of the 2003 conference on designing for user experiences dux 2003, pp. 313–334, doi: 10.1145/997078.997089. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557080 https://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/adhoc_personas_em.html https://doi.org/10.1145/997078.997089 kannasto 12 personal brand of a politician in an election campaign – political personas on facebook e l i s a k a n n a s t o s e i n ä j o k i u n i v e r s i t y o f a p p l i e d s c i e n c e s / u n i v e r s i t y o f v a a s a a politician’s persona is negotiated on multiple platforms in various ways. some maintain a strategic, carefully negotiated self, while others reveal more and blur lines between professional and private dimensions of their persona (street 2004). together with constituents – who discuss them widely on different platforms – politicians build personal brands which construct their lives as performances and products to be sold (van dijck 2013; enli 2015a). persona representations provoke feelings and politicians are expected to effectively manage scrutiny of both private and professional elements of their public selves. in finland the personalization of politics has grown (van aelst et al. 2012; isotalus & almonkari 2014), and candidates increasingly aim to gather votes often through innovative selfdisplays. some use controversy as a tool, are less worried about distinguishing between private and public, and have skills to strategically negotiate their brand in an influential manner. such complex political personas are becoming more popular, with more politicians embracing dynamics of personal branding and self-representation using both professional and personal life together (frame & brachotte 2015). marshall et al. (2015) describe how “persona as a meanings system is dependent on what could be called the prosopographic relations”. prosopography studies how biography is constructed from the lives and careers of the person (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 7). facebook shows this as a timeline, a constantly developing biography where all aspects of an identity that an individual chooses to share are presented, and reputation and influence depend on how it resonates with other users (ibid: 113). van dijck (2013) argues online personas are equal to personal brands. this is enforced during campaigning when public political discussion is also more active and of greater volume. persona studies offers clear paths to consider how the construction of a personal brand can be negotiated and strategically produced by politicians working with their followers (marshall et al. 2020, p. 201). my study of the parliamentary election campaign of 2019 examines which strategic choices politicians and constituents make when posting and commenting on facebook, and how this makes persona as both self and political brand. i consider this intersection of political communications, public relations (pr), marketing communications, and persona studies an important viewpoint for the relationships between personal brands and political campaigning. the research examines 18 public pages of finnish delegates and party leaders with a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 16,157 posts and comments. the principal lines of enquiry consider how political personas are negotiated during election campaigns, with examination particularly of the intercommunications between professional and private dimensions of self. political parties, politicians, and other political actors are co-dependent brands built from policies being part of personal discourse and vice versa. public discussion online affects those brands by offering and moulding perceptions through large-scale exposure. on social media, politicians no longer have to consider traditional media as gatekeepers because they can choose what content they publish themselves. however, none of the finnish politicians studied persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 13 really provide meaningful access to backstage (goffman 1959). rather, they focus on how strategic persona display can aid their political roles. the most successful political personas (in terms of clicks, likes and shares) are often built through strong rhetoric, presentation, and presence, and only five candidates in the data offer any meaningful insights into their private backstage lives. in this discourse, voters are viewed as consumers to whom political personas and their associated products – including the party and its policies – can be sold. politicians’ personal brands can simplify choices and tighten the relationship with the voter (mokhtar 2017). as van dijck (2013, p. 202) describes, individual politicians and their personalities have been marketed as digital products since connectivity has turned “online social value to real rewards in offline world”, in this case in relation to votes. political persona is therefore another aspect of publicly sold representation of self. however, this is not only constructed by the individuals themselves. the persona is collectively constructed and defines the politician and their value in relation to their interpersonal relationships with voters. to consider this against erving goffman’s (1959) idea of front and back stage performances, while politicians may have clear processes and strategies of what is presented and what is left out, they cannot control online discussions which can steer the focus and the negotiation of the persona. for finnish politicians, the seemingly personal and authentic performances of self on social media are rarely carefully crafted staged performances but rather often small seemingly spontaneous glimpses, where private dimensions are a passing prop in the stage of professional self and performance negotiation. genuine, spontaneous content is more likely to engage users on social media, but especially in case of politicians, such illusions of authenticity might just be enough (enli 2015b; enli 2009). there is a requirement of authenticity, but scepticism towards marketing and strategic selling challenges the impression and finnish politicians seem aware of voter perception of the lack of authenticity of such exchanges. constituents are, therefore important actors in the process of building political selfbrands. while posts are controlled by both candidates and their marketing teams allowing curation of content and impression management constituents have significant power in terms of steering the discussion, pushing their own interpretations forward and choosing the focus. discussion is highly dependent on former perceptions of the politicians and highlights the importance of persona being a process where earlier prints affect future ones. therefore, politicians can and should evaluate which aspects of their persona are beneficial for their brand and might help them to interact with constituents as part of their professional work. in political communication, the process requires expertise from the politicians and their communication agencies in strategies for managing impressions. it also needs deep consideration of the power of the audience in steering it all. works cited enli, g 2015a, '“trust me, i am authentic!”: authenticity illusions in social media politics', in a. bruns, g. enli, e. skogerbo, a.o. larsson, and c. christensen (eds), the routledge companion to social media and politics. routledge, london, pp. 121–136. enli, g 2015b, mediated authenticity. how the media constructs reality. new york: peter lang. enli, g 2009, 'mass communication tapping into participatory culture: exploring strictly come dancing and britain’s got talent', european journal of communication, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 481–493. frame, a & brachotte, g 2015, 'le tweet stratégique: use of twitter as a pr tool by french politicians', public relations review, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 278–287. kannasto 14 goffman, e 1959, the presentation of self in everyday life. new york: anchor books. isotalus, p & almonkari, m 2014, 'mediatization and political leadership. perspectives of the finnish newspapers and party leaders', journalism studies, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 289–303. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2020, persona studies. an introduction. new jersey: wiley & blackwell. marshall, pd moore, c & barbour, k 2015, 'persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies', celebrity studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 1-18. mokhtar, a 2017, 'political communication through qualitative lens', e-bangi. journal of social sciences and humanities, special issue 1, pp. 34–48. street, j 2004, 'celebrity politicians: popular culture and political representation', the british journal of politics and international relations, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 435–452. van aelst, p, sheafer, t, & stanyer, s 2012, 'the personalization of mediated political communication: a review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings', journalism, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 203–220. van dijck, j 2013, ‘“you have one identity”: performing the self on facebook and linkedin', media, culture & society, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 199–215. elisa kannasto seinäjoki university of applied sciences/university of vaasa works cited casson 42 gas, grass or ass, no one rides for free: the mohawk mayor reb ec ca cass on abstract in november 2013 darryn lyons, a former celebrity photographer wellknown for his colourful antics, was directly elected as mayor of geelong, the second largest city in the state of victoria, australia. also known as “mr paparazzi” and “the mohawk mayor”, lyons’s leadership lasted just 30 months before the victorian state government sacked him and dissolved the entire geelong council, revealing a pre-existing culture of bullying that appeared to be compounded by lyons’s celebrity persona. how did lyons’s persona affect geelong’s newly established procedures for a directly elected mayor? drawing on one particularly controversial incident, and using data collected from lyons’s autobiography, together with media articles, official documents and social media, this article discusses how as a celebrity politician lyons appeared to be unable to effectively separate his celebrity persona from his public persona. this seemed to drown out geelong’s important issues, and undermined the legitimacy of local government. the current literature on directly elected mayors does not include consideration of how electing a celebrity as mayor complicates the problems of legitimacy in local government, and there is a paucity of literature on directly elected celebrity mayors in australia. an emerging literature on directly elected mayors primarily addresses problems with legitimacy in contemporary politics, while the literature on how celebrity politics is changing legitimacy has been well established. using the lyons case, this article examines both literatures and contributes to the national and international debate on directly elected celebrity mayors. key words celebrity politics, populism, legitimacy, directly elected mayors, darryn lyons, geelong introduction on 25th november 2013 darryn lyons, well-known as a former owner of an international photography agency in london, won the ballot to become the second directly elected mayor of the city of greater geelong (cogg). at that time, geelong was undergoing an economic transformation from a manufacturing base to a service-centred economy, and consequently was set to suffer a net loss of more than 1000 jobs during lyons’s term of office. as a result of his celebrity persona, lyons was one of the most prominent directly elected celebrity mayors in australia. lyons’s leadership lasted until april 2016 when, following a commission of inquiry by the victoria state government, the entire council was sacked. this article takes up a case study of one controversial incident over the madonna t-shirt lyons wore when he was mayor at oktoberfest, a local beer festival. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 43 the case study highlights two issues that raise questions about lyons’s mayoral authority. first, there was the suggestion of a conflict of interest especially as oktoberfest had been organised by lyons’s company and he was a major private backer. second, there was lyons’s controversial behaviour and perceived inability to effectively separate his celebrity persona from his public persona. this seemed to drown out geelong’s important issues and undermined the legitimacy of local government. this article has three parts. first, in order to situate the article and its analysis, i examine the literature on local government, directly elected mayors, celebrity politicians and populism. second, i present lyons’s “complex character” through a framework of his personal and career history (lyons 18). third, i make my primary empirical contribution by analysing data collected from lyons’s autobiography, mr paparazzi, together with media articles, official documents and social media. this analysis sheds light on the “framing” of the t-shirt incident, as set out by barnett in his theory of “framing” in reference to media and politics. directly elected celebrity mayors: theoretical framework fusion in this section, i examine the separate literatures of celebrity studies and political science. these literatures are key to this article, as current investigations of directly elected mayoral structures in local government do not include consideration of how electing a celebrity as mayor affects legitimacy. local government has substantive legitimacy in its immediate community, but it is the state or central government that has formal power to replace it with a different system (casson; kavanagh et al.; leach, coxall and robins). this is what happened to lyons and the cogg, regardless of the fact that the mayor had been directly elected by the “the people” of geelong (moffitt and tormey 389). both the system of local government and the way that mayors are elected differ across the globe. generally, mayors can be (1) elected by peers on council: a “first among equals” and (2) directly elected by “the people”. this article focuses on the latter. directly elected mayoral systems have become an increasingly common feature of local government throughout developed democracies, and further research is required to examine their effectiveness (elcock). there is some examination on the legitimacy of directly elected mayoral models (copus; copus; fenwick; travers; campus and pasquino; game; rallings; rao; mouritzen and svara) but there is a lack of empirical evidence about them (sansom; martin and aulich; warwick commission). specifically, australia has attracted limited attention (sansom). australia’s federal system of government allows states to operate different directly elected mayoral models, and these variations have resulted in diverse discourse (grant, dollery and gow; dollery and marshall; grant, dollery and kortt; worthington and dollery; power, wettenhall and halligan; sansom; martin and aulich; grant, ryan and kelly). although the australian labor party (alp) first introduced directly elected mayors to australia in 1915, the system operates in less than 40% of councils (sansom; grant, dollery and kortt; power, wettenhall and halligan; tucker). in victoria until recently, and with the exception of melbourne, all mayors had been elected first among equals. regional councils have had no system of direct election through referendum. however, in october 2012, the people of geelong directly elected their mayor for the first time. this new system represented a change in the way local government operated in regional victoria and makes geelong an important case study – especially in relation to celebrity politics. the definition of a celebrity politician’s persona can be drawn from both political science and celebrity studies. in political science, the closest definition of a directly elected celebrity mayor is the “saviour”: “charismatics who forcefully impose their will upon what casson 44 might seem to be a rudderless populace” (warwick commission (33). grant, dollery and kortt also cite the “novice mayor” phenomenon; an “outsider” or “new blood”, directly elected by popular vote, who can better “fix the perceived problems” of local government than “rusted on” councillors (grant, dollery and kortt 8). the “saviour novice” term can therefore be derived from political science to describe directly elected celebrity mayors. drawing from the populism literature, moffitt and tormey’s theory of populism as a “political style” is developed from their suggestion that populism is a style that is performed and enacted. this has resulted in contemporary politics being intensely “mediatised” and “stylised” (moffitt and tormey 390). moffitt and tormey’s framework appeal to “the people”; crisis, breakdown, threat; and “bad manners” in politics is particularly relevant to this article (moffitt and tormey 382). they argue that populists’ appeal comes from their disregard for “appropriate” ways of acting in the political realm – and specifically by gaining attention for their “novel stylistic features”, rather than for their “traditional content” (moffitt and tormey 388). these politicians display a certain political style, which they claim makes them distinct from the elite. this can take many forms, including being overly demonstrative and “colourful” in their use of fashion. it also relates to bad manners such as the use of gestures, slang, swearing and political incorrectness (ostiguy; moffitt and tormey). the archetypal trickster character is also relevant here. known for amusing the public the way a jester entertained in historic kingdoms, tricksters cross boundaries and break common conventions (metman; hyde). in lyons’s case, he scorned authority and used an anti-politics platform to present himself as both a “saviour” and a trickster (layard 108). within celebrity studies, the concept of celebrity is described by p david marshall (celebrity) as a system for valorising meaning and communication. it confers on a person a free power to be a voice above others by being regarded as legitimately significant. there is much discourse on classifications of celebrity politicians (marshall celebrity; wheeler; mukherjee; ‘t hart; boykoff; marsh, ’t hart and tindall) and specific frameworks have identified a range of “celebrity politico” categories (west and orman; marsh, ’t hart and tindall). street has argued for a reduction to two: (cp1) a politician who used to be a celebrity (for example, arnold schwarzenegger or ronald reagan); and (cp2) a celebrity who seeks to influence politics by way of their fame and status (for example, bono or bob geldof). more recently wood, corbett and flinders suggest distinction between “superstar celebrity politicians” (scps) and “everyday celebrity politicians” (ecps) for further distillation (wood, corbett and flinders 583). with regards to lyons, i have utilised all three elements: cp1, ecp and more specifically the famed non-politico: known in fields outside of politics before they run for elective office. they are responsible for their own prominence and transpose fame in one sector onto political life. they can be seen as political ‘white knights’. they have a high degree of public trust worthiness and star power. they are used to the public spotlight and dealing with media coverage, fans, gossip columnists and intrusions into their private lives, making their entry into a regime based on celebrity politics easier for them to handle. they are confident about their own fame and fortune. (west and orman 2-4) as this article focuses on australian celebrity, it is important to understand the condition of celebrity status within australia. australia’s celebrity data was previously dependent on american and british based organisations, but there has been a major shift in how it now operates, and a bespoke publicity industry has begun. this change has enabled lowerlevel celebrities, such as lyons, to emerge more prominently within the australian celebrity scene, and more easily enter into the political arena (turner, bonner and marshall). in this persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 45 context, only one directly elected australian celebrity mayor, bertrand cadart, possesses a specific celebrity resume similar to lyons. there are obvious cases in the literature of directly elected celebrity mayors in major cities, such as arnold schwarzenegger. however, with the exception of the work by asquith and stoker, there is limited discourse on directly elected celebrity mayors from local government in second-tier cities. this is interesting because people living in a second-tier city, and particularly those in former manufacturing centres with unemployment and social problems, may be more prone to the populist appeal of a celebrity mayor. this overall lack of empirical data limits our understanding of celebrities making good mayors. further investigation is required to ascertain the full effects of celebrities permeating into local government politics, and specifically in australia. this article begins that task. mr paparazzi: the complex persona in this section, i examine lyons’s personal history, investigate the layers of his complex character and shed light on his business and celebrity status. first, it is important to define the two main terms used in this article to analyse lyons’s characteristics:  celebrity persona: lyons had a pre-existing celebrity persona when he was appointed as mayor, and this can be defined by him being a “model for emulation”, galvanising “issues in popular culture” and affecting “public opinion” (rojek 26).  public persona: lyons’s public persona can be defined as his “public self” or “mask” that society sees, particularly through his civic role as mayor. it is important to note that news and journalism are “explicitly and implicitly involved” in the exposure of both celebrity and public personas (marshall “persona studies” 154; jung) while the above two terms are the main definitions used in this article, there is another definition that is also important to consider:  private self: lyons’s private self can be defined in three parts (i) his private commercial operations versus his civic role (ii) his human and vulnerable private self, with the elements of his life and true feelings that are known only to him (cohen) and (iii) lyons’s illusory private self, which is displayed within his celebrity persona and revealed through both his “confessional” autobiography and exhibited on reality tv shows (cohen 141). these definitions provide clarity that lyons’s celebrity and public personas, together with his private self, appear to be a “conscious act” requiring “careful staging” (marshall “promotion” 39; goffman). in order to fully investigate the effect these personas had on lyons’s role as mayor, it is first relevant to consider that lyons favours brightly dyed hair shaped into a mohawk, flashy clothes and mirrored sunglasses (colquhoun). lyons had “an idyllic childhood in geelong”, being raised in a strict baptist middle-class family (lyons 9). lyons attended east tech secondary school and broke with his family’s tradition when he developed a passion for photography. lyons loves a drink and this came to the fore when he lost his licence for “drink driving” (lyons 20). using this as a catalyst to begin his global career ambitions, lyons left geelong for london at the age of twenty-two and secured roles with various newspapers (lyons). lyons soon rose through the ranks and later founded his company big pictures, which supplied paparazzi-style photography for news organisations. casson 46 lyons first gained widespread media attention when big pictures sold the photo that led to the news of the world exposé of david beckham's alleged affair with his personal assistant (urban). subsequently, and as a result of his paparazzi business, lyons frequently appeared as a media commentator on radio and television. however, his main entrée to the celebrity world came through his appearance in the bbc’s mr paparazzi, a fly-on-the-wall documentary about lyons which attracted 6.5 million viewers (lyons). lyons’s “persona as a naughty boy involved in naughty business” seemed to be very popular with the public and he subsequently appeared on various uk and australian reality tv shows, including big brother, excess baggage and dragon’s den (lyons 266). lyons relished the celebrity lifestyle that brought him wealth and luxury items such as a private yacht and jet, all of which made him feel that he had “made it” (lyons 258). however, lyons’s celebrity status also introduced him to the rock star lifestyle. he became addicted to cocaine, binge drinking, and gambling: “everything i could do to damage myself. i really hit the self-destruct button. i was living in a ‘white cloud’ of my own creation” (lyons 128-29). suffering from depression, lyons took remedial action when he woke with his pillow soaked in blood from a nose bleed and was unable to move (lyons). he temporarily returned to geelong to confess to his parents and go “cold turkey” (lyons 131). in terms of characteristics, lyons acknowledges that there are differences between him and most other people but he does not seem to grasp that these are interrelated with his celebrity status (lyons). for example, lyons denies his own celebrity: “i don’t see myself as famous, i love the attention at times. of course, i am easily identifiable. there aren’t too many peacocks like me around, so i make a simple target” (lyons 276). this perceived superficial denial is interesting. lyons does not “see himself” as famous but he knows he is. lyons’s controversial personality is well documented and shows one side to him. however, as indicated in the multiple facets of his “personal self” above, there is another side to his personality that is often unseen. lyons’s human and vulnerable private self is specifically perceptible from his autobiography, and is completely separate from his illusory private self. for example, lyons admits that he finds it hard to dismiss employees unless he does so in a rage or temper: “i always get someone else to do it because i get quite emotional” (lyons 302). it would appear that, as a coping mechanism, lyons has gradually separated his celebrity persona, public persona and illusory private self from his actual private self: “i became unemotional. i am not saying that distancing yourself from your feelings is a good thing” (lyons 39), but it was how he coped. nevertheless, lyons’s celebrity persona appears to be confronting for many in a corporate context. for example, lyons’s staff established coping mechanisms to manage the effects his personality had on business operations: i’m a very loving guy, but i can be difficult to work for…when i visit…they (staff) have to mentally prepare themselves. anyone who hasn’t met me has to be given a briefing before i get there and warned not to take anything personally. some people just don’t get me. in fact, at times i don’t even understand myself! (lyons 120) it would seem that this aspect would also come to bear when lyons was the mayor of geelong, and the cogg bureaucracy developed strategies to manage his behaviour. lyons claims that his personality has evolved and softened over time: “i used to be the biggest shouter, stamper and screamer. i used to throw chairs. i was a rock-star boss…these days i am much shrewder, much more of a thinker” (lyons 291-92). however, lyons’s behaviour did not appear to change when he was mayor, and this may be seen to have contributed to his sacking from the cogg. for example, lyons admitted that he had made council staff so intimidated that they had to be physically relocated away from the mayoral offices to a different part of the building: “i'm the persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 47 first to admit that my razzamatazz and in-your-face style has not been to everyone's liking and i've stepped on a few toes” (kurmelovs). in lyons’s case, these expressions of anger seemed to be an indicator that his celebrity persona may have been incompatible with the mayoral role, rather than an indicator of leadership or “power” (campus 58–59). lyons admits that he is not a businessman and struggles with commerce (lyons). his opponents raised this during the mayoral campaign, arguing that lyons’s uk-based company had gone into administration and then liquidation owing money to employees and creditors. (lander). following this, lyons moved back to geelong and, on 10th october 2013, officially declared his candidacy to become geelong’s mayor. lyons said that: “every election needs a comedy candidate” and “[using prime minister tony abbott's example] that the electorate respects a man with great abs” (millar). lyons promised to cut red tape, beautify and rejuvenate central geelong, promote the bellarine peninsula and make savings in the cogg’s bureaucracy (moore). lyons leveraged his celebrity persona and social media presence for his campaign. he had more than 717,000 twitter followers at that time, which was much more than his competitors (millar). as a result, lyons garnered almost 30% of the first-preference votes and the win gave him a clear mandate. at the end of his first three months as mayor, lyons issued a “100 days of action” report using the official cogg logo. this report claimed that more than 75 million people had received tweets about lyons and the cogg in his first 100 days as mayor, and he had reached an estimated total of 11 million people on facebook (city of greater geelong). the document also claimed that the media attention geelong received in lyons’s first 100 days was estimated to be worth over $15.6 million (city of greater geelong). these figures were calculated for the cogg by an independent media analysis company. lyons quickly appeared to stamp his celebrity persona on the mayoral role by staying in luxury hotels and purchasing personalised accoutrements. in the first seven months, lyons claimed aud$9,000 worth of expenses for stays in first-class hotels, accessories for his electronic devices, fountain pen refills, shirts to wear under his mayoral robes, and chauffeur driven cars. he also billed ratepayers for a “mayor darryn lyons” signature stamp, special engraving for the mayoral pen and designed a regal range of mayoral merchandise including dressing gowns, towels, luggage, shirts, vests, caps, flags, banners and stationery and there was even a mayoral lollipop (hurley; squires). lyons was also photographed in a range of “celebrity” settings throughout his mayoral term, including one controversial image of him wearing full mayoral regalia crouched at the feet of his fiancée who was clad only in pages of the geelong advertiser and glad wrap. lyons also behaved in a way never seen before at the cogg such as missing council meetings to attend the races (squires). the blurring of lyons’s celebrity persona with his public persona can be seen through his use of social media during his time as mayor. the opinions lyons expressed through his personal twitter account would often be re-tweeted via the official mayoral twitter account. it could also be perceived that lyons was able to use his mayoral position to promote his private business interests. for example, in the lead up to oktoberfest, lyons tweeted adverts from his personal twitter account about the event using an image of himself dressed in lederhosen: “perfect day for oktoberfest geelong!!! get down tiks on sale at the door geelongracingclub now don’t miss out!!!” (lyons). this was despite the fact that lyons would later open the event in his official capacity as mayor. whilst it was evident that lyons was willing to undertake publicity stunts and “do anything, as long as it’s all about geelong” (colquhoun), it could be argued that he struggled to effectively manage interaction between his celebrity persona and his public casson 48 persona. the case study below demonstrates how this may have contributed to lyons’s downfall as a directly elected celebrity mayor. case study: gas, grass or ass, nobody rides for free on 10th october 2015, lyons opened oktoberfest in his official capacity as mayor, wearing the mayoral robes with jeans. however, according to lyons, he became hot at the festival and went home to change, selecting a t-shirt from an old box he had not opened for more than two decades (miletic). the controversial t-shirt had a full-frontal naked image of the pop star madonna hitchhiking, wearing only high-heeled shoes, and carrying a sign with the obscene slogan: “gas, grass or ass, no one rides for free”. lyons then returned to the festival, and images of him wearing the t-shirt soon emerged on social media. through a range of tweets, councillor jan farrell head of the cogg’s women’s advisory committee criticised lyons for wearing the t-shirt and started a social media storm: “this is what passes for leadership at geelong. as a woman who lives and works in geelong i am beyond offended at his ongoing disrespect for women. our ‘mayor’ in a disgusting tee shirt at oktoberfest…such an abysmal role model for the young men he meets” (farrell; miletic). commentary on social media quickly elevated the story from local to national and international news. however, even though there was an opportunity to discipline lyons for wearing the tshirt, the cogg did not take action against him (dundas). this highlights that, while the slogan on the t-shirt was inappropriate for a mayor to wear, lyons had not acted illegally by wearing it. nevertheless, the question emerged: was lyons performing his bad boy persona, as described above, knowing full well how people would respond, or did he act carelessly and make a mistake? methodology: data analysis and framing in this section, i outline the methodology used to analyse the case study data and, specifically, “framing” as a theoretical framework. “framing” is a common form of analysis in cultural and media studies, but the analysis here follows barnett’s presentation of the theory to make sense of the particular slants, themes and language invoked in media coverage of politics (barnett; wright and holland). framing is a way of examining how an incident is discussed, described and debated, helping to shape the construction of an issue and particular representations. frames are a way of portraying a subject to encourage specific interpretations, while discouraging others. framing is therefore an appropriate structure for this article, because how a conversation is framed makes a big difference to how it is understood. before going further into framing, let me outline how i gathered information and formed two specific data sets:  data set one i analysed media coverage of the t-shirt incident from a range of local, national and international newspaper articles, together with content from social media. first, my search criteria specified articles must mention lyons and refer to the t-shirt incident. second, articles were selected from a range of media outlets and social media. third, articles were limited to the eight weeks following the t-shirt incident.  data set two in order to test the “framing” from data set one, i also analysed online comments made in response to two specific media articles. first, i used comments relating to an online poll conducted by the geelong advertiser which posed the question: did darryn lyons go too far wearing a t-shirt demeaning women under his mayoral robes at his new beer festival? (papps). second, i used online comments persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 49 responding to a herald sun article by susie o'brien an australian columnist and blogger which had attracted a similar number of comments. as news corp owns both the geelong advertiser and herald sun, i acknowledge that media ownership may have an impact on the results. i then categorised the information gathered from each data set into two groups (a) those comments that were either supportive of lyons, or were critical of the issue being sensationalised and (b) those comments that were critical of lyons wearing the t-shirt. how did lyons fare in these sets of comments? table 1: data from media source media source number of responses supportive of lyons wearing the tshirt/critical of the issue being sensationalised critical of lyons wearing the t-shirt geelong advertiser poll results unpublished 47% 53% geelong advertiser – published responses 48 60% 40% herald sun online comments 42 81% 19% a range of relevant and important themes have emerged from my analysis including feminist and libertarian frames, decorum, gender, commercial opportunism versus collective responsibility, and the local versus the national. there are many dimensions of this case study that warrant further research but, due to limited space, i have chosen to use an intentional versus unintentional analysis structure. this aspect is most pertinent to the issue of how lyons managed interaction between his celebrity persona and his public persona: 1. as an intentional act; a celebrity politician acting unacceptably, outside the bounds of normal political respectability, in order to get attention displaying bad manners as described by moffitt and tormey alongside the celebrity notion that all coverage is good coverage. in this frame, lyons appears to know exactly what he is doing; the act is perceived to be politically calculated and designed to shock and garner publicity. 2. as an unintentional act; a demonstration of lyons’s perceived lack of judgment and character. in this frame, lyons does not seem calculating, and this type of behaviour is needed to make politics ‘real’. these frames are important for two reasons. first, they help to narrow the analysis of responses, allowing us to ignore for example wider politicking, party political infighting, and attempts to win voter support. they focus our attention on whether the t-shirt incident was a genuine mistake or a miscalculated manoeuvre for political gain. second, these frames direct attention towards finding reasons why lyons’s persona may have been incompatible with the mayoral role (wright and holland). given his celebrity status and anti-politics platform, lyons was held to a higher governance standard. he was expected to clean up politics by acting for the casson 50 non-elites of geelong and showing a new form of leadership. nevertheless, it could be argued that wearing the controversial t-shirt was exactly how lyons acted for the non-elites, and offered a new form of populist leadership. regardless, the framing of the t-shirt incident simultaneously presented lyons’s celebrity persona, exposed his illusory private self and appeared to show his public persona in a negative light. in this situation, lyons did not seem to ‘do’ celebrity very well, and gave the impression that he had neglected the specific demands placed on him as mayor (wright and holland). in effect, although lyons was performing well as a disruptive celebrity politician, he contravened the expectation of due decorum as mayor. an unintentional act “i am not apologising for wearing the t-shirt, but i’ve made a mistake in i didn’t realise what was written on the t-shirt, i just thought it was just graffiti. for everyone that this has upset i certainly apologise. i had no idea the wording on it and that’s the god’s honest truth. i swear on my grandmother’s grave. i certainly didn’t wish to demean women in any shape or form and i certainly wouldn’t do that.” (cannon 4) lyons initially defended wearing the t-shirt as an unintentional act and refused to apologise. he argued that he first bought the t-shirt in london when madonna’s coffee table book sex came out in 1992, because he loved the photograph: “i have a great collection of pictures of both naked men and naked women, particularly naked women, and art right through my house and through every museum around the world. so what do you do? close all the museums because of the most beautiful human body?” (tsvirko; miletic). lyons qualified his unintentional act via local, national and international media interviews saying it was: “a great picture and image of our time” (mitchell). lyons continued to protest that, until an oktoberfest guest had raised the writing on the t-shirt with him, he had not realised the connotation of the words at the time of putting it on: “i came inside and looked at it and thought, ‘oh, right. good point’” (miletic; badham). some local commentators supported lyons and claimed that he had made a simple but stupid mistake: “it’s just a t-shirt, no need to apologise for art” (jean). one well-known local commentator, paul dyer, suggested that the media was driving the story and it was the biggest “toss story” of the year. in addition, there were suggestions that the attack on lyons was politically motivated: “excluding the abc, fairfax, ninemsn and sky news, the advertiser has no equal nationwide in its eagerness to stick the knife in the back of anything conservative and everything darryn lyons” (davies 27). nevertheless, the intensity of the media and community attention eventually forced lyons to admit on live radio and national tv that he regretted wearing the t-shirt (miletic; badham). an intentional act “very often what a celebrity has printed on their t-shirt can decide whether the shots get into the papers or not; of course, the stars are all too aware of that.” (lyons 139) overall, the media articles examined indicate that lyons was framed as intentionally wearing the t-shirt. for example, an article by geelong advertiser journalist david cairns suggested that lyons purposefully wore the t-shirt as a publicity stunt in order to generate media dollars for himself: “ka-ching!” (cairns 5). cairns also claimed that lyons skilfully preprepared his arguments about the t-shirt to ensure maximum exposure: “was wearing the geelong mayoral robes to a new beer festival which he is privately backing provocative? and don’t you think he knows that?” (cairns 5). cairns argued that lyons has a “no publicity is bad publicity mantra” and that, as the “champion of free publicity” he intended to spread the message to the world via social media (cairns 5). persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 51 while lyons protested it was a completely innocent mistake, some members of the local community demanded his resignation for demeaning geelong’s reputation. for example, a change.org petition titled: “wrong for geelong – and wrong for everyone everywhere” called for lyons to be sacked (cannon; miletic). the petition, with 476 signatures, argued that the message on lyons’s t-shirt promoted sexual violence against women. it called for lyons to resign and argued that the t-shirt wording was: “a gross disregard for the families of those many thousands of people who have died while hitch-hiking” (change.org). jackie kriz, a member of the nurses and midwives federation and of the socialist alliance also refused to accept that it was an unintentional act: “we know that appearance is very important to him” (kriz 4). social media commentators also questioned lyons’s excuses: “ok, even if this is true, if you can’t read your own clothing then how are you qualified to lead a community?” (miles). another resident argued that lyons was an “intuitive semiotician”, and that his reported defence of the t-shirt incident lacked credibility (sahr 27). lyons describes himself as “a tory through and through” (lyons 175) and argued that, as a liberal mayor, he was being targeted by his australian labor party (alp) and union opponents: “people want to use this as an excuse to bring down the mayor of geelong” (cannon 3). however, during his term of office, lyons was notorious for publically venting his frustration with state and federal politicians, and particularly alp members, which made for a very fractious relationship between him and the labor-run state government (squires). this example highlights how lyons’s celebrity persona did not appear to be very compatible with his public persona as mayor. consequently, the local unions attacked lyons, with the trades hall secretary calling for his resignation: “i think he does know (what it said) and he’s had a boysy day on the beer” (cannon 4). however, the premier of the alp-led state government declined to comment on calls for lyons’s resignation: “he needs to explain what he was wearing and why. i’m not going to be drawn into that. i don’t own a t-shirt like that, therefore i wouldn’t wear one” (the guardian). the local government minister reminded lyons that he was “supposed to represent the people of geelong” and should act accordingly (cannon 4). nevertheless, the minister advised that there was nothing in the local government act about dressing respectfully. condemnation also came from the liberal party with the federal member for corangamite, sarah henderson, criticising lyons’s t-shirt as “totally inappropriate” (cannon 3). but the majority of criticism came from alp members, and the t-shirt incident was raised at the highest level by richard marles, the federal member for corio, during his constituency statement in parliament. regional mayors also spoke out against lyons’s actions, particularly as he was chairperson of the geelong region’s local government alliance (g21). colac otway mayor frank buchanan argued that lyons’s actions had hurt the reputation of g21 and that, if he had acted as lyons had, he would expect to be: “pulled over the coals” (cannon 3). however, g21’s ceo, elaine carbines, dismissed buchanan’s claims and argued that the community could distinguish between lyons’s “inappropriate behaviour” and the work of g21 (cannon 3). this is an interesting nuance as carbines is a former alp member of the victorian state parliament and, while lyons was chairman of g21, she dealt with both his politics and his behaviour. lyons’s man of the people image, celebrity, and irreverence towards the mayoral role was a common theme in the analysed online comments. for example: “when you are mayor, you are mayor 24/7, and this is not how a mayor normally represents his city” (cairns). in addition: “the one thing you cannot be [when you are a mayor] is up yourself. and, darryn, mate, that is you” (badham). more specifically, the dialogue overtook all discussion on the important issues facing geelong, such as job losses: “since he became mayor, the ugliness of casson 52 what he chooses to spend his money on has more serious implications – because geelong has been in trouble for a while” (badham). conclusion it is evident that, through the t-shirt incident, lyons was framed negatively, which resulted in him being positioned as “intentionally” wearing the t-shirt. although most online commenters examined here liked lyons wearing the t-shirt and accepted the “unintentional” frame, it was the “intentional” frame that emerged strongest through the media commentary from data set one. this is despite the fact that the analysis undertaken of data set two showed that readers were mostly not as offended by the t-shirt incident. although lyons received positive comments supporting his “unintentional” claim, a majority of the geelong advertiser survey respondents disliked his action, and framed it as “intentional”. they viewed it as a miscalculation by an elected official. lyons’s qualities were framed as being disrespectful of his mayoral role, and the legitimacy of local government was therefore undermined by him wearing the t-shirt. although i acknowledge badham’s associations with the labor party, her commentary came closest to the core of the “intentional” versus “unintentional” question. more specifically, that the t-shirt incident seemed to remain the focus for geelong– and not the important issues of the city. on this evidence, lyons’s actions indicate that his celebrity persona appeared to be conflicted with his public persona. there is no doubt that lyons’s celebrity persona put geelong on the global map. for good and bad reasons, the city had more exposure than before his election. the more outrageously lyons behaved, it seems, the more people loved him and the “trump factor” emerged in miniature (squires). however, lyons did not appear to successfully leverage his “zany or off-kilter” behaviour to the benefit of geelong (wood, corbett and flinders 591). it could be argued that the ironic effect of a “mohawk mayor” wearing a controversial t-shirt undermined rather than enhanced the legitimacy of local government, and this ultimately drowned out geelong’s important issues. throughout his term of office, lyons’s celebrity persona seemed to draw continued criticism, and his mayoral term appeared to be marred by arguments rather than success. this was exactly the opposite of what geelong needed in terms of a leader with a public persona capable of providing leadership and strategic direction. however, it can also be argued that geelong’s leadership structure was still in flux and lyons had insufficient time to make much impact on governance, or the problems facing the city. with other countries implementing, reviewing or considering directly elected mayoral models, further research is required to combine the literature on directly elected mayors and celebrity politics. there are shortcomings in the literature on directly elected celebrity mayors, and specifically those in australian second-tier cities. these omissions limit the degree to which a satisfactory explanation of “celebrities making good mayors” has been provided. greater examination will also help us understand if directly elected mayoral models improve engagement, and combined whether they make matters better, worse, or both better and worse. further investigation of the lyons case could shed light on how local governments can develop policies to manage future directly elected celebrity mayors. for example, six months after the t-shirt incident, the mayoral chain was transferred from lyons’s office to a locked safe in the ceo’s office. this means that future mayors can no longer put on the formal regalia where and when they want to, and have to sign a register before using them (squires). as highlighted by sansom, there is a growing belief that more effective leadership is needed in local government, and directly elected mayors could be seen as representative of a persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 53 broader shift to address this issue. celebrity is fast emerging as a serious issue within that process, especially as 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"leadership and the media: gendered framings of julia gillard’s ‘sexism and misogyny’ speech." australian journal of political science 49.3 (2014): 455–68. print. erman 74 a teacher, a scientist, a wife: the complex self of joséphine schouteden-wéry (1879-1954) sar ah erma n abstract in early twentieth-century belgium, a number of women started careers in teaching and furthered their education at university. this article explores how one of them, joséphine schouteden-wéry—a teacher, a botanist and wife of a successful zoologist—built her public image as a professional “teacher-scientist” by tapping into various pre-existing cultural repertoires for the female popular science writer and for the scientist. i examine how several elements were instrumental in this process, for both the making and the circulation of her public self. attention is thus directed towards the opportunities provided by the ambiguity of the field as a place of biological research and teaching, the fluidity and uses of the persona of the explorer by scientists and non-scientists alike, and the different impacts of scientific sociability. it is argued that while schouteden-wéry strove to construct an independent and consistent public self as a scientist, a teacher, and a wife, the different sides of her multifaceted public self occasionally clashed with each other. key words gender; women in science; place; education; identity; persona; botany; field; colonialism in a letter dating from early february 1920, a request was sent to the brussels local board for education: i am delighted to bring to your attention that i have been appointed by the ministry of colonies as botanist for the congo biological mission which is to be led by my husband, dr schouteden, head of the natural sciences section at the congo museum. […] this mission, which has received the highest royal approval […] will last several months. i hereby request you to be so kind as to grant leave of absence, so as to fulfil the mission i have been given (schouteden to the echevin, avb, 12/02/1920).1 the sender, who defined herself as a scientist on a mission, was also a teacher. born in molenbeek in 1879, joséphine wéry graduated as a régente (a lower secondary school teacher) in 1900 and started teaching soon after. in 1902, she registered as a student in botany at the université libre de bruxelles, under the supervision of jean massart, a biologist and conservationist. she left university in 1906 without having completed her doctoral degree. she was then promoted to a tenure position at a school for girls and future female teachers, the cours d’éducation. in 1908, wéry married one of her fellow students, dr henri schouteden, who persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 75 would soon become a renowned entomologist and zoologist, and the director of the museum of the belgian congo. the couple never had children. joséphine schouteden-wéry continued her research after the years she spent at university and published three scientific articles and two popular science books between 1904 and 1920. as the letter quoted above indicates, she participated in a scientific mission led by her husband in the belgian congo in 1920-1921. she retired in 1930 and devoted the following years to the writing of history books and of botanical articles in gardening magazines. she died in 1954 (gubin 2006; heizer & cardoso cerqueira 2014; prigogine 1989). schouteden-wéry's career path was not an exception. she was part of a generation of belgian women with a strong interest in the life sciences who had careers as teachers as well as university educations. historians have analysed the impact of women’s increasing access to university on female professions, and especially on the gendered division of scientific work according to skills or fields perceived as being naturally feminine. labelled as “women’s work in science”, such jobs included that of computer in observatories (which required patience, perseverance and a methodical approach) or positions in home economics or hygiene (rossiter 1984, pp. 51-72). sally gregory kohlsted has recently argued that, in the us, the nature study movement created “yet another niche for ‘women’s work in science’”: many nature study teachers and supervisors were indeed women (kohlsted 2010, esp. p. 146; 161). the case of women’s work in education is particularly interesting, as there was a preexisting tradition of women popularisers of science. in the late eighteenth century, traditions of popular science writing had conveyed new templates for the scientific woman, and women built careers as science popularisers in the nineteenth century (findlen 2003; lightman 2007, pp. 95166; gates 1998). women teachers’ access to the academic sphere in the early twentieth century and career paths such as that of schouteden-wéry raise a number of questions for historians. how did they consider themselves and how were they perceived by their peers? did they seek recognition for their work? how did their identity as single women, wives, or mothers interfere with their professional endeavours, be it as scientists or as teachers? what sort of tools do historians have at hand to think about such processes? in reflecting upon how women built professional identities, and how their activities were pictured as scientific, the recent literature on scholarly personas is particularly useful. scholarly personas are cultural templates used by individuals to fashion their public image. they are generic images, models shaped as much by institutions and professions as by other individuals, that “circulate across milieux and might be recognised by lay persons” (algazi 2016, p. 13). as part of cultural repertoires, they are used by individuals like masks worn on a stage. however, rather than concealing the bearer’s true self, they help construct his or her identity and act as a medium between the individual and his or her social context (daston & sibum 2003, p. 3). examples of such scholarly personas include the explorer, the lab worker, and the femme savante. personas can also be understood as clusters of virtues (such as meticulousness, perseverance, etc.) and skills (the ability to, say, collect plants correctly and experiment on them in the lab) embedded in those cultural models (paul 2014, paul 2016). such sets of ideal attributes are cultivated by scholarly communities, and represent “what it takes” to be part of that community (paul 2014, p. 363). in a similar fashion, gender historians have shown how “gender is done” by individuals by using “pre-existing gender scripts” (bosch 2013, pp. 18-22). other contributions have stressed the connections between place and persona in the history of science. the field, for instance, was perceived as an ambiguous and less reliable site of knowledge production than the lab, notably because it was also visited by non-scientists (kohler 2002, pp. 6-11). this prompted field scientists to put into place persona strategies that were erman 76 highly gendered. naomi oreskes (1996), in her seminal article on women’s invisibility in science, demonstrated that masculine ideals of scientific heroism surrounding field work were central in the making of (male) scientific credibility. the impossibility for women “computers” of presenting themselves as heroic explorers in the field, oreskes argued, helped make them invisible. raf de bont (2017) has further explored how virtues, space and gender intersect by contrasting women’s documentation work—performed in the metropolis, away from the public eye—with the visibility of men’s field work. while these contributions have persuasively demonstrated that, in some instances, women’s exclusion from field work had an impact on their visibility and credibility as scientists, i argue here that the ambiguity of the field could also provide an opportunity for women to present their work as being scientific as well as educational. the context of early twentiethcentury belgium particularly lends itself to this analysis. field practices were viewed by belgian biologists and naturalists at the time as instrumental for research as well as education, making it possible for women to position themselves as important actors in this field. on the other hand, the persona of the explorer was being increasingly used outside science by women who travelled to the congo, notably for building a collective identity for belgian “colonial women”. templates, models, personas, and virtue language were thus extensively circulated, hybridized and negotiated. this article focuses on the ways a single individual, schouteden-wéry, constructed her public self over the course of her life. while personas are situated somewhere between the individual and the institutional level, they are best explored at the level of the individual’s “selffashioning” or “performance”. as historian and theorist herman paul has argued (2016, p. 43), “histories of scholarly personae will never operate at an ideal-typical level but show in detail how scholars in the past found themselves torn between different, incompatible personae and wove their ways between them”. this is precisely what is at stake here. as a (married) woman, a scientist and a teacher, schouteden-wéry strove to construct a consistent public self by tapping into a variety of pre-existing templates and cultural repertoires of virtues—a task that was not without struggle or inconsistencies. schouteden-wéry left behind a wealth of manuscripts and publications, in which she fashioned herself both directly—by using autobiographical elements in the text, mentioning her occupation on a book cover, etc.—and indirectly, by using a certain style and inscribing herself into former literary traditions. i first look at schouteden-wéry’s early years as a teacher and as a student. i examine how she promoted a “hybrid” persona, that of the “teacher-scientist”, by using pre-existing templates and models for the scientist and the female popular science writer. the sources here are two handbooks she wrote on the subject of leading field trips in the belgian countryside, based on trips performed with jean massart. i also show how the connections with the conservationism and educational activities of massart, and the ways the field was used as a venue for scientific enquiry, sociability and teaching, were central in this “cultural cut and paste” (daston & sibum 2003, p. 5). following this initial discussion, i examine how this image evolved after the first world war through two publications about her trip to the congo, lettres africaines (1920-1921) and souvenirs d’afrique (1938-1949). in both, schouteden-wéry made use of the persona of the explorer. in the third section of the article, i look at the way she advocated for her status as a “teacher-scientist” in her exchanges with the administration that employed her as a teacher, through two series of letters written ten years apart. the first series of letters related to the negotiation of the conditions for her mission (1920-1921), and the second series at obtaining a raise in her pension given her academic experience (1930). schouteden-wéry’s letters provide helpful insights into the negotiation of new templates between individuals and institutions (wils & huistra 2016) and schouteden-wéry’s views of her persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 77 own career. the final portion of this article explores how her public self as a teacher-scientist coexisted with her status as scientist’s wife through patterns of scientific sociability. the article ends by considering to the relative success of josephine’s self-fashioning and to some concluding remarks. university, the field and the advent of the “teacher-scientist” belgian women started gaining access to careers in non-denominational education in the 1860s, when education for girls became a primary concern for the liberal and anticlerical bourgeoisie. the main issues at stake were the fear of conversion to catholicism due to the lack of education of future mothers, and the growing idea that women could have a major impact on the next generation of (male) decision-makers. in this context, several schools called cours d’education, providing both a lower secondary education (école moyenne) and training for primary school teachers (école normale d’institutrices), were founded from 1864 onwards (gubin, piette & van den dungen 2004, pp. 29-46). twenty years later, sections for the training of lower secondary school teachers (régentes) opened, and universities started welcoming their first female students: emma leclercq, a primary school teacher, was admitted to the natural sciences faculty of the université libre de bruxelles (ulb)—the academic stronghold of the belgian liberal bourgeoisie —in october 1880 (gubin, piette & van den dungen 2004, p. 55). almost a quarter of women students who registered at the ulb over the following years already held a teaching degree (despy-meyer 1980, p. xii). there were several reasons why women graduated as teachers before going to university at this time, the main one being that, although many men were teachers, this career fitted well with ideals of feminine, motherly work directed towards education. the idea that women's primary role was to be home-makers, wives, and mothers would prevail at least into the late 1920s and early 1930s, and feminist organisations such as the conseil national des femmes belges—for which joséphine schouteden-wéry was president of the education committee—supported women’s employment in typically feminine jobs such as sewing (jacques 2013, pp. 52-53, 127-128). by 1930, 64% of all teachers in belgium were women (jacques 2013, p. 155). in this context, university was seen as a way to further one's knowledge and possibly climb the teaching career ladder (despy-meyer 1980, pp. 62-72). also, before 1920 and the opening of a complete secondary curriculum for girls, becoming a teacher was the best available preparation for university (gubin, piette & van den dungen 2004, pp. 61, 125). at the université libre, in the early twentieth century, most female students joined the natural sciences faculty (despy-meyer 1980, p. xii). schouteden-wéry was one of them, and the impact the university curriculum had on her career and the way she presented herself was at least twofold. first, her collaboration and friendship with jean massart (1865-1925) allowed her to build a public self that consisted of a cross between a populariser and a scientist. second, her connections to the academic world would enhance her public image as a teacher. jean massart (1865-1925) was a physiologist-turned-naturalist and professor of botany at the ulb who had a broad interest in the field that he shared with the wider public in general and with women (teachers) in particular. massart’s main scientific interest was geobotany, the study of plant distribution over a certain territory in order to understand the connection between plant growth, the soil and the climate. his students took part in his work in this area: schouteden-wéry, for instance, published a long article about the factors for algae distribution on the belgian coast. this contribution, for which schouteden-wéry had done work in the lab and in the field over several years, was explicitly framed as a step towards massart’s desire to draw the geobotanical map of belgium (schouteden-wéry 1911, p. 101). massart also thought erman 78 that the field was a good place to teach, and often went on trips with his students (inauguration, 1933, pp. 13-14). his interest in education went beyond his duties as a university professor: he led excursions for the wider public, designed gardens for secondary schools, and published several popular science books (denaeyer-de smet, herremans & vermander, 2006, pp. 30-32; stynens 2006, pp. 705-708). massart was also directly involved with the sphere of female education: he was an inspector for the cours d’éducation, and conducted field trips with school girls (stockmans 1968, p. 725; hens, vanden borre & wils 2014, p. 33). massart’s interest in the field meant that he also was a strong advocate for nature conservation (denaeyer-de smet, herremans & vermander, 2006). in 1912, he wrote pour la protection de la nature en belgique, which pleaded for the creation of nature reserves. his activism could have been perceived as opposed to the scientists’ expected virtues of detachedness and objectivity; he therefore carefully depicted the field as a source of (scientific) truth where evolution could be seen in action (de bont & heynickx 2012, p. 238). while he distanced himself from the outspoken sentimentality of other nature protection organisations, he was also in touch with associations that were far from being exclusively populated by scientists. these included le nouveau jardin pittoresque, which aimed at promoting the making of “natural” gardens, and les amis de la forêt de soignes, a circle of artists and politicians who sought to protect a forest close to brussels (de bont & heynickx 2012; notteboom 2006, p. 34). schouteden-wéry regularly contributed to these two associations’ publications and, along with other women close to massart, was actively involved in a new naturalists’ society that was particularly aimed at women, children and teachers, l’aquarium pour tous (l’aquarium 1916, pp. 5-7). in short, massart’s field-based scientific, political, and educational agendas did not seem incompatible, but rather consistent with one another. this interest in the field, as we have seen, extended beyond the academic sphere, and women were important actors in the process. this interplay between field work, teaching and research, academia and the wider public, and the role of women in these knowledge-making and transfer processes are exemplified in a series of accounts of day trips led by massart for the extension de l'université libre de bruxelles—the university’s organisation for the diffusion of academic knowledge (de bont 2015, p. 102). these excursions were virtual field-based lessons in botany, in which both massart’s students and the wider public, including (female) secondary school teachers, took part (stockmans 1968, p. 725). they were all recorded in four thick volumes entitled excursions scientifiques organisées par l'extension de l'université libre de bruxelles and written by three women close to massart: schouteden-wéry, jeanne barzin—a régente at the cours d’education—and mrs lefebvre, the president of the nouveau jardin pittoresque (excursions 1906-1913; notteboom 2012, p. 24). such collaborations with women for the writing of educational and reference works would continue after the war: in 1920, he co-wrote a guide to the destroyed towns and the battlefields of belgium with yet another régente, henriette dirkxcoenraets (hens, vanden borre & wils 2014, pp. 33-37). schouteden-wéry’s two accounts provide long and easy-to-read descriptions of both the excursionist’s experience in the field and descriptions of the vegetation as it was encountered, with full morphological and physiological details of the plants' relations to their environment. from a narrative point of view, the excursions are reminiscent of the annual accounts of trips that figured in learned societies publications, describing the excursionists’ day out, and their observations, starting and finishing with the train journey out of and back to the city. it is also reminiscent of former templates of feminine popular science, which itself used the ‘wanderings through nature’ sub-genre as a literary template. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 79 women had written works of popular science since the late eighteenth century and had gained a certain authority in this field, notably by “establish[ing] a set of narrative paradigms which in the end they made their own” (gates 1998, p. 37). until the 1840s, most of these stories were framed as a dialogue between a mother and her children at home. in the midnineteenth century, women popularisers sought to broaden their audience, and these new writers used journeying as their literary template (gates 1998, p. 44-48; lightman 2007, p. 132133). such traditions of feminine popular science writing allowed women to build identities as popularisers but also conveyed in-text models for the engagement of women in science, by showing the mother as an authoritative source of knowledge (lightman 2007, p. 21). in many ways, schouteden-wéry's published works belonged to this tradition, which placed her as a populariser rather than a scientist. like many female popularisers before her, she defined her audience in her introduction, and gave her definition a slightly moralistic tone: the relations were aimed at excursionists, teachers, and those who were “attracted by things other than mundane distractions” (lightman 2007, pp. 123-126; schouteden-wéry 1913, p. xiii). her position as an educator was made clear by the mention of her occupation as a teacher at the cours d’education on both book covers. yet the quality of her explanation of biological processes and the scientific vocabulary she used placed her in a different position from that of her female populariser predecessors: it displayed her level of education, her relation with massart, and her contacts with the academic world. her connection with massart would be reaffirmed during social occasions and ceremonies for which she wrote speeches where she reminded the public that she had been his student and collaborator (inauguration, 1933, pp. 4-5; discours 1938, p. 4). the excursions were an opportunity for schouteden-wéry to write popular science, and like her predecessors, explain nature in nature—in the field. yet the field was also where she and massart performed research. as a “border-line” space of scientific enquiry, education and leisure, it provided a remarkable stage on which schouteden-wéry could perform as both a scientist and as an educator: she could display the skills and virtues pertaining to both roles in a single setting. on the one hand, massart’s interest in geobotanical studies gave schoutedenwéry a way to show her scientific accuracy, thoroughness, and objectivity, and display her plant identification and analytical skills through her scientific contributions. on the other hand, massart's interest in education corresponded with schouteden-wéry’s background as a teacher, and the pre-existing tradition of travel writing as a feminine popular science template allowed her to display field-based educational skills. a traveller and naturalist in the congo the influence of travel writing as a literary template for feminine popular science on joséphine schouteden-wéry’s writing and self-fashioning would be all the more visible after the war, in her account of her 1920-1921 journey to the congo. the lettres africaines were first published in la gazette during her trip, and later proudly advertised as the “first feminine reportage in the colony”. they were then almost entirely re-written and published in the bulletin de l’union des femmes coloniales, under the title souvenirs d'afrique in the form of a serial between 1938—the year she became the temporary president of the union—and 1949.2 unlike schouteden-wéry's previous written work, these pieces were autobiographical and allowed a more direct self-fashioning relying on an old, highly flexible template: that of the explorer. in the 1920s, this persona and its associated ideas of adventure and danger were put to use not only in the scientific academic sphere but also in women's travel writing and colonial gender politics. in all three, hagiographic figures such as stanley and livingstone loomed large. erman 80 the brochure advertising schouteden's mission—a copy of which was sent to schoutedenwéry’s employer, the local board for education, and was kept in her file—relied extensively on quotations of stanley’s descriptions of the grandeur of nature in the congo, so as to demonstrate the importance of studying colonial flora and fauna on site (un projet 1919, pp. 5-15). attention has already been brought to the ways narratives surrounding the roles of explorer’s wives during expeditions were crucial in the self-fashioning of these women themselves but also of other women, inside and outside science. donna harraway has shown how the two wives of carl akeley, naturalist-explorer for the american museum of natural history, contributed to the making of the complex gendered narratives of their participation in their husband’s field expeditions, oscillating between being his equals in adventurous hunting sessions to acting as important camp managers (harraway 1984, pp. 43-49). the life and adventures of other women, such as mary moffat (livingstone’s wife), were instrumental in the making of a persona for the female explorer for francophone women travel writers in the 1920s (venayre 2008). moffat and belgian women “pioneers” were also used as models of behaviour for belgian colonial women in the publications of the newly founded union des femmes coloniales belges. in its bulletin, moffat was described as a courageous yet modest wife who followed her husband through the jungle, while teaching needle skills to young ladies, looking after children, and providing food to the poor (lejeune 1938). such a template was found in other narratives for the role of the naturalist-explorers’ wives, whose “domestic and quiet lives” were put in contrast with “the perilous work of the manly explorer” (herzig 2005, p. 81). founded at a time when women were increasingly accompanying their husbands to the belgian congo, the union helped women find meaning for their lives in the colonies: as dedicated wives, their main role was to assist their husbands, sanitise the colonial milieu and “civilise the black”. a collective identity was created for the women who, regardless of the time spent in the congo, all shared the same unifying experience (jacques & piette 2004, pp. 98-104). the fluidity and importance of a template such as that of the explorer could prove particularly useful for people who, like schouteden-wéry, built their public self at the intersection between several spheres—yet it also yielded a certain ambiguity that could prove detrimental to their image. the two versions of schouteden-wéry’s travel account reflect this: she navigates between presenting herself as a mere travel-writer accompanying her husband, and as an educator, and as a scientist, all aspects of roles that are infused with the exciting flavour of exploration. most interestingly, the lettres africaines were published under a female pseudonym: “munia”. the letters contained no allusion to the identity of either the writer or her husband. this was an anonymous feminine travel account: the author’s interest in the congolese flora and fauna was described in only one of the first ten “letters”. only a depiction of léo errera as a remarkable man of science allowed the reader to guess that the writer had connections with the université libre de bruxelles (‘lettres’, 21st august 1920). in the later version, however, schouteden-wéry changed both audiences—from the general public to current and future colonial women—and purposes—from simple story-telling to education. slight tensions arose regarding the way she presented herself, her relation with her husband and the purpose of the article. the first episode of the souvenirs resembled the version published in the gazette—schouteden-wéry described the landscapes she encountered and her feelings in a highly lyrical fashion—and she introduced her testimony by stating that she hoped it would spark “interest in […] women […] in the prodigious congolese nature”, and set a clear hierarchy between her role and her husband’s during the mission: “i was a mere traveller in the congo. i was accompanying my husband during one of his missions as an expert persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 81 naturalist” (‘souvenirs’, january 1938, p. 4). in the third episode of the series, however, she openly refashioned the way she presented her journey, the nature of her relation with her husband during the trip, and the aim of her souvenirs: as i told you before, we were both taking part in this mission as biologists passionate about nature. therefore, i feel it to be my duty to provide you with a biologist’s account of this journey. my souvenirs will thus differ from more classic accounts of our colony in which landscape impressions, ethnic observations, or economic matters take pride of place. moreover, there is nothing more captivating than real stories about plants and beasts. […] for these reasons, and while i shall spare you the scientific jargon that puts off so many people wishing to instruct themselves in zoology and in botany, i promise i shall tell you the life story of my plant and animal characters by always remaining truthful (‘souvenirs’, april 1938, p. 6) having now thoroughly redefined herself as a scientist and populariser, she gave most of the following episodes the form of natural history lessons, while comparisons between the congolese and belgian coasts and allusions to massart reminded the reader of the author’s academic past (‘souvenirs’, august 1938, p. 5). the souvenirs, however, were written in a feminine, feelings-laden style, and distilled messages that coincided with the journal’s agenda. colours, smells and sights were described in a vivid fashion, anthropomorphized plants delivered lessons about motherhood, and her dangerous crossing of a river at dawn is complete only once she sees her husband—her “lord and master”—reaching the other bank (‘souvenirs’, january 1939, p. 5). schouteden-wéry’s style was later praised in an article devoted to her in the bulletin: “her science is far from dry; rather, it is lively, sensitive and feminine, and awakens a curiosity for things of nature in young girls that they will retain for their entire life” (‘madame schouteden’ 1952, p. 6). almost twenty years after her journey, schouteden-wéry relied more than ever on feminine templates of popular science, while defining herself as a scientist. her desire to present herself as both an educator and a scientist was all the more visible in her correspondence with another, less public audience: the local board for education that employed her as a teacher. in her letters, schouteden-wéry explicitly defined herself as a scientist but also implicitly referred to virtues and qualities that were increasingly associated with the scientist: travelling, publishing, and obtaining funding. the letters also show that several versions of the “teacherscientist” model were used by women at the time, with varying degrees of success: what it took to be considered as a good teacher and the impact of academic standards on those models were changing. the “teacher-scientist”: an institutional negotiation joséphine schouteden-wéry first series of letters started with the request for a leave of absence featured at the beginning of this article. the leave was granted but she was informed that her salary would be suspended during her journey. unhappy with this decision, schouteden-wéry reminded the échevin that she was still a scientist performing experimental research in the lab and that she was a published author, and wrote: i am telling you all this, monsieur l’échevin, to show that really, i work a lot, and that it might not be without reason that i have been appointed as botanist for this mission [...], also to prove that i am particularly attached to the popularization [vulgarisation] of better science teaching, and that one can expect from me serious efforts [...]. you can now judge for yourself whether the leave of absence i have requested is a mere whim [...] or rather an opportunity erman 82 for hard scientific labour that deserves to be supported by your administration. (schouteden-wéry to the echevin, avb, 15/03/1920) matters were made worse upon her return, when schouteden-wéry realised that her colleague, alice scouvart (1885-1932), had received part of her teacher's salary as well as a grant from the university foundation—a new funding body—for her stay at the university of berkeley that same year. scouvart and schouteden-wéry knew each other: they were both teachers who had furthered their training at the université libre—scouvart had graduated in physics and mathematics in 1911 (dupont-bouchat & nandrin, 2006)—and both had taken part in massart's excursions. while schouteden-wéry acknowledged in her letters that the two trips were very different—“mrs scouvart spent a year studying in america whereas i studied our colony's flora and fauna for nine months” (schouteden-wéry to the echevin, avb, 21/04/1921)—and despite a supporting letter from the head of their school contending that the two women should receive equal treatment, the administration did not consider the two cases to be equal. the second series of letters was written when schouteden-wéry retired, just after academic degrees had started to be taken into account in the calculation of pensions for teachers. schouteden-wéry, unlike scouvart, had not graduated. however, she considered she should benefit from the same advantages as graduates: she had published, and had been massart's assistant, and had taken all the courses leading to the degree. the only reason why she had not sat the final exams was that, according to one of the ulb professors, “it did not seem useful at the time” (a. lameere to mr tils, avb, 13/02/1930). according to her this proved her dedication to science and teaching: “i have done my work in the university laboratory, not out of ambition but out of pure scientific interest and in the best interest of my educational work” (schouteden-wéry to the echevin, avb, 20/02/1930). in her letters, schouteden-wéry pictured herself as a selfless, hardworking (lab) scientist. both requests displayed at length her acquaintance with the scientific sphere, and were supported by a number of letters from université libre academics, including massart. this, she argued, “prove[d] without doubt that the university of brussels ha[d] always considered [her] as one of them”—even twenty-five years after leaving university (schouteden-wéry to the echevin, avb, 20/02/1930). her correspondence also points to a willingness to display qualities pertaining to the scientific sphere, such as fundability and “publishability”. schouteden-wéry's request that her wages be maintained during her trip to the congo was unlikely to have stemmed purely from fear of financial hardship, as her husband received considerable funding for the mission. it may have been related to the rise of fundability and travel as two important elements in scientific careers at the time. pieter huistra and kaat wils (2016, pp. 115-117) have recently shown how the creation of funding bodies such as the belgian american educational foundation (baef) and the university foundation in belgium in the 1920s led to the emergence of having travelled to the us and having received funding for one's research as two important qualities in the building of men’s and women's scientific personas. not being paid for research was increasingly seen as a sign of amateurism. at the same time, the importance of publications as a proof of recognition and as an element of the “teacher-scientist template” is relatively unsurprising. since the late nineteenth century at least, the circulation of scientific ideas in dedicated journals and reviews by an increasingly separate sphere of professional scientists was paramount in the making of its identity (gates 1998, p. 83). the promotion of the “teacher-scientist” model did not bear the expected fruit for schouteden-wéry: both her requests were rejected. her status as a “teacher-scientist” was not as convincing as that of scouvart, who held a doctoral degree, had received funding, and had travelled to the united states. schouteden-wéry had not graduated, and her collaborations with persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 83 massart and errera were unofficial: the ulb admitted that no contract could be found and that wéry must have been massart's “private assistant” (a. lameere to mr tils, avb, 3/03/1930). her stress on the work done in the lab, a place of more scientific authority than the classroom or the field, is telling, but apparently did not make a difference. another element was detrimental to her: the administration considered she was first and foremost accompanying her husband to the congo. unlike most of the women surrounding massart and the majority of her colleagues at the cours d'éducation (including scouvart) she was a married woman—a scientist’s wife. this suggests that while general views of women’s social role led most of them to embrace teaching careers regardless of their marital status, it did not mean that this marital status did not matter. women had different opportunities according to whether they were single or married and whether or not they had children. as herman paul has rightly noted, “scholarly personae exist among other personae or culturally sanctioned scripts for how to be a neighbor, a father, a mother, and so forth”, and while the two types of personas might “live in peaceful harmony”, they are most likely to be “in tension” with one another (paul 2014, p. 356). this multiplicity of personas was undoubtedly at work for schouteden-wéry. the wife to a certain extent, joséphine schouteden-wéry worked hard at promoting a public image based on her personal career and distinct from her role as her husband’s wife. the general context was not especially favourable. negative views of married women’s work loomed large in belgium between the wars. belgian married women could not receive their own salary before 1932—a right granted to french women in 1907—and could not practise a profession without the husband’s permission before 1958 (jacques 2014, pp. 138-148). schouteden-wéry had started publishing before she married (wéry, 1904) and combined her maiden and her married name in all her publications afterwards. her publications generally display an image of an independent woman with her own career as a “teacher-scientist”, with few mentions of her husband, even in the congo pieces. the fact that the two spouses had different scientific interests—henri schouteden was an entomologist and zoologist while his wife focused on botany—arguably gave her room for the making of an independent “scientific” public self and meant that their collaboration was situated more at the level of career-building and practicalities than actual research. while schouteden was on his second mission to the congo in 1924-1925, his wife would visit the museum often, making sure all the material he needed was duly sent, and preventing allegedly ill-intentioned colleagues from taking decisions that might be detrimental to his career (schouteden-wéry to schouteden, mrac, 1924-1925)3. this role as a supportive wife also needed to be combined with her professional “teacher-scientist” template. the interplay between the two sides of her life and public image are visible in the different ways schoutedenwéry became involved in a variety of learned societies, associations, and political organisations. learned societies were a venue for scientific collaboration as well as social encounter, in which the two spouses would become involved differently according to how it served their career. while both were presented by massart to the société royale de botanique de belgique in 1904, it was schouteden-wéry, the botanist of the two, who quickly became a member of the society’s board. conversely, her husband held important administrative duties at the société malacologique et zoologique de belgique and the société entomologique de belgique, and schouteden-wéry became a member of these two societies first and foremost as his wife. such contrasting roles are also visible in the ways the spouses were involved in the congresses of entomology and botany that were held in brussels in 1910. in the first instance, schouteden was erman 84 heavily involved in the organisation, while schouteden-wéry fulfilled social duties, such as taking part in social events and joining a small “committee of ladies” who made sure the wives and daughters of the participants found their way around the city (severin 1912, p. 32). conversely, during the botany congress, schouteden-wéry was a member of the organising committee and actively participated in the debates regarding the creation of new curricula for the teaching of botany in schools, while schouteden was simply listed as an attendee (de wildeman 1910, pp. 33, 324-325). during the war and in the interwar years, schouteden-wéry turned also to organisations devoted to popularization, women’s education and—following her husband's professional turn—the colonial enterprise. both spouses took up duties in the newly founded naturalist society l’aquarium pour tous. it was schouteden-wéry, however, who became a board member of this society when it changed its name to les naturalistes belges after the war. by 1924, she was a member of the conseil général de la ligue de l'enseignement, and obtained positions in a number of moderate feminist organisations related to women's education, such as the union des femmes coloniales (ufc), the conseil national des femmes belges and the belgian lycéum club (‘madame’ 1952, p. 6; soyer 1996, p. 156). in all these later activities, schouteden-wéry was acting on her own, building her persona as an educator with a career while conforming to the idea that a woman's primary role in society was that of a dedicated spouse. the patterns of affiliation of the two spouses show that on some occasions, schoutedenwéry “acted” as her husband's wife, while on others she performed as a “teacher-scientist”. in this respect, the benefits of being involved in learned societies were twofold. on the one hand, it allowed her to present herself as formally belonging to a number of (scientific) communities. her membership and administrative functions became an integral part of her persona, and she would mention them in her letters. on the other, it allowed her to circulate this public image through the organisation’s publications, social events and conferences: both scouvart and schouteden-wéry displayed their performance as brave naturalists in the field by giving talks to the société royale de botanique de belgique after their travels in 1921 (‘assemblée’ 1923). epilogue and conclusion: being remembered the varying success of joséphine schouteden-wéry's self-promotion as a “teacher-scientist” is reflected in the ways others talked about her, both during and after her life-time. most commentators were colleagues or biographers of henri schouteden who almost systematically placed schouteden-wéry back in the domestic setting, relying on the dated template of the salonnière. she was described as “good fairy of the director’s home”—and as a wife who had bravely travelled with her husband in order to support him (hommage 1954, pp. 37-40). likewise, a later biographer of schouteden described her as a “born naturalist [and] an understanding wife who gave him help and affectionate support” (prigogine 1989, p. 340). another, who also mistook her first name for jeanne, contended that “[e]veryone would talk of mrs schouteden's salon as one would of those of the great ladies of the 18th century” (basilewski 1980, p. 605). her past occupation as a teacher and her scientific research seemed to have been forgotten by her husband's collaborators. yet the obituaries which were published after her death in le soir—a widely read newspaper—and in the bulletin de l'union des femmes coloniales both celebrated her university background, her career as a teacher, her publications, her connection to the union, and her collaborations with massart and errera (‘un grand deuil’ 1954; le soir, 8 december 1954). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 85 in many ways, schouteden-wéry sought to promote a public image as a “teacher-scientist”, by writing popular science based on pre-existing feminine literary templates while at the same time displaying the qualities expected from a scientist, such as experience in the field and in the lab, fundability, travel and collaboration with eminent biologists. yet her use of fluid cultural models such as that of the explorer, and of the field as a place of both scientific enquiry and education, was only mildly successful. it allowed her to combine different aspects of her public self, but did not completely succeed in promoting an image of her as a scientist to a wide audience. her marital status, while being an integral part of her complex public image, was also occasionally at odds with her image as an independent professional teacher and scientist. joséphine schouteden-wéry’s self-fashioning resulted in the circulation of a multiplicity of public images of herself rather than embodying a single and consistent model for the (married) female teacher with a university education. acknowledgement this research has received funding from the european union’s horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the marie skłodowska-curie grant agreement no 665850. preliminary research was facilitated by the university of namur. i would like to thank dr koen vermeir and dr kaat wils, as well as the anonymous reviewer, for their extremely helpful feedback while writing this article. 1 in all following in-text references, ‘avb’ refers to joséphine schouteden-wéry’s administrative file as a teacher: archives de la ville de bruxelles (avb), département de l’instruction publique, dossiers du personnel, lettre s (4), avb ip ii 1304/12. 2 munia [schouteden-wéry, j], ‘lettres africaines’, la gazette, 9 july 1920 to 20 august 1920, hereafter ‘lettres’; schoutéden-wéry, j, ‘souvenirs d'afrique’, bulletin de l'union des femmes coloniales, january 1938 to 1949, hereafter ‘souvenirs’. 3 correspondence henri schouteden, musée royal de l’afrique centrale (mrac) works cited algazi, g 2016, ‘exemplum and wundertier. three concepts of the scholarly persona’, in bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 9–14. l’aquarium pour tous, société nationale des amateurs d’aquariums et de terrariums 1916, brussels. ‘assemblée générale du 3 décembre 1922’ 1923, bulletin de la société royale de botanique de belgique, vol. 55, p. 183. basilewsky, p 1980, ‘henri schouteden’, in florilège des sciences en belgique, académie royale de belgique, brussels , pp. 599-607. bosch, m 2013, ‘persona and the performance of identity. parallel developments in the biographical history of science and gender, and the related uses of self narrative’, l'homme. europaïsche zeitschrift für feministiche 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brussels, p. 340. rossiter, m 1984, women scientists in america: struggles and strategies to 1940, john hopkins university press, baltimore. schouteden-wéry, j 1911, ‘quelques recherches sur les facteurs qui règlent la distribution géographique des algues, dans le veurne-ambacht (région s.-w. de la zone maritime belge)’, recueil de l’institut botanique de bruxelles, vol. 8, pp. 101-212. séverin, g 1912, premier congrès international d’entomologie, bruxelles 1-6 août 1910, volume i. historique et procès-verbaux, brussels. soyer, e 1996, ‘historique du féminisme en belgique’, sextant, vol. 5, pp. 119-129. stockmans, f 1968, ‘jean massart’, in florilège des sciences en belgique pendant le xixe siècle et le début du xxe siècle, académie royale de belgique, brussels, p. 725. stynen, a 2006, ‘vaderlandse weelde op de kaart gezet. belgische botanici, wetenschappelijke ijver en nationale motieven’, bmgn low countries historical review, vol. 121, no. 4, pp.680–710. ufc 1955, ‘un grand deuil frappe l'union des femmes coloniales. son ancienne présidente, mme schouteden-wéry, n'est plus’, bulletin de l’union des femmes coloniales, january, pp. 4-5 un projet d’institut biologique au congo 1919, brussels. venayre, s 2008, ‘au-delà du baobab de madame livingstone’, clio. femmes, genre, histoire, vol. 28, pp. 99–120. wéry, j 1904, ‘quelques expériences sur l'attraction des abeilles par les fleurs’, recueil de l’institut botanique de bruxelles, vol. 6, pp. 83-123. wils, k & huistra, p 2016, ‘fit to travel. the exchange programme of the belgian american educational foundation: an institutional perspective on scientific persona formation (1920-1940)’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 112-134. van de wal 32 constructing the persona of a professional historian: on eileen power’s early career persona formation and her year in paris, 1910-1911 rozem ar ij n v a n de wal abstract the medieval historian eileen power (1889-1940) was one of britain’s most eminent female historians of the first half of the twentieth century. becoming professor of economic history at the london school of economics in 1931, power gained academic recognition to a degree that was difficult for women to obtain in this period. numerous writings on power discuss the period 1920-1921, when she travelled around the world as an albert kahn fellow, considering it a formative year in her career and indicating the importance of travel for achieving scholarly success. in contrast, little attention has been paid to the significance of power’s first academic journey in 1910-1911, when she spent a year in paris. this stay abroad would however be equally important since it was then that she decided to pursue a career in medieval history. at the time, even if women had an academic degree, they were not self-evident, professional scholars. therefore, the main question in this article is whether and how power started to build her scholarly persona while in paris, attempting to construct an identity for herself as a credible and reliable academic. this will be addressed by analysing her personal writings; specifically, her diary and her letters to her close friend, margery garrett. key words biography; life-writing; scholarly persona; historian; introduction when british medieval historian eileen power died in august 1940, she was at the height of her career. having been appointed the second woman professor in economic history at the london school of economics (lse) in 1931, she gained a level of academic recognition that was difficult for women to achieve in this period. her fame did not end there as she received two honorary doctorates (d.litt., manchester university in 1933 and mount holyoke in 1937), was the first female corresponding fellow of the medieval academy of america (1936), and was the first woman to give the ford lectures (1939). furthermore, her popularity as a bbc radio persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 33 broadcaster and her numerous mainstream articles and reviews ensured her reputation extended far beyond the walls of academia. in attempting to understand power’s exceptional career, existing publications often point to the significance of 1920-1921, when she was the first and only british woman to ever hold the prestigious albert kahn around-the-world fellowship, emphasizing the importance of travel for achieving scholarly success (berg 1996; jacobs 1998; melman 1996). in contrast, little attention has been paid to power’s first trip overseas—to paris—in 1910-1911, even though it was during this time that she first decided to pursue a career as a professional scholar in medieval history. thus, it was her time in paris that led power to become a historian. by analysing some of power’s personal writings, this article shows how her time in paris influenced the way in which she presented herself as a scholar and how this year abroad enhanced her credibility. in other words, it addresses how power began to build a scholarly persona in the early stages of her career. scholarly persona this article uses the concept of scientific or scholarly persona, understood here in terms of eileen power’s identity formation as a historian. this persona concept first gained popularity within the history of science through the special issue of science in context edited by science historians lorraine daston and otto sibum. in the introduction, they discuss the concept of persona as collective, ideal-type repertoires of scientific being, and consider the role of personas as intermediaries between the personal and institutional (daston & sibum 2003). since then, the dutch historian herman paul has further contributed to the study of persona by analysing the scholarly and epistemic virtues of historians (paul 2014). my understanding of persona is slightly different, as i use it in the context of biography. in this, i follow historians of science such as mineke bosch and elisabeth wesseling, who foregrounded the role of gender and other categories of difference in constituting a scientific or scholarly persona (bosch 2013; bosch 2016; wesseling 2003). i am similarly inspired by the work of steven shapin (1994), who argued that the performance of a dependable scientific self was a matter of bricolage involving many different roles and repertoires from both inside as well as outside academia. using this approach in an attempt to understand how power presented herself and achieved scholarly recognition requires comprehension of the interaction of scientific roles and repertoires with social categories of difference such as gender, class, and ethnicity. this article further addresses the importance of academic travel and, more specifically, the way in which personas are constituted in relation to ‘other’ scientists and/or scholars in a foreign context (bosch 2018). indeed, all identities are contextual in the sense that they are constructed in relation to a certain ‘other’. in the words of sociologist erving goffman, what we perceive as a ‘self’ is merely the outcome of interactions with various (discursive) contexts and people (goffman 1990). this article contributes to a better understanding of power’s exceptional career. power’s life and work have been studied extensively; most notably, by the economic historian maxine berg who discovered power’s personal papers and wrote a wide-ranging biography (berg 1996). in addition, berg has looked at power’s formation as a woman and a scholar (berg 1995). in doing so, berg emphasized the content and quality of power’s publications to explain her remarkable success. the concept of scholarly persona, however, implies the supposition that excellence in itself is not sufficient (see also etzemüller 2013). numerous women produced outstanding scholarly work in the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the fields of medieval and van de wal 34 economic history; yet, few managed to become professors and many remained invisible (pomata 2013).1 it is thus important to look beyond power’s work and publications and closely examine how she presented herself as an aspiring and later successful scholar. this article, therefore, not only examines her scholarly work and publications, but also her scholarly identity by analysing her parisian diary and her letters to margery garrett. autobiographical performativity there are two available sources for studying eileen power’s persona construction in paris.2 the first if a file of correspondence between eileen power and margery garrett, covering her entire year in paris. both women had met at girton college cambridge and became life-long friends. garrett was born margaret lois garrett (1887-1970) and came from a progressive feminist background. her father was one of the first solicitors to accept female pupils, and two of her aunts were millicent garrett fawcett—a leading suffragist—and elizabeth garrett anderson— one of the first female doctors in britain. after college, garrett became involved in the birth control movement and was one of the founders of the national birth control association. after the war, she joined the family planning services and advocated its cause until her death in 1970 (dunkley 2004). during her year in paris, eileen power sent garrett a total of eighteen letters, the first of which is dated 16 october 1910, a few days after her arrival, and the last of which is dated 8 september 1911, written after her return to england. the file comprises a total of 138, mostly a4 hand-written pages. the second source is a pocket-size notebook diary.3 despite the diary being very small, power meticulously recorded a few lines every day, discussing what she had done, where she had gone, whom she had met and how many hours of work she had done. she started writing on 1 january 1911, jotting down daily entries for ten months until 2 november. subsequently, the diary is used solely for noting appointments. traditionally, such autobiographical or personal writings, also referred to as ‘egodocuments’ or ‘life writing’, were considered optimum sources for biographers as they were thought to provide insight into authentic and direct experiences of the author (bosch 1987; fullbrook & rublack 2010). this is indeed how most biographers of power have used her diaries and correspondence. both are quoted extensively, but especially for their ‘factual’ content (berg 1996). changing concepts of self and identity have, however, replaced this view on life writing with a more constructive approach. sidonie smith and julia watson, both experts on life writing and autobiography, put forward the influential notion of ‘autobiographical performativity’ when referring to autobiographical writings such as memoires, letters and diaries, considering autobiographical writing not as an act of recording the self but rather as performing the self (smith 1995; smith & watson 2010). this holds true for letters as well as for diaries. in 1987, the feminist scholar catherine r. stimpson, employing the rhetoric of the ‘theatre’, similarly argued that virginia woolf (1882-1941) used her letters as different ‘stages’, performing herself in different ways to different ‘audiences’ or addressees (stimpson 1987). working on the correspondence of the famous nineteenth-century british feminist and archivist barbara bodichon (1827-1891), the english history scholar merixtell simon-martin also showed that bodichon’s letters provided her with a ‘site’ to try out her selves. different narrating ‘you’s’ gave bodichon the opportunity to construct different narrating ‘i’s’ (simon-martin 2013a; simon-martin 2013b). such examples inspired me to consider power’s letters to margery garrett in terms of a stage on which she performed herself for a certain audience, rather than as documents that recorded her everyday parisian life. as a result, her letters become an important persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 35 and fascinating site of identity formation, which is useful to understand the work and the woman in relation to each other. with regard to the addressee, it is relevant to note that in the case of power’s letters from paris, her audience was only seemingly restricted to margery garrett. in victorian britain, it was common practice to share letters among family and friends, or to read them aloud in social settings, practices that power herself actually refers to in her letters (power to garrett, 7 april 1910).4 like her letters, power’s diary can be considered as a site in which she tested her scholarly identity, as the above-mentioned changing concepts of self have called into question the traditional equation of ‘diary’ with ‘privacy’, ‘authenticity’, or direct personal experience (rosenwald 1988; podnieks 2000). this re-evaluation of the genre has brought awareness of the numerous shapes and sizes diaries come in and the way in which diary entries are often influenced by autobiographical discourse, frequently employing language, narrative, and cultural plots specific to a certain period (hämmerle 2009; waaldijk 1993; kagle & gramegna 1996). power’s diary is a testament to this intertextuality of cultural texts, beginning with its title, “potted pepys” after which she wrote; “pronounce him correctly, and then beware of the pup”.5 power thus modelled her diary on that of the famous british naval administrator samuel pepys (1633-1703), pronounced ‘peeps’ (knighton 2004). this example, furthermore, shows power directly addressing (and warning) a possible reader, indicating that she was, at the very least, aware of the possibility of an audience. indeed, from the eighteenth century onwards, publishing a diary had become common practice, blurring the boundaries between public and private (podnieks 2000; simons 1990; millim 2010). power was clearly familiar with such practices and deliberately placed herself in a british tradition of public diary writing. independent scholar or institutional professional in summer 1910, eileen power had successfully finished her girton education with a first for her history tripos.6 there is no indication that she had any clear idea about what to do next and it was her history teacher, winifred mercier (1878-1934), who suggested she go to paris (grier 1937, p. 81). power obtained a scholarship and left for paris in october 1910. she rented a room in the house of madame huillard-breholles, who was a great help to power: (…)she is the widow of rather an eminent french medieval historian & paleographist [jean louis alphonse huillard-breholles, red] & not only does the house contain many books most useful for me, but she herself knows every professor of every subject connected with what i want to do, & is launching me completely. (power to garrett, 16 october 1910) while in paris, power worked at the école des chartes under the supervision of the medievalist charles-victor langlois (1863-1929). despite being one of few historians to accept female students, he did not regard women as serious historians and only ever granted them what he considered “women’s topics” (smith 2001, p.195). surprisingly, in going to paris, power initially presented herself as someone who was only planning to attend lectures and gain some international experience. nevertheless, in her first month in paris, power decided to be more ambitious and opt for a doctorate: now, prepare for a shock. with my usual wild ambition, i have decided to work at a thesis for my doctorate here at the sorbonne. it will be much more useful for me to have a definite title like that, than simply to have attended lectures at van de wal 36 the école des chartes, & i think it is a wise plan (power to garrett, 16 october 1910). after a few months of negotiations, langlois and power decided she would work on isabella of france, wife of edward ii and fourteenth-century queen of england. power started her research in march and planned to stay in paris for a second year. however, lack of money forced her to return home and during the summer of 1911, she obtained a shaw fellowship to do research at the lse (pomata 2004). as the fellowship required her to choose from a set list of topics, she had to abandon her work on isabella. the nineteenth-century professionalization and institutionalization of the historical discipline led to a growing emphasis on ‘scientific’ and document-based history, producing the ideal-type of the ‘institutional professional’, which came to be formulated in opposition to the independent scholar or ‘amateur’ (macintyre, maiguashca & pók 2011; levine 1986; jann 1983). these notions of independent scholar, ‘amateur’, and ‘professional’ were highly gendered. excluded from university and research institutes, women were obliged to become independent female scholars, and thus, by definition, ‘amateurs’ (smith 2001; pomata 2013). however, as the historian gianna pomata has explained, there was a large group of (often affluent and wellconnected women) who were rather ‘amateurs by choice’, deliberately deciding against the institutional ideal and opting instead to do research independently (pomata 2013). at the same time, at the oxbridge universities, independence remained an epistemic ideal, also for eileen power: you don’t know how i long to be able to research & write books all the time. i am so infinitely more cut out for that than for stumbling along the dull path of dondom [position as teacher at cambridge], & i could weep sometimes when i think that sooner or later i shall have to start earning my living & only be able to get in pitfall research work, in odd moments. (power to garrett, 17 may 1911) as indicated by this quote, power was not in the financial position to support a career as an independent scholar, and therefore needed to pursue institutional employment. the historian bonnie smith, in her work on this first generation of women seeking university careers, formulated the characteristics of the ‘woman professional’, emphasizing the ambiguous position these women were in as they attempted to negotiate a self, located somewhere between the (female) amateur and (male) professional (smith 2001). power clearly succeeded in constructing her identity as a credible, trustworthy, professional woman scholar. how do her personal writings, produced in this parisian context, help us to understand her first attempts to overcome her amateur status? the oxbridge liberal arts scholar one of the themes that prominently features in eileen power’s letters to margery garrett is what might be called ‘being well versed in art and literature’ as a characteristic of the oxbridge liberal arts scholar. power regularly wrote about the books she read, plays or museums she visited, and films that she saw. she was both passionate and opinionated about these subjects and often gave garrett a description of her outings and thoughts. on 26 march 1911, for example, power talked about attending the theatre: i saw réjane act last week: she is magnificent, but not one little patch on berthe bady. the latter is going to appear again in bataille’s masterpiece ‘maman colibri’ wh. is being given again, & i am burbling with anticipation. i would sell persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 37 the shoes off my feet & barter the hat off my head to see her! (power to garrett, 26 march 1911) being one of many examples, this quote shows how power presented herself as someone who was knowledgeable about plays. casually addressing what makes a good actress, she assumed a tone of expertise and emphasized her passion for theatre. however, ‘art’ for power was more than a passion. it was closely connected to her love of history. she believed that both were inextricably intertwined and that it was simply impossible to (properly) study history without studying art: besides these quite delightful lectures, i spend hours in the louvre among the medieval & renaissance pictures (with excursions occasionally to rembrandt & corot) & the medieval & renaissance sculpture, and at the cluny – a real medievalist’s paradise. the period is getting into my bones – it is just splendid. i love being able to spread myself over what at college had to be irrelevancies – the art & the literature & to feel that duty & pleasure coincide (power to garrett, 6 november 1910). it is important to realize that until march 1911, power did not have an actual thesis subject or clear project to work on. she nevertheless went to the bibliothèque nationale on a daily basis and took several courses. langlois had set up a programme of lectures for her on palaeography, romance philology, and methods of historical research. power did not particularly care for these topics and therefore also attended lectures on the epic legends of the middle ages, art in the italian republic, and courses on the intellectual civilisation at the time of the renaissance (power to garrett, 6 november 1910). she further made regular excursions to the louvre and the cluny, immersing herself in the culture of the medieval and renaissance periods, subsequently telling garrett about these experiences. in doing so, power highlighted all the knowledge and first-hand experience with medieval culture she gained while in paris, adding to her credibility as a historian. her statement that the period was “getting into my bones” is further testament to this, emphasizing the broad understanding of the period that she developed. despite her initial dislike, langlois’s lectures provided her with an important basis for her future career. langlois actively engaged in discussions about the importance of historical method in pursuing the new, professional, document-based history. in his introduction to the study of history, he argued that knowledge of palaeography, historical method, and philology were a basic requirement for all professional historians; precisely the courses he wanted power to take. he even believed that the école des chartes was the best place to undertake this “technical apprenticeship”, especially for medievalists (langlois 1898). the simple fact that power had worked with langlois at the école des chartes significantly added to her scholarly credibility. a testimonial she received in 1914 is evidence of this, emphasizing the skills she developed in paris.7 moreover, france was one of the leading countries in founding national, centralized archives, with the bibliothèque nationale housing one of the largest collections of medieval manuscripts and documents in europe (boer, den p 2011). visiting foreign archives became increasingly important for the new professional historian. bonnie smith explicitly mentions that travelling abroad to visit archives and learning new research techniques was an important way for women to enhance their credibility as professionals (smith 2001, p.198). making full use of her time in paris, power familiarized herself with numerous sources at the bibliothèque nationale on a daily basis, and specifically mentioned looking through old manuscripts and medieval poems, building a repository of knowledge of medieval documents, art, and literature van de wal 38 (power to garrett, 23 february 1911). in addition, her decision to study both medieval manuscripts and poetry indicates how poetry and history were intertwined for her, and she would regularly use poems as historical sources (webster 1940, p. 562). her later publications also indicate the importance of her technical apprenticeship, as she produced and edited numerous translations of medieval documents (power 1928).8 it is interesting to note that unlike langlois, she did not edit legal or political tracts, but rather worked on sources depicting everyday medieval life.9 another way in which art features in power’s letters to garrett is by listing books she read and admired. both women regularly suggested readings to each other, indicating that these letters functioned as much more than simple correspondence. on 23 february 1911, for example, she wrote to garrett: and i have read (for heaven’s sake get it at once!) the funniest book without exception i have ever come across – a piece of biting & witty satire, whose occasional obscenities (no milder word will do for them – & du reste it is the same in all his works) are outweighed a million times by its marvellous wit, anatole france’s ‘l'lle des pingouins” [sic]. i shrieked with laughter over it. do get it, old girl, & notice particularly the chapters on the council in paradise & the wonderful satire of the dreyfus case (power to garrett, 23 february 1911). being one of numerous examples, i would argue that these letters can be considered part of what simon-martin (2016) has called “epistolary education”. power’s letters to garrett provided both women with a safe site for formulating opinions and expanding their knowledge, in this case, on literature. finally, it is important to note that although this interest in art and literature did not fit with the new scientific historical ideal, it closely reflected the oxbridge ideal. for a long time, oxbridge continued to advocate the repertoire of the independent (gentleman) scholar, offering broad and liberal, rather than specialized, training (jann 1983). this was reflected, for example, in the history tripos, for which, until the reforms of 1909, a paper on the history of thought, literature, and art was a regular element (mclachlan 1947). similarly, girton had always been a college for ladies studying to become accomplished upper-class women, not to earn their living (sutherland 2001). in addition, girton did little to stimulate post-graduate research work, subsequently advocating the ideal of the (upper-class) independent, rather than institutional, female scholar (stephen 1933; megson & lindsay 1960). through her writings on art and literature, power adhered to this oxbridge ideal, presenting herself as an erudite, upper-class, and by implication, independent female scholar. “went to a heavenly concert with topsy. broke but rejoicing”10 eileen power’s diary constituted a different site for identity construction, not least due to the fact that it is much smaller in size than her letters, with limited room for daily entries, resulting in a more factual style of writing. nevertheless, the theme of being well versed in art and literature features equally prominently in the diary, albeit in an alternative way. again, power mentioned many books she read, plays she attended, museums she went to, and films that she saw. her entry for 5 february 1911, for example, in the section title above, is one of numerous examples (power diary, 5 february 1911, other examples: 5 january, 29 march, 8 april 1911). by far the most common references to art in power’s diary, however, are about literature. indeed, power’s diary fulfilled a different function from her letters. although both can be considered as forums for trying out her different selves, her diary also functioned as a site for keeping track of things. besides jotting down daily entries about her day, power used persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 39 her diary to note down where and how many hours she worked. it is thanks to these entries that we know just how much time she spent at the bibliothèque nationale browsing through medieval sources. she also used her diary to list the books and poems she read. on 6 january 1911, for example, she wrote “read ‘picture of dorian gray’” (power diary, 6 january 1911). another example is her entry for 8 january: lazed & read de profundis & ballad of reading gaol in morning. went to cinema & played with a baby in a tea shop in afternoon. wrote letters & copied out some of o. wilde’s epigrams & also read ‘the importance of being earnest’ in the evening (power diary, 8 january 1911). entries such as these provide valuable insight into power’s reading habits. how might we read them from the perspective of persona and autobiographical performativity? at the very least, they are indicative of the different functions of diary writing and exemplify power highlighting her passion for the arts. additionally, by recording all the plays she attended and books she read, she performed herself as someone actively expanding her intellect. when reading power’s diary, it becomes clear that she visited the theatre, museum, or cinema on average twice a week.11 this illustrates once more that paris provided power with an opportunity to build a repository of knowledge on art and literature in general, as well as on medieval documents. however, it is crucial to note that the most characteristic feature of her daily entries is not in fact her references to art, nor her references to work, but her references to people. her diary is filled with information about whom she had lunch, tea, and dinner with on an almost daily basis. there are 322 entries in total and in 287 of them she mentioned at least one person she met, or was in contact with, during the day. this represents another way in which power’s diary functioned as a site for keeping track of daily life, and simultaneously shows how she presented herself as someone who was well connected. it tells us that power was aware of the importance of networking and meeting people, which would also be typical for her later diaries.12 overall, throughout her diary entries, power displayed herself as a woman who was well versed in the arts, a characteristic of the oxbridge scholar. in addition, the entries show power continuously spending money, not only on plays and the cinema, but also on flowers and fashion (power diary, 16 march and 11 april 1911). as a result, an image emerges of power playing with notions of class, as she presented herself as an affluent, well-connected upper-class woman, expanding her knowledge on liberal arts and living a life of luxury she could not afford. the modern woman the final feature of eileen power’s diary to be discussed here is that she regularly wrote about women and feminism, and in two distinctive ways. the first of these concerns the brief notes she made that reveal her engagement with feminism in a similar way to her notes on art and literature. on 1 february 1911, for example, she wrote “read ‘westminster’ & suffrage papers” at the bibliothèque nationale (power diary, 1 february 1911). additionally, she sometimes noted meeting people with whom she talked about feminism or who shared her feminist beliefs. for example, on 3 february 1911, she wrote, “mlle chabault to tea – talked feminism & found her a kindred spirit. good look out for france if its jeune filles [sic] are growing up like her” (power diary, 3 february 1911). other examples include entries such as, “went also to a suffrage reunion de travail”, on 23 march, which informs us she explored the women’s movement in france. just three days later, she wrote about meeting the english literary critic and britain’s second female university professor, caroline spurgeon, and accompanying her to the tram (power diary, 26 march 1911). another four days later, on 30 march, she jotted down, van de wal 40 “went to hear miss spurgeons soutenance de thèse, which was quite brilliant” (power diary, 30 march 1911). when, in june 1911, power returned to england, she mentioned going to london with her sister beryl, “(...) & walked six miles in suffrage procession – splendid show. met emilie, sni, m.l.g.j & puppy & others” (power diary, 17 june 1911). this was actually the last large suffrage procession by the women’s movement, in which over 40,000 women participated. it took place one week before the coronation of king george v and it was hoped that the sheer number of women participating would secure the vote (tickner 1989). through these references, power constructed an image of herself as someone who was interested and actively participated in the women’s movement, and who was acquainted with numerous kindred spirits. however, looking at the second way in which women and feminism functions in power’s diary, we find that in addition to presenting herself as a feminist, power also presented herself as a modern woman. the late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw the rise of the so-called ‘modern woman’: well educated, ambitious, who often rode a bicycle, smoked cigarettes, and supported the women’s movement (weinbaum et al. 2008). such women were independent, single by choice, and provided for themselves. going against all traditional victorian ideas about womanhood and the myth of the ‘womanly woman’, the modern woman received much attention and provoked much debate (anderson 2008). these women shifted traditional gender norms and were therefore considered a threat to society. educated women were seen as ‘manly women’, of a different gender all together (marks 2015). the criticism aimed at educated women indicates that the rise of the modern woman was closely tied to the rise of women’s colleges, which provided them with such an education. indeed, being a ‘girton girl’ was regularly equated with being a modern woman, and girton was an environment conducive to feminism (bradbrook 1969). thus, power’s feminist beliefs need to be considered in relation to her girton background. power does not explicitly comment on the modern woman in her diary, yet through her writing she did identify herself as such. after returning from paris, power continued work on her thesis at the bodleian library in oxford, regularly noting that she went there by bike (power diary, 14 july and 11 august 1911). cycling for women was still controversial in the early twentieth century, but it was part of girton life and characteristic of the modern woman (bradbrook 1969). power also regularly made remarks about smoking. on 23 june, for example, she wrote, “lazed, smoked, ate & read browning” (power diary, 23 june 1911). she likewise referred to smoking with other women, for example, on 13 october: “sni has arrived. coffee, cigarettes & talk” (power diary, 13 october 1911). through these allusions to smoking and cycling power inscribed herself into early twentieth-century discourse on the modern woman. conclusion this article examined eileen power’s persona construction in the early stages of her career, arguing that her stay in paris led her to become a historian. by analysing her diary, and her letters to garrett, we find several possible answers as to how paris was influential in helping power overcome the boundaries of womanhood in pursuing an academic career. first of all, looking at the topic of ‘being well versed in art and literature’ resulted in a striking image of power developing her knowledge on both subjects, often in relation to the medieval period. even when she did not have a thesis subject to work on, she studied medieval manuscripts, literature, and poems at the bibliothèque nationale several days a week, familiarizing herself with a broad range of medieval sources. the lectures she attended, such as those on medieval epic legends, likewise added to her growing expertise. moreover, studying persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 41 under langlois enabled her to become acquainted with the new historical methods of doing ‘professional’, ‘scientific’ history, and although she expressed her dislike of these lectures, the fact that she published and edited numerous translations of medieval documents indicates that she clearly utilized these skills in later years. researching power’s diary also showed that she displayed herself as an upper-class and well-connected woman, actively expanding her knowledge on art and literature. through her diary entries, she further constructed an image of herself as someone who engaged in feminism, and she inscribed herself into the discourse on the modern woman. in general, this article illustrates how eileen power’s year abroad compelled her to pursue a career as a professional independent historian. it exemplifies how she presented herself as an upper-class, oxbridge, independent scholar, well versed in the liberal arts, while simultaneously acquiring skills belonging to the new scientific professional historian. 1 on the invisibility of women scientists and scholars, see the introduction by rossiter, mw 1984, women scientists in america. volume 1 struggles and strategies to 1940, john hopkins university press, baltimore. 2 i cite these archives with the kind permission of basil and alexander postan, sons of the late lady cynthia postan (1918-2017), who preserved eileen power’s papers. 3 full reference: cambridge university library ms add. 8961/2/2 paris and research on queen isabella, diary 1911. to keep the in-text references short, i will refer to these diary entries as ‘power diary’, with the appropriate date. 4 full reference: girton college cambridge gcpp power e 2/1/1 letters to margery, file 1. 5 “puppy” was power’s nickname for her friend margaret gwendoline coursolles jones (18871972). 6 examination for undergraduate degree at the university of cambridge. 7 ms add.8961/1/4/3 testimonial from j. p. whitney, 1914. “as i knew something of miss power’s work while she was in london i can say that it was just as good & well balanced out as i should have expected from her distinction at college & her later training in the best school of historical method at paris.” 8 eileen power acknowledged the importance of what langlois taught her by dedicating her 1928 translation of the goodman of paris to him: ‘this translation of le ménagier de paris is dedicated to m. charles-v. langlois by the translator, who will always be grateful for having been his pupil’. end notes van de wal 42 9 she was involved in the broadway medieval library series with g.c. coulton, the broadway travellers series with denison ross, and the broadway diaries, memoires and letters series with elizabeth drew, all of which are edited and translated publications of historical documents. 10 power diary, 5 february 1911. 11 exact number of references: january, eight; february, thirteen; march, six; april, eleven; may, five. 12 most notably, eileen power’s four volume narrative journal and pocket book diary from her kahn travels. cambridge university library ms add. 8961/4/1 & ms add. 8961/1/4/2. works cited anderson, ca 2008, ‘(per)forming female politics: the making of the 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c 1940, ‘eileen power (1889-1940)’, the economic journal, vol.50, no.200, pp. 561572. weinbaum, ae, thomas, lm, ramarurthy, p, poiger, ug, yue dong, m & barlow, te (the modern girl around the world research group) 2008, ‘the modern girl as heuristic device: collaboration, connective comparison, multidirectional citation’, in the modern girl around the world research group (eds), the modern girl around the world. consumption, modernity and globalization, duke university press, durham, pp.1-24. wesseling, e 2003, ‘judith rich harris: the miss marple of development psychology’, science in context, vol. 17, no.3, pp.293-314. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 19 me, you, and us: constructing political persona on social networks during the 2015 uk general election beth any ushe r abstract this article offers statistical and discourse analysis of political leaders’ profile pages during the 2015 uk general election ‘short campaign’ as means to better understand the construction of political persona on social network sites (sns). it examines this as a group production and promotional activity that variously used patterns and routines of both traditional and digital media to display leaders as party branded selves. performances strived for balance between authority and authenticity, using the political self as a spectacle to direct microelectorates to specific actions. this study demonstrates how self-storytelling is shaped by the coded conventions or “house rules” of sns, which are viewed as inescapable institutions for maintaining public visibility. it examines how linguistic and visual elements, linked to different political ideologies, chimed with twitter and facebook users and looks to the impact on political campaigning. key words persona; social networks; political marketing; celebrity; microelectorates; authenticity; authority introduction described by journalists as the first ‘social media election’ (bell), the 2015 uk ‘short campaign’ of march 30th to may 7th offered complex performances of political identity in digital space. alongside the inclusion of the leaders of smaller parties in televised debates, this increased public visibility for leaders of seven political parties instead of the traditional ‘big three’ of conservatives, labour, and the liberal democrats. this research focuses on the textual and still image components of the leaders’ twitter and facebook profiles—the only two platforms used by all—to establish how they helped construct their online identities.i it examines “intercommunication” between long-established discourses of mainstream “representational” media—such as journalistic coverage as influenced by the marketing of celebrities—and the “presentational” techniques of diy celebrities, who use social network sites (sns) to build fame through self-display (marshall, “mapping” 160-161). presentation of political identity is explored as a group activity, aiming to motivate the electorate to specific actions, both online and in the voting booth. usher 20 this study aligns with mackey’s (85-86) definitions of discourse and identity in examining how discourses, as the linguistic and visual conveyance of ideas and ideologies, “economically […] concretely, objectively” construct political personas. barbour and marshall identify the intentional “presentation of specific identity” from the “composite of multiple selves” as the basis for studying persona (“constructing persona”). the short campaign offers a focused timeframe to examine how persona is constructed and managed through the capture of real-life ‘experiences’ (such as on the campaign trail), displays of agreement with the electorate and the purposeful use of other discourses, such as journalistic coverage or manifesto pledges. coleman argues that during campaigns, political leaders are both the “scene-setters […] [and] the script editors,” using storytelling to appear “close to us” (169). this article examines selfnarrative as group production practice to argue that, as with celebrities and microcelebrities, politicians aim to create parasociality with the electorate in order to “compete for the largest number of listeners…with page views and clicks synonymous with success” (marwick 347). the short campaign was a period of heightened activity, but its specific parameters offers opportunities for broader insights into focused, goal-driven presentation of identity. sns content is not viewed as inventing reality, but as connecting and reframing real events with a view to build a “branded self,” as described by alison hearn (2013a and 2013b). political persona is produced for public consumption, using individualism and self-promotion to generate “rhetorically persuasive packaging, its own promotional skin” (“sentimental greenbacks” 27). examining the construction of political persona in this way also offers insights into how sns have reshaped political communication, which kriess identifies as an underresearched area of study (132). he argues for greater scholarly conceptualisation of how “retweets and sharing campaigning content…may be a highly meaningful or consequential form of political speech in terms of inadvertent exposure” and the relationships between sns and mainstream media during election campaigns. framing political persona construction on sns there are numerous studies of the relationship between media and politics, often building from shumpeter and downs mid-twentieth century examinations through the lens of business economics and marketing. scholars such as marshall (celebrity and power), meyer and hinchman, corner and pels, street, and turner argue variously that the political leader should be viewed in relation to the logics of celebrity culture—that is, as a commodity presented and negotiated through the systems of public relations and marketing—and how this relies on attracting news coverage. in 2010, kellner used debord’s society of the spectacle (1967) to demonstrate that us presidential campaigns are “subject to the logic of spectacle and tabloidization in the era of media sensationalism, infotainment, political scandal” (117). sns offer new vehicles for campaign teams to manufacture political personas which “embody the sentiments of the party, the people and the state in a similar way to [how] celebrity has to embody the beliefs and attitudes of an audience” (marshall, celebrity and power 203). the success of politicians, and by extension their parties’ publicity teams, is now judged not only by column inches and polling, but also by increased followers, shares and comments. sns are not simply platforms for expressions of the politician as an individual, but are formalised within the structures of political marketing as group production activity. self-display as group production also shapes celebrity use of sns. my 2015 examination of the top 20 celebrity twitter accounts found 65% were team produced, with public relations professionals having some involvement in the construction of content—a significant increase on the 13% found by marwick and boyd four years earlier. both marshall (“mapping”) and turner identify this as influenced by the production processes of microcelebrities. hearn’s work around persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 21 the branded self, most recently in terms of reality tv ‘stars’, demonstrates the way workers use their sense of self—not only the public face, but also the private and emotional—to build public visibility. however, these studies usually consider the ways in which individuals use sns platforms. while marwick, boyd and senft each explore the dynamics of personal branding and strategic self-commodification, their work focuses primarily on the individual with the influence of public relations and marketing teams seen as an exception rather than a rule. similarly, zizi papacharissi focuses on the individual as the principal performer, specifically examining how twitter enables “condensed performances of self” for a variety of actual and imagined audiences. she claims that success relies on shifting the emphasis from “stability of the self (self as object) to change of the self (self as process)” (1992). explorations of microcelebrity as a cultural phenomena argue that opportunities for direct, individual-to-individual dialogue is crucial to self-construction, which builds public visibility. to expand this to the world of ‘political celebrity’ emphasises street’s discussion of how, through mediated public performance, politicians “try to demonstrate certain political qualities and connect them to political values” (446). microcelebrity, in this context, is therefore understood as a production mechanism through which politicians can build a following, enabling them to extend their message and reach members of the electorate who may not engage with mainstream representational media. studies identifying how domestic uk (auty and cowen, gibson and ward, gibson et al) and international (baxter et al, gibson et al, jankowski et al) politicians use social media often focus on opportunities for increased dialogue as enabling the public sphere. michael argues that social media could support the development of a more “collaborative political culture,” but “any such process would require authenticity on the part of politicians, informed contributions from the public, and a willingness to engage from both” (46). however, many studies conclude that politicians are only symbolically interactive and reluctant to engage in “open, dynamic forms of electronic communication with the electorate” (baxter et al 465). indeed, ross, fountaine and comrie claim part of the problem of proving the effectiveness of online campaigning is that it “under-exploits the very characteristics of social media’s interactivity which could genuinely enable a real shift in political-public communication” (251-252). kreiss argues that empirical research into online political communication has found that its potential for allowing deliberation to reshape democratic process is overstated. he identifies how few voices are heard and that the professionalised mechanisms of media not only set the agenda but also offer rare opportunities for real audience discussion (118-135). however, it is not only dialogue that enables users to contribute to the construction of other people’s online personas. marshall (mapping 163) argues that celebrities use micropublics—audiences centralised around their image—to support the social construction and maintenance of their profiles. thus, it is important to understand how campaign teams attempt to channel what could be described as microelectorates to displays of agreement, which are shaped by the coded construction patterns of sns. as members of a leader’s social media team choose which members of their microelectorate to respond to, the “older processes of broadcasting/receiving images and the hierarchies of stardom/fandom may prevail” (thomas 2), but simple displayed agreement has become crucial to political communications on sns. kreiss argues that political communication on sns looks much the same as offline, specifically in its use of “emotional, moral and partisan appeals” (125). next, i’ll explore how the construction of sns political persona aims to create parasociality with the electorate. examinations of how sns have expanded horton and wohl’s initial concept of parasocial relationships, such as those undertaken by marwick, boyd and senft, often highlight two things: how sns offer symbolic opportunities for both direct dialogue and for tantalising glimpses of usher 22 the ‘private self’ behind the public mask. in “twitter and the celebrity interview,” i argued that parasocial interaction, defined by david giles as “the activity that takes place during the act of media use itself” (95), now includes planned opportunities to jointly engage in production processes of promotion—in that instance, journalistic interview moments. this, of course, expands parasociality away from being a one-way activity to one formed through mutuality of production. i want to expand this further to highlight how, by sharing, liking and commenting on stories, members of microelectorates help create and maintain the visibility of political personas. while audience appraisal may not always be positive, criticism also increases visibility and extends message. however, the coded commands of sns primarily work to encourage the demonstration of agreement and given that the posts i address are produced with the aim of encouraging displays of support, this will be my primary focus. patterns and routines of the performance of political persona on sns mackey argues that for public relations’ professionals, identity is solid, real, and aims to create images in the minds of the observers. however, he highlights that there is a distinction between “how a person is” and “how they are thought of” (85). mackey’s use of ‘how’ rather than ‘who’ a person is, emphasises the importance of identity as a constructed discourse before observers. sns performance aims to establish a fixed, authentic identity for the political leaders. mackey, like many others (see barbour and marshall’s discussion in “constructing persona”), argues the usefulness of erving goffman’s 1956 the presentation of the self in every day life in examining persona as a conscious performance. goffman identified performance as “a period marked by […] continuous presence before a particular set of observers” (13), which aims to influence them in some way. if it can be replicated, then a pattern or routine can be formed. of course, as mackey identifies, this language translates easily to the performance of self on sns. the 38 days of the short campaign produced a total sample of 3,177 tweets and 1,033 facebook posts, which were coded using both seartwi analytics and manual methods to identity the kinds of patterns and routines goffman highlighted as crucial to understanding persona construction. figure one: levels of sns activity during short campaign persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 23 coleman argues digital technology is used in the service of “political aims that take shape in institutionalized contexts” of electioneering as a storytelling practice (174). using the sns profiles of political leaders to tell the story of electioneering is now key to political communication, as demonstrated by levels of sns content. while engagement varied, all leaders had consistent presence. twitter was most popular platform with several tweets every day. two leaders (clegg and sturgeon) used facebook more sparingly than the others, offering content first shared on other online platforms. only sturgeon’s team (at times), produced posts in third person rather than first person self-narrative, describing experiences on the campaign trail specifically as would be written by a journalist. the two political leaders with the smallest ‘official’ campaign teams and campaign budgetsii (natalie bennett and leanne wood) produced the largest amount of content overall and there was significant similarity in their production patterns. on twitter and facebook, they usually reposted content from other users with simple, short comment above. this is a rapid posting pattern, achievable by an individual. goffman argued the construction of persona can either be sincere, where the performer believes “the impression of reality which he stages is the reality” (presentation of self 10), or cynical, only aimed at influencing the audience to a specific end. performances are “moulded to fit into the understanding and expectations of society” (23) and will tend to “exemplify the officially accredited values of the society” (24). of course, goffman’s works discussed physical rather than virtual environments, and this was extended in his paper the characteristics of total institutions, given a year after presentation of self was first published. there, goffman described how “we tend[ed] to sleep, play and work in different places” (total institutions). sns now amalgamate the last two categories for all those whose careers rely on negotiating public visibility. viewing sns as institutions with similar “house rules,” privileges, and functional requirements as highlighted by goffman, focuses attention on the significance of consistency in the way sns are updated. the levels of discourse in figure one reflect that political party marketing teams see sns as significant institutions for campaigning, which, like other societal and media institutions, have conventions. these undermine the personal autonomy we may “expect to exert over […] interpersonal environments and may produce the terror […] of being radically demoted” (goffman, total institutions) through a decrease in followers or only few shares or likes of a post. for public figures, sns are primarily workplace institutions as compared to institutions of play for most users. for many, such as politicians, microcelebrities or journalists, they are currently inescapable institutions and crucial parts of maintaining visibility. therefore, following goffmanian logic, performances are both cynically produced and very controlled. political public persona on sns straddles lines between authority as public figures and authenticity as users. in consumers, arnould, price and zinkham examined the relationship between emerging bloggers and digital consumers, arguing that threads of authenticity and authority weave together, but fundamentally the authoritative voice is paramount in influencing consumer choice. for goffman, no person is ever really authentic in public, but always governed by institutional rules and patterns. expanding these discussions to political leadership highlights it as a vertical operation of persona construction, with the authoritative voice outweighing an authentic one. success depends on constructive use of the conventions of sns, created specifically to enable the presentation of identity. in the next section i consider how the differing “house-rule” coded conventions of facebook and twitter helped shape the construction of political personas when using intertwining demonstrations of authoritative voice and displays of authentic self. twitter allows just 140 characters per tweet, quick and easy sharing of other people’s tweets, and instant replies. facebook allows unlimited text per status update and talking space directly beneath, but also quick demonstration of agreement through usher 24 ‘likes’. therefore, analysis of how these performances build political leaders’ brands through parasocial display needs different focuses. building brand through bond: parasociality through weaving authority and authenticity visualising both the routines and textual discourses of twitter activity (figure two) illustrates how the short campaign was a period of intensive performative activity around the image of political leaders. all seven produced more ‘status updates’ than any other kind of tweet, therefore following a broadcast model of tweeting. however, all seven also interacted directly with followers either through replies or retweets. miliband and cameron interacted with their audience the least, while the three female leaders—sturgeon, green, and wood—did so most. bennett and wood were also amongst the most prolific tweeters, averaging 17 and 22 tweets a day respectively. farage and miliband did not reply to followers on twitter at all and, despite being the most interactive party leader when also factoring in retweets, wood barely did so either. figure two: statistical analysis of leaders’ tweets and text cloud of discourse during final week persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 25 usher 26 persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 27 usher 28 persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 29 usher 30 persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 31 production patterns varied, but there was one central dynamic—the leaders were positioned alongside “others, as particular kinds of people” (bucholtz and hall 259). rather than actively engage in debate and dialogue with the electorate, interactions used the display of mutuality of stance to demonstrate popularity. coupland and coupland argue stances are “clearly hooked into wider social discourses and ideologies, or are contextualized in important ways by them” (228). interactivity was used to demonstrate immediate identification rather than to engage in real dialogue and so the authority of the political leader’s voice dominates. for sns users, indications of mutuality of stance happen quickly over single interactions (liking or sharing a post/tweet) as described by du bois, over multiple interactions (commenting or discussing beneath a post/tweet), and “intertextually” as described by damari (such as sharing news or other evidence). visualising the text of tweets of the seven leaders offers interesting insights about how the dynamics of self-branding influence political communication. for miliband and cameron this was approached consistently and narrowly, linked to specific political ideologies and to “the family”. despite each having a similar number of tweets to sturgeon, for example, they used a far narrower range of words.iii cameron focused on neoliberal discourses of security (“strong”, “secure”) and the economy (“economy”, “jobs”), imparted a sense of immediacy (“today”, “future”) and linked directly to the “family.” miliband used similar techniques in terms of the personal (“family”, “people”) but linked to the socialist ideal of universal health care (“plan”, “rescue”, “nhs”, “cut”). while differing in ideological focus, their campaign teams approached promoting their personalised brands in remarkably similar ways, both in terms of the levels and structure of tweets. coleman argues campaigning politicians aim to “represent citizens” through addressing people “as if they would know what moral category they belong to” (172). cameron and miliband’s use of “family,” specifically aimed to define “the terms of moral conflict” through “simplicity of narrative [and] their relationship to practical consequences” (172). their performance of stance aimed to construct political personas that embodied sentiments of the electorate, party, and state (see corner; pels; marshall). in short, the discourse of these leaders aims to bond the real-life concerns of microelectorates to their own political authority. the density of the text clouds of sturgeon and bennett’s discourses reflects far higher levels of retweeting of other people’s comments. prolific retweets or reposted tweets with brief framing means dozens of names appeared just once, and the terms “thanks,” “thank you,” “you,” “i,” “good,” and “great” appear as key terms in their visualised discourse. these actions could be viewed as attempts to show not only mutuality of stance, but also an attempt to colonise the experiences and opinions of their microelectorate to advance visibility and therefore, voter accumulation. it aims for bonds of kinship what rojek describes as “fraternisation” (131-134) and marwick and boyd refer to as “affiliation” (“to see” 147). marshall (“promotion and presentation”) argues that presentational media encourages and seduces individuals to more elaborately construct self as if engaging in a marketing practice. hearn (“producing reality” 165) builds on this as well as andrew wernick’s argument in promotional culture that all manner of communication can be understood within the contemporary cultural conditions of promotionalism. persona creation on sns, therefore, has as its function “some kind of selfadvantaging exchange” (wernick, 181). understanding political persona as a performance which aims to colonize the lived experience of the electorate in the interests of voter rather than capital accumulation offers another way by which the branded self can be understood as a “distinct kind of labour,” using “highly stylized self-construction, directly tied to…promotional mechanisms” (hearn, “producing reality” 165). this, like all types of brand management, relies particularly on consistency of message as evident in both the discourse used and the way production patterns are employed. farage, wood and sturgeon consistently used nationalistic discourses to build their branded-self. wood’s profile achieved this linguistically through usher 32 tweeting in both welsh and english about the particular social issues facing wales. sturgeon linked emotive terms such as “love,” “support,” “proud” and “great day” to herself and the scottish national party (snp) as positive representatives of “scotland.” farage identified himself as the voice of the “uk” or “britain,” often directly in opposition to the “eu” and “immigrant.” his self-brand was also built through the expression of distrust of establishment politicians and other authoritative voices (such as the bbc or expert opinion). he described them as in direct opposition to himself as an everyday “british bloke” longing for an escape from globalised multicultural society. the twitter accounts of the six leaders discussed so far have a common component: they always used public facing discourse and appearances to shape content. tweets usually offered accounts and updates from the campaign trail and these often bore hallmarks of mainstream news coverage of election campaigns. for example, although posts were usually written in first person narrative, they also included sound-bites and candid ‘press-photographer’ style pictures. some tweets were constructed like news introductions, including descriptions of the ‘who’ ‘what’ ‘where’ and ‘why’ of leaders’ public appearances and thus using journalistic conventions for constructing reality to give content authority (see tuchman making news). other shared material existed elsewhere too, such as party manifesto pledges or political broadcasts. essentially, public authority outweighed private authenticity in terms of impact on the content chosen and how it was displayed. by contrast, nick clegg’s twitter account primarily offered behind the scenes glimpses from the campaign trail. his twitter feed used self-presentation and “strategic intimacy” in a similar way to how microcelebrities build visibility in relation to fans, as described by senft (“microcelebrity”). looking at his text cloud, key terms include “day,” “bus,” “stop,” “best,” and “tour.” there are also a number of singular references to the food he ate between appearances, including meals from the restaurant chain “nandos,” which often offers free food to minor celebrities in return for tweets. clegg’s tweets made few directives to ‘vote’ to his followers and very little reference to liberal democrat policy, instead offering moments you would not be privy to through traditional representational media’s coverage of campaigning. marwick and boyd argue that the success of celebrity performance on twitter is reliant on backstage access. turner argues microcelebrities “borrowed from the publicity and promotions industry” and have in turn “been ‘borrowed back’ by the ‘real’ celebrities” (74). clegg’s persona construction offers glimpses of ‘ordinary life’ to place his “fame on a continuum, rather than as a bright line that separates” him from his followers (marwick and boyd, “to see” 141). clegg was the first of the political leaders to use sns as part of campaigning, with the display of private moments on both twitter and facebook key parts of what was described as “cleggmania,” during the 2010 election campaign (see tolson, “hope springs”). however, by 2015, it appears that the structures of the political marketing machine have turned political communication on sns into, primarily, another exercise in establishing authority, with clegg’s approach now appearing to be out of place. indeed, in terms of likes and followers (see figure five)—and later at the ballot box—clegg’s approach of placing authenticity over authority, did not serve him well. given the way clegg and his team embraced personal narrative on twitter, it is curious that they all but abandoned facebook—a site which encourages revelations of the personal through its coded commands. figure three identifies correlation between levels of visibility on facebook and personal models of linguistic performance, where political policy is framed as direct conversation. facebook offers a way of measuring the size of public spheres (via indications of the number of people ‘talking about’ a topic) based specifically around individual users. while, of course, the number of followers the leader has on the site is a variable, there is clear parity between the use of first person narrative (“me,” “i”) linked to both mutuality (“we,” “us,” “our”) persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 33 and direct addressing (“you,” “your”) of the microelectorate. linguistically, posts often paired these phonetic and sematic representations to create symbolic bonds. this is evidenced in the way political performers and their campaign teams use personal pronouns when putting content on to facebook—a technique discouraged by twitter’s textual constraints, as pronouns are often sacrificed for information. the continuous use of personal pronouns by cameron, miliband, and farage particularly established a dialogue of selfhood, which rojek (130-133) identifies as a key to maintaining public visibility. however, this too is only symbolically interactive, aiming for the same displayed agreement as explored during analysis of twitter profiles. it appears to be a successful technique. these three political leaders had the largest number of people talking about them throughout the short campaign, often amounting to more than five times the number talking about the other four political leaders at any one time. figure three: use of personalised pronouns related to number of people ‘talking about’ leaders on facebook usher 34 using first person narratives and speaking directly to the microelectorate as individuals, when linked to right-wing news coverage of immigration, appears to have proved a particularly effective way of getting people “talking about” nigel farage. as shown in figure three, he was often discussed on facebook more than the leaders of all other smaller parties combined. in understanding media, marshall mcluhan identified printed media as establishing and perpetuating nationalistic discourse. he argued that printed media reconstructed the “human dialogue on a world wide scale,” and the result was “nationalism, industrialism, mass markets” (188). typography and mass media allowed political unification of populations through vernacular and language groupings. nationalism, therefore, “depends on the press” extending and replacing the tribe with “an association of men hegemoneously trained to be individuals” within a nation (192). on sns (and beyond), farage acted as a nationalistic mouthpiece, using what could be described as digital dog-whistling to attract and maintain an audience. for anthony giddens, mcluhan’s work established human experience as “inseparable from its own media: the printed text and subsequently the electronic signal” (24). he argued the “media does not mirror realities, but in some part form them” (27), re-organising “time and space” so experiences which are “rare in day-to-day life…are encountered routinely” (24). this in turn helps shape our understanding of our lived experience. despite refugees rarely committing crime, tabloid newspapers disproportionately report on those who do. the daily express, whose owner richard desmond financially backed ukip, was used consistently as part of the construction of farage’s facebook page, linking his persona to the far-right agenda of the publication. identifying immigrant crime as a risk to all, and therefore a reason to get out of the european union, was a key discourse. under the banner ‘make britain great again’, his facebook page co-opted nationalistic discourse and opposition to “others,” via the use of news as evidence, to help form his online persona. his page also often invited audience members to like or share posts if they ‘agreed’. this worked particularly well in terms of increasing his visibility during the short campaign and beyond, with farage not only having a larger number of people talking with him (of course many condemning his nationalistic discourse) but also seeing the greatest hike in people following his page (see figure five), of all the political leaders. persona and the captured image: intercommunication between representational and presentational media production techniques the ubiquitous presence of mobile phone cameras makes the visual display of self in still images a vital dimension of sns persona creation. every person encountered by the political leader when campaigning is a potential photographer, redefining long established representational media methods and techniques for image capture. campaigns are staged activities—linked together, planned pseudo-events—specifically aimed at getting the media to circulate the image of the political leader, with photographs aimed at capturing both their authority and their authenticity. during the short campaign, three types of pictures dominated facebook and twitter uploaded picture galleries. the first was professional high quality images by an employed member of the party marketing team, with the photographer directly uploading to sns with identifiable routine. secondly, members of the marketing team created image/picture blends following structural techniques of the meme (me-make), which are a recognisable part of sns display and audience participation. finally, pictures taken by the microelectorate—particularly selfies—were shared. while focusing on those images uploaded directly to the leaders’ media galleries and thus afforded permanent visibility, it is worth noting that many more pictures taken by both members of the public and the press were also shared or retweeted, making them a part of more transient timeline display. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 35 figure four: uploaded still images on facebook and twitter it is not surprising that pictures of the leaders usually dominated their personalised sns pages, as shown in figure four. indeed, avatars are a first access point for all sns profiles and so the captured image of the leader is a consistent presence. for four out of the seven (exceptions farage, bennett and wood), uploaded images were usually professionally taken. these followed long established conventions and techniques of photojournalists covering campaigns and were often uploaded shortly after the public facing campaign moment had taken place. attempting to capture unguarded moments of authenticity, during the staged activity of campaigning, is key to photojournalist coverage. edwards (681-697) explores how press photography during election time contributes to political illusionism. he argues that the newspaper photograph has special usher 36 resonation for the public as “an easily stabilized and repeated representation of people and their actions” (683). photojournalism of electioneering finds its credibility in the successful use of “past success as a news formula” (bennett 14), often reducing “complex issues and circumstances to memorable but simplistic visual frames” (zelizer 1). co-opting the way photojournalists act as witnesses to authenticity through the capture of off-guard moments means image handlers can circumvent the influence of mainstream news media, choosing which pictures work best to “frame the subject in a positive light and to promote a strategic image” (marland 214). while, appearing to be taken on mobile phones rather than by a professional photographer, farage and wood’s sns profiles included images which used the structural techniques of photojournalism’s coverage of campaigning, if not the high-tech kit. bennett’s profile only shared pictures taken by green activists and, indeed, none were uploaded directly to her facebook throughout the campaign. the lack of a professional photographer reflects differences in the campaigning budgets of these parties as compared to the other four.iv however, as figure four shows, there was nervousness about using pictures of ed miliband, even on his own sns profile pages. miliband’s physical appearance was regularly subject to ridicule—particularly in tabloid newspapers—throughout his tenure as labour leader and this may well have influenced this decision. indeed, many pictures that were shared featured the back of his head while talking to others and labour’s most dominant use of images was image/text hybrids following the construction patterns of memes. audience generated memes have become a significant dimension of sns construction and work well to instantly communicate an idea within the scrolling functions of facebook and twitter. in his recent study of how memes work as part of digital self-construction, shifman argues they are “genres governed by dimensions of truth and temporality which have emerged as governing logics in an era marked by an amalgamation of digital photography and participatory culture” (342). while shifman identifies they are normally whimsical, the way they are employed as part of political communication reflects his examinations of standardised content and form, the way they aim to demonstrate “stance,” and how they are now circulated, imitated and transformed (343). of the sixty-one pictures uploaded on miliband’s facebook page, thirty-nine (64%) were memes. designs included text of policy alongside symbolic images of labour (such as the red rose) or over-laid on a photograph of miliband either from behind or at a distance. however, all the leader’s pages at some point used memes’ textual and performative dimensions to communicate political ideas. they blur lines between production and consumption of content, representing a new amalgamation of digital media forms into the patterns and routines of political marketing. memes are usually audience generated. yet, when the memes created by the marketing teams of the parties were shared, they too became part of a wider, audience-led genre. this blurring of audience production and consumption with professional marketing practices also occurs in the way selfies appeared on leaders’ pages. the fact sturgeon’s pages used her image most—and the way the term selfie was a term in textual discourse on twitter as visualised in figure two—reflects the way the snp team used selfies with clear routine. as jerslev and mortensen demonstrate, selfies are part of the world of digital intimacy identified by marwick and boyd as key to the creation of online fame. in their examination of celebrity selfies, they argue they are a performative practice relying on the perception of backstage access. busetta and colandonato argue that the selfie should be understood as an important vernacular media production, influenced by “a larger series of techno-social practices” (2) as part of the building of celebrities’ self-brand or politician’s public visibility. all political leaders allowed selfies to be taken of them with members of the public during the short campaign. however, only sturgeon’s team followed a consistent pattern in their use; namely, as a strategy for constructing her political persona. there were usually two lenses on her during selfie moments. the was that of a mobile phone belonging to a member of the electorate she met in person persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 37 during campaigning, with the picture taken either by her or by them. these were mutually beneficial interactions demonstrating mutuality of stance for promotion of self. sturgeon demonstrated her popularity using the audience member as if a fan. in return, the individual she posed with was rewarded with an image with someone famous, to circulate on their own sns. this has the associated reward of increased visibility through retweets, shares or increased followers. the second lens on sturgeon was that of the snp’s official press-style photographer, capturing selfie moments from afar and uploading to her twitter profile using the hashtag “selfie.” this combination of representational and presentational media practices as a means to create the image of a leader in relation to the public reflects the potency of selfies as selfbranding activities. it also illuminates how political campaigning teams aim to create the illusion of unguarded backstage access through capturing a public moment, and as a means towards persona creation. conclusion sns offer what goffman might have described as a ‘’front”, or “expressive equipment’ (presentation of self 13-14) for persona performance as mediatised spectacle. marketing professionals are afforded greater control over the public image of the leader—and are even able to produce content in their voice—with focused routine. the trick for campaign teams is to produce content that communicates quickly during the scroll of a social media timeline, allowing for instant identification rather than encouraging prolonged thought. teaming personal narratives with political policies, the well-established constructions and conventions of campaign news coverage via newer digital storytelling practices helps create multidimensional, but also concentrated, political personas. sns offer multiple routes for microelectorates to engage with political leaders. these sites encourage participation in maintaining the visibility of their branded identities through comments, shares and likes, resulting in the potential for increased followers. figure five: increases in sustainable user engagement usher 38 tracking likes, shares, and increased followers allows the campaign team an almost immediate understanding of how successful a moment of online persona construction is in terms of resonance with microelectorates. this has two consequences: discourse which gets high clicks and likes provides templates for how personas are developed, managed and maintained; and, like for many other public figures, sns have become inescapable institutions for maintaining public visibility. figure five demonstrates how successful the campaigns were in terms of encouraging microelectorate members to choose direct, regular access to political leaders through “following” or “liking” their sns pages. it is this that appears the aim rather than encouraging meaningful discussion, which reflects kriess’ argument that the potential for dialogue with the politician is limited (118-135). however, the communicative value of increased followers for democratic practice and the extension of message is significant. the leaders of the smaller political parties made real gains, reaching greater numbers of voters. however, this was still only a fraction of david cameron’s followers. cameron’s relatively small increase by percentage, despite the conservatives having the largest budget and most consistent production patterns of all parties, suggests there are saturation points for sns visibility. the ability of campaigning teams to expand visibility of longer standing political leaders using current production processes is limited. on facebook, this trend continues. cameron and miliband had greater reach due to preexisting levels of followers and this reflected their sustained visibility in mainstream media as prime minister and leader of the opposition. however, farage’s ‘likes’ were almost triple those for cameron during the short campaign. his digital dog-whistling, which teamed nationalism with fear and distrust of both establishment institutions and immigrants, resonated with facebook audiences particularly. this had extended benefit during the eu referendum campaign the following year, as these themes were formed the basis of the vote leave campaign in both mainstream media and on his social media account. however, farage’s approach had many detractors, both on sns and in news media. greater examinations of the ways microelectorates act synoptically—such as through direct challenges to statements of opinion or through the use of ridicule of ideas or appearance—and its potential to undermine political authority and authenticity is needed to fully understand the role of sns in political communication. marshall, barbour and moore argue that for persona creation a new “cultural politics is emerging which is quite different from that supported by purely representational media forms” (291). digital and personalised storytelling techniques and representational media construction patterns converge and are reshaped, offering ever-new models for persona construction. electioneering on sns is based around the leader’s image, but is group activity, using the political persona as a networked, branded self to direct audiences to action. looking to the successes of the conservatives in terms of the election vote shows that their model of sustained, highly professionalised and resourced sns production to construct cameron’s page supported success. however, the way farage engaged in digital dog-whistling to attract the attention of sns users and mainstream media offers a clear framework for how leaders can use sns to construct a persona which increases both their own and party visibility. the perpetual change of party leaders—only sturgeon and wood survived both this election and the brexit vote the following year—means political marketers must start constructing different leaders’ sns personas in relatively rapid succession. understanding what has worked previously to quickly build visibility means that successes achieved through certain means, such as farage’s digital dog-whistle politics, may be ever more seductive techniques for those involved in constructing and using persona as promotional activity. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 39 endnotes i. each political party also had a youtube channel used primarily as a dissemination tool to provide video content on the leader’s profile pages. video is not included within this study. ii. australian lynton crosby was engaged by the conservatives in 2012 and then joined the following year by jim messina from the barack obama campaign team. american david axelrod—who, along with messina, engineered obama’s successful 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns—was hired by labour in 2014. the liberal democrats employed south african ryan coatzee in 2012 to serve first as special advisor to nick clegg and then strategic director for the 2015 short campaign, while ruwan kodikara, from the quiller consultancy, assumed the role of head of media and branding. ukips’ campaign was led by former bbc journalists paul lambert and alexandra phillips, with assistants. both bennett and wood replied to questions by the researcher on twitter about their teams, which numbed fewer than four. kevin pringle, an old ally of alex salmond, spearheaded the snp campaign. peter murrell, party chief executive, acted as 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"celebrity in the ‘twitterverse’: history, authenticity and the multiplicity of stardom situating the ‘newness’ of twitter.” celebrity studies 5.3 (2014): 242-255. web. tolson, andrew. “hope springs eternal?: the illusions and disillusions of political celebrity.” a companion to celebrity. ed. sean redmond and p. david marshall. chichester: wiley blackwell, 2015. 161-176. print. tuchman, gaye making news: a study in the construction of reality. new york: the free press, 1978. print. turner, graeme. understanding celebrity. los angeles: sage, 2013. print. usher, bethany “twitter and the celebrity interview.” celebrity studies 6.3 (2015): 306-321. web. wernick, andrew. promotional culture: advertising, ideology and symbolic expression. london: sage, 1991. print. wood, leanne. https://twitter.com/leannewood (account created: apr 2008) --https://www.facebook.com/leanne.wood.714/ (account created: apr 2008) zelizer, barbie. about to die: how news images move the public. new york: oxford university press, 2010. print. editor’s note: this article was updated on 20 december 2016 at the author’s request to correct minor statistical errors in figure 2 (p. 30) and figure 4 (p. 35). https://twitter.com/ed_miliband https://www.facebook.com/edmiliband/ https://twitter.com/nicolasturgeon https://www.facebook.com/nicolasturgeonsnp https://twitter.com/leannewood https://www.facebook.com/leanne.wood.714/ persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 79 persona and parrhesia: research notes on the dialectics of the real matt eo st oc chett i abstract if reality is socially established through practices that, directly or indirectly, depend on communication and therefore on some notion of truth, the idea of a post-truth communicative regime or “age” may seem not only bizarre but also worrying. the dissolution of the real, announced by the prophets of postmodernism in the form of either a “perfect crime” or a “liquid reality”, has been interpreted as the effect of the crisis of truth and legitimation that jeanfrançois lyotard (1982) referred to with his notions of “performativity” and “legitimation by force”. from this perspective, reality depends upon truth, and the possibility of truth depends, in turn, on configurations of power that seem too elusive and ephemeral to be effectively engaged with in either theory or practice. in this paper, i mobilise the notions of parrhesia and persona in an effort to establish an alternative standpoint from which to discuss the epistemological and ontological implications of the postmodern condition and the crisis of truth associated with it. the main point can perhaps be summarised in the idea that, if the new regime of truth (or post-truth) relies on persona expressing the roles/characters compatible with it, the notion of parrhesia may gain a critical relevance for the normative evaluation of these personas and the social implications of their truth. famously reintroduced by michel foucault (1999) in his analysis of truth and its discursive conditions, the notion of parrhesia has a heuristic potential that has not been fully exploited. while challenging the social construction of reality on practical grounds in fundamental ways, the digitalisation of social life also presents theoretical challenges, some of which can be addressed by the reconceptualisation of parrhesia in relation to the social role of the persona rather than the individual. in my paper, i present some preliminary research notes in this direction. key words parrhesia; persona; dialectics of the real; post-digital; post-truth the dialectics of the real the main goal of this paper is to offer some preliminary reflections on the heuristic and critical opportunities associated with the conceptual binary of “persona” and “parrhesia”, and to see stocchetti 80 how these opportunities might apply to the implications of the digital turn in the dialectics of the real. the reproduction of the real is a process characterised by tensions: for example, tensions between the past, the present, and visions of the future; between the real and the ideal; and between what is possible and what is desirable. this process presents both competitive and non-competitive aspects and has a communicative and a non-communicative dimension. the competitive aspects consist in the efforts of a variety of social forces to increase their influence over the social construction of the real. the competition for influence over the construction of the real, however, is associated with other non-competitive aspects that, in forms of shared meanings, rules, and so forth, constitute both the stake and the struggle. for example, the “meaning” of the real and the “rules” in the competition for the control of the process that reproduces it. the notion of truth is important, in this perspective, as the communicative device that allows for the constitution of the shared (and therefore non-competitive) grounds for the competition among social forces and the resolution of the dialectical tensions that participates in the re-production of the real. but what happens if the shared grounds themselves become a stake in the competition for the control of the real? jean-françois lyotard and jean baudrillard are probably two of the most well-known thinkers that, in their problematisation of truth and the real, have addressed this possibility. lyotard (1982) suggests that, with the decline of science and the metanarrative that supported the social value and legitimating functions of truth, the social construction and legitimation of the real take place through performativity. the decline of truth and the rise of performativity, with the fundamental changes in the legitimation of the social bond associated with this mutation, reflects the power of capitalism, or, more precisely, the strength of the social forces inspired by that ideology. according to lyotard: this procedure operates within the following framework: since “reality” is what provides the evidence used as proof in scientific argumentation, and also provides prescriptions and promises of a juridical, ethical, and political nature with results, one can master all of these games by mastering “reality”. that is precisely what technology can do. by reinforcing technology, one “reinforces” reality, and one’s chances of being just and right increase accordingly. reciprocally, technology is reinforced all the more effectively if one has access to scientific knowledge and decision-making authority. (1982, p. 47) the “incredulity” with the great narratives that used to provide the moral grounds for the role of science and truth in the legitimisation of the social and political order creates the conditions for the rise of performative knowledge and self-legitimation or “legitimation by power” (47). in practice, this consists in the imposition of a state of affairs, a naturalised social order that is beyond the possibility of rational confutation or change because, in this perspective, only hegemonic forces can “perform” truth and truth always performs in support of hegemonic forces. for baudrillard (1994), it is the “code”, the evocative but otherwise elusive notion performing fundamental explanatory functions, that is the ultimate “agent” in the process of effacement of the real and its substitution with the hyperreal. in baudrillard’s words: to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. to simulate is to feign to have what one doesn’t have. one implies a presence, the other an absence. but it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending […] therefore, pretending, or dissimulating leaves the principle of reality intact: the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 81 difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the “true” and the “false”, the “real” and the “imaginary”. (p. 3) in these formulations, the process i have described in term of the dialectics of the real is subverted by an extreme outcome of the competition for control over the reproduction of the real: the acquisition of a total hegemony by the social forces of capitalism (in its “late” form). as a result of this conceptual subversion (a subversion that is brought about in the representation of the process by the way the process itself is conceptualised), the notion of truth becomes totally dependent on power (performativity) and the real itself totally outside the reach of the competitive aspects and dialectical tensions of this reproduction process – in practice a transcendental notion. my suggestion here is to “remember foucault”, the idea that every power generates resistance and the intimate, and in some respects even contradictory, relationship between forms of power and regimes of truth (taylor 1984). somehow paradoxically, baudrillard (2003, p. 6) expressed the same idea when he wrote that “[a]llergy to any definitive order, to any definitive power, is—happily—universal”. foucault’s problematisation of truth in terms of parrhesia and the parrhesiastic game is interesting for it recovers the autonomy of truth in relations of power and the possibility of truth-dependent power. this is in antagonism to the power-dependent truth of performativity, and the dissolution of truth in the regime of simulation. the same problematisation of truth in terms of parrhesia and the parrhesiastic game, however, while providing the conceptual opportunity to re-open the competition for the real, also suggests the nature of the agent of this opening/competition and the constitutive features of this kind of agency. this, i argue, is the persona. my argument here is that the power of moral truth (parrhesia) and the ability of creative adaptation (a form of adaptation in which the agent mutates in order to change the environment: the persona) are brought together in the construction of reality. these forces combine in what i called the dialectics of the real: that is, the process of destruction/creation (of meaning) or affirmation and negation of any given (formulation of) reality in the communicative construction of the real through which we control our environment. from this perspective reality is not an iron cage protecting truth from utopia, but rather a more or less impermanent result of a process in which the production, destruction, and reproduction of truth are necessary moments of dialectic tensions expressing alternative and possibly competing forms of truths, power/knowledge, and possibilities of social change. on conceptual grounds, therefore, parrhesia and persona seem promising elements of a critical standpoint for the study of the reproduction of the real and its tensions. this can, perhaps, help us to move beyond the intellectual impasse brought about by formulations of the problem of power in the reproduction of reality in terms of performative truth and simulation. mentioning the dialectics of the real is a preliminary step towards arguing for the relevance of the persona and parrhesia as an analytical binary. this conceptual tool may, or may not, allow us to study important aspects of our social world that would otherwise be hard to grasp and therefore liable to be neglected. in this paper, i will not discuss the dialectic of the real further but rather concentrate on the methodological argument: the case for the heuristic productivity of this binary. furthermore, i will argue that the contribution and therefore the value of this binary is in line with the analytical tradition, the normative concerns, and ultimately the social project of critical social theory. stocchetti 82 persona, parrhesia, and critical social theory michel foucault (1999) discusses the notion of parrhesia as part of his analysis of the discourse of truth. the goal of his analysis was not to identify the conditions of truth in the classic world but rather to problematize “truth-telling as a specific activity, or as a role” (p.74). foucault summarises the specifics of this activity as follows: parrhesia is a kind of verbal activity where the speaker has a specific relation to truth through frankness, a certain relationship to his own life through danger, a certain type of relation to himself or other people through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other people), and a specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty. more precisely, parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). in parrhesia, the speaker uses his freedom and chooses frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of falsehood or silence, the risk of death instead of life and security, criticism instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy. (p. 6) an important aspect of parrhesia is a rather unique discursive effect of authorisation in which the content and the speaker of the content constitute and legitimate each other in the act of speaking. foucault discusses this in terms of enunciation and enunciandum: in parrhesia the speaker emphasizes the fact that he is both the subject of the enunciation and the subject of the enunciandum—that he himself is the subject of the opinion to which he refers. the specific “speech activity” of the parrhesiastic enunciation thus takes the form: “i am the one who thinks this and that”. (p. 3) this discursive effect is presumably the cause of the transformative power of parrhesia both on the persona who dares to speak the truth, or “parrhesiastes”, and on the other personae participating in the parrhesiastic game. in this game, the authority of both the parrhesiastes and the content of her speech depends on at least three conditions: a) the fact that her criticism of a more powerful persona, the “tyrant”, implies a danger for her life, b) the awareness of this danger, and c) its acceptance. when these conditions are met, parrhesia become a transformative power with subversive effects and the parrhesiastes an influential political persona. foucault informs us that, according to the ancient greeks, not everyone can play the parrhesiastic game and be a parrhesiastes. the requirements include being free and aware of what must be said, at the cost of a personal risk and for the good of the city. short of this awareness and these qualities, speaking becomes mere shallow and unrestrained utterance (another meaning of parrhesia, albeit not as common in those times) or a compulsive behaviour and therefore not free. to play the parrhesiastic game, a parrhesiastes was required to have a specific relation with truth and to choose risk over personal comfort. for this specific relation to exist, however, our would-be parrhesiastes also needed to have a specific relation with the social world in its historical specifics, for example a given society, in a given time, and in a given place. the parrhesiastes is thus the persona that, in certain conditions, can play the “parrhesiastic game”. in foucault’s problematisation, however, it is important to distinguish at least two moments in the reconstruction of this “game”: before and after what he calls “the crisis persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 83 of democratic institutions” (33). this is a crisis that, he argued, prepares the grounds for a fundamental change in the nature of the “truth game”: […] from that truth game which—in the classical greek conception of parrhesia—was constituted by the fact that someone was courageous enough to tell the truth to other people […] to another truth game which now consists in being courageous enough to disclose the truth about oneself. (p. 62) the crisis of parrhesia is a crisis of the persona of the parrhesiastes and a situation in which the complex set of relations constituting the parrhesiastes as a socio-political persona become problematic. in foucault’s words: the crisis of parrhesia, which emerges at the crossroads of an interrogation about democracy and an interrogation about truth, gives rise to a problematization of some hitherto unproblematic relations between freedom, power, democracy, education, and truth in athens at the end of the fifth century. from the previous problem of gaining access to parrhesia in spite of the silence of god, we move to a problematization of parrhesia, i.e., parrhesia itself becomes problematic, split within itself. (p. 31) in foucault’s formulation, therefore, the parrhesiastes seems to be either a persona with a distinctive relation to truth, or a socio-political or public role played by a persona with a special relation to truth.i the notion itself, i suggest, offers some interesting analytical opportunities that can be described in relation to more conventional notions (for example, in goffman and jung), but that, from a critical perspective, are perhaps more salient than these. common to goffman and jung, for example, is the metaphor of the persona as a “mask” that makes it possible for the individual to adapt and to participate to the social world—indeed to adapt in order to participate. this metaphor, however, hides as much as it reveals. while adaptation seems to be the main concern of goffman’s (1959) “presentation of the self”, jung’s (1977) problematisation of the persona is more concerned with what lies behind the mask, the core of our identity, with deep roots in the collective unconscious. in fact, for goffman: to the degree that a performance highlights the common official values of the society in which it occurs, we may look at it, in the manner of durkheim and radcliffe-brown, as a ceremony—as an expressive rejuvenation and reaffirmation of the moral values of the community. furthermore, in so far as the expressive bias of performances come to be accepted as reality, then that which is accepted at the moment as reality will have some of the characteristics of a celebration. (1959, p. 45) in this view, the persona has primarily “conservative” rather than subversive functions towards the moral values and the “reality” of the community. this kind of persona participates in the “celebration” of a reality that, albeit temporary, is stripped of the tensions that i described in terms of the dialectics of the real. what is important in this perspective, however, is the connection that the persona must have, and learn to manage, with precisely the elements constituting her reality—independently from the connotation of this concept. this knowledge, i would claim, is necessary but not sufficient in the constitution of the parrhesiastes. for jung, persona is a tool both useful and problematic. it is an interface that allows us to live in the world, but at the same time an obstacle to the authenticity of our participation in it. for jung: stocchetti 84 the persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. (1977, p. 190) jung’s persona is in some respects more complex than goffman’s due to the role that the individual and collective unconscious play in the life and in the very constitution of the individual. jung acknowledges that “the word persona is really a very appropriate expression for it, since it originally meant the mask worn by an actor, signifying the role he played” (p. 155). for jung, however: fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. he takes a name, earns a title, represents an office, he is this or that. in a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a product of compromise, in making which others often have a greater share than he. the persona is a semblance, a twodimensional reality, to give it a nickname. (p. 156) the risks that this mask implies for the individual have nothing to do with truth and the subversive effects that truth-telling may have on one’s (sense of) reality, but with the possibility for the individual to become trapped in the role of her persona: to become what society forces her to be, or the “mask” that is supposed to perform as a protection against social pressures. the process of individuation, which occurs in normal development as well as in analysis, is the process that makes it possible for the individual to avoid this risk and shed this mask. the analysis of the persona, for jung, seeks to “strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask for the collective psyche” (p. 156). even from this short description, it should be clear that some significant aspects of the persona of the parrhesiastes differ from goffman’s and jung’s persona. if the persona is fundamentally a mask, or a role defined as “the enactment of rights and duties attached to a given status” (goffman 1959, p. 27), foucault’s parrhesiastes has far less concern than goffman’s individual about the credibility of its role. in the former, the “mask” makes the persona much more than in the latter. the notion of “performance” that is central to goffman’s discussion (p. 28ff.) appears not just inappropriate, but a fundamental misconstrual of the motives of the parrhesiastes’ public behaviour. the parrhesiastes is the individual who speaks parrhesia, the moral truth. however, the moral truth of the parrhesiastes is authoritative and influential because the persona of the parrhesiastes is not merely a “mask” to pursue personal interests, to avoid embarrassment (like in goffman), or to protect our deeper self from the pressures of society (like in jung). rather, it is a relationship that bounds the individual to the self, to the community, and to a duty toward truth with potentially dangerous implications for the one who dare to speak it. in foucault’s problematisation, the functions of the persona/parrhesiastes are not primarily adaptive, like in goffman and jung, conservative, like in goffman, or defensive, like in jung. instead, they are mainly participatory, progressive, and possibly subversive of the established relations of power and the reality associated with them. the parrhesiastes brings to surface the tensions of the dialectics of the real. her persona, to perform parrhesiastic functions, cannot be a mere compromise between self and society. the knowledge of society and awareness of what is good for the community must be persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 85 coupled with a commitment to truth so as to choose risk against comfort. it is the element of risk, in addition to the social competence, but in antithesis to the idea of social comfort, appropriateness, or compromise, that gives the parrhesiastes her subversive functions vis-a-vis the tyrant. this dimension of personal risk is present but misconstrued in jung, for whom the only risk for the individual is that of identifying with the mask. the jungian individuation, as a process of progressive awareness about the inner self, presents, however, some affinities with the practice of the parrhesiastic game as a form of introspection: a later meaning of parrhesia that foucault describes in relation to the crisis of the democratic institutions. this crisis, according to foucault, transforms parrhesia into a discipline of the soul. in this practice, courage consists in facing the truth about oneself. it is as if, once the parrhesiastes becomes an obsolete persona for the socio-political conditions of its time, the functions of the parrhesiastic game are preserved in the relationship with the self: to preserve the moral functions of truth. from a jungian perspective, the risks of de-individuation lie in the mask becoming the face. and this is where the later notion of parrhesia as the courage to discover the truth about oneself seems most compatible with the jungian interpretation. to become a parrhesiastes, an individual is required to become aware of the “mask”, to avoid the reduction of its identity to it but also to use the mask properly, to establish a creative or productive relationship between her inner self and the social world. the jungian process of individuation and parrhesia as a discipline of the soul seems, in other words, different from, but compatible with formulations of the socratic invitation to “know thyself” and, from this perspective, a constitutive aspect of the parrhesiastes’ moral authority. in sum, when the notion of parrhesia combines with that of persona, the result is a new and rather special kind of political persona, the parrhesiastes. this notion combines elements from more conventional formulations, such as in goffman and jung, in addition to new features. the blending of criticism and self-criticism with the “duty to improve or help other people” and the “specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty” (6) may sound familiar for those who are acquainted with the critical tradition in the social sciences and humanities. the normative roots of this tradition have been traditionally discussed in relation to the works of karl marx and sigmund freud (fromm 1966). i suggest that the mobilisation of parrhesia and persona may, indeed, establish analytical and pedagogical grounds compatible with this tradition. on analytical grounds, the parrhesiastes is a notion that combines the heuristic opportunities of the other two notions: the persona and parrhesia. the concept of persona locates individual agency within, rather than outside of, the complex interplay of communicative practices and competing forces that participate in the social construction of the real. the concept of parrhesia is important because it emancipates the problem of truth and the possibility of its effects, from the constraints of the discourses associated with empirical control, performativity, or even instrumental reason, to establish parrhesia and the parrhesiastes/persona as antagonistic or subversive forces in the dialectics of the real. on pedagogical grounds, the ideal of parrhesiastic truth, inviting the individual to problematise issues of moral truth in relation to power, self, and society, seems a promising element of the critical pedagogy promoted by paulo freire and others (freire 2001, 2013). the discourse of parrhesia can be a starting point to unmask the relations of power constituting a given regime of truth but also a way to bring about forms of critical consciousness and ultimately the possibility of emancipative social change. stocchetti 86 as i shall argue, combining the notions of parrhesia and the persona offers critical grounds to further research on the role of critical pedagogy in education and the impact of the “post-truth” regime and the “digital turn” in the dialectics of the real. the “digital turn” as a preliminary point, i would like to mention the methodological “trap” of construing persona and parrhesia as dependent variables of technological change instead of forces with, at least, partial autonomous agency in the dialectics of the real. this process is social and communicative and, therefore, open to the influence of technological change, but not dependent on that. the idea that every technological change is a “revolution” that radically changes the nature of the process through which the real is constructed is a reflection of technological determinism that, in turn, is an expression of the influence of hegemonic forces in the dialectics of the real. the discontinuities allegedly produced by the “digital turn” are part of an ideological discourse promoting myths, such as the “end of politics”, the “end of history”, and so forth (mosco 2004); their fundamental function, as roland barthes noted, is that of “depoliticized speech”, a form of communication that hides its own political function (barthes 1972). the capacity to assess the nature and direction of the discontinuities allegedly brought about by the digital turn in the dialectics of the real depends on the relation that the parrhesiastes has with herself, the community, and the inclination to risk. it depends on qualities that belong to goffman’s “performer” and to jung’s persona, combined with the meanings of parrhesia, before and after the crisis of democratic institutions (foucault 1999, p. 33). the main question to ask, in this perspective, is not how does digitalisation change the parrhesiastes? but rather what are the moral truths that should be uttered in relation to the changes brought about by digitalisation? the idea implicit in this state of affairs can, perhaps, be expressed in terms of a moral duty. the parrhesiastes must constantly update her knowledge about self, society, and the relation between them, which constitute her persona, so to preserve a notion of moral truth without remaining attached to any specific connotation of this notion. this kind of exercise is hermeneutic in kind. it pertains to the very essence of critical hermeneutics, not primarily as a “theory of meaning” (roberge 2011, pp. 6-7), but as an interpretative practice in which issues of meaning are addressed in association with issues of power. for a subversive truth to be uttered in a parrhesiastic game of some sorts, the problem of assessing the impact of the digital turn on the dialectics of the real concerns not only technological change but also changes in, for example, the social forces and strategies that are deployed in this process to foster or resist technological change. a further possibility is to forget, for a moment, the idea that the digital turn has “revolutionary” potential and look instead at the continuities, that is, aspects or processes associated with the dialectics of the real that the digital turn contributes to reinforcing rather than undermining or transforming. one good candidate i would like to suggest here is what anthony giddens (1990, p. 21) referred to as “disembedding” or “the ‘lifting out’ of social relations from local context of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space” . this feature of modernity is an influential source of change for the social relationships that construe the persona of the parrhesiastes and the features of the moral truth. digitalisation facilitates the disembedding of social relations, for example, making physical absence not only possible but even productive through mobile technology (villi & stocchetti 2011). once morality itself is “disembedded”, all the ingredients of the parrhesiastic game are affected: relations of power, the social construction of the self, the relation with the relevant communities, and the notion of moral truth. digital disembedding is a fundamental force of globalisation that giddens defines as “the intensification of worldwide social relations which persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 87 link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (1990, p. 64). to the extent that the influence of the parrhesiastes is rooted in society and is culture-specific, disembedding, more than digitalisation per se, represents an important challenge to their role in the resolution of tensions that constitute the dialectics of the real. the problem (a conceptual problem with political implications) here is to see how the persona/parrhesiastes and the parrhesiastic truth are still meaningful notions when their distinctive features are construed on a global rather than local level. the influence of the parrhesiastes in the dialectics of the real is not much a result of her persona, but a more complex combination of factors that include, for example, identification with a community, a vision of the public interest, and courage. an important element in the constitution of the parrhesiastes is the “tyrant”: the persona that participates in the parrhesiastic game as the source of the potential punishment that constitutes courage as a fundamental feature of the parrhesiastes persona. what this perspective suggests, therefore, is the problematisation of the discourse of truth in relation to new forms of power: the new “tyrants” implicated with the digital turn and the processes this supports, such as disembedding and globalisation. the question one may want to ask is then: who is the “tyrant” in the digital age? or more precisely, how does the digital turn affect the possibility of parrhesiastic game/truth by bringing about the mutation of the persona/tyrant? zygmunt bauman (2004, pp. 42-48), for example, argues that in “liquid time” domination is not exercised through direct control or presence, but through the mere preservation of precarieté that transforms the freedom of the rulers into insecurity for the ruled. the question would then be, how does the digital turn foster “absent domination” (42-48), “liquid fear” (bauman, 2006), and ultimately the influence of new “absent” tyrants in the dialectics of the real? what are their features? and what kind of punishment should be expected for the new parrhesiastes? the possibility for anyone to play the parrhesiastic game nowadays depends on the possibility of answering these questions. another notion to be problematised is that of “digital persona” and the idea that the affordances associated with digitalisation offer the techno-savvy individual the possibility of a deeper and more extensive control over the construction of her persona. a superficial interpreter of goffman’s persona, for example, may be led to believe that a digital performer can have more effective control over her persona than her non-digital homologue, while neglecting the fact that our digitalised performer has to face the challenges of digitalised “social establishments”. the possibility of anonymous personae, for example, may give some relief to goffman’s persona and her concerns. however, this is obviously useless for foucault’s parrhesiastes, since anonymity undermines the moral value of parrhesia by hiding the identity of the parrhesiastes and removing the element of risk. from a different perspective, the digital persona is a creature whose very existence is dependent on a privately owned technological infrastructure designed to serve private corporate interests. questions concerning the exclusive affordances of the digital persona can surely be asked. but when it comes to parrhesia and the parrhesiastic game, one also needs to problematise the impact of a communicative infrastructure, not only on what a person can do but in relation to what a person becomes. the growing concern and literature about digital loneliness, digital narcissism, digital alienation and so forth suggests that the control of the persona is a key stake in the competition for control over the processes of the dialectics of the real. the digital turn, and the digitalisation of the social, brings about not only a problem of authenticity (of “false” persona or “false truth”), although this is surely a dimension, but also a profound change in the political economy of the communicative conditions of the parrhesiastic game. a core aspect of this change consists in the disembedding of both the persona and parrhesia from the social/local and their dependence on a technological infrastructure implicated in the reproduction of capitalist influence on the dialectics of the real (allmer 2015; curran et al. 2012; fuchs 2014; mcchesney 2013). perhaps stocchetti 88 on a more positive note, however, the perils of digitalisation feed forces that move towards a post-digital age. the distinctive feature of this age is not the rejection of the digital, but rather the incredulity about the possibility of emancipation in a technological environment dominated by private interests and the logic of profit—one in which corporations can use technology to control individuals in support of their interests, more than individuals can use technology to pursue personal goals. other features include the informed scepticism about the promises of the “virtual”, a new interest in non-mediated relationships, a strong demand for alternative uses of available technology, and a fundamental disbelief in the myths of technocentric discourse and their “digital expression” (mosco 2004). when, in a digital world, the awareness of being manipulated is stronger than the feeling of empowerment, and when the social realisation of new forms of digital loneliness or addictions is deliberately obscured by a promotional culture fed by the profitability of digital business, the problem of truth easily becomes a problem of personal identity. the problem is one of adaptation and identity management. the strategies responsible for the presentations of the self in the digital environment depend on affordances that are not primarily designed to enable a more effective presentation of the self, but to foster mutual promotional strategies that support productive engagement with the same infrastructure. individuals discover themselves more and more as producer/consumers of digital content rather than managers of their social image. in other words, we want to be “someone”, and we use available communication technology to that purpose. but, in the process of establishing and preserving our digital persona, we become aware that “someone else” is created. this is the persona imposed on individuals by the technological infrastructure and, ultimately, the strategies and interests of those who control/own it. in these conditions, the search for truth becomes a fundamental aspect of the search for a more autonomous and functional persona, and parrhesia a fundamental ideal and a point of reference in this search. the question of whether the “post-digital” persona can credibly bear the political responsibilities and the authority of the classic parrhesiastes remains an open question since the features of the post-digital age itself are still too unclear. in relation to the dialectics of the real, however, there is a least one notion that is useful to look at from the point of view of the persona and parrhesia. the dialectics of the real in the regime of post-truth the notion of post truth is commonly taken to describe “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (oxford dictionaries, 2017). while this term is a neologism, the “circumstances” it describes are not unique to our times. the relative influence of “objective facts” over emotions and beliefs has always been problematic in the history of human knowledge for the simple reason that, in the pressing circumstances of daily-life problem solving, the latter are far more easily accessible than the former. what i think is interesting in this notion and its sudden popularity, however, is the possibility to interpret both as “signs” of a widespread need for a new problematisation of truth. the process foucault discussed in relation to a distant past and the greek-roman political culture, in other words, is happening again in our times and on a global scale. the core problem triggering this problematisation, now and then, is not primarily about epistemology or the nature of truth but, more pressingly, about the pragmatics or legitimation of political power. from the perspective adopted in this discussion, the post-truth debate can be interpreted as persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 89 part of a problematisation of truth in the dialectics of the real. today, like in the time and place of foucault’s analysis, this problematisation involves truth, democracy, and education. if this is true, there are perhaps a few aspects of this problematisation that are worth looking at. the problematisation of truth in terms of post-truth presents some elements of continuity with the “postmodern condition”. the role of emotions and beliefs, for example, may recall the “new type of emotional ground tone” that fredric jameson (1991, p. 6) called “intensities”, as one of the five constitutive features of postmodernism construed as the “cultural logic of late capitalism”. in the connotation of (a claim to) a more sustainable truth for the digital age, on the other hand, the post-truth is the continuation of the “performative” move in the dialectics of the real: a move that, according to lyotard, describes hegemonic influences in the dialectics of the real. the important point to keep in mind, however, is that as intellectual tradition, postmodernism and post-structuralism were also an expression of a radical turn in social critique. the interpretations of truth, power, and the relation between the two generated by this turn sought to expose the role of hegemonic forces in the dialectics of the real and support, albeit with debatable results, an emancipatory agenda. on similar grounds, i would argue that the current problematisation of truth is a response to the crisis of the truth regimes of performativity and simulation, and their functionalities for the hegemonic forces in the dialectics of the real. the main aspect of this crisis is, perhaps, the legitimation gap between these regimes of truth and their effects on the social bond. in the dialectics of the real, this gap ultimately undermines the influence of the social forces associated with the regimes of truth of performativity and simulation. the response to this crisis is inspired by at least two different projects: one aiming at improving the quality of truth to save the possibility of democracy politics, and the other aiming at effacing the subversive potential of truth from the dialectics of the real in order to liquidate the “risks” associated with democratic politics. in the first project, the notion of post-truth participates in a critique that seeks to identify the features of a regime of truth more compatible with the preservation of democratic ideals in the conditions of late capitalism—the core analytical challenge of critical social theory. in the second, the introduction of the same notion is a discursive move in the opposite direction. it is an effort to address the crisis of legitimation by liquidating the role of truth to neutralise its subversive potential in the dialectic of the real. although one may suggest that this effort is rather clumsy, the problem it tries to address is quite important: the legitimation of a social bond and the preservation of inequalities through regimes of truth producing a reality that increasingly appears unacceptable and unsustainable.ii the relative influence of these interpretations in the processes of the dialectics of the real depends on the relative strength of the social forces associated to them. the relevance of the parrhesiastes—of the binary persona/parrhesia—can be argued in relation to what i would call the political economy of truth in the dialectics of the real: the less reliable the available truth, the greater its value. in time of crisis, in other words, the parrhesiastes may become an influential political persona by virtue of her unique relation with truth, knowledge, and courage. if the notion of post-truth, with all its ambivalence, and following foucault, is construed as a problematisation of truth, democracy, and education, the blending of the persona with parrhesia may offer a standpoint for some critical reflections. these concern the possible outcomes of this problematisation, the crisis that triggers it, and the role of (democratic) education on the nature of these outcomes. persona and parrhesia in critical pedagogy stocchetti 90 if the salvation of the democratic project requires a persona with the skills and will to perform the remaking of truth through the exercise of parrhesia, where does this persona come from? if the capacity for the creative adaptation that substantiates the persona is a feature of human psychological structure, where does the inclination to risk originate from? and, even if one concedes that the knowledges necessary for the exercise of parrhesia—such as the knowledge about oneself, about society and about the specifics of the problem at hand—may simply be available in one form of another, what makes the persona of the parrhesiastes choose to use those knowledges for the sake of a moral truth and against her personal interest in safety? the question concerning the origins of the parrhesiastes is important because, if left unanswered, it shrouds parrhesia and the parrhesiastes with an aura of myth and fatalism that does not quite fit with the normative project of critical social theory. in other words, for all its fascination and intellectual credibility, foucault’s problematisation of truth and democracy remains sterile if we cannot learn how to deal with the problematisation of truth and democracy in our age. as an avenue for further research, i think this question leads to the role of education and, more precisely, to the role of the pedagogical dimension of educational practices. by this, i mean to describe the features of learning pertaining not primarily to the acquisition of knowledge, but to the forming of the learner’s personality. in practice, this is the persona that can perform parrhesia, not only because of what she knows, but because of who she is. this distinction is important, for the purposes of this discussion, because in common parlance learning is a notion that combines, and to some extent confuses, two very different processes: the acquisition of knowledges and the transformation of the individual, which results from the acquisition of these knowledges but also from the interaction with her educators. the digital turn in education, for example, seems to be inspired by a deliberate effort to separate the learner from the educator, to decouple the acquisition of knowledges from the transformations and, presumably, the risks associated with exposure to the persona of the educator. the regime of post-truth, on the other hand, implies a “performative” pedagogy as an interpellation to grow up without moral certainties and, therefore, without the need nor the capacity to face personal risk for the sake of a moral truth. the tyrants of the digital age and the post-truth regime will soon have nothing to worry about if, in our “knowledge societies”, the practical possibility of parrhesia will be effaced by the pedagogical repression of the distinction between what is true and what is right. this is why the pedagogical dimension of education is crucial. in foucault’s problematisation of truth, this role remains quite marginal. from the perspective of the dialectics of the real, instead, this role can hardly be overestimated. to the extent that the actual genesis of the parrhesiastes depends on the variety of practices we usually refer to as education, this is the terrain of the competition for the construction of the real between the democratic and the performative projects, that is, between the efforts of “remaking” and those of “effacing” the truth. as with every social practice, pedagogical practices simultaneously influence, and are influenced by, education. if the importance of the pedagogical dimension of education for the practical possibility of parrhesia seems plausible, the next important question concerns the nature of the pedagogical standpoints and approaches that could credibly support educational practices and regimes of truths compatible with democratic futures. my suggestion here is to combine the problematisation of truth and the analysis of the persona with the tradition of critical pedagogy. the model of the persona that can inspire democratic education in times of post-truth and political radicalisation cannot be limited to the alternatives implied by goffman and jung. the former is too passive, too close to freire’s “adaptation”, a condition in which an individual “loses persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 91 his ability to make choices and is subjected to the choices of others, to the extent that his decisions are no longer his own because they result from external prescriptions” (freire 2013, p. 4). the jungian model, on the other hand, is introspective and functional to the moral development of the individual but too disconnected from the tensions of the dialectics of the real. the combination of persona and parrhesia in the pedagogical model of the parrhesiastes needs to effectively blend knowledge of the self and awareness of the relations of power affecting the dialectics of the real. this blending seems a pedagogical requirement for what freire called integration as “the capacity to adapt oneself to reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and to transform reality” (freire 2013, p. 4). included in this critical capacity is the commitment to truth and to risk. the elements of ambivalence in the problematisation of truth add further grounds to the importance of the pedagogical profile of the parrhesiastes in education. the crisis of truth is associated with the crisis of democracy because the possibility of a common ground of legitimate knowledge is a fundamental requirement for democratic political competition. if this is true, the crisis of truth and the crisis of democracy are interconnected phenomena whose concomitance may easily establish a downward, “performative” spiral towards authoritarianism. against this risk, one possibility is, perhaps, to problematise democracy in terms of constructive adaptation to the post-digital/post-truth age. constructive adaptation here means the adaptation of democratic values and aspirations to the impermanence of the real. this possibility also depends, in my view, on the education of individuals as parrhesiastes. summary in this paper, i have sought to offer some preliminary and unsystematic reflections towards the formulation of a critical approach to the dialectics of the real that could move beyond the conceptual impasse of “performativity” and “simulation”. i have suggested that the notions of persona and parrhesia, and the work of authors such as carl gustav jung, erving goffman, and michel foucault, among others, can provide useful conceptual tools to address the problem of the political role of truth. the main point in this paper is therefore about the analytical and pedagogical relevance of the parrhesiastes as a political persona defined in relation to a particular notion of truth. the working hypothesis behind this point is that to conceive of truth and persona in terms of parrhesia and parrhesiastes may help us to deal with the conceptual and even political impasse brought about by the conceptualisation of truth in terms of performativity and simulation. to support my arguments, i postulated that the real is an impermanent state of affairs reflecting more or less stable equilibria between tensions and social forces that are, perhaps, useful to describe in terms of a dialectical process: the dialectics of the real. the impermanence of the real is both an opportunity and a challenge. it offers an opportunity for those who seek emancipative social change, but also a constant source of apprehension for those who benefit from hegemonic relations of power. in the dialectics of the real, therefore, social forces may compete and take action to enhance their own influence in this process, in effect, to increase the chances that tensions are resolved in a way favourable to their interests, visions, values, and so forth. the analytical, normative, and even pedagogical value of the standpoint constituted by the notions of persona/parrhesia can be appreciated in relation to the functions of truth in the legitimation of the impermanent outcomes of this dialectical process. from this analytical standpoint, i have suggested that the impact of the digital turn in the dialectics of the real is mediated by disembedding and globalisation, and their effects on the social grounds of the persona and moral truth as these unite in the political persona of the stocchetti 92 parrhesiastes. from the same perspective, i have interpreted the appearance and sudden popularity of “post-truth” as a sign of a new problematisation of parrhesia. regimes of truth based on performativity and simulation originate the crisis of legitimation and the problematisation of truth, education, and democracy, as foucault has suggested. this problematisation, however, presents some elements of continuity with the “cultural logic of late capitalism”, and is ideologically ambivalent. ambivalence here means that the same problematisation is inspired by oppressive as well as emancipative purposes. the crisis of legitimation that manifests itself in the problematisation of truth enhances the political relevance of the parrhesiastes as a political persona, and as a pedagogical profile that can inspire democratic education in continuity with the tradition of critical pedagogy initiated, in modern times, by paulo freire and others. persona and parrhesia are notions of a critical approach that, constituting the parrhesiastes as a persona with unique features, can help us understand the impact of the digital turn and the regime of post-truth on the dialectics of the real. this approach belongs to the tradition of critical social theory to the extent that it seeks “critical” rather than traditional knowledge, that is, knowledge inspired by emancipative purposes. secondly, it problematises concepts, meanings, criteria, standpoints, and so forth as the social grounds of knowledge. these are the tools that are part of the reality we study and that we change while we study. finally, this approach can also participate in the pedagogical or non-analytical dimension of this tradition: namely, in the formation of individuals equipped with critical analytical and normative skills to become active participants in the dialectics of the real as parrhesiastes. i this difference is important since it suggests that the relationship between the “parrhesia” and “persona” in the construction of the real is, in fact, not as simple as i have described it here and worth more attention. i am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for pointing that out. ii thomas piketty’s (2014) analysis of the non-sustainability of capitalism in the 21st century is perhaps the most popular non-marxist contribution in this direction. end notes works cited allmer, t 2015, critical theory and social media: between emancipation and commodification, routledge, london. barthes, r 1972 mythologies, trans. a lavers, hill and wang, new york. baudrillard, j 1994, simulacra and simulation, trans. sf glaser the university of michigan press, ann arbour. ——— 2003, the spirit of terrorism and other essays, trans. c turner, verso, london. bauman, z 2004, 4a community, polity, london. ——— 2006, liquid fear, polity press, cambridge. curran, j, fenton, n & freedman, d 2012, misunderstanding the internet, routledge, london. foucault, m. 1999, discourse and truth: the problematization of parrhesia, foucault, info, retrieved 28 november 2017, http://foucault.info/documents/parrhesia/ freire, p 2001, pedagogy of freedom: ethics, democracy, and civic courage, trans. p clarke,rowman & littlefield, lanham. ——— 2013, education for critical consciousness, bloomsbury, london. fromm, e 1966, ‘marxism, psychoanalysis and reality’, tagebuch. monatshefte für kultur, politik, wirtschaft, vol. 21, no. 9, pp. 5-6. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 93 fuchs, c 2014, social media: a critical introduction, sage, london. giddens, a 1990, the consequences of modernity, polity, cambridge. goffman, e 1959, presentation of self in everyday life, penguin, harmondsworth. jameson, f 1991, postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism, duke university press, durham. jung, cg 1977, ‘two essays on analytical psychology (1943, 1945)’, in the collected works of c.g. jung vol. 7, ed and trans. g adler and r f c hull, routledge & kegan paul, london. lyotard, j 1982, the postmodern condition: a report on knowledge, university of minnesota press, minneapolis. mcchesney, rw 2013, digital disconnect: how capitalism is turning internet against democracy, the new press, new york. mosco, v 2004, the digital sublime. myth, power, and cyberspace, the mit press, cambridge. oxford dictionaries, 2017, ‘post-truth’, oxford university press, oxford. piketty, t 2014, capital in the twenty-first century, trans. arthur goldhammer, harvard university press, cambridge and london. roberge, j 2011, ‘what is critical hermeneutics?’, thesis eleven, vol 106, no. 1, pp. 5-22. taylor, c 1984, ‘foucault on freedom & truth’, political theory, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 152-183. villi, m & stocchetti, m 2011, ‘visual mobile communication, mediated presence and the politics of space’, visual studies, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 102-112. dahlberg 60 when artists became intellectuals: science as a significant other for the female artistic persona juli a da hlbe r g abstract the increasing appreciation of science posed an interesting challenge to art in the late 19th century. modernisation, professionalisation, secularisation and technical novelties all seemed to question the social status of the artist. arguing that one possible way for individual artists to meet this challenge was to incorporate elements of the scientific persona with their artistic self, this article focuses on the swedish-speaking, finnish artist and writer helena westermarck (1857–1938). while constructing an intellectual comradeship with her brother, the internationally well-known sociologist and anthropologist edward westermarck (1862–1939), helena westermarck often referred to the exceptional intellectual and analytical capacities of the artist. arguing that the prestige of science could be used to lend credibility to the artistic persona, the article will discuss some of the ideas that led westermarck to gradually fashion her public appearance as an artist into the persona of a public intellectual, writer and self-supporting (single) woman on equal terms with her brother. key words artistic personas; intellectuals; intellect; creativity; science introduction just like two siblings of the same family, art and science often share a complex relationship. not always bestowed with equal appreciation in different historical contexts, these two branches of human intellectual pursuits are capable of mutual support and fruitful creative co-operation at best, but also prone to rivalry and fierce competition under other circumstances. in the romantic era, “the artist” enjoyed a strong position in popular imagination as a cultural hero of the time. ranking the creative intuition of the artist – and especially “the poet” – above the rational intellect and logic of the “scientist”, the german philosopher immanuel kant did for example promote this opinion in his critique of judgment in 1790 (kant 1914, div 1, § 43, 46–50, pp. 183–185, 188–205). but a century later the tone of speech had radically changed. in the late 19th century, science was associated with modernity, urbanisation and industrialisation. as these phenomena were linked to professionalism and expertise, both scholars and scientists persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 61 became increasingly involved in governance, administration as well as law-making and the formation of popular opinion (frängsmyr 1984, p. 175). while the scientific persona was gaining in both political influence and social status, the artist seemed to be losing some of his/her previous prestige through the processes of modernisation. technical novelties like the camera made the artist’s professional know-how and his/her skill to depict seem less impressive and unique. secularisation and a more materialist worldview also questioned the existence of a divine source of inspiration to aesthetics and thus, the artist’s role as an intermediate between humanity and the true creator. likewise, positivism and the faith in progress put more emphasis on human intellect and reason than on creative intuition. the artist’s sensitivity and intuitive insight in matters hidden from most of humanity was thus challenged by the scientist’s intellect and ability to uncover the laws of nature through reason. the artists’ lack of official degrees and specialised knowledge became a fault in a society that valued professionalism and expertise (charle 1990). gender and the artistic persona focusing on the development outlined above, the purpose of this article will be to discuss the challenge that the increasing appreciation of science posed to art in the late 19th century, and some of the ways through which individual artists could respond to it. arguing that some artists chose to incorporate elements of a scientific persona with their artistic self, thus adopting a new role as public intellectuals, i shall demonstrate my arguments with the example of the finnish painter and writer helena westermarck (1857–1938) and her brother, the anthropologist and philosopher edward westermarck (1862–1939), who in 1907 gained international repute as the first professor of sociology at the london school of economics. drawing upon an analysis of westermarck’s relation to her brother, the article will also address some questions about the relationship between gender and the artistic persona. while discussing helena westermarck’s public self, i shall on purpose come to understand “art” in a very broad sense of the word. in doing so, i let myself be guided by westermarck herself, who studied painting in paris during the 1880’s and later became a writer of novels and biographies as well as other kinds of fictional and non-fictional prose including journalism. although she was active both as a painter and as a writer, she generally chose to define herself as an “artist” rather than choosing any other available and more specific title such as “painter”, “writer” or “author”. this choice corresponded with the general 19th century interpretation of the terms “fine-arts” or beaux-arts, which generally was understood to cover painting, sculpture, writing, music and architecture. adopting a definition of the ‘persona’ put forward by herman paul for my own purposes, i understand the persona as an ideal-type or model of abilities, attitudes, and dispositions that on a collective level are regarded as crucial for the pursuit of a specific social activity with a corresponding social role. persona does therefore often, but not always and exclusively, correlate with a professional role, such as that of ‘a historian’ (as analysed by paul), or with some other occupation, vocation or call, such as that of ‘an artist’, ‘a scientist’, ‘a politician’ or ‘an intellectual’. just like paul, i see the persona as a range of skills and moral qualities (or “epistemic virtues”) which commonly are associated with the successful performance of a specific persona such as that of ‘the artist’ or ‘the historian’ (paul 2014, p. 535; see also paul 2011; paul 2016 a; paul 2016 b; daston & sibum 2003). even though i am fully aware that the persona of a social role (such as “the artist”) never really comes in a singular form, i shall, for the simplicity of the argument, refer to the persona in singular when comparing the persona of a specific role to the personas of other social roles. speaking of the “artistic persona” in singular, i dahlberg 62 therefore mean the collective of many different personas associated with artists as opposed to a similar collective of personas associated with some other social role, such as that of scientists. to investigate how the prestige of science affected the artistic persona, one needs to consider the question of how different personas change over time and how individual performances may affect the persona. just as paul has pointed out, the persona is a collectively recognised model that individuals must appropriate rather than a “private dream or individual ideals of how to be” an artist. the persona does therefore change – not because of the actions of a single individual but because of similar actions by multiple individuals. these actions might, as paul have suggested, be provoked by institutional changes and different awards that are offered in return for certain behaviour (paul 2014, 354, 365–369). this emphasis on institutional change might be a consequence of paul’s focus on the different forms of scientific and scholarly personas, which at least since the 19th century have been strongly affected by the different academic institutions. however, for other types of persona, the impact of institutional change may not be as influential. in my own interpretation i would like to stress the more general changes in cultural and political power structures which affect the way in which individuals craft their own public self. in that sense my interpretation comes closer to that of mineke bosch, who has emphasised that individuals may draw upon several collective repertoires of social and cultural authority and power in their self-fashioning as they try to establish a trustworthy appearance and earn the recognition of their peers. as bosch points out, the individual identities that relate to a persona are thus, “always formed by way of bricolage and do often rely on a mixture of new and old repertoires” (2016, p. 43). therefore, not only social categories of class, gender and sexuality, race and religion, but also social aspects such as wealth or physical health, play a role in the formation of the persona (bosch 2016, p. 42–43). in my own understanding of the persona, i would like to emphasise bosch’s interpretation of the persona as a mixture of different repertoires, drawn from multiple sources. to me, this means that an “artist” like helena westermarck could borrow different repertoires, not only from previously existing versions of artistic personas, but also from multiple other personas associated with the completely different, more prestigious social roles. the specific example that i will use to address my point, is the scientific persona as manifested by her brother, which to westermarck represented an admired and well-respected social position. this comparison between the artistic persona of helena westermarck as opposed to the scientific persona of her brother, does not only illustrate the way in which different personas may affect each other, but also how gendered structures affect the persona. to date, the exploration of the relation between gender and the persona has only begun (for example hallberg 2012; bosch 2016). indeed, herman paul, who exemplifies his writings with mostly male dutch historians from the 19th century, does not to any greater extent touch upon the role of gender in his writing. in his account, the skills which are associated with a persona can be acquired through practical training whereas the epistemic virtues can be obtained through the assertion of personal willpower (paul 2014, pp. 357–360). this focus on practical training and moral motivation does, however, support the impression that the attributes of a persona are open to everyone on equal terms if they only have endurance enough to acquire the necessary skills and motivation enough to practice certain virtues. accentuating the importance of endurance and motivation too much might thus conceal the fact that both practical skills and moral virtues might in certain cultural contexts be so tightly associated with different physical, psychological or moral features that the lack of one might make it virtually impossible to impersonate the other. a very good example of this could be the mental ability which generally has been described as “intellect”, e.g. the capacity for rational and logical persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 63 thinking. as genevieve lloyd has convincingly shown, this ability, which is so crucial for both the scientific and the artistic personae, has since antiquity been associated with the masculine sex (lloyd 1984). another such example would be “creativity”, or “geniality”, as the ability to generate new and original ideas was frequently referred to in the 19th century. this ability, equally crucial to the general understanding of both an artistic and a scientific persona, was also for a long period of time primarily attributed to men (mcmahon 2013, pp. 71). lacking the masculine gender would, therefore, in the eyes of helena westermarck’s contemporaries, also mean that one lacked the intellectual abilities required of a trustworthy scientific persona or the creative capacity required of a convincing artistic persona. any woman trying to impersonate a scientific persona as well as an artistic one would in westermarck’s time have had to find a way to contradict this assumption. from an early stage, westermarck was very serious about her own role as an artist. already during her years as a student of art, she made it clear that if she would not have the possibility to become a professional painter, she would not bother to paint at all: “to paint solely for my own pleasure, would never cross my mind” (westermarck s.a., probably around 1883). still, not all her contemporaries were prepared to acknowledge her as a professional painter. looking at how the letters that she received were addressed, one can find that although many of her friends and colleagues chose to address her with titles in the feminine form, such as målarinna (the feminine form of the swedish word for ‘painter’) or konstnärinna (the feminine form of ‘artist’) many also continued to simply address her as “miss westermarck” (fröken). when her paintings were reviewed in the papers, it was a common custom to refer to her and her female colleagues as the “painting ladies” (målande damer) after the lengthier reviews of male “painters”. this discrepancy between her own self-perception and the response from others was something that seems to have motivated helena westermarck’s many efforts to contribute with her own interpretations of which qualities, skills and abilities that were required of an artist. one way for westermarck to do so, was as i will show, to present herself as the equal intellectual partner of her brother the scientist. the important conclusion that we must draw from the examples given above is that the persona can never be open to everyone on equal terms because many of the dispositions associated with the persona are, or at least appear to be, linked with specific gender, ethnicity or class. therefore, recognising the limitations that westermarck and many others faced is crucial for understanding the mechanisms of exclusion that are a permanent part of the persona. still, these mechanisms have of course not entirely prevented women, nor other groups who because of their gender, class, ethnicity or other reasons lacked the optimal background, from seeking to impersonate a scientific or artistic persona. this leads to a question which shall be dealt with briefly within the scope of this article, namely how it is possible for individuals to contest, renegotiate and eventually also change the persona. however, before i move on to this question i shall provide a brief introduction to helena westermarck’s life and to that of her brother edward westermarck, who for decades assumed the role of an intellectual comrade and a significant other to his sister. sister and brother helena westermarck’s family belonged to the educated and liberally oriented bourgeois elite in helsinki, the capital of the grand duchy of finland. all her four siblings were well educated. just like her younger sister, helena westermarck received her education in the swedish school for girls in helsinki (svenska fruntimmersskolan i helsingfors). the school was the first stateorganised school for girls in the country and it was led by one of westermarck’s maternal aunts elisabeth blomqvist (1827–1901), known as a pioneer of female education. the family was dahlberg 64 swedish-speaking just like much of the educated elite at the time. even though helena westermarck studied finnish at school, it seems like she never learnt to speak the language very well. she never wrote or spoke publicly in finnish (dahlberg 2018, 54–97). after finishing school, westermarck studied drawing and painting in helsinki, but was encouraged by her teachers to continue her studies in paris, where she arrived in late november 1879. in paris, she studied painting at the privately-owned studio of madame trélat and later at académie julien in the early 1880s. after a couple of years as an independent artist, her interest in writing gradually took over, and she became a writer. from the 1890s until her death, she produced novels and short stories as well as a number of biographies on other female writers and artists. westermarck also gained a living by writing literary critique and other texts for newspapers. from the 1890s onwards, she took part in the fight to achieve female suffrage in finland. she edited the magazine nutid, which served as the unofficial voice of the women’s rights organisation unionen for several years. in doing so, she became a visible promoter of female civilian rights. after finnish women had been granted the right to vote in political elections in 1906, westermarck was one of the first women who posed as candidates in the first elections to the finnish diet after the reform. being perceived as too controversial by many voters, she failed to be elected, but nevertheless continued to engage in public debate (about helena westermarck’s life and work in general, see for example westermarck 1941; konttinen 1991; claesson-pipping 2007; toftegaard pedersen 2016; dahlberg 2018. westermarck’s bibliography in tegengren 1974). helena westermarck’s work as an artist as well as a writer received a fair amount of publicity during her lifetime through reviews and articles in the finnish papers. she also received several rewards like an honorary mentioning for her painting laundresses (strykerskor, 1883) at the universal exhibition in paris in 1889 and the prestigious literary award of the finnish state (valtion kirjallisuuspalkinto) for her novel lifvets seger in 1898 (dahlberg 2018, p. 134; hirvonen 1993, p. 846). this made her a well-recognised public figure to her fellow countrymen. however, although many of her books were published both in sweden and finland, her works were, except for a couple of short stories, never translated into any other language. instead, it was her younger brother edward who undoubtedly received the larger international repute. his work as an anthropologist, sociologist and philosopher made him an internationally well-recognised scholar. his most famous work, the history of human marriage, was based on his doctoral thesis at the university in helsinki and became an immediate international success after its publication by the london-based publishing house macmillan in 1891. while professor of philosophy at the university in helsinki, westermarck also held the position as the first professor of sociology at the newly established london school of economics. his anthropological field work in morocco, his research on subjects such as homosexuality and ethics and his dispute with sigmund freud on the nature of the incest taboo made him an internationally recognised scientist and a well-respected public intellectual in his own time (about edward westermarck’s life and work in general, see for example westermarck 1927; lagerborg 1951; ihanus 1999; lagerspetz & suolinna 2014; timosaari 2017). edward westermarck was born on the day of his sister helena’s fifth birthday in 1862. it became a private joke within the family that the two siblings were “fake twins”. to helena westermarck, this idea later came to mean that there was a special bond between her and her brother. in her memoirs, written mostly during the 1920’s and 1930’s and published posthumously in 1941, she remembered the day of her brother’s birth and how she had considered him as a kind of birthday present to herself. she also underlined that this had made her feel more connected to him than to any other of her siblings. in another context, however, she also pointed out that comparing herself with her brothers – among them perhaps most persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 65 obviously the famous edward – had made her realise how easily boys were advancing in society and how the limitations opposed on her own sex affected her own chances in life. (westermarck 1941, pp. 16–17 compared to pp. 92–93). for helena westermarck, the relationship with her brother thus served both as an intellectual comradeship and as a point of reference and comparison for her own gender role. (about siblings and gendered roles, davidoff 2012, pp. 65– 74). there is no doubt that the relationship between helena westermarck and her brother was close. this can be seen in the correspondence between the two siblings, which consists of roughly 600 letters, dating from the late 1870’s until the time of helena westermarck’s death in 1938. as the two siblings spent much of their time apart due to extensive travelling and longer periods spent living abroad, much of the relationship did in fact take place in the letters. considering that they often spent long periods without any other contact than through the letters, it is interesting to follow how helena westermarck made use of the relationship to her brother to emphasise certain qualities of her own public appearance as an artist. while referring to helena westermarck’s “use” of her brother, i do of course not wish to imply that westermarck as a sister performed a deliberate or calculated exploitation of her brother in any form. the point i would like to make by using this term should, on the contrary, be understood in a similar way as the “social use of kinship” that pierre bourdieu referred to in the logic of practice, where he argued that there is a difference between actual kinship, and “representational” kinship. the latter, he underlined, is a kind of staged community that individuals make claims to when they want to gain access to a certain kind of symbolic capital present in the family name or group identity (bourdieu [1990] 2014, pp. 169–170). paying close attention to the ways in which helena westermarck mentioned her internationally wellrecognised brother in her memoirs can in fact help to create an understanding of the elements that westermarck wanted to emphasise in her own public appearance. the intellectual avant-garde of society the initial observation which brought me to reflect upon helena westermarck’s appearance as an artist was the fact that she seemed to associate a lot more with her role as an artist than simply the acts of painting paintings, writing novels or other kinds of aesthetic pursuits which one would primarily associate with an artist. beside these artistic activities, she also actively engaged with public opinion as a journalist and editor, and through different political activities. not only did she take part in the fight for women’s rights and for female suffrage, but she also participated in the secret political activism against the russian authorities in finland (dahlberg 2018, pp. 209–217). she remains one of the few historical contemporaries who has written about the way in which finnish women took part in these illegal and therefore highly dangerous activities (ramsay 1997). the interesting thing about westermarck is how she incorporated her political activities into her role as an artist. writing about the restrained political situation in the grand duchy of finland during the early 20th century, she later underlined that the artists of the time could no longer limit themselves to simply aesthetic pursuits. if the painter and poet of the romantic period still could stand as “strangers” and “unengaged observers” in relation to society and to the civic questions of their time, the modern artist could, according to westermarck, no longer afford to do so (westermarck 1941, pp. 299–300). the task of the artists was thus both to inspire others into action and to act as public leaders and as an intellectual avant-garde (dahlberg 2018, pp. 165–171). the way westermarck undertook these tasks herself while still understanding herself as an artist, seems to imply that something was changing in the dahlberg 66 contemporary understanding of the artistic persona. adopting different repertoires from several kinds of personas – including those of scientists, politicians, journalists and other public figures – helena westermarck and many other artists of her time had begun to present themselves as public intellectuals. the existence of a cultural and political elite of “intellectuals”, who hold a special position within any given society regardless of time and context, is often taken for granted in every-day conversation. while describing helena westermarck as a public intellectual, i do not, however, want to imply that this is a label or title that westermarck herself attributed to her own person. to my knowledge, there is no evidence that westermarck would ever have described herself as an “intellectual”. for the most part, this can be explained by the fact that the concept of “the intellectual” did not exist in the swedish language, which was helena westermarck’s mother tongue, for most of the period which i deal with here. according to christophe charle, the concept of the ‘intellectual’, or rather les intellectuels as it was coined in french, was introduced in france by the writers, artists and scholars who took part in the dreyfus-affair in the 1890s. thus, the concept was used for the first time as a descriptive term designing a certain kind of cultural and political elite, who challenged the establishment through their critical and creative way of thought and thus acted as an avant-garde of society. the most visible among this small but influential elite, who did not hesitate to use their own fame as writers, artists and scholars to attract publicity for the greater good of a cause, was the writer émile zola. through the pamphlet j’accuse, in which he spoke on behalf of the falsely accused jewish officer alfred dreyfus against the anti-semitic and nationalist tendencies among the french society, he did not hesitate to make use of the symbolic capital he possessed as a famous writer to defend those in a weaker position. (charle 1990, pp. 7–10). other languages adopted similar terms slightly later than french. in english, ‘the intellectual’ seems to appear around the turn of the century (heyck 1980), while in other languages it took a while longer. in swedish, de intellektuella appears in the late 1910s and in the finnish language intellektuellit or älymystö as a neologism appears in the 1920s. however, neither the swedish nor the finnish words became established in every-day use of language in finland until the 1930s. (koivisto 1997; karkama & koivisto 1997, pp. 9–29). when i describe westermarck as a “public intellectual”, i therefore mean a person who engages in contemporary and public debate about social, philosophical, ethical, or political issues on a regular basis in a way that makes him or her into a public figure regardless of how the person chooses to describe his or her own person (see eliaeson & kalleberg 2008, pp. 1–7). but although zola and his french contemporaries may have been the first to coin the term, the idea that artists, writers and other public figures such as journalists, politicians, scientists and scholars, could (and should) use their fame and position in the public eye in order to speak on behalf of the weak or the powerless, was not a uniquely french invention. on the contrary, it seems like the idea that the social status which came with creative or intellectual originality could be used to draw attention to important issues and to defend the rights of those whose weak position made it difficult for them to speak for themselves appeared all over the western world. one of the reasons for this was undoubtedly the continuously expanding public space and especially the growing media-business of the late 19th century and early 20th century. it was no longer difficult to notice the social capital present in publicity, and people of various backgrounds were quick to put it to use (for example joyeux-prunel 2015, pp. 51–55; seigel 2012, pp. 510–525; gedin 2004, pp. 267–296). another reason, pointed out by darrin mcmahon, was that although generally in the 19th century ideas of equality among people started to gain grounds, there were also trends which persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 67 worked in the opposite direction. not only were there many groups (like women, workers and people of colour) who were excluded from the ideals of equality and therefore from power, but there were also smaller groups of people who sought to gain a position above the broader public, thus gaining privileges and rights which extended those which were accorded to the masses. mcmahon points to the increasing interest for the “genius” in both scientific and popular imagination as one example of this. (mcmahon 2013, pp. xix–xx). however, in popular imagination “the genius” was both a rare and an elusive figure. the epithet continued to hold a prestige, which meant it could only be bestowed on an individual by others. claiming the status of a genius for one-self was, on the contrary, not easily done. (mcmahon 2013, kete 2012). the identity as “an intellectual” did thus offer something which “the genius” did not: it was a self-identity that the individual could assume on his own, without the endorsement of others. still, it operated in a similar way, as it made assumptions about the qualities and the position of the individual with regards to others. assuming the role of an intellectual, or simply a public appearance that was beginning to take the form of an intellectual persona, could thus potentially increase the individual’s cultural or political prestige, influence and social position. the (self-assumed) role as an intellectual offered privileges and rights that were not open to the masses. given this circumstance, it is not surprising that the intellectual persona seemed especially tempting to those who lacked the official expertise or professional status that the modernising society valued. such groups were, as christophe charle has pointed out, writers, artists, and others (for example the previously so admired man of letters), who lacked the stately sanctioned professional position that a university degree or some other professional title could offer. similarly, it also seemed more tempting to those who represented the new disciplines of science which were about to establish themselves at the time. such disciplines included anthropology, sociology, psychology and other human sciences among others. (charle 1990, pp. 48–54, 139–182). together with the artists, these academics sought to advance their position through a persona which required a certain set of abilities, skills and moral qualities (see further, paul 2014). this persona thus came to focus on an ability which they all had in common, namely the intellect or the ability of rational and critical thinking. dahlberg 68 the artist and the attraction of intellect in helena westermarck’s writings about art, the highly developed intellect of the artist is strikingly often underlined. in 1894, she published a biography on the british novelist mary ann evans, known by her pen name as george eliot (1819–1880). westermarck’s biography was the first to present eliot for a larger public in swedish (claesson-pipping & sandbach-dahlström 2016). in her biography – the first of several biographies about female writers and painters that she produced – westermarck went to great length to describe george eliot’s personality and the parts of her character which had made it possible for her to become the famous author of novels such as the middlemarch and the mill on the floss. emphasising that it was indeed the inborn and natural qualities of the mind and the personality that made the artist so exceptional, westermarck returned to one of these qualities at several occasions through the book. to westermarck, the core of eliot’s talent lay in her inborn and natural intelligence or “intellect” (see for example westermarck 1894, pp. 4, 11, 13, 21, 28, 29, 33). the same emphasis on intellect seems to return in many other of her biographies. while writing about the writer fredrika runeberg (1807–1879) in 1904, westermarck also stressed the “intelligence” of runeberg, as well as the “intellectual” surroundings which she belonged to as wife of the muchadmired finnish national poet johan ludvig runeberg (westermarck 1904, pp. 39, 44, 53, 75). westermarck’s strong emphasis on the intellectual abilities of artists is rather unexpected. the artist of the romantic age was after all primarily a man of refined emotions rather than logic and reason, as the example by kant quoted in the beginning of this article shows. in westermarck’s time, however, the power relations of the cultural field had already shifted: “ideas are not created by poets”, declared the influential danish literary theorist george brandes in 1882: “[ideas] appear through the work of scholars and scientists, as great and genius insights about the nature and laws of reality, they are developed and reach their form through scientific experiments, through historical or philosophical enquiry” (brandes 1882 [1900], pp. 295). comparing george eliot to a scientist, helena westermarck therefore emphasised that in her detailed and skilful descriptions of the english landscape and the minds and thoughts of the people who she wrote about, eliot worked with the preciseness of a scientist who studied nature with a sharp and attentive gaze. in her thorough knowledge of the culture of the past and her special attention to traditions and habits, according to westermarck eliot did in fact use the same methodological approach as an anthropologist or a sociologist who made a specific culture or society the focus of his/her study. without this scientific approach and a thorough knowledge about contemporary scientific debates, westermarck claims that eliot would never have been able to produce her literary work (westermarck 1894, pp. 27, 157– 173). helena westermarck’s assumption that artists possessed the same intellectual capacities as the scientists also seems to have correlated with her personal experiences. in her letters to her brother, westermarck often made claims to a certain kind of intellectual equality and comradeship between the two of them. “art”, she wrote in 1901, “is just a demanding master as science” (westermarck 1901). by emphasising that she and her brother shared their love for “the work”, she often implied that there was something in common between the work of the artist and that of the scientist which made it different from “work” in a more general sense of the word. it was never stated openly what the common features were exactly, but the pleasure of an intellectual challenge seems in many cases to be implied, as in the previous quotation. the way helena westermarck wrote about her brother in her memoirs also reinforces this impression. while working on the biography about george eliot, helena westermarck spent persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 69 the summer of 1893 in the british library, gathering material for the biography from eliot’s letters and other writings. having acquired the entrance ticket to this highly prestigious place through the recommendation of her brother, westermarck sat next to him in the library and when the time for lunch came, they left the building together for a quick break until they resumed their separate works in the library. devoting no less than 25 full pages of her memoirs to these few summer months, westermarck clearly felt that this was a significant experience which promoted an impression which she wanted to bring forth in the eyes of the potential reader (westermarck 1941, pp. 223–238). as ruth hoberman has pointed out, the experience of entering and working in the great reading room of the british library was a highly symbolic experience for many women of helena westermarck’s time. the library, which at the time was pretty much the centre of all existing human knowledge, was a prestigious place. gaining access to the reading room required a written recommendation from a male person of trustworthiness, which stated that the library would be used for research rather than recreational purposes. the recommendation did, as hoberman has noted, allow women to publicly identify themselves as scholars or researchers (hoberman 2002). this symbolic meaning of the library was not lost on helena westermarck. referring to the library both as the “happy island in bloomsbury” – a description that she borrowed from her brother’s memoirs – and as the “temple of knowledge” or the “pantheon of science”, she underlined that the british library was in fact the centre of all human knowledge and science at the time. in her memoirs, she also made sure to point out that this was the place of work for many of “the most intellectual men” through history (westermarck 1941, pp. 223– 238). thus, she established the library as a milieu where artists such as herself worked side by side with scientists and scholars such as her brother, united in an intellectual equality. this notion of equality was important to westermarck. despite the great respect helena westermarck held for science and the intellectual capacities that were required for scientific work, she was not willing to acknowledge that science would be more prestigious or valuable to society than art. because of this, there is in fact a degree of ambivalence towards the rationality and logic of the scientific world view in many of her texts. humanity, she withheld in her personal notes, had a need not only for logic and rationality, but also for the aesthetic and for the spiritual. (westermarck 1898). she was, therefore, critical to the “scientific” methods employed by naturalist french writers such as émile zola or gustave flaubert, who sought to investigate their literary characters with the thoroughness and “objectivity” of a scientist. comparing the realist ambitions of zola and flaubert with that of george eliot, she was more in favour of the approach of the latter. unlike the scientist whose work was based on intellectual reasoning, the ultimate source of the artist’s special talent was rooted in an ability to sense and recreate human experiences and emotions. it was thus not the intellectual and rational sense, but rather an emotionally empathic sensibility that was the source of true artistic creativity. as the essence of human experience was a phenomenon which science could never hope to capture, it was the task of the artist to try to interpret it. (h-a 1884 a; h-a 1884 b; westermarck 1894, pp. 157–173). thus, reclaiming the supremacy of the artistic intuition over the rational intellect of science, helena westermarck sought to make use of some of the prestige of the scientific persona to support her own position as an artist. conclusions as these observations bring me closer to my final remarks, i would like to return to the question of helena westermarck's position as an artist in relation to her gender. just as research done over the twenty last years or so has shown us, the position of the “intellectual” is very much the result of an active process through which artists, writers, scholars, politicians and others have dahlberg 70 fashioned themselves in the eyes of the public. this process has in many cases had the specific goal of increasing one’s personal influence in the cultural or political field, or promoting the general prestige of already existing personas, such as that of the writer or the painter. to westermarck there was no doubt that women could possess an intellect with the same level of logic and scientific reason as any male scientist. in her writings this was often made clear by the way she presented her female objects of study as a natural and respected part of a larger intellectual group of both men and women. when describing the group of artists, writers and scholars to which george eliot belonged, she made a point of describing this group, which included both male celebrities such as herbert spencer or eliot’s companion george lewis as well as george eliot herself, as particularly “intellectual” (westermarck 1894). the lengthy description in her memoirs of her own visit in the british library did in a similar way present herself as part of an intellectual community. thus, she remembered for example how she, during her stay in london, had met with a friend of her brother’s, the internationally renowned psychologist james sully, who had been personally acquainted with george eliot and who frequented the intellectual circle of friends that used to gather in eliot’s home (h. westermarck 1941, 229, 231). with these descriptions, she of course also challenged the established assumption that this intellectual comradeship was an affair between men. science with its tempting claims of modernity, efficacy and objectivity as well as promises of endless progress and possibility to provide answers and solutions to all human problems was highly regarded in the 1880’s and 1890’s. helena westermarck’s emphasis on “intellect” as an ability which characterised the artist can thus be seen as way to fashion her own self-understanding as a 19th century artist through an adaptation of repertoires which she modelled on both the scientific and the artistic personas. in doing so, she could effortlessly attribute artists with the same status as the scientists while at the same time avoiding putting too much emphasis on her own gender. as a natural or inborn quality, intellect had the advantage of being open to anyone regardless of social position or background, but still sufficiently difficult to display for it to be highly exclusive. a high level of natural intellect acquired at birth did thus separate the “intellectual” from the larger public and justified the special position of the members of this new, largely self-proclaimed elite regardless of gender. thus, emphasizing both the pre-existing idea that some people possess an exceptional inborn or god-given talent for creativity, and a new 19th century understanding of intellect as a measurable and natural quality of the mind not equally distributed among individuals, helena westermarck came to see artists as possessors of unique mental talents. such exceptional people had a moral responsibility to act as the avant-garde of change and the critical conscience of society regardless of one’s gender. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 71 works cited bosch, m. 2016, ‘scholarly personae and twentieth-century 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http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fd2010-00000225, retrieved 3 october 2017. westermarck, h. 1941, mina levnadsminnen, söderström, helsingfors. http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fd2010-00000225 werning 28 the persona in autobiographical game-making as a playful performance of the self stefa n wer ning abstract the paper at hand investigates forms and interpretations of author personae in autobiographical videogames. while, previously, autobiographical modes of expression have only been discussed in a few game-based artworks (poremba 2007), the availability of free, easy-to-use tools like twine and ren’py gradually affords autobiographical writing as a cultural technique outside of deliberately artistic endeavors. therefore, the paper considers the creation and distribution of autobiographical games as a playful form of identity politics. for that purpose, a comparative content analysis (cf. e.g. rössler 2012) of selected autobiographical games will be conducted, taking into account rhetorical and audiovisual elements but focusing on procedural design strategies and “bias” (bogost 2008, 128). the corpus includes explicitly autobiographical sketches like gravitation (2008) and dys4ia (2012), but also cases in which the autobiographical characteristics are only implied like the average everyday adventures of samantha browne (2016) as well as less polished, sometimes unfinished vignettes. this approach will be selectively complemented by a rhetorical analysis of paratextual elements such as developer statements and user comments. play and games are increasingly recognized as modes of conceptualizing and expressing individual identity (frissen et al. 2015, 35–36) that are particularly compatible with postmodern sensibilities. consequently, the focus of the analysis will lie on how the implementation of the author personae as playable characters enable the developers to curate their identity online, both in terms of moreno’s psychodrama (moreno 1987) and foucault’s technologies of the self (aycock 1995). key words autobiographical games, procedural rhetoric, amateur game-making introduction and definitions the goal of this article is to investigate forms and uses of author personas in autobiographical videogames. previously, autobiographical modes of expression in digital games have been discussed in academic publications primarily with reference to the overall expansion of game-specific storytelling techniques (haggis 2016) as well as to game-based artworks, particularly [domestic] and [rootings] by us game designer/scholar mary flanagan (poremba 2007). this analysis addresses important issues such as the construction of the artist’s subjectivity (poremba 2007) within the playable art piece and the related notion of agency. however, while [domestic] employs autobiographical references as a deliberate artistic persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 29 strategy, the article at hand will focus on the persona in autobiographical games from a comparative perspective, that is, as a) an emergent ‘genre’ within independent game production over the past ten years including mostly small-scale games from jason rohrer’s passage (2007) to andrea ayres deets’ the average everyday adventures of samantha browne (2016) – and as b) a form of playful identity performance. building on paul ricœur’s notion of narrative identity, frissen et al. (2015) argue that play is becoming an increasingly relevant metaphor of identity politics in “postmodern culture” (frissen et al. 2015, p. 9-10). the authors criticise ricœur for his almost exclusive focus on the novel as a ‘reference medium’ for identity construction (frissen et al. 2015) and argue that the pervasiveness of games in contemporary culture make it more plausible for people to envision their identity in terms of play rather than narrative. for ricœur narrative identity begins with the “narrative prefiguration of our daily life” (frissen et al. 2015, p. 32), the first of three steps he terms mimesis1, 2 and 3. analogously, frissen et al. posit a “ludic prefiguration of our everyday life”, that is, thinking of our “lived experience” as playful and “the expression of this experienced ludic nexus in more or less explicitly articulated and regulated games” (2015, p. 35). the authors do not systematically exemplify their theory, pointing mostly to various playfully competitive forms of smartphone use, including case modification and the importance of “lucky telephone numbers” (frissen et al. 2015, p. 37) in indonesia for illustration. the article departs from this theoretical vantage point and aims to provide a case study of how playful identity construction manifests itself by considering autobiographical games and the representation of their developer personas in playable form. in particular, it aims to show how in-game personas are constructed primarily as constellations of game rules rather than audiovisual or narrative tropes, and that these personas become part of the identity politics of their creator within the online communities where they are shared. as the argument at hand foregrounds autobiographical game-making, including small-scale, less developed vignettes that do not lend themselves to ‘close reading,’ a comparative content analysis (for example rössler 2012) of the games and prototypes will be conducted, selectively complemented by para-textual elements such as developer statements or user comments. the persona in artistic and personal works the notion of persona has been defined differently in various disciplines such as literary studies and sociology but also in domains such as user experience design (idoughi et al. 2012) and advertising (dion & arnould 2016), which are more directly aimed at operationalisability. it has even been applied to non-human entities as in st. john’s (2014) study of persona curation in corporations such as mobil oil. this makes it all the more important to start by choosing definitions that fit the goal of this argument, conceptualising the complex relationship between in-game characters and authorial ‘voices’ in autobiographical games and the use of the games as ‘props’ in performing their creators’ public personas. for that purpose, a useful basic distinction is the one between ethos and persona (cherry 2007) in written discourse. the former, drawing on aristotle’s rhetoric, refers to a speaker’s need to “portray themselves […] as having a good moral character” as well as “practical wisdom” (cherry 2007, p. 386) in order to be persuasive. the latter, which refers to literary rather than rhetorical contexts, has been more controversially debated as a “critical tool” (cherry 2007, p. 391) to understand the relationship between author and narrative voice. as it is not possible to reflect the complexity of this discussion and its connection to the equally contested notion of “authorial presence” (cherry 2007, p. 392), the article at hand will focus on the mechanics of framing the persona-author relationship, that is, on textual strategies in autobiographical games in which the distinction between persona and ethos can be blurred (cherry 2007, p. 395). werning 30 the notion of persona has also been mobilised in research on autobiographical writing, particularly in the early to mid-1990s. for instance, olshen argues that personal identity under postmodern conditions had become a “problem of textuality” (1995, p. 5), that established forms of ´writing the self´ were not congruent with postmodern concepts of the self any longer. similarly, james olney's metaphors of self, and john morris's versions of the self emphasise the persona as a construction rather than a reflection of the author as a person. despite its age, the text makes a particularly relevant point that can be fruitfully adapted to video game autobiographies. the notion of persona helps overcome the “reality-appearance dichotomy” (barros 1992, p. 6); just as, on stage, the “mask is the reality,” (p.6) in autobiographical writing, the respective ‘version of self’ is a “metaphor for the inscribed self of the text” (p.6) rather than a guise. this argument resonates well with the notion of playful identities or, more generally, the “double experience” of play (frissen et al. 2013, p.18). rather than upholding the ontological distinction between play and reality that characterised johan huizinga’s early definition, frissen et al. follow eugen fink’s argument that play takes place simultaneously in the real world and the imaginary world of the game. they thereby draw on but also challenge johan huizinga’s original definition of play as “distinct from ‘ordinary’ life” (1949, p. 9), that is, as an activity that is both without ‘real-world’ consequences and spatio-temporally separated from the sphere of those not playing. this ‘updated’ definition of play, which the authors label “homo ludens 2.0” (frissen et al. 2013, p.10) is more applicable to the playful self-expression of game-makers through their playable personas. (autobiographical) game-making as cultural practice the aforementioned popularity of the persona concept in postmodernist readings of autobiographies can be attributed to a multiplicity of new media paradigms at the time, including early prototypical virtual reality applications (rheingold 1991), text-based online environments, and the shift towards 3d in video games. in contrast, the construction of personas in autobiographical game-making is related to the standardisation of existing technologies and the availability of free, easy-to-use tools like twine (2017) and ren’py (2017). these tools have, over time, made autobiographical game-making feasible as a cultural technique or a ‘technology of the self’ in a foucaultian sense outside of deliberately artistic endeavors. as digital games are still often framed in mainstream media discourse as highly complex, multi-million dollar entertainment productsi, it might appear counterintuitive to think of game-making as an intimate, personal activity. however, thompson (2002) already reported on how games developed using adobe flash became an increasingly common form of “social comment” on the events of 9-11 and the subsequent us invasion of iraq. roth (2015) also investigates amateur game creation particularly in japan, for example in the form of dōjinshi visual novels displayed twice per year in fairly ritualised form at comiket (2015, p. 184), and werning (2017) illustrates how game-making as a form of self-expression relates to contemporary notions of citizenship and participation. still, contemplating one’s persona as a videogame protagonist is still visibly new territory, even for established designers such as steve meretzky and erin robinson, who participated in the gdc 09 design challenge to conceptualise an autobiographical game on the topic of “my first time” (gamespot staff 2009). the first part of this article investigates textual strategies of constructing the persona in autobiographical games. using a comparative perspective and a fairly large corpus, the goal will be to identify generalisable patterns of representation. the second part of this article goes beyond a formal analysis of the games themselves and discusses moreno’s psychodrama and persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 31 foucault’s technologies of the self as theoretical frames to analyse autobiographical gamemaking as a form of identity politics. the persona in autobiographical games outlining autobiographical games as a genre while a more comprehensive investigation of autobiographical games as a genre is beyond the scope of this article, it is useful to briefly demarcate the corpus. describing autobiographical writing as a coherent genre has long been problematised in autobiography studies. for example, loesberg argues that the genre qualities of autobiography are defined by “extra-textual” concepts such as “intention” or “authorial sincerity” (1981, p. 169) rather than more tangible formal characteristics. similarly, autobiographical games can retell part of the creator’s life story or be rather loosely based on individual idiosyncratic experiences or thoughts. some are text-based and take the form of a conversation while others allow for controlling the creator persona directly. since the goal of the article is not to map out the field but to provide a theoretical framework for this rather novel creative practice, it is more productive to conceive of genre as a cognitive category (olson et al. 1981), that is, to focus on how users interpret a game and its protagonist based on their knowledge about its (explicit or implicit) autobiographical status. for instance, one of the most actively discussed autobiographical games of all time is that dragon, cancer (ryan and amy green, 2016), which is based on the designers´ experience with their son joel, who was diagnosed with cancer at the age of twelve months and died only a few years later. even though the game is formally less interesting and novel than it is often given credit for, the particularly tragic real-world events it conveys encourage most players to adopt a very different disposition than the one with which they would normally approach a digital gameii. as this article focuses on game-making as cultural practice, it does not address the few commercially produced autobiographical games but rather includes smaller autobiographical sketches like gravitation (2008) and dys4ia (2012), and cases in which fictional personas are deliberately used as ‘theatrical masks’ to implicitly convey autobiographical content as in the average everyday adventures of samantha browne (2016)iii. writing for the telegraph, nina white (2016) even speaks of a “new wave of biographical video games”. thus, rather than analysing one or more individual games, the following sections will propose several interrelated analytical categories and illustrate how to use them with reference to a broad range of examples. constructing a persona through procedural rhetoric corresponding to the different definitions of the persona concept across disciplines, several methodological approaches have been proposed to operationalise persona studies research, ranging from literary criticism (stern 1993) to psychological perspectives such as interpretive phenomenological analysis (ipa) or network analysis and data visualisation (marshall et al. 2015). as digital games are still a comparatively young medium, existing approaches to analyse the ‘messages’ and biases that they convey are still heavily disputed. ian bogost (2009) points to several competing ontologies that underlie contemporary game scholarship, such as the basic distinction whether games should be regarded primarily as narratives with distinct formal and stylistic properties, as rule systems or as ‘experiences’ that people have, which may be more or werning 32 less directly shaped by game rules. for the purpose of this argument, the notion of procedural rhetoric (e.g. bogost 2008), which focuses on the interplay of narrative and gameplay elements to analyse how games produce meaning by shaping the player’s interactional affordances, will be used to make sense of how personas are implemented in autobiographical games. bogost envisions playing the game as a form of (socratic) dialogue, that is, a persuasive communicative situation, which – among other things – is defined by categories such as “elegance, clarity, and creativity in communication” (2008, p. 124). however, rather than defining the term ‘procedure’ in a way that would make it readily operationalisable, he focuses more on ‘procedurality’ as a “core practice of software authorship” (bogost 2008, p. 122). to make this more applicable for “proceduralist readings”, treanor & mateas (2011) propose to understand meaning-making in games through the interplay of dynamics (i.e. game rules), aesthetics, and theme (i.e. audiovisual elements). the authors point out the semanticisation of simple actions like walking and avoiding in games (treanor & mateas 2011, p. 5) and addresses important aspects such as the consistency of different rules, that is, procedural representations, within one game (treanor & mateas 2011, p. 7). this perspective allows for interpreting how the games frame the personas of their creators, for example, by selecting the actions the playable characters can and cannot perform. for instance, while games usually seek to empower the player and provide meaningful choices (according to acclaimed game designer sid meier), the scenarios in that dragon cancer only allow for metaphorical interactions that have no impact on the outcome of the underlying narrative. applying this to autobiographical games, one recurring procedure involves representing the passing of time as the in-game persona traversing an allegorical space. while earlier media forms facilitate adapting a person’s life in narrative terms, games characteristically adapt source material by turning it into “spatial stories,” in which “plot is transformed into geography” (wallin 2007, para. 4). a prime example of this is jason rohrer’s passage (2007), which – rather than recounting autobiographical episodes – succinctly summarises the author’s view on the transitoriness of life using the basic genre conventions of a maze game. however, despite the outward appearance of the game environment as a maze (supported by different visual themes that are determined randomly upon starting the game), the dynamics (according to treanor/mateas) of the maze have been hollowed out. there are no goals or exits and no distinct alternating paths; even partial progress does not seem to matter as the game keeps a score but there is no persistent list or even a single ‘high score’; instead, the performance indicator simply disappears after the play session is over. stylising the environment as a maze without a purpose frames the author persona (which remains fairly nondescript in passage) in an interesting way. if the player chooses to take a partner rohrer (2007) has noted this character represents his spouse at the beginning of the game, that character walks alongside the protagonist, which can make it impossible to navigate narrow ‘passages’. according to the game’s algorithmic procedures (including movement, collision detection etc.), the author persona and his partner are framed as a unit, constituting one playable character. the maze is a popular spatial concept that has been interpreted differently over time. for instance, the quasi-autobiographical a closed world (2013), developed at the mit game lab, uses a forest maze as a metaphor for the sometimes treacherous social environment that queer people have to navigate striving for social acceptance of their sexual identity. in this case, the notion of a ‘playful prefiguration’ proposed by frissen et al. (2015) is particularly compelling, as the designers deliberately use allusions to iconic game franchises like the legend of zelda (which usually portray a more innocuous search for adventure) to frame their lived past experience. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 33 rather than portraying the author personas as character archetypes with a distinct outward appearance, most games implement them as a set of characteristic actions or action possibilities. for instance, depression quest (zoe quinn, 2013) does not explicitly characterise its protagonist but uses it as a projection space for the player’s own assumptions as well as designer zoe quinn’s and writer patrick lindsey’s personal experiences with depression. the game is text-based and players select ‘their’ preferred reaction to in-game situations using multiple-choice menus. to represents the protagonist’s fragile mental state, the game often characteristically displays but disables the ‘best’ courses of action, thereby marking the protagonist’s awareness of what the ‘right’ choice is, but also their inability to make it as a central tragic moment. while the uniformity of the input scheme emphasises the idiosyncratic phrasing of the ‘choices’ in depression quest, the game memoir en code (alex camilleri, 2015) takes a different route by framing the author’s persona, a game development student moving between italy, the netherlands, the uk, and sweden, as a collage of very short, seemingly incoherent playable vignettes. all of these vignettes are modeled after interface tropes from various game genres; while this might seem distracting, game interfaces have less “obligation to fictional coherence” (jørgensen 2013, p. 4) but are “self-referential” (jørgensen 2013, p. 9), that is, they “bring[…] attention to the mediation process” by addressing both the game world and the player. as such, the hypermediacy itself appears to create a sense of identity and continuity across the different activities. for instance, by pressing the button at the right time, the player can select one from several responses at a dutch supermarket counter, where the idiomatic dutch statement is the hardest to ‘hit’ (thresholds for all the responses are marked through colour coding as in a music rhythm game). moreover, the game uses the music album as a framing metaphor and, in the words of its creator, is even “designed to be being experienced similarly to a music album” (memoir en code: reissue 2017). this metaphor implies a deliberately ambivalent, loose thematic, but also formal overlap between different game scenes, similar to ‘tracks’ on a record. as users commonly develop a close “relationship between [their music] records and [their] sense of self” (shankar 2000, p. 29), the use of this reference medium intensifies the perceived coherence of alex camilleri’s in-game persona as a ‘representation of self’ in the form of a collage of idiosyncratic actions (e.g. greeting someone with a handshake, finding a quiet place to study or throwing rocks into the ocean). as with tracks on a music album, the game suggests an order to these constitutive actions/scenes but they can be (re)played in any given sequence. this example also demonstrates that, in some aspects, in-game personas clearly differ from those in autobiographical literature. for example, barros argues that the autobiographical persona usually undergoes a distinct change while still maintaining basic continuities; this mode of transformation is described by a specific rhetorical mode, “figura” (1992, p. 7-8). in contrast, in-game events are necessarily iterated over multiple play-throughs. thus, instead of marking a development between two states, autobiographical games present personas as conglomerates of interrelated procedures, which in the act of play manifest themselves as multiplicity of slightly varying outcomes. the interface as bridge between player and persona in the “creator’s statement” for his game gravitation (2008), jason rohrer argues that he cannot imagine “any other rendition of [him]self for an autobiographical game” than pixel art (2008). this quote illustrates that, compared to text-based autobiographical media, games can pose an epistemic problem regarding the indexical relationship between author and character as their designers have to choose a ‘resolution’, that is, a granularity of representing their ingame re-creation. in autobiographical literature, authors can create an epistemic connection with their texts by repurposing earlier texts or verbatim quotes and the culturally constructed werning 34 ‘authenticity’ of autobiographical ‘mobile filmmaking’ (e.g. schleser 2014) relies on being able to ‘capture’ rather than having to re-create the likeness of the videographer. apart from using a distinctly abstract and multivalent art style such as pixel art (that dragon, cancer transfers that approach to 3d environments with its sparse, almost untextured scenes). a common strategy to avoid this lack of indexicality is using standardised tools and graphical assets to establish a seemingly ‘neutral’ vantage point. other techniques to evoke indexicality often revolve around the aforementioned principle of ‘spatial stories’. for instance, will o’neill establishes a connection between himself and his in-game persona evan winters by deliberately modeling the protagonist’s apartment in actual sunlight (2015) after his own at the time of creating the game (smith 2015). however, the most important ‘bridge’ between author, characters, and playeriv, which frames the identification with the author persona, is often the interface. while this can differ radically between games, one commonly used technique is the text-based interaction logic of games created using twine, a popular tool for autobiographical game-making (ellison 2013a). the scene is presented as a continuous text with html-compatible formatting options such as bold type or lists, and any word or phrase can be marked as a hyperlink that players can click to advance through the story. for example, the game sacrilege by cara ellison (2013b), which lets players re-enact the author’s ‘quest’ for a one-night stand in a club, characteristically plays with this scheme for various effects. for instance, the author’s in-game representation (which addresses the player as ‘you’) breaks down a sentence comprising her perception of one potential partner into multiple chunks and the player has to click on each one in order to ‘effectuate’ them: “matthew is tall … dishevelled … he makes you laugh”. this simple technique captures the wandering of the protagonist’s gaze and can be interpreted as a remediated “performative utterance” (cf. e.g. tronstad 2015, p. 60). originally, the term refers to a speech act that does not describe but perform an action, and thus can only be judged as succesful or unsuccessful rather than as true or false. similarly, clicking on the words constitutes an in-game utterance that ‘brings into reality what it signifies’ by allowing the player to symbolically recreate the author persona’s step-by-step perception of matthew. the fact that the sentence parts appear below each other and visually form a complete sentence supports this interpretation. the same technique is repeated moments later (as well as throughout the game) through the sentence “you grab matthew's shoulder and yell his name ecstatically: matthewwwwwwwww”, where the name needs to be clicked to ‘perform’ the described action and intensify the perceived subjectivity of the in-game character (ellison 2013b). a different technique is the use of repetition; for instance, as the protagonist initiates contact with ‘matthew,’ the sentence “he is going to kiss you” is repeated and needs to be clicked several times to advance. this creates a sense of immediacy and direct, ‘unfiltered’ insight into the protagonist’s mind. depending on the pace and consistency of clicking, it may even be interpreted to signify her heartbeat, breathing or other internal rhythm. the notion of immediacy is further supported by formal elements, such as the lack of interpunction in certain parts of the text. elsewhere, clickable text segments are action verbs such as “investigate” or “engage interpretation,” which harkens back to the interface conventions of more traditional text-graphic adventures. other games show how simple point-and-click interaction can be modified by going beyond purely textual means. for instance, nicky case’s coming out simulator (2014) usually sticks to the ‘formula’ by giving the player dialogue choices via multiple-choice buttons. however, after having established this convention over some time, the game introduces subtle changes. when nicky’s mother expresses bias towards his gay friend, the game only offers the word “what” as a response, yet in three degrees of intensity. it thereby frames this reaction as particularly immediate (as it is without alternative), but leaves it to the player to ‘perform’ its persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 35 nuances, thereby making the utterance feel much more like their own. the game adds other formal elements that enhance the ‘performative’ feeling of clicking on textual phrases to move the dialogue along. for instance, it uses two different sounds when the protagonist or the interlocutor make a new utterance. as the dialogue speed is determined by the length of the sentence, this creates an audible ‘rhythm’ for the in-game conversations. moreover, previous phrases float upwards until they leave the screen rather than simply disappearing, which provides some context to the reading experience, creating the impression that one statement flows from the preceding one rather than appearing out of thin air. while this form of text-based input is one of the simplest conceivable interaction paradigms, the two game examples above indicate the vast spectrum of potential procedural bias it affords and might serve as a blueprint for investigating the connection between interaction and in-game personas in more complex cases. persuasive aspects of autobiographical games while not applicable to the ‘genre’ as a whole, many autobiographical games stage the creator’s persona as a prototype of a particular trait they embody. for example, anna anthropy based the game dys4ia (2012) on her own experience with hormone replacement therapy, not just to demonstrate her personal sensibilities during that phase, but also to critique the everyday forms of behaviour that, deliberately or not, ostracise transgender people in general. accordingly, it appears plausible to conceive of playable autobiographies in terms of rhetorical persuasion (virtanen & halmari 2005, p. 20), characterised by a specific use of ethos, pathos, and logos (virtanen & halmari 2005, p. 5). as the author draws on their lived experience, the aspect of ethos or, more specifically, the “‘good character’ of the persuader” (virtanen & halmari 2005, p. 6), naturally plays a prominent role. traditionally, this requires demonstrating the moral grounding of the ‘speaker,’ making them appear trustworthy and their behaviour appear congruent with their message. yet, examples like robert yang’s micro games hurt me plenty (2014) or rinse and repeat (2015)v, where each express one aspect of homosexual sensuality based loosely on the creator’s personal experience, suggest a different emphasis. as the player has agency in ‘shaping’ the creator’s persona through their in-game behaviour, ethos here primarily operates by establishing an empathetic relationship, in which the competence and moral compass of the ‘speaker’ are de-emphasised or, rather, shared between author and player. similarly, the narrative in depression quest contains numerous references to idiosyncratic observations that readers/players might be familiar with from own experience, for example the “habit of waking up 10 20 minutes before your alarm rings”. some of these also appear in the multiple-choice options, which usually don’t just describe the action but add connotations from the persona’s perspective. the goal of these procedures is not to communicate information, but to produce a phatic communion (miller 2008), that is, to perform a sense of connectedness by referring to common, shared sentiments. developing procedural literacy in the process of identity performance to conclude this first part, it is important to note that many autobiographical games are still very light on procedures; even though they supposedly allow the player to shape or even cocreate the author personas, this interaction is still limited in practice. for instance, the average everyday adventures of samantha browne employs several interesting narrative strategies such as giving the player a glimpse into the character’s online identity on a fictitious online social network but limits the interaction to selecting multiple-choice options (e.g. how many packets of oatmeal to make). all choices add to a stress meter which aptly communicates that for a person with social anxiety there often is no ideal choice in everyday situations. however, the seemingly arbitrary amount of anxiety increase, which doesn’t afford the player to form werning 36 cognitive patterns, does not support this ‘tragic’ connotation but rather frames the persona’s actions, and the player input they depend on, as arbitrary. a cursory look at gameplay videos (for an example, see the average everyday adventure 2016) of the game provides some anecdotal evidence that players connect with the tone of writing, the seemingly hand-drawn art style, and particular narrative motifs (e.g. the lack of clarity as to who can use which appliances in a public dorm kitchen). however, the choices and consequences are usually commented on in a tongue-in-cheek manner, which suggest limited personal engagement. in other cases, the game itself is used as a metaphor to characterise the protagonist persona and focuses on audiovisual characteristics rather than procedural rhetoric. for instance, nina freeman’s (2014a) space dad presents a wildly imaginative interpretation of a young girl coping with the fact that her father is rarely home because of his work as a truck driver. the game employs very simple mechanics inspired by early arcade games in combination with informants such as pixel art style, 1980s iconography, and chiptunes, thereby positing the medium of video games itself as a ‘filter’ through which the persona of the authoras-child interprets the world. freeman also uses the child persona, exploring an early memory of herself contemplating sexuality, in another autobiographical vignette called how do you do it? (freeman 2014b). by investigating strategies of “textual poaching” (pelletier et al. 2010, p. 90) in amateur game design, pelletier et al. (2010) argue that game-making is becoming a form of identity work. the authors reference henry jenkins’s notion of textual poaching and the corresponding impetus to achieve a form of mastery, but transfer these concepts from media consumption to production practices. they study the amateur creators’ repeated use of motifs and assets from the star wars franchise as a “framing device” (pelletier et al. 2010, p. 101), which also suggests that playfully achieving some form of mastery and forming “social bonds” (pelletier et al. 2010, p. 96) with others in the process becomes an important part of their ‘creator’ identity. similarly, the collective acquisition of procedural literacy over time can be regarded as an important aspect of autobiographical game-making as a form of identity performance. in-game personas as tools of playful identity politics the scope of this article does not afford an in-depth analysis of how game makers, ranging from self-taught amateurs to industry professionals, utilise their autobiographical games to position themselves in their online social circles. yet, this second, shorter section is intended to provide some theoretical vantage points for that purpose as well as anecdotal evidence indicating why such analysis would be relevant. game-making as psychodrama and the autobiographical game as prop in a presentation at the tech conference codemotion, alex camilleri describes game-making and his game, memoir en code, in particular as his “psychologist” (2016). for camilleri, the highly systematic act of scripting a game and the need to rethink his own memories through the lens of gameplay mechanics (and, more specifically, mechanics that are feasible to implement with limited programming skills) proved to be useful in selecting and organising relevant occurrences and understanding their specific impact on his psyche. this anecdote suggest that julio l. moreno’s concept of psychodrama (1987), originally a psychiatric technique that involves acting out psychologically demanding situations in a theatrical context, can be a very useful starting point to conceptual the social functions of in-game personas. traditionally, psychodrama requires five instruments, starting with a subject (or actor) and a stage, a flexible space where “reality and fantasy are not in conflict” (moreno 1987, p. 14), persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 37 and which affords spontaneity (i.e. freedom of expression) and the “enactment” (moreno 1987, p. 14) of a psychological conflict. the remaining three instruments are the director, acting as “producer, counselor and analyst” (moreno 1987, p. 15), therapeutic aides or auxiliary egos, which assist both the director and the subject, and an audience. moreno posits a reciprocal relationship between audience and subject, as the former usually needs to provide acceptance and support but can also be “helped by the subject” (moreno 1987, p. 15), in which case the roles are reversed. in the case of autobiographical game-making, this face-to-face situation on a stage is being remediated and while all these ‘instruments’ are present, some appear in altered form. as the game-makers present a respective game as ‘their story’ online (e.g. on their website or a distribution platform such as steam), the audience partly takes over the role of the director, particularly as counselor and – to a lesser degree – as analyst. in turn, the digital authoring tool (e.g. twine or rpg maker) acts as director and producer, both constraining the re-telling of the self in characteristic ways and ensuring that it is communicated in such a way that the audience can provide meaningful input. furthermore, using these tools, the subjects can take over the role of the auxiliary egos themselves by writing different characters as mirrors of the protagonist persona’s self-presentation such as the non-playable characters (npcs). the parameters of how they frame the performance can be easily modified just as supplementary actors can quickly adjust their behavior as needed. yet, the social context evidently is very different if the subject herself is ‘controlling’ the auxiliary egos through code, thereby taking over multiple perspectives on the production of the psychodrama. moreno uses theatrical metaphors from a psychoanalytical vantage point; accordingly, he draws on the jungian definition of the persona as a role ‘played’ in public—a mask or shield—and encourages the subject to actively experiment with different personas in a controlled environment. this use of theatre as metaphor is comparable to goffman’s sociological view on face-to-face interaction as a concurrent performance of different roles or parts (goffman 1956), which also includes the theatrical persona (goffman 1956, p. 10) as reference point. following up on that metaphor, it appears plausible to interpret the autobiographical games as props used in the performance of the self, as a partially externalised form of the role the author is playing. as marshall et al. (2015) demonstrate, the curation of a game “developer persona” in the “creative and cultural industries” occurs through processes of bricolage and the “presentation, aggregation, remediation and recirculation of digital objects”. the authors illustrate this hypothesis by referring to markus ‘notch’ persson, the designer of the iconic game minecraft, who expresses different sides of his developer persona by participation in non-profit game jams or being active on twitter. autobiographical games of established developers perform similar functions but are very particular ‘digital objects’ because they comprise more or less direct representations of the author persona. these representations are constantly offset against both other textual characteristics of the games or other forms of self-presentation such as interviews and social media activity. for instance, in the game papo y yo (2012), the columbian designer vander caballero reportedly reflects on his childhood experience with a drug-addicted father, who is represented as a monstrous but mostly friendly creature, and who becomes blindly aggressive whenever it finds and consumes frogs. while playing as a young boy in the favelas paints a specific picture of caballero’s in-game persona, this representation exhibits slight incongruences with how the designer presents himself (and the game’s development company minority media) in interviews so that both channels of self-presentation constantly re-ambiguate each other. game-making as a technology of the self a second, related framework for interpreting autobiographical game-making and the curation on in-game personas is foucault’s notion of ‘technologies of the self’ or ‘care of self’, that is, werning 38 technological provisions that afford the “social construction of personal identity” (aycock 1995). to operationalise that concept, aycock proposes four distinct elements, a) an ‘inner substance’ that constitutes a source or core of personal identity, b) the ‘degree and kind of commitment’ with which an activity is carried out, c) ‘personal routines or disciplines’ which allow for altering one’s identity, and d) the ‘goal of the personal transformation’. aycock ‘applies’ these four elements to identity curation via the early online newsgroup ‘rec.games.chess’ (rgc), which makes his observations (even if they date back to a very early example of online social interaction) compatible with the case at hand. while the members of the community use the game of chess (and particularly “the purchase and use of chess computers as icons of mastery”) to characterise themselves among their peer group, a growing number of autobiographical game-makers use their unpolished, sometimes even unfinished vignettesvi for that same purpose. a tentative investigation of paratextual elements such as developer statements and user comments in the interactive fiction database (‘autobiograph* 2017) (which does not yet constitute a stable and active community but does provide an online social context for makers of autobiographical games), allows us to assess the transferability of foucault’s technologies of the self. self-descriptions on the site indicate that many authors write (and share their works) rather quickly and impulsively, which underlines the performative quality of this practice. yet, likely because of that perceived ‘immediacy’ and the formal imperfections, they also consider the ‘games-as-texts’ to contain some kind of personal truth. for instance, a designer calling herself snoother argues that her game “is flawed, having been written quickly and intensely” but that “there's something sacrosanct about it for me, and i just can't bring myself to revise it” (snoother 2015). the term ‘sacrosanct’ even suggests a connection between the game and the author’s body, as it originally refers to the inviolability of a sacred place, object, or person. thus, the game clearly express part of its creator’s inner substance as per aycock’s definition above. as of february 2017, the ifdb contains 24 autobiographical games, most of which have been reviewed by the community. surprisingly, most games from that corpus are rated rather negatively and, based on the content of the reviews, it appears that game-makers need to find a precarious balance between being personal but not overbearing in how they position their past experiences and interpretations of them. indeed, this appears closely reminiscent of aycock's (1995) observation on the chess community that “an ideal commitment to chess adopts a demeanor which is neither too distant nor too involved”. on the other hand, the definition of an ‘inner substance’ differs between both communities. aycock argues that the “romantic idea of ‘genius’”, that is, players who are able to revolutionise established forms of playing chess by virtue of their overwhelming level of skill, is a prominent trope (or even, one could argue, a consistent persona) by which players essentially define their personal identity, mostly as an ideal type that they strive towards. a corresponding but more intimate trope among autobiographical game-makers and their audience is that of the friend. for instance, a reviewer of deirdra kiai’s i'm really sorry about that thing i said when i was tired and/or hungry states that while playing he/she “felt like kiai's best friend having a conversation with someone i've known my whole life” (ondricek 2014). in other reviews, a similar sentiment is, more indirectly, expressed through the emotional and empathetic choice of words. for example, a reviewer of the game ash, which tackles the author’s experience with the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 39 imminent death of his mother, points out how the tone of writing “despite everything, despite everything, remains hopeful” (emphasis in original, verityvirtue 2017). finally, to illustrate the relevance of routines for the ‘care for self’, aycock investigates how users of rgc routinely refer to habitual practices (e.g. comparing player ratings) or their own personal standards and thresholds (e.g. the best clock setting for 7-year-old children), as well as how to determine them. arguably, these practices are interpreted as indexical of the persona that the respective users cultivate within the online community. in a similar manner, users on ifdb invoke standards of ‘good’ autobiographical writing in their comments, thereby also establishing standards as well as routines to uphold them. some users refer to technological affordances of specific creation tools as part of their personal identity. for instance, one reviewer states: “i never thought cyoa games can be this good. i usually looked down on them, thinking parser commanded games were the best” (blitzwithguns 2014). cyoa (choose-yourown-adventure) refers to the multiple-choice model of tools like twine while parser-based games (those that accept natural language player input), require more complex tools such as inform. these interface conventions are discussed as de-facto standards, which are shared or, at least, acknowledged within the community, and by which users can quickly and effectively communicate their respective level of technological sophistication. as many members are both readers and writers, they perform a ‘craftsman’ persona, characterised by personal identification with tools of the trade, not unlike the identificatory relationship with chess computers in aycock’s case. other reviewers point out formal elements of writing such as allowing for pauses or implementing “ambiguity about whether you are supposed to click something or not” (ondricek 2013). this awareness of ‘quality standards’, as well as criticising games that do not meet them, appears as a recurring pattern by which users perform their own identity as part of the group and, more specifically, justify tackling autobiographical themes (which still constitute only a small sub-section of amateur games) in the first place. while autobiographical game-making is still far from becoming a widespread social ‘movement,’ other platforms such as the game distribution service itch.io are gradually emerging to provide a social context for this type of content. the goal of this article has been to outline a theoretical framework to analyse the use of personas in autobiographical games as sets of interrelated procedures and to show how these games as theoretical objects (bal 2013) become part of their creators’ identity politics. a more exploratory approach was chosen that can be used as a foundation for more in-depth close readings in follow-up research. larger, commercially successful autobiographical games like that dragon, cancer and papo y yo have been deliberately left out of this argument but would warrant further attention. i for instance, a wall street journal article from june 2016 explains how not only game development but also gaming culture have become multimillion-dollar businesses; see kelly, m 2016, ‘how gaming has become a multimillion-dollar video business’, wall street journal, 16 june, retrieved 5 june 2017, <http://www.wsj.com/video/how-gaming-has-become-amultimillion-dollar-video-business/554dc3ad-c618-4748-afebb1b4c10902de.html> ii even let’s players like markiplier, who is known for being loud and extrovert in his videos, approach the game very carefully, trying explicitly not to misread or misrepresent it; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5swtd6vmh_u&t=0h26m30s. end notes http://www.wsj.com/video/how-gaming-has-become-a-multimillion-dollar-video-business/554dc3ad-c618-4748-afeb-b1b4c10902de.html http://www.wsj.com/video/how-gaming-has-become-a-multimillion-dollar-video-business/554dc3ad-c618-4748-afeb-b1b4c10902de.html http://www.wsj.com/video/how-gaming-has-become-a-multimillion-dollar-video-business/554dc3ad-c618-4748-afeb-b1b4c10902de.html werning 40 iii while the name in the title seems to rule out autobiographical qualities, deets’ blog articles (e.g. http://ayresdeets.com/confidence/) clearly indicate personal connections to the theme of the game. it explores the impact that social anxiety can have on a college student’s life by simulating the uneasiness of its protagonist that comes with having to prepare oatmeal in the dorm’s public kitchen late in the evening. iv the term ‘bridge’ could be further elaborated upon as it could also be argued that the persona constitutes an epistemic ‘bridge’ between player and author; however, at this point it is used primarily to describe how interacting with the protagonist (often but not necessarily the author persona) is framed by the interface. v an overview of yang’s games can be found at <https://radiatoryang.itch.io/> vi for example, the online store itch.io is becoming a hub for playable autobiographical sketches see <https://itch.io/search?q=autobiographical>. works cited ‘autobiograph’ 2017, interactive fiction database, retrieved 5 june 2017, 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http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=fk8xds3a66pyx208> virtanen, t & halmari, h 2005, ‘persuasion across genres: emerging perspectives’, in t. virtanen & h. halmari (eds.), persuasion across genres: a linguistic approach, john benjamins, amsterdam & philadelphia, pp. 3–26. wallin, mr 2007, ‘myths, monsters and markets: ethos, identification, and the video game adaptations of the lord of the rings’, game studies, vol. 7, no. 1, retrieved 5 june 2017, <http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/wallin>. werning, s 2017 ‘analytical game design. game-making as a cultural technique in a gamified society’, in r. glas, s. lammes, m. de lange, j. raessens & i. de vries (eds.), the playful citizen: knowledge, creativity, power, amsterdam university press, amsterdam (in print). white, n 2016, ‘gaming to cope: how developers are tackling real life’, the telegraph, retrieved 5 june 2017, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/what-to-play/personal-issuesinside-the-fascinating-world-of-interactive-biog/> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/actual-sunlight-might-be-the-most-painfully-real-video-game-youll-ever-play-000 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/actual-sunlight-might-be-the-most-painfully-real-video-game-youll-ever-play-000 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/what-to-play/personal-issues-inside-the-fascinating-world-of-interactive-biog/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/what-to-play/personal-issues-inside-the-fascinating-world-of-interactive-biog/ persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 45 enacting self and scientific personas: models for women health professionals in dr. s. josephine baker’s fighting for life amy rub e ns abstract in this essay, i call on scientific persona and autobiographical discourse theory to examine dr. sara josephine baker’s 1939 autobiography fighting for life. through this framework, i consider how baker and other u.s. women health professionals conceived of individual identity and collective persona during the early twentieth century. baker helped to revolutionise well-baby and well-child care in the u.s., and in fighting for life, she relates the genesis and evolution of her groundbreaking work. like her contemporaries, baker was engaged in the research, practice, teaching, and administration of medicine and public health. presently, scientific persona has been theorized as a conglomerate of dispositions, practices, and characteristics that are associated with scholar-practitioners of the human and natural sciences; it therefore offers a novel lens for the individual and collective fashioning of women health professionals like baker whose work traversed disciplines and institutions. by considering how fighting for life, as autobiography, facilitates baker’s conception of self and persona, i show that baker adopts prevailing personas for women health professionals as well as women working in other fields. at the same time, baker in her autobiography also emphasizes why and how these models transform in actual practice. thus, scientific personas tend to emerge as subtle variations of previous forms, while baker’s autobiography also bears witness to the rise of new personas for women health professionals, as demonstrated by her radical reconfiguration of expert knowledge and scientific motherhood. key words authorship; career; gender; lifewriting; medicine; public health introduction between 1885 and 1919, new york city’s infant survival rate improved markedly, and dr. sara josephine baker, who held degrees in medicine and public health, played a significant role in this transformation (meckel 1990, p. 89; petrash 2016). her achievements, press coverage, connections to high profile cases, lecture appearances, and scientific and lay publications, including her 1939 autobiography fighting for life, made baker a household name (leavitt rubens 46 1996; parry 2006). baker’s exact motivation for writing her autobiography is unknown, as she destroyed her personal papers before her death in 1945 (epstein 2013, p. xviii). however, between world war i and world war ii, women’s vocationally focused retrospectives were enormously popular in the u.s. (applegarth 2015). in fact, when baker’s autobiography was first published, it garnered a rave review in the new york times, and when it was re-published in 2013, it enjoyed a similarly favorable review in the same publication (feld 1939; zuger 2013). still, one thing remains clear in the reading of fighting for life: baker wanted to explain how she revolutionised well-baby and well-child care in new york city, the u.s., and arguably, other parts of the world. through fighting for life, i examine the scientific personas associated with baker and other (mainly white) american women health professionals during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. lorraine daston and h. otto sibum (2003) first theorized scientific personas as the “collective ways of thinking, feeling, judging, perceiving, [and] working” associated with “the human as well as the natural sciences” (p. 1, 5). due to forces that enabled and constrained women’s entrance into medicine during the fin de siècle, many women health professionals like baker simultaneously were engaged in the research, practice, teaching, and administration of medicine and public health (fee & greene 1989; meckel 1990; morantzsanchez 1985). consequently, scientific persona becomes an apt framework for understanding how such work was collectively conceived. indeed, scientific personas do not always correspond to particular professions or institutions but instead “emerge and disappear within specific contexts” (daston & sibum 2003, p. 3). because scientific personas must achieve a certain degree of social recognition, they tend to surface as variations of long-standing archetypes and rarely appear de novo (algazi, 2016; daston & sibum 2003; paul 2016). studying personas “encourages historians of the sciences and humanities to examine the transmission of repertoires of [scientific] selfhood throughout disciplines and timeframes” (paul 2016, p. 137). therefore, examining the personas of women health professionals like baker who traverse disciplinary boundaries and professional obligations in the course of a day—let alone a career— might prompt us to reconsider (1) what constitutes “scientific” personas, and (2) how such personas are adopted, discarded, and forged anew. although personas are cultural “templates” or “models,” to borrow some terms from algazi (2016), they hold considerable importance for individuals (p. 12). scientific personas transform, and thus are deeply integrated in, the ways scientists think, behave, produce scholarship, and physically style themselves (bosch 2016; daston & sibum 2003, p. 3; paul 2016). thus, as herman paul (2016) asserts, personas and individual identity “can never be considered apart from each other” (p. 142). as i will explain, autobiography at once records and facilitates the interaction between persona and identity (eakin 1985; smith 1995), a notion paul (2016) himself acknowledges when he asserts the inseparability of “persona” and “person” (p. 142, 143). considering collective persona and individual identity together and within autobiography underscores how they are constituted by historical and structural forces; gender, class, race, sexuality, and their intersections; personal characteristics; and subjective experience (algazi 2016; bosch 2016). it is in this vein that i approach scientific personas and individual identity in baker’s fighting for life: how does this text, as autobiography, reflect and call into being the forces impelling baker’s self-conception as a typical yet exceptional early-twentieth century woman health professional? after all, as a queer woman working in not only medicine but also the nascent field of preventive public health, baker could not easily “assume a preexisting persona” (algazi 2016, p. 31; hansen 2002). i begin exploring baker’s enactment of self and scientific personas in fighting for life by more deeply theorizing genre’s role in this process; by way of illustration, i show how baker’s persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 47 construction of her younger self in fighting for life anticipates the personas for women health professionals with which she will contend in subsequent parts of the text. these models, at their extreme, connected women’s motivation for studying medicine with either financial advancement and personal achievement, on the one hand, or moral obligation and a natural affinity for caretaking, on the other (morantz-sanchez 1985). baker largely adopts these competing personas in the retelling of her early professional career, but she reinterprets them in more radical ways when she recounts her later, more significant interventions in preventive public health. in articulating these personas, baker perhaps bears witness to the creation of new models for women health professionals. contra to contemporary views of baker’s legacy, one such persona coalesces in opposition to the theory of scientific motherhood, which held that only empirically founded knowledge espoused by experts should guide the care of infants and children, no matter if they were sick or well (apple 2006 p. 37; grant 1998). to conclude my assessment of scientific personas in fighting for life, i reevaluate baker’s text as an example of what risa applegarth (2015) calls “vocational autobiography”, an autobiographical genre by and for women that was popular during the early to mid-twentieth century (p. 531). through this lens, baker can be seen as crafting personas for women professionals who aspire to executive roles in a variety of fields. but, unlike other (female) vocational autobiographers, baker refuses to privilege hard work as the primary factor for her professional success. rather, as i will explain, she also acknowledges the importance of luck and a pioneering spirit in order to emphasize that professional women were constrained by stereotypical notions of gender, but not always absolutely. understanding identity and personas in autobiography before i examine how baker adopts, confronts, and perhaps creates personas for women health professionals in fighting for life, i want to return to the earlier claim that autobiography records and facilitates the interaction between person (individual identity) and scientific persona (cultural template or model). conventionally speaking, fighting for life might provide exclusive access to facts about baker’s personal and professional lives that are not available anywhere else, especially considering that she destroyed all of her personal papers (epstein 2013, p. xviii). yet, western autobiography (no matter how one demarcates its inception) cannot be reduced to the objective, chronological recording of one’s life (eakin 1985, p. 202; smith 1995). autobiography is a performative account of a subject’s identity formation and trajectory. by performative, i mean that autobiography is a view or an account of one’s life that is shaped by personal motivations and outside pressures as well as the filter of memory (johnson 2011; kehily 1995; smith & watson 2002). in fact, regarding the latter point, autobiographers often acknowledge the slippage between their recollected reality, others’ memories, and objectively verifiable events; philippe lejeune (1989) calls this stylistic device the “referential pact,” and it can be glimpsed throughout baker’s fighting for life (p. 22). its first appearance occurs in chapter one when baker concludes a series of anecdotes about growing up in poughkeepsie, new york. she relates, “i do not mean that all this happened when i was a [very young] child. it is all mixed up in my memory, for until i was seventeen, the world was a unit with no gaps or turning points” (baker 1939, p. 9). in making this admission, baker essentially acknowledges that fighting for life is an earnest yet flawed retelling of her past, as she understands it. the referential pact not only linguistically signals the autobiographer’s good intentions. according to paul john eakin (1985), it also illustrates why autobiographical accounts often imperfectly correlate with the historical record: autobiography reflects the writer’s selfconception at the present (i.e., writing) moment (p. 5). sidonie smith (1995) concurs and rubens 48 asserts that the autobiographical self is the result and not the antecedent of remembering and narrating one’s life; autobiographical storytelling, in other words, brings a version of one’s self into existence (p. 18). these selves are culturally inscribed and bear traces of “symbolic interactions within and between collectivities…[and] [s]ocial organizations” (smith & watson 2002, p. 10). autobiography, then, is a mediated view of one’s life that simultaneously facilitates the performance of identity—the “form and content of the self in any individual”—as well as the elucidation of persona—the “model of the self in culture” (eakin 1985, p. 206-207). narrating childhood and the retrospective emergence of personas in fighting for life if autobiography engenders identities and personas that are influenced by the writer’s present self-conception, then baker’s autobiographical recollection of her childhood anticipates the personas she aligns herself with and against in subsequent parts of fighting for life. many of these personas are rooted in the dominant templates for white women physicians during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. regina morantz-sanchez (1985) offers a cogent articulation of these personas by drawing from the private and public discourse of female physicians, including baker’s fighting for life. specifically, she explains that these models existed on a continuum: at one end of the extreme, medicine was seen as a path to financial success and professional renown; this more masculine perspective coalesced as a “culture of professionalism” that valued “individualism, scientific objectivity…personal achievement, and careerism” (morantz-sanchez 1985; p. 5). at the other end of the spectrum, medicine was seen as a moral call to duty, and women who heeded it naturally would bring more “cooperation, nurturing, purity, and social concern to their work” (morantz-sanchez 1985 p. 186; 5). some women also felt called to medicine because of early experiences with illness (morantz-sanchez 1985, p. 107). baker’s conception of her childhood encompasses both of these models, as she portrays herself as a sympathetic child whose upbringing and early experiences with illness anticipate her professional achievements as an adult, but not always in the expected ways. interestingly, baker begins fighting for life—and therefore the story of her childhood— by reinforcing the assumption that some women physicians were inherently sympathetic and moral. here, she relates a dubious yet rhetorically effective anecdote about her “impulse to try to do things about hopeless situations” (baker 1939, p. 1). she was six years old and was “dressed up for some great occasion” in a “white lacy dress” (baker 1939, p. 1). while she waited for her mother, baker retreated to her family’s horseblock to play when she suddenly encountered a thin, “hungry[-]looking” african american girl (1939, p. 1). the girl’s plight “struck [baker] right over the heart,” as she “could not bear the idea that [she] had so much and [the girl] had so little” (1939, p. 1). without hesitation, baker took off all her clothes and gave them to the girl. the racially troubling valence of this recollection aside, it nevertheless establishes that baker conceptualises herself as both selfless and willing to act to improve the lives of others. baker also is quick to deny in fighting for life the common assumption that, as a successful, unmarried woman, she must have had an unhappy or bizarre childhood. on the contrary, she relates that “it would have taken a pretty demanding, not to say peevish, kind of child to fail to adjust to the family environment in which [she] was reared” (baker 1939, p. 2). for one, the “gay nineties” of baker’s youth were “an ample, affluent time,” and her family was “reasonably well to do as wealth went in poughkeepsie” (1939, p. 2, 6). perhaps more importantly, her parents cultivated a wholesome, nurturing atmosphere. during the summers, the family vacationed in the nearby catskill mountains; in the winter when the hudson river froze, the bakers enjoyed ice skating, and sled races; throughout the year, they would receive persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 49 students from nearby vassar college for dinner and other social events (baker 1939, pp. 3, 7, 9). although baker’s upbringing was wholesome and active, it was not overly indulgent: having a “formal education” was valued in her family just as much as “good times and active gaieties” (1939, p. 22). taken together, these recollections illustrate that baker “was reared in a thoroughly conventional tradition and took happily to it,” and in relating her childhood in this way, she counters the assumption that her success as an adult was connected to a “suppressed” or strange upbringing (1939, p. 2). paradoxically, baker’s recollection of her youth also underscores the extent to which she was exposed to the unconventional. on the home front, her father encouraged her to pursue traditionally masculine activities, like sports, while her great aunt abby instilled in her a “thrilling skepticism” and the notion that “it is possible to question the unquestionable” (baker 1939, p. 3; 21). perhaps abby’s influence was inevitable: abby was a quaker, and from baker’s perspective, “quakers have a way of being different without anyone’s minding” (1939, p. 20). iconoclastic institutions also seem to have shaped baker’s identity formation. as a young person, she attended a “highly unusual” school that was orchestrated by two women from a home they shared (baker 1939, p. 22). the school had “no graded classes, no marks or reports, no examinations, [and] not even any commencement exercises” (baker 1939, p. 23). in addition, while visiting relatives in dansville, new york, young baker would encounter the staff and patients of jackson sanitarium, a health hospital that was known for its unusual policies regarding diet (e.g., applesauce, hard biscuits, and water) and dress (e.g., bloomers and short hair for women) (baker 1939, p. 15). her retelling of these meetings reflects an implicit admiration for the ways in which the facility embraced non-normative notions of health and gender. importantly, baker regards her exposure to the non-traditional as positively supporting her development. at the same time, the unconventional aspects of her upbringing did not jeopardize her ability to conform to social expectations, either: baker was a self-described tomboy who excelled at sports, but she also took great pride in her cooking and sewing abilities (1939, p. 13). thus, from an early age, baker courted the traditional and non-traditional—and without complication. while baker begins the first chapter of fighting for life describing her earliest childhood memories, she concludes it by relating how a traumatic event put her on the path to adulthood: in 1889 and when she was sixteen-years old, her brother died of typhoid. her father died of the same disease two years later, and the family immediately was thrown into dire financial straights. to baker, who was on the precipice of entering college, “it was immediately evident that somebody would have to get ready to earn a living for all three” of the remaining family members, and so it was decided that she should abandon her plans to attend vassar college, take the family’s remaining savings, and “go to new york and study to be a doctor” (1939, p. 25). overall, her account of her childhood evinces a picture of a sympathetic young woman whose wholesome yet idiosyncratic upbringing allowed her to flourish. when confronted by unexpected tragedy, she let pragmatism and ambition guide her along a new path. inhabiting prevailing personas for women physicians baker’s autobiographical recollection of her childhood foreshadows the scientific personas she engages with to conceputalise her early years as a private physician who also worked as a part-time public health inspector. in light of my earlier claims about autobiography’s ability to construct—and not simply reveal—individual identity and collective personas, i want to revisit some passages in fighting for life that morantz-sanchez (1985) examines in her historical study of women physicians in the u.s. these passages illustrate that baker conceives of her fledgling professional years as being shaped by the same forces that rubens 50 encouraged other women to become physicians: financial need and personal achievement, on the one hand, and moral duty, on the other. however, as i will show, through baker’s engagement with the autobiographical act, she advances variations of these personas that, while subtle, are linked to her personal characteristics, life experiences, and historical moment in significant ways. women during baker’s era were pulled and pushed towards prevailing personas for physicians for various reasons. as noted earlier, women identified personal experiences with illness as a motivation for practicing medicine (morantz-sanchez 1985, p. 107). in addition, connections made during medical school likely influenced women’s conceptions of their work as physicians. baker, for instance, attended the women’s medical college of new york, which was founded by dr. elizabeth blackwell, who baker calls “the fountainhead of all medical training for american women” (1939, p. 31). for blackwell, medicine was a moral calling, but for dr. mary putnam jacobi and dr. marie zakrzewska, who were employed as professors at the women’s medical college of new york during baker’s enrollment, medicine was an intellectual pursuit that demonstrated women were on equal footing with men (bittel 2009; morantz-sanchez 1985; tuchman 2009). during baker’s studies, she also completed a course with dr. annie sturges daniel on “the normal child,” which, ironically, she initially failed because she found it boring (1939, p. 42). larger cultural and structural forces also exerted considerable pressure on the personas women physicians inhabited. women’s awareness of medicine as an attainable, profitable career; connections to reform movement and culture; and increased access to medical schools all influenced the lenses through which women physicians like baker collectively were viewed and defined themselves (fee & greene 1989; moldow 1987; morantz-sanchez 1985). these forces and the personas they helped shape were further compounded by women’s racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic positions as well as their status as women (moldow 1987; wu 2009). indeed, although women’s access to medical schools was improving, their acquisition of positions in medicine remained stagnant. as a consequence, many women physicians turned to public health work during the early twentieth century. while this work appealed to women who were interested in reform movements, it also offered a low barrier for entry: men tended to eschew public health work because it lacked prestige (fee & greene 1989; morantz-sanchez 1985). in fighting for life, baker's recollection of her early professional years evinces a self and persona that are indeed guided by ambition, financial need, and moral duty, but her remembrances also contextualize this presentation by highlighting how women's practice of medicine neither was a guaranteed path to financial security nor an assured means of achieving progressive social change. her humorous description of starting a private practice in new york city with her friend, dr. laighton, is instructive in this regard. the women decided to specialise in obstetrics in order to build their clientele, but against the advice of family and friends, they located their practice in new york city instead of a rural area where costs and competition from other (male) physicians would have been lower (baker 1939, p. 52). so, although laighton’s family “gave [them] enough money to furnish the place and equip [the] office,” they made so little profit in the first year that it was a wonder they did not “starve” (baker 1939, p. 52). of course, “being young,” baker relates, “they were incapable of worrying” and instead used their “mother-wit” to determine how they might use their training and status as physicians to “supplement [their] incomes” (1939, p. 53). in the critical and biographical literature, one often-cited example of this “mother-wit” involves baker and laighton’s employment for a major life insurance company (‘dr. s. josephine persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 51 baker’ 2003; morantz-sanchez 1985; parry 2006). yet, many of these accounts overlook baker’s explanation in fighting for life of how “a call from a much too persistent life-insurance agent…accidentally” brought about this opportunity (1939, p. 53). hoping to end the call quickly, baker and laighton “asked if the [salesman’s] company had a woman doctor to examine [them] if [they] did take out insurance” (1939, p. 54). hearing that no such provision existed, the women decided to sell the company their expertise, and eventually, they convinced the company’s executives to hire them as medical examiners for prospective female clients. as a result, the two women not only earned a “steady stream of profitable fees” with which to subsidise their private practice, but they also created a lucrative, new specialty for women physicians (baker 1939, p. 54). baker’s recollection of her early professional years thus reinforces and reshapes the notion that many women physicians approached medicine as a pathway to personal renown and financial success. her remembrances especially highlight how medical practice in the early twentieth century often perpetuated financial need for women. consequently, women were forced to rely on their ambition, ingenuity, and determination to survive. as noted earlier, some women physicians and nurses during the early twentieth century met their financial needs by turning to public health work (fee & greene 1989; morantzsanchez 1985). baker was no exception, and when she relates her entrance into public health work in fighting for life, she transfers some of the frames she relied on to make sense of her childhood and early years as a physician to her endeavors in this field. specifically, she emphasizes her motivation to succeed, earn a living, and contribute to the public good as being guided by inward desires and external circumstances. consider that baker first became interested in public health work “by accident” when she noticed a newspaper advertisement for a position with new york city’s health department: the pay would “[double [her] first year’s rate of income” (1939, p. 54). after passing the required civil service exam, baker was offered “a summer position in hunting out and looking after sick babies” in the tenement neighborhoods of new york city where the “heat, the smells, [and] the squalor made [them] something not to be believed” (1939, p. 57). baker’s entrance into public health, however, was not only motivated by financial need; like many of her contemporaries, she also conceives of her work as a moral imperative. baker relates in fighting for life that her position with the health department appealed to her “long…acquired…burning sense of the injustice in the world” (baker 1939, p. 61). moreover, she returned to her seasonal public health work year after year—and despite securing a higherpaying summer job and having responsibilities to her growing private practice—because she felt something should be done about the “mass misery” of the tenements (baker 1939, p. 59, 60). the problem was staggering, and during her first summer on the job, the “babies and small children who never really had a chance to live…swelled the death rate to fantastically macabre proportions” (baker 1939, p. 60). to be sure, they “were not just cold statistics” to her (baker 1939, p. 83). rather, they reflected a complex problem that encompassed parents who did not know any better and, more insidiously, corrupt and inefficient institutions that magnified “problems of food, clothing, [and] shelter” (baker 1939, p. 62). frustrated, baker strayed from counting deaths and cases of disease to “looking for healthy babies too” (1939, p. 58). she wanted to “tell their mothers how to care for them” to keep them well, but they found the concept of preventive health, which “had hardly been born yet and had no portion in publichealth work,” to be strange, and as a result, baker “might as well have been trying to tell them how to keep it from raining” (1939, p. 83; 58). baker persisted in bringing preventive public health to the urban poor, and in 1908, she was appointed the first chief of new york city’s bureau of child hygiene. she closed her private rubens 52 practice five years later to transition to the bureau full time until her retirement from civil service in 1923 (‘dr. josephine baker’ 2003). in relating this stage of her public health career in fighting for life, baker continues to rely on competing personas for women in medicine. she acknowledges that she eventually approached her public health work with a certain degree of ambition. in fact, she pursued a doctorate in public health while teaching in the same program (and enduring horrific treatment from her all-male students) because she knew the degree would legitimise her expertise and ensure her continued professional success (baker 1939, pp. 162, 190; ‘dr. s josephine baker’ 2003). nevertheless, baker’s desire for professional acclaim did not compromise her sense of moral obligation: she detested her male colleagues who advanced through the ranks but did little to improve the lives of an extremely vulnerable population, a position she reinforces by declaring she was no “elsie dinsmore” of the health department (baker 1939, p. 61). dinsmore, the heroine of almost thirty popular children’s novels written during the late nineteenth century, would have been familiar to baker’s readers (hardman 1988). whereas dinsmore solidified her middle-class positioning by “relinquish[ing] a great deal of spiritual and moral control to men,” baker improved her station in life as well as that of others by confronting patriarchal systems of power (hardman 1988, p. 70). articulating personas for women health professionals in public health as baker divulges more concerning her work as a public health inspector and administrator, she necessarily refigures the dominant personas for women physicians to a greater degree; perhaps less surprisingly, this engagement may encompass new personas for women health professionals. furthermore, and as i have been claiming, fighting for life draws attention to the ways external forces and baker’s subjective experiences influenced her articulation of scientific personas. to illustrate this claim, i will focus on baker’s characterisation of preventive public health workers as scientific experts who can discover empirically founded practices yet nevertheless embrace intuition in the service of their goals. baker’s uncomplicated celebration of instinct and rationalism subverts the late-nineteenth century belief that women health professionals lacked the cognitive ability to think scientifically and instead had to rely on their “natural” inclination towards intuitive thinking (skinner 2014, p. 147). as a consequence of this deficit, women physicians supposedly only could “apply[] existing medical knowledge in a rote manner,” thus making their contributions to medicine merely derivative (skinner 2014, p. 147). baker takes aim at this idea in fighting for life on multiple occasions. perhaps most visibly, she describes the methodologies and results of her thesis the relation of classroom ventilation to respiratory disease among school children in great detail (baker 1939, p. 162). this is curious for two reasons: first, by this point in the text, baker already had dismissed her doctoral degree in public health as a formality. second, such specialised information likely would have been immaterial to her 1939 reading public. thus, by including such an exhaustive description of her thesis, baker indicates that women health professionals were well versed in scientific methods and could use them to advance their field. nevertheless, women health professionals also were guided by intuition and other forces opposing rational thought. baker and her team, for instance, reduced the infant mortality rate in new york city’s “foundling” (i.e., orphan) hospitals by fifty percent in one year by “work[ing] out the right methods by trial and error” (1939, p. 124). circumstances simply required it: they “had to make [their] own way and evolve [their] own procedure, without precedents to help or to bother [them]” (baker, 1939, pp. 124-125). what is more, trial and error seems to work hand-in-hand with intuition: the “foundling-hospital situation” “had been vaguely in [baker’s] mind for some time [before it] began to take definite form” (1939, p. 121, 119). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 53 in addition to placing rational thought and intuition on an equal plane in rethinking personas for women health professionals, baker reconfigures the locus of intuition and expert knowledge in the delivery of preventive health services. her recollection of the little mothers’ leagues, a school-based program for young girls she helped develop, especially illustrates baker’s attempts to rethink the designation of “expert.” before addressing this point, i would like to describe the history and purpose of the little mothers’ leagues. first launched as a pilot program in 1908, the little mothers’ leagues endeavored to provide working-class and immigrant girls in new york city with practical training in all aspects of well-baby care (baker 1939, p. 134; division of child hygiene 1925, ‘planning to teach’ 1909). league meetings were facilitated by trained experts who led participants in hands-on activities, such as composing skits and conducting demonstrations with realistic props (baker 1939, p. 135; kleinschmidt 1926, p. 133; rennert 1916, p. 309). early versions of the little mothers’ leagues were so successful that baker secured their installation in public and parochial schools across new york city (1939, p. 135; ‘little mothers write playlets’ 1910). by 1916, little mothers’ leagues were being established throughout new york state and other parts of the u.s. (division of child hygiene 1925; rennert 1916, p. 306-207). in some ways, the popularity of baker’s little mothers’ leagues is not surprising, as “the girl child of the poor” had been a target of reform for some time. whereas people like john spargo saw the “little mother” as a “menace,” baker viewed her as the product of her parents’ structurally determined circumstances (1939, p. 132; 1907, p. 38). as baker explains it, the little mother was “forced by poverty to take over the care of the next-youngest child because her mother” was busy keeping a job that “fe[d] the whole family” (1939, p. 132). baker, then, does not necessarily oppose the “little mother” system. in fact, she acknowledges that having older siblings care for younger siblings works out very well in the remoter islands of the samoan group…but orchard street in new york city is not samoa and the hygienic emergencies of bringing up a child in an east side gutter are not the same as those in a culture composed of clean sea-water and palm-groves [sic].1 (baker 1939, p. 132) because baker could not reform the structural and environmental conditions that created the little mother, she instead “work[ed] realistically with the raw materials and situations at hand” by transforming these young girls “into something that suited [her] purpose” (1939, p. 133). for baker, the little mother would be an emissary of knowledge in two ways. on the one hand, she would relay her knowledge of well-baby care to her mother, who perhaps would more readily accept her daughter’s advice as opposed to that of a visiting nurse. on the other hand, the little mother would be better equipped to care for her own children once she became a mother, and her knowledge would be passed on to future generations (baker 1939; kleinschmidt 1926). scholars have been critical of baker’s little mothers’ leagues and their indoctrination of working-class and immigrant girls in the philosophy of “scientific motherhood” (apple 2006; grant 1998). within this framework, mothers were “people in desperate need of education, and the best education came from physicians, who taught mothers to look to them for advice in all aspects of childcare,” including the treatment and prevention of illness (apple 2006, p. 37). scientific motherhood thus encouraged an unflagging acquiescence to expert authority, and what is more, all mothers, regardless of class status, were regarded as deficient in their ability to independently ascertain the health needs of their children (more 1999, p. 75). while baby-care manuals and guidebooks gently ushered middle-class audiences into scientific motherhood, programs like the little mothers’ leagues supposedly functioned as a much more forceful and menacing vector of this ideology for the working and immigrant classes (apple 2006, p. 47; grant 1998, p. 82-83). rubens 54 baker’s anecdotes about the little mothers’ leagues in fighting for life contradict these claims in subtle yet important ways.2 through these remembrances, she implies that well-baby and well-child care should encompass scientific and instinctual knowledge that lay persons, no matter their class status, can employ with experts and in contextually appropriate ways. baker’s description of some original compositions produced by league members bears out this claim. one composition involved a “list of twelve ‘don’ts’ for mothers of small children” that offered axioms like “don’t leave the baby [to] sit on the stove” and “don’t give the baby herring…and sour cucumbers” (baker 1939, p. 136). other compositions included a play titled “hear not the advice of a neighbor; or how babies die” and a sketch that shows a league participant teaching her mother about the proper solid foods for babies (baker 1939, p. 136). baker acknowledges that, although these compositions seem strange, they evince “a healthy realism and a solid sense of tenement conditions…which still assures [her] that [they] trained [the] little mothers pretty well and that [the little mothers] had a lot of common sense of their own to start with” (1939, p. 136-137). curiously, these ideas as well as the play “hear not the advice of a neighbor; or how babies die” appear almost verbatim in an unattributed 1910 article from the new york times. in commenting on the compositions of league members, an anonymous worker from new york city’s health department states: i know...that there is a lot of most amusing material to be gathered here…[t]he children have a naïve way of expressing what they learn, but they have the truth of it. giving cabbage and pickles to babies isn’t merely a humorous idea— it’s an issue among the children of the tenements. they make a practical application of what they learn… (‘little mothers write playlets’ 1910) the issue of plagiarism notwithstanding, these passages from fighting for life and the new york times demonstrate that baker’s little mother is not necessarily a passive receptacle for the knowledge of credentialed experts, as it coalesced under scientific motherhood. rather, she is an active participant in preventive public health, as she reframes her acquired scientific knowledge to account for her material conditions, personal experiences, and inherent capacity for mothering (baker 1939, p. 134). baker’s characterisation of well-baby and well-child care in fighting for life advances a model for women health professionals that reconfigures scientific, expert, and intuitive ways of knowing. consequently, because this template opposed the hegemonic dominance of scientific motherhood, it might be seen as the emergence of a new persona for early-twentieth century women health professionals. just as significantly, baker’s articulation of personas for women health professionals also illustrates the ways in which autobiography records and facilitates the interaction between persona and identity. baker began fighting for life by charting her identity formation. she portrayed her young self as being guided by traditional and non-traditional beliefs regarding gender, family structures, education, religion, and wellness. it is no surprise, then, that fundamental, long-standing aspects of her person can be seen in her negotiation of personas for women health professionals who, like her, traversed the boundaries of medicine and preventive public health. these personas, at their core, reflect baker’s attempt to unite traditional beliefs and practices (e.g., rational thought; scientific motherhood) with those that are more iconoclastic (e.g., intuition; an egalitarian, flexible concept of scientific motherhood). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 55 moving beyond the health professions: personas for the executive woman professional in closing, i want to briefly examine baker’s construction of self and personas within the concurrent autobiographical self-fashioning of professional women, generally. applegarth (2015) explains that women’s vocationally focused lifewriting was quite popular in the u.s. during the interwar period. typically written by and for women, vocational autobiographies chronicled women’s careers in the human, natural, and applied sciences as well as other fields, like the arts (applegarth 2015, p. 523). they “focused on a writer’s…training, career choices, educational experiences, relationships with mentors and colleagues, and excitement about and commitment to her work” (applegarth 2015, p. 531). while applegarth (2015) does not address fighting for life at length in her analysis of interwar vocational autobiography, she does identify baker’s text as an example of this genre (p. 549). baker also invites a similarly broader view of her professional self and its autobiographical retelling. at one point her text, for instance, she speculates that whether [she] had started in a biscuit factory or a profession or a suburban kitchen, [she] would have probably ended up behind a desk somewhere making the telephone and a staff of assistants jump around in the interest of some widespread scheme or another. (baker 1939, p. 110) vocational autobiographies sought to normalise women’s presence in the professional sphere (applegarth 2015, p. 533). one strategy involved framing women’s achievements as the result of hard work and “average talents” in order to contest the notion that professional women were “unnatural in their desires and ambitions” (applegarth 2015, p. 540; p. 541).3 baker in fighting for life similarly emphasizes that her achievements stemmed from hard work as opposed to an inherent (and possibly aberrant) “specialness.” an illustration of this point is beyond the scope of my article; however, what bears mentioning is that, along with linking her professional success to hard work, baker acknowledges the role of luck. the importance of happenstance becomes the most visible in fighting for life when baker describes her entrance into both medicine and public health. as we have seen, baker decided to study medicine in response to her father’s sudden death and her family’s subsequent, unexpected financial decline (1939 p. 25). furthermore, and as we also have seen, baker claims to have first learned about employment opportunities with new york city’s health department “by accident” (1939, p. 54). thus, by refusing to embrace hard work as the sole explanation for her professional achievements, baker reminds her readers that some obstacles, like gender bias, cannot always be surmounted by dedication alone (hansen 2002). although baker suggests in fighting for life that hard work ultimately is an inadequate determinant of women’s professional success, she still believes that women professionals have the ability to ascend to the highest posts in their field. baker has done so herself, and in the conclusion to her autobiography, she enumerates the exact contours of the “pioneer aspect of [her] work” (1939, p. 246). she was the: first woman to earn the degree of doctor of public health, the first woman to hold an executive government position, the first woman to be appointed in the professional rank in the league of nations, and above all, the first woman (or man for that matter) to act on the idea that preventive medicine in baby and child care [sic] was a function of government. (baker 1939, p. 246) she rose to such heights because she bravely, shrewdly, and compassionately entered scientific and professional territories in which no one had staked out a claim (baker 1939, p. 247). but rubens 56 baker does not only define herself in this way: speaking of her female contemporaries in preventive public health, she notes that they “had a tremendous technical advantage in the fact that [they] were pioneering” and willing to entertain areas “men had never bothered to explore” (1939, p. 108, 103). to be “pioneering” in any professional field, then, means rising to a position of power through counterbalancing constraining social beliefs, structural forces and personal circumstances with hard work, luck, moral concern, and unconventional thinking. conclusion to summarise, i used “scientific personas” as a framework for exploring how dr. sara josephine baker, a u.s.-based physician and expert in well-baby and well-child care, enacts models for women health professionals in her 1939 autobiography fighting for life. during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women like baker often simultaneously participated in the research, practice, and administration of not only medicine, but also the burgeoning field of preventive public health. as such, “scientific personas” becomes a novel yet apt framework for illuminating women health professionals’ collective understanding of their crossdisciplinary work. as i have shown, baker adopts, reframes, and sometimes significantly alters the prevailing personas for white women physicians, which tended to coalesce around two competing notions: on the one hand, medicine was a scientific pursuit that led to financial success and personal renown; on the other hand, medicine was a moral calling for which women were naturally suited based on their inherent sense of justice and sympathy (morantzsanchez 1985). viewing baker’s engagement with these models within the context of her autobiography is especially productive. autobiographical discourse records and facilitates the formation of identity and persona, and it also illuminates the ways in which identity and persona shape and are shaped by subjective experience as well as historical and social context (algazi 2016; eakin 1985; paul 2016; smith 1995). furthermore, as noted by applegarth (2015), baker’s fighting for life participates in the interwar vocational autobiography genre, and approaching her text in this way illustrates how she also was attempting to make sense of american women’s role in the professional sphere, in general. essentially, in fighting for life, baker’s self and persona are portrayed as being motivated by financial need, an interest in science, and moral concerns; however, by highlighting constraining notions of gender and other systemic issues, baker redefines what these goals look like in actual practice. thus, while baker largely adopts prevailing personas for women health professionals to make sense of her work as a physician, in order to conceive of her path-breaking work in preventive health, she substantially alters the dominant models for women physicians. in doing so, she perhaps contributes to the creation of new personas. this especially is evident in her radical refiguring of scientific, expert, and intuitive thinking within a particular approach to caretaking known as scientific motherhood (apple 2006; grant 1998). in a similar vein, baker substantially redefines the ways in which women professionals, in general, conceptualised their success. ultimately, viewing baker’s fighting for life in the somewhat surprising context of scientific personas perhaps encourages us to rethink the ways that identity formation, gender roles, and interstitial professional locations influence the migration, interpretation, and creation of scientific personas. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 57 1 to be sure, xenophobia is present in fighting for life, especially regarding baker’s contact with irish immigrants (apple 2006; grant, 1998; leavitt 1996). but, it lessens as baker narrates her latter years as a public health official. 2 i do not meant to imply that her autobiography provides the most authoritative account of the little mothers’ leagues. instead, it offers a subjective view that holds special value in the context of my analysis of person and persona. 3 vocational autobiographies also legitimized women as professionals by depicting their literal bodies in professional spaces. contemporary critics of fighting for life often mention baker’s depiction of her physical body at work, and they particularly note her professional attire (harris 1995; morantz-sanchez 1985; more, fee, & parry 2009). baker’s shirtwaists and tailored suits admittedly were inspired by the infamous gibson girl, and they may have functioned as “camouflage” for her rejection of traditional gender roles (baker 1939; gordon 1987; patterson 2005). see also bosch (2016) for a helpful assessment of how scientific personae are realized through women scientists’ physical behaviors, including dress. end notes works cited algazi, g 2016, ‘three concepts of the scholarly persona’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 8-32, retrieved 30 august 2017, <www.bmgn-lchr.nl>. apple, r 2006, perfect motherhood: science and childrearing in america, rutgers university press, rutgers, new jersey. applegarth, r 2015, ‘personal writing in professional spaces: contesting exceptionalism in interwar women’s vocational autobiographies’, college english, vol. 77, no. 6, pp. 530552, retrieved 5 may 2017, < http://www.ncte.org/journals/ce/issues/v77-6>. baker, sj 1939, fighting for life, new york review of books, new york. bittel, c 2009, ‘mary putnam jacobi and the nineteenth-century politics of women’s health research,’ in e more, e fee, & m parry (eds), women physicians and the cultures of medicine, the johns hopkins university press, baltimore, md, pp. 23-51. bosch, m 2016, ‘scholarly personae and twentieth-century historians: explorations of a concept’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 33-54, retrieved 5 february 2018, <www.bmgn-lchr.nl>. daston, l & sibum, o 2003, ‘introduction: scientific personae and their histories’, scientific context, vol. 16, no. 1-2, pp. 1-8, doi:10.1017/s026988970300067x division of child hygiene 1925, outlines for organizing and directing ‘little mothers’ leagues’, new york state department of health, new york, retrieved 29 october 2017, <https://archive.org>. ‘dr. s. josephine baker’ 2003, u.s. national library of medicine, retrieved 12 september 2017, <https://cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_19.html>. eakin, p 1985, fictions in autobiography, princeton university press, princeton, new jersey. epstein, h 2013 ‘introduction’ in baker, s, fighting for life, pp. vii-xviii. fee, e & greene, b 1989, ‘science and social reform: women in public health’, journal of public health policy, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 161-177, doi: 10.2307/3342677 feld, r 1939, ‘pioneering for public health’, new york times, 14 may, retrieved 10 september 2017, proquest historical newspapers. gordon, l 1987, ‘the gibson girl goes to college: popular culture and women’s higher education in the progressive era, 1890-1920’, american quarterly, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 211230, doi:10.2307/2712910 rubens 58 grant, j 1998, raising baby by the book: the education of american mothers, yale university press, new haven, connecticut. hardman, p 1988, ‘the steward of her soul: elsie dinsmore and the training of a victorian child’, american studies, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 69-90, retrieved 6 october 2017, <https://journals.ku.edu/amerstud/article/view/2492/3478>. hansen, b 2002, ‘public careers and private sexuality: some gay and lesbian lives in the history of medicine and public health’, american journal of public health, vol. 92, no. 1, pp. 36-44, doi:10.2105/ajph.92.1.36 harris, a 1995, broken patterns: professional patterns and the quest for a new feminine identity, wayne state university press, wayne, michigan. johnson, ep 2011 ‘queer epistemologies: theorizing the self from a writerly place called home’, biography, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 429-446, doi:10.1353/bio.2011.0040 kehily, mj 1995, ‘self-narration, autobiography and identity construction,’ gender & education, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 23-32, doi:10.1080/713668459 kleinschmidt, h 1926, ‘little mothers’ leagues: a long-distance view’, journal of social hygiene, vol. 9, no. 3, retrieved 13 november 2015, home economics archive: research, tradition, history database. leavitt, j 1996, typhoid mary: captive to the public health, beacon press, boston. lejeune, p 1989, on autobiography, trans. k leary, ed. p eakin, university of minnesota press, minneapolis, mn. ‘little mothers write playlets with helpful plots’ 1910, new york times, 10 july, p. sm9, retrieved 15 november 2016, proquest historical newspapers. meckel, ra 1990, save the babies: american public health reform and the prevention of infant mortality, 1850-1929, the johns hopkins university press, baltimore, md. moldow, g 1987, women doctors in gilded-age washington: race, gender, and professionalization, university of illinois press, urbana, il. morantz-sanchez, r 1985, sympathy and science: women physicians in american medicine, oxford university press, oxford. more, e 1999, restoring the balance: women physicians and the profession of medicine, 18501995, harvard university press, cambridge, ma. more, fee, & parry 2009 ‘introduction: new perspectives on women physicians and medicine in the united states, 1859 to the present, in e more, e fee, & m parry (eds), women physicians and the cultures of medicine, the johns hopkins university press, baltimore, md, pp. 1-22. parry, m 2006, ‘sara josephine baker (1873-1945)’, american journal of public health, vol. 96, no. 4, retrieved 6 october 2017, ncbi. patterson, m 2005, beyond the gibson girl: reimagining the american new woman, 1895-1915, the university of illinois press, urbana, il. paul, h 2016, ‘introduction: repertoire and performances of academic identity, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 3-7, retrieved 5 february 2018, <www.bmgn-lchr.nl>. petrash, a 2016, new york’s remarkable women: daughters, wives, sisters, and mothers who shaped history, globe pequot, new york. ‘planning to teach’ 1909, new york times, 16 may, p. 20, retrieved 15 november 2016, proquest historical newspapers. rennert, e 1916, ‘little mothers’ leagues of new york state’, the american journal of nursing, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 306-310, retrieved 1 april 2016, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3406000>. smith, s 1995, ‘performativity, autobiographical practice, resistance,’ a/b: auto/biography studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 17-33, doi:10.1080/08989575.1995.10815055 smith, s & watson, j 2002, ‘introduction’ in s smith and j watson (eds), interfaces: women/autobiography/image/performance, university of michigan press, ann arbor, michigan, pp. 1-44. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 59 spargo, j 1907, the bitter cry of the children, macmillan, new york, retrieved 15 october 2017, <www.books.google.com.> skinner, c 2014, women physicians and professional ethos in nineteenth-century america, southern illinois university press, carbondale, il. tuchman, a 2009, ‘maternity and the female body in the writings of dr. marie zakrzewska, 1829-1902’, in e more, e fee, & m parry (eds), women physicians and the cultures of medicine, the johns hopkins university press, baltimore, md, pp. 52-68. wu, j 2009, ‘a chinese woman doctor in progressive era chicago’, in e more, e fee, & m parry (eds), women physicians and the cultures of medicine, the johns hopkins university press, baltimore, md, pp. 89-112. zuger, a 2013, ‘a life in pursuit of health’, new york times, 28 october, retrieved 17 october 2017, www.nytimes.com. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 1 theatre and persona: celebrity and transgression mary luc kh urst & sandra may er theatre, with its focus on live performance and the particular interest it places on the performer as creative agent, undoubtedly brings a distinctive set of enriching perspectives to the field of persona studies, which has often acknowledged its debt to performance studies and theories of performativity (see, for instance, marshall & barbour 2015). despite some notable forays into the area of persona and (live) artistic performance made by scholars in this journal (see, for instance, piper 2015; colby 2015; d’cruz 2015), work that specifically addresses the multifaceted uses and disuses of persona in theatre and its often radically transgressive potential is still conspicuously under-represented in a vibrant and swiftly expanding field. as guest editors of this special issue for persona studies, we are delighted to make a substantial intervention in bringing some of the theories and practices of theatre studies to persona studies. likewise, the lens of persona studies concentrates analysts of theatre on interrogations that are fundamental to the discipline and to advancements in the notoriously difficult articulation of acting and the embodied performance of self and other. this special issue focuses mainly on performers and writers and also extends to writerperformers and writer-directors. all of the essays break new ground and two of them address persona in relation to objects and institutional materialities and complexities. playwrights, directors, designers, artistic directors, and producers cultivate their public personas (in theatre studies, we would say personaei) just like other creatives, often transforming themselves into branded celebrities in the process, but the performer is of quite unique fascination because the performer’s body – face, voice, stance, movement, and gesture – is itself the material of artistic form and expression. in theatre it is the actor’s body that creates persona live on-stage for audiences to respond to directly. actors of live performance and acting as theory and practice are fundamental to conceptualising the performance of real and fictional selves and offer significant perspectives to persona studies. dominant western actor training practices still focus on the studied creation of the appearance of spontaneity and, of course, the trained actor brings that embodied knowledge to the creation of different staged selves both for theatre and film roles and in the construction of different public selves in interview, in a memoir, or on social media. actors have shaped the techniques and practices that inform persona construction but in the theatre industry itself this particular craft has often been obscured by a focus on the publicity machines that emphasise the magical and charismatic, and inspiration by the mystical and divine. in screen and media studies, the extraordinary transformation that great actors can effect and the illusions that they conjure are primarily investigated through theories of reception, freudian approaches, and the prism of stardom and celebrity (see, for instance, dyer 1979 & 1986; gledhill 1991; shingler 2012; marcus 2019). in theatre studies, the focus is placed on theories of presence, concentration, and energy (chaikin 1991; goodall 2008; power 2008), which, in some cases, productively intersect with celebrity studies and its perspective on charismatic performance (see especially roach 2007; giloi & berenson 2010). yet, these approaches have not been sufficiently in dialogue with each other despite the fact that many celebrity performers work across theatre, film, and television and also create and transmit luckhurst & mayer 2 identity through a wide range of digital and traditional media. the study of persona offers one way of bridging this theoretical gap. the concept of persona is related to the idea of the theatrical mask as a strategic construction of an identity that is complexly metatheatrical and performed. for marshall, moore, and barbour, persona is “still attached to the concept of the mask, a layer, or adornment used to obscure the underlying features of the performer, providing a new surface upon which to inscribe a public identity” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 21). for theatre theorists the relationship between the performative and the real is understood as more contested and contradictory because live embodiment is a complicating factor that is absent from screen and digital media. the ‘underlying features’ of the performer are not necessarily deemed to be more readable, distinct or more authentic than the fictional role being played: in theatre they are likely to be read more playfully since live staging encourages bolder imaginative leaps and a greater suspension of disbelief. furthermore, in theatre, mask is not always conceived in the literal sense of a disguise or adornment which might hide or obscure, but also as something indivisible and embodied that can be deployed to stage revelations of both self and role. actor michael redgrave’s famous formulation of face and mask bears this out: the unmistakable stamp of an actor’s personality or genius is always to be detected through whatever mask he has created for himself. irving unmistakably remained irving and olivier, though frequently physically unrecognisable for several minutes, remained olivier. this leads us to what for centuries – indeed since the time when the nature of acting was first discussed – has been the heart of the mystery. the crux of the paradox. is it mask or face? in my opinion the two cannot be separated. without the technique and discipline of mask, the face would not be visible. (redgrave 1958, p. 27) in the celebrity performer’s life, the stage role and other public roles and appearances are frequently conflated and read across and into one another. “a face is such a volatile thing”, sir ian mckellen has observed, and in seeking to capture or represent another or even play oneself (as mckellen did in ricky gervais’s extras), “actors are on a hiding to nothing” (qtd in cantrell & luckhurst 2010, p. 100). to his adult audiences, mckellen argues, he is always the branded persona of ian mckellen playing someone else (cantrell & luckhurst 2010, p. 100) – although younger audiences, of course, ‘know’ mckellen through the character and persona of gandalf in the blockbuster adaptations of the hobbit and lord of the rings as well as of magento in the x-men film series and might be unaware of mckellen’s other stage and film personas. mckellen’s celebrity persona brand is thus one that is complexly and curiously shaped by roles that have attained iconic status in both classical shakespearean stage drama and popular film culture. persona studies has drawn substantially from the complex interplay of screen, media, communication, star and celebrity studies, which are disciplines that tend to treat the actor or actress as the object of commodification and media appropriation and (often too readily) assume that they have limited negotiating control over the construction of their onand offscreen personas. as pam cook has argued, celebrity screen performance “is usually placed on the side of entertainment rather than art and is regarded as motivated by vested corporate interests as well as of the stars themselves” (cook 2012, p. 74). rightly, cook points out that “comparatively little attention has been paid to the details of celebrity performance skills or the conventions of the modes in which they appear” (cook 2012, p. 74). despite recent revaluations of celebrity agency (see, especially, york 2013) that have begun to break up the traditional dichotomy of production and consumption underlying much celebrity theory, the craft of the performer in screen and star studies is still decidedly under-appreciated. this has become a persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 3 significant problem because it has often marginalised the actor’s voice, wrongly represented the performer’s body as an empty vessel, and misrepresented the complex labour of creating screen roles, particularly in the case of women (luckhurst 2019, pp. 72-100). historically, theatre studies has also suffered serious methodological problems in relation to discourses in circulation about celebrity actresses and their performance, and both theatre and film theorists have frequently sidelined persona construction by performers who cultivate artistic craft, business acumen, managerial excellence, and commercial flair. many celebrity actresses have found that persona construction around labour and production management is erased and substituted by personae constructed by critics and academics that privilege a typology promoting the sexual cypher, the domestic goddess, or the spousal appendage (luckhurst 2019, pp. 72-100). a dialogue between theatre studies and the field of research into persona provides an interesting lens through which to examine the labour of acting and both the crafted and more indirect methods of persona production as well as the often tricky task of killing off an unwanted or redundant persona and reinventing a new one. theatre studies also offers actortraining vocabularies that help to interrogate performers’ private and public acts of persona construction/demolition and can offer enriching case studies where subjects lose control of their persona, are stifled by a persona that has outrun its purposes, or are denied the opportunity to negotiate a persona that is fed into the public realm without their involvement or consent. theatre has a long history of leftist political agitation, riot, and protest, and this issue also explores the associations of persona and transgression (shalson 2017). the first two essays explore the changing personas of shakespeare and how the iconic shakespearean persona in england that dame judi dench’s own persona development has capitalised on is now under question as an imperial, exclusivist, and outdated construct. marshall, moore, and barbour have contended that “persona studies is a technique that is fundamentally a study of agency” (marshall et al 2015, p. 290), but how can we relate the concept of ‘persona’ to the mechanisms of posthumous appropriation and image construction and who are the agents in such cases?ii how do the sequence of shakespearean personas created in film, musical, and television sitcom interrogate and shape the cultural iconicity of the most celebrated english-language poet and playwright of all times? looking at twentiethand twenty-first-century transmedial and transgeneric appropriations of shakespeare as a comic character in popular culture, the eminent shakespeare scholar peter holland takes mask as his starting point. the shakespearean masks that form the subject of holland’s analysis, however, are not the result of the author’s own strategic navigations of the public sphere; here, shakespeare himself is recreated and remodelled through masks that offer up the playwright, actor, and shareholder of the king’s men company as “less a who than a what”. these ironic postmodern constructs of shakespeare deliberately topple an icon and point to the contemporary political crisis in england, suggesting that the demise of english imperialism, the isolationism and the instinct of the political classes in england to look backwards and to substitute action with imperialistic rhetoric, is also linked with shakespearean personas that might no longer be relevant or politically viable. holland examines a range of comic personas for shakespeare, in particular, ben elton’s successful television creation of shakespeare in upstart crow. in elton’s sitcom, shakespeare is reduced to a comically disempowered father and struggling businessman with a nightmare commute to london. his ideas are often crude, his failings are many, he appears anything but a genius and he is both likeable and annoying. such comic personas, holland asserts, are versions of shakespeare intimating tropes which are familiar to us from celebrity discourses: shakespeare as a weary celebrity irked by over-zealous fans; shakespeare as a boorish, vulgar rockstar; and shakespeare as a disappointingly ordinary human being whose work continues to bore and alienate legions of schoolchildren around the world. this sequence of masks or, as holland calls luckhurst & mayer 4 it, a “mise en abyme of personas”, melds into an aggregate of cultural performances that both fashion and call into question shakespeare’s iconic status in the cultural imaginary. ultimately, the ironic shakespearean masks created in the absence of the ‘real’ individual and his ‘authentic’ self, holland suggests, are masks through which respective cultures are able to scrutinise themselves. the ways in which shakespeare and the cultural capital partly accrued through this succession of shakespearean masks are strategically employed in the persona-building processes of contemporary theatrical icons, elevating them to the status of a national institution themselves, is explored by sophie duncan in her article on judi dench. duncan explores reinventions of dench’s professional persona in the twenty-first century. one of england’s bestloved actresses, dench has made careful use of shakespearean roles to take new directions in her theatrical career and thus shape and revise her persona construction as an ageing female performer. ‘ghosted’ by a long line of celebrity actresses, these role choices have resulted in a collusion of onand offstage personas that feed on such attributed qualities as sincerity, authenticity, and integrity (carlson 2003). while consciously placing herself in a prestigious tradition of shakespearean actresses on the english stage and drawing on their strategies of persona-creation, dench has resisted the restrictive female continuation of shakespearean performance genealogies by, for instance, refusing to play the nurse in romeo and juliet, a decision that duncan explains in the light of the part’s history as a career-ending role for ageing star actresses. ultimately, dench’s association with shakespeare as a ‘national poet’ has not only augmented her significance as a much-loved stage icon and epitome of moral authority but has sparked discourses around national investments in the ageing female performer as a public persona that counteracts stereotypical notions of the older actress as sexually repugnant, infirm, and incapable of work (luckhurst 2020). one of dench’s long-term collaborators, the english playwright, screenwriter, and director david hare, takes a similarly active part in the fashioning of his persona, albeit not only through his plays but, most notably, through his extra-theatrical interventions. analysing hare’s autobiographically inflected lectures, essays, and his 2015 memoir the blue touch paper, which all stage his field migrations between theatre and politics, sandra mayer demonstrates how hare exploits the generic properties of non-fictional life-writing formats in order to try to build a composite authorial persona of politically engaged artist, social commentator, and public intellectual. as companion pieces that frame his artistic work, hare’s life-writing has served as an ideal vehicle for hare’s carefully cultivated ‘autobiomyth’ of the writer-propagandist who supposedly speaks from an outsider position that is informed by a romantic tradition of strong authorship and connected with discourses that claim a truth value. mayer demonstrates how hare makes strategic use of autobiographical genre conventions which raise audience expectations of sincerity and authenticity, partly as a means of negotiating his career trajectory from the leftist theatrical fringe of the 1970s to his status as a canonical playwright linked to england’s male-dominated institutions of the cultural mainstream. here, the proactive attempts to (re)invent his authorial persona, to justify his politics, and to try and secure his legacy in english theatre come in response to the need to find new relevance in a swiftly transforming post-brexit age and a far more diverse theatre industry with which he is increasingly out of joint. hare continues to argue for a persona that is politically transgressive but which few in the theatre industry find convincing. the most detailed conceptualisations on the theory and practice of creating a stage persona reside in comedy studies and comic performance. stand-up comedy is currently the most globally successful form of protest and human rights theatre and is inherently transgressive in its quest to address stigma, prejudice, and socio-cultural stereotypes persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 5 (luckhurst and morin 2015). two essays interrogate the transgressive potential of persona in live stand-up comedy, initiating an important disciplinary dialogue between persona studies, comedy studies, and human rights discourses. mary luckhurst examines what she calls the “meta-theatrics of persona creation” in the work of global stand-up icon hannah gadsby. in her article, she focuses on gadsby’s decision to assassinate her much-loved comic persona in her 2017 show nanette, and to replace it with a new persona in order to expose the strategic operations of stand-up and their harmful consequences for the performer’s mental health and emotional well-being. luckhurst examines the tensions and blurred boundaries between on and offstage self, public brand, and stage persona, and gadsby’s contention that they often result in destructive patterns of self-deprecation, self-objectification, and reinforced prejudice that are predicated on a mutually abusive relationship between performer and audience. viewed against the backdrop of a notoriously sexist comedy industry, gadsby’s breaching of stand-up protocols and her self-reflexive foregrounding of the making and unmaking of a comic persona are radically transgressive acts that render her unique in her professional risk-taking and virtuosity. luckhurst coins the concept of ‘meta-persona’ as a lens through which to analyse gadsby’s demolition of her own successful comic persona and her criticism of the formal and thematic conventions of stand-up in order to negotiate a more honest relationship with her audiences. ultimately, gadsby’s creative deconstruction goes hand in hand with the reinvention of a persona that is brutally honest, unapologetic, and uncompromising; a comic virtuoso who is in charge and refuses to make light of personal trauma for the gratification of her audiences and at the cost of her own mental health. far from ending her career, her reinvented persona turned her into a global sensation. even more importantly, her new persona has lived up to its full potential of protecting the performer, challenging and renewing stand-up as a form, educating her fanbase about the performance contract they are entering into, and altering audience perceptions of stand-up performance. in a pioneering essay, matt hargrave examines how comic persona in stand-up performance gives rise to new discourses of lived experience about mental health, specifically conditions such as bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety. basing his study on the analysis of live events and empirical research, hargrave argues that persona is key to mediating the relationship between the comedian, their material, and their audiences in what he refers to as a new “poetics of vulnerability”. his inquiry into the concept of persona and its affective function reveals five ways in which persona operates in the context of stand-up that addresses mental health issues: as a protective device that allows the performer to voice and share their vulnerabilities; as an ‘interruptive’ element that remodels an existing persona construct and enables the articulation of revelatory content; as a theatrical conceit, a form of ‘madding up’, that complicates the notion of authenticity by blurring the lines between art and illness; as an emotional distancing effect that disrupts the binary between normative and non-normative, between what is commonly labelled ‘sane’ and ‘mad’; and a way of expressing a sense of belonging in the social world. hargrave demonstrates how studying the relationship of stand-up and persona yields valuable insights for both the fields of persona studies and the expanding field of performance and mental health. it casts a spotlight on the subjective experience of marginalised and stigmatised identities and contributes towards a revaluation of vulnerability as an aesthetic and social resource; a strength rather than a weakness, as it invites care and complicity and subverts binaries and fixed identities in marked opposition to neoliberal ‘entrepreneurial subjectivity’. the final two contributions to this special issue investigate the value of applying the concept of persona to non-human actors: three-dimensional material objects and larger cultural concepts, such as the archiving of performance artefacts and the institution of a theatre company as well as the historical persona of a building and its national heritage narratives. luckhurst & mayer 6 emily collett’s article represents an important political intervention in both persona and theatre studies in considering the significance of material artefacts in the persona construction of the stage performer. it studies the materiality of the archived costume and the politically problematic narratives that can be generated by curators who may unwittingly embed a version of the performer’s persona with which the performer in question does not identify. collett focuses on indigenous australian actress deborah mailman’s costume of cordelia in bell shakespeare’s 1998 production of king lear, which is now housed in the australian performing arts collection in melbourne. collett raises poignant questions about to what extent the politically charged archival framing of material objects shapes the creation and production of persona, and how curatorial framings affect memorialisation processes. elaborating on and contextualising the political implications of mailman’s archived costume, she explores the complex power dynamics of persona construction that come into play when an archived item presents a narrative that departs from, complicates, or even subverts the performer’s current persona. mailman’s stage costume, in combination with whiteface make-up, worn by an indigenous actress in a shakespeare production for a white, mainstream australian stage, is difficult not to read as a dubious attempt at a supposedly transgressive act by a white male director. it reads as an oppressive colonisation of the female indigenous body that is at odds with mailman’s proactive cultivation of a public and professional persona that affirms her activist identity as a pioneering indigenous actress in a white-dominated film and theatre industry. the archive does not house more recent costumes and artefacts of mailman’s and yet she is nationally celebrated not for the shakespearean roles played at the beginning of her career but for her portrayal of strong, contemporary indigenous women on film and television. collett’s research thus enriches our understanding that a narrative for persona can be generated by an object. she also highlights the politics of archival collecting, cataloguing, and curatorial framing and how those politics produce cultural value and articulate individual and collective identities through a specific persona suggested by an archived object at a particular historical moment. the need for persona constructs to evolve and be continuously updated is also a central concern in kirsty sedgman’s case study of the bristol old vic, one of britain’s longest-running and most iconic theatres. sedgman develops a terminology that allows us to identify and analyse the concept of institutional persona in relation to theatre. drawing on marshall’s analytical category of varp – value, agency, reputation, and prestige – she argues in favour of comprehending the theatre institution as a ‘composite persona’ whose cultural value emerges from the interplay of building, organisation, and event, and the reputational capital that adheres to each of these components. this ‘composite persona’ crucially relies on the interconnected, dynamic agency of individual personae involved in theatre management, production, performance, and criticism, as well as the audiences who engage with the different layers of the theatre institution over time. as sedgman shows, legendary theatre institutions like the bristol old vic that occupy a prominent place in the cultural imaginary demonstrate the need to mobilise a compound of individual and organisational personae in order to historically reimagine and re-invent their branded identities through shifting social and cultural frameworks. for institutions, in much the same way as for individuals, performative persona creation is essential to the acquisition of social and economic capital. in the case of the bristol old vic, this is achieved by drawing on the theatre’s prestigious architectural heritage, acclaimed performance traditions, and history of celebrity performers, artistic directors, playwrights, directors, and designers, and imaginatively aggregating these factors with a newly consolidated reputation of outward-looking aesthetic innovation. this special issue offers numerous points of departure for theatre studies and persona studies to enter a productive dialogue, especially when it comes to re-interrogating the persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 7 complexities and politics of the subject’s agency in shaping their public personas and the ways in which this agency often jars with institutional frameworks, media appropriation, and audience perception. an in-depth exploration of persona-construction in theatre draws attention to an agency that is ‘situated’ (see moran 2000, p. 10), “that operates alongside and even within structural forces and constraints” (york 2013, p. 1339), and that is closely tied to the labour and artistic craft of the performer, which holds an enormous potential for transgression, deconstruction, resistance, and activism. the actor’s training and/or apprenticeship in the art of performance and their professionalised construction of different roles, guises and characters intimately informs practices of persona-construction both on and offstage and the vocabularies and theories of theatre studies together with those of persona studies offer a rich field for collaborative analysis. end notes i the plural ‘personas’ is the preferred usage according to the house style of the persona studies journal, but the alternative form ‘personae’ is often preferred by theatre scholars as it is true to the latin etymological roots of the term, derived from theatrical practice, and is more suggestive of the nuances and tensions between the concepts of character, role, and self. ii see, for instance, mayer 2018 on the posthumous cross-cultural appropriation of oscar wilde’s persona, which persistently underlies the production and reception of his dramatic oeuvre. works cited cantrell, t. & luckhurst, m. 2010, playing for real: actors on playing real people, palgrave, london. carlson, m. 2003, the haunted stage: the theatre as memory machine, university of michigan press, ann arbor. chaikin, j. 1991, the presence of the actor, theatre communications group, new york. colby, s. 2015, ‘staging nancy cunard: the question of persona in dramatizing her life and work’, persona studies vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 14-30. cook, p. 2012, nicole kidman, routledge, london. d’cruz, g. 2015, ‘i me mine: artistic self/artistic persona’, persona studies vol. 1, no. 1, https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/ps/article/view/456/445, retrieved 28 january 2020. dyer, r. 1979, stars, british film institute, london. dyer, r. 1986/2004, heavenly bodies: film stars and society, routledge, abingdon. giloi, e., & berenson, e., eds., 2010, constructing charisma: celebrity, fame, and power in nineteenth-century europe, berghahn, new york. gledhill, c., ed. 1991, stardom: industry of desire, routledge, london. goodall, j. 2008, stage presence, routledge, abingdon. luckhurst, m. & morin, e., eds. 2015, things unspeakable: theatre and human rights after 1945, palgrave, london. luckhurst, m. 2019, ‘nicole kidman: transformation and the business of acting’, australasian drama studies, no. 75, pp.72-100. luckhurst, m. 2020, ‘great british dames: mature actresses and their negotiation of celebrity in the 21st century’, in j. sewell & c. smout (eds), the palgrave handbook of the history of women on stage, palgrave, london, pp. 250-272. marcus, s. 2019, the drama of celebrity, princeton university press, princeton & oxford. marshall, p. d. & barbour, k. 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and shifted perspective’, persona studies vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-12. marshall, p. d., moore, c. & barbour, k. 2015, ‘persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies’, celebrity studies vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 288-305. https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/ps/article/view/456/445 luckhurst & mayer 8 marshall, p.d., moore, c. & barbour, k. 2020. persona studies: an introduction, wiley blackwell, oxford. mayer, s. 2018, oscar wilde in vienna, brill rodopi, amsterdam. moran, j. 2000, star authors: literary celebrity in america, pluto press, london. piper, m. 2015, ‘louie, louis: the fictional, stage, and auteur personas of louis c.k. in “louie”’, persona studies vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 13-24. power, c. 2008, presence in play: a critique of theories of presence in the theatre, rodopi, amsterdam. redgrave, m. 1958, mask or face? reflections in an actor’s mirror, heinemann, london. roach, j. 2007, it, university of michigan press, ann arbor. shalson, l. 2017, theatre and protest, palgrave, london. shingler, m. 2012, star studies: a critical guide, bloomsbury, london. york, l. 2013, ‘star turn: the challenges of theorizing celebrity agency’, the journal of popular culture, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. 1330-1347. goff 60 the hyphenated persona: aidan quinn’s irish-american performances lor etta goff abstract this article examines the hyphenated irish-american identity performed by actor aidan quinn across a number of his media appearances. hyphenated identities are frequently used in our increasingly globalised, migratory world to consolidate two or more national identifications into a singular, new identity. however, the performances of such identities are often complicated by shifting levels of identification, in line with the concept of identity salience, which result in multiple, protean identity performances—from either side of the hyphen—drawn upon as needed. “celebrity identities” as a construct forms an ideal category for a broader exploration of hyphenated identity performance, as their highly visible public identities most overtly demonstrate the continuous processes of (economically influenced) construction, performance and negotiation that comprise all identity formation. aidan quinn, who holds dual united states and irish citizenship, has spent significant time living in each country, is vocal about his connection to both and is often framed accordingly in the media, makes an ideal case study for examining the nuances of irish-american identity performance which are magnified as a result his stardom. by looking at how the actor frames (and is framed regarding) his national connections, i interrogate the intricacies of how his experiences in each country are combined in some instances and separated in others, and ultimately argue that the two sides of his hyphenated irish-american persona are largely kept separate, resulting in multiple identity performances rather than forming a cohesive, singular performance. key words film studies, star studies, cultural studies the hyphen, though it may only be a symbol, can be utilised as a relative ‘stabiliser’ for, and of, hybrid identities because of its simultaneous capacity to connect and divide two designations of nationality. as such, it creates a single category, or label, and attempts to assist in the definition of a new identity from a combination of two or more. any identity can be said to develop from a diverse background, but hyphenated identities are specifically demarcated to acknowledge the mixing of (at least) two categories. however, when it comes to performances of these mixed identities, levels of identification with each national categorisation tend to shift according to context. this results in a multiplicity of separate identity performances that are continuously renegotiated, complicating the notion of a singular, cohesive hyphenated persona. the multiplicity of these performances can appear all the more visibly common within the system of stardom in america—as a country particularly full of hyphenated identities— when either foreign-born stars relocate to the us for their careers or american stars draw upon and highlight their heritage(s), often in relation to particular roles. while many stars do present persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 61 themselves as solely american (with even foreign-born stars sometimes choosing to leave behind their ‘otherness’ in performances for the american audiences that consume them) and audiences may not always focus on, or be aware of, stars’ bicultural identifications, hyphenation does appear frequently in stars’ biographies and in what richard dyer would call the ‘star texts’i of some celebrities. it is therefore useful to see when, in particular, this is performed as a part of their persona within this capital-driven system. the motivation for stars to highlight hyphenated national aspects of their persona is often economic in nature. various identities are performed in relation to the promotion of both particular projects and the celebrities themselves as a way of connecting with audiences and ‘authenticating’ their work. equally, the topic of immigration and the ‘american dream’ are frequently tied together in a number of success narratives regarding having ‘made it’ in hollywood. bearing this in mind, hyphenation will be mobilised as a focal point in this article for the examination of actor aidan quinn’s performed irish-american identity as it manifestly illustrates the choice to retain more than one national identity and reveals multiple, protean identity performances—from either side of the hyphen—drawn upon as needed by the public, the on-screen performer quinn, and those marketing his persona. as such, quinn’s hyphenated persona demonstrates the mediation and societal influences that are at the core of the construction of the star and celebrity identity, and thus exposes key aspects of the ontological status of all identity negotiation behind the public performances. before examining quinn’s hyphenated persona in greater detail, however, the nuances of constructing and performing hyphenated identity more generally and the influences of, and on, celebrity identity performance (i.e. why particular personas are chosen) must be considered. hyphenated nationality and identity performance according to stuart hall, identification is “a process of articulation” that entails “the binding and marking of symbolic boundaries” and “requires what is left outside, its constitutive outside, to consolidate the process” (1996, p. 3). in this sense, the resulting identity from this process becomes defined against, and ultimately requires, an other. taking this to the level of national identity means that part of a particular nation’s identity becomes defined by how it sets itself up as differing from other nations geographically, ethnically, culturally (including historically), constitutionally, politically, linguistically and even conceptually. the importance of differentiation—clear boundaries—is made apparent in representations of nationality from individual identity performance to collective expressions of culture such as national cinemas: “nationhood, as with all other forms of identity, revolves around the question of difference, with how the uniqueness of one nation differs from the uniqueness of other comparable nations” (dissanayake 2009, p. 878). therefore, when the term ‘hyphenated identity’ comes into the mix, the already complicated process of identification (and identity formation) becomes even more problematic, despite the fact that the hyphen is discursively used as one stabiliser to resolve protean instability and flexibility ‘problems’ of identity. hyphenated national identities are normally brought about by regional and spatial connections made as a result of migration. with the ever-increasing globalisation of the world, lines of national and cultural identity continue to blur. hall argues that: the more social life becomes mediated by the global marketing of styles, places and images, by international travel, and by globally networked media images and communication systems, the more identities become detached— disembedded—from specific times, places, histories, and traditions, and appear “free-floating”. (1992, p. 303) this argument suggests a loss of cultural specificity as these identities merge, shaping a new hybridity, but such a loss need not always be the case and, in fact, national affiliation continues goff 62 to be important for many. often, attachments remain to one nationality even as it is blended with another, creating new performances of national identity. as we will see in the subsequent discussion of aidan quinn, he has connections to both ireland and america, and performs these across various media but remains culturally associated with his hyphenated irish-american identity, actively mobilising it as required in different circumstances. what exactly it means to perform a hyphenated identity can vary from visibly ‘wearing’ or displaying (mixed) national affiliations through aesthetic choices (including flags, traditional clothing and symbols) to acting according to (multi-)national stereotypes and tropes (from religion to patterns of behavior) or active participation in cultural activities or organisations (such as making or consuming ethnic foods and drinks or involvement in culturally specific arts). equally, language is key to the performance of hyphenated identity; many hyphenated individuals may speak with an accent, be multilingual or use hybridised languages, but, importantly, many americans who only speak (american) english sometimes more directly invoke hyphenation by vocally ‘claiming’ their chosen identity performances—describing themselves according to their hyphenated identity label and discussing their cultural and national affiliations in what is, perhaps, the most frequent, and most overt, enactment of a hyphenated persona. ultimately, however, performances of hyphenated identity are often fragmented because of the oppositions and differences between markers of separate nationalities that make it difficult to perform them simultaneously, thus opening a plethora of protean identity choices that create new performances. the multiplicity of identity choices that we meet today has created an environment wherein identity has increasingly become a “freely chosen game, a theatrical presentation of the self” (baumann 1996, p. 18), a notion highlighted by the performances of celebrity identity. these choices are particularly visible in the case of hyphenated identities wherein individuals may decide to either perform their identity as hyphenated or enhance the performance of one side of their identity over the other depending upon the situational context—thus revealing the flexibility of the hyphen. as such, the construction of hyphenated identity is a dynamic process with continually shifting levels of bicultural identification. the shifts in performance of these identities go hand in hand with the concept of ‘identity salience’ wherein individuals choose to enact one identity over another due to “the person's perception of the importance or significance of the identity relative to other identities” (hogg, terry & white 1995, p. 257). examining celebrity identity is particularly useful for revealing these identity choices and the influences upon them; their identity performances across the media reflect our own to a manifestly observable degree and clearly demonstrate the influence of economics on the performance of identity, given that their public personas are usually specifically constructed to be ‘sold’ to, and consumed by, their audiences. hyphenated celebrity identity: value and influence just as the hyphen can be used to mark identity construction concretely, functioning as an objective correlative for its ongoing processes of negotiation, so too do the performances carried out by celebrities provide a highly visible, overt, and useful example of the same. if we consider that individual identity formation occurs in the overlap between identity choice and performance, an additional motivating factor in this construction becomes clear through celebrity identity formation: economics. as such, celebrity identities are able to more overtly reveal the underlying importance of ‘capital’ in the definition of identities (more broadly speaking) as exchange commodities. the system of stardom has always linked those who achieve star status (and thus their various performances) directly with economic incentive, not only through their own financial success but because their image is specifically constructed for profit. as richard dyer notes, star images “are products of hollywood” and as such can be “seen in terms of their function in the economy of hollywood, including, crucially, their role in the manipulation of hollywood’s market, the audience” (1979, p. 10). the primary economic benefit to performing as a hyphenated star, then, is in fact the flexibility of the hyphen that allows the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 63 star to appeal to national audiences on either side of it as well as a hyphenated audience when the context suits, thus expanding their potential target market, audience and fandom (at least in terms of nationality). equally, the sense of romantic nostalgia that becomes a part of certain hyphenated identities, such as irish-american, can also resonate with non-irish, non-american audiences, thus further expanding the target audience beyond specific national publics. the potential for audience expansion afforded by the hyphen accounts for the fact that many stars who do not primarily maintain a hyphenated persona, draw upon one (often by creating a new performance of national identity or affiliation) in order to reach a particular audience (and the money that audience ultimately brings). despite the clear economic undercurrent that shapes the publicly performed identities of celebrities, social value can also be attributed to their various performances. star studies scholar, martin shingler notes that, in the seminal work of edgar morin, the overlap between stars’ personalities and their characters, and thus the visible fabrication of this personality to a degree—similarly found in the “movement between the self and the social” that is the focus of persona studies (marshall 2014, p.162)—is the ultimate value of stars: “the fact that they tell us something about identity formation more generally but also the fact that they play a key role in helping us to form our own identities” (shingler 2012, p. 123) through the visibility and influence of their own performance choices. similarly, it is stars’ “typicality or representativeness” that richard dyer sees as important as “stars relate to the social types of a society” (1979, p. 47). in fact, this may be because stars specifically utilise these types to develop personas that their audiences will find relatable and consume more of. this means that, while regarded as idols, stars offer to their audiences “patterns of culture [that] give shape to the total human process that has produced them” (morin 1960, p. 147). in this way, stars simultaneously reflect and influence the culture of which they, themselves, are also a product, adapting their performances of identity as required. as with the protean nature of identity, itself, the projection of such through a star’s image does not remain static: “once manufactured and distributed widely, they continue to evolve, their images rarely remaining stable or consistent” (shingler 2012, p. 174). for judith mayne, it is this “constant reinvention, the dissolution of contraries, the embrace of wildly opposing terms” that is the “appeal of stardom” (1993, p. 138). considering the continuous reinvention of their image, stars are likely to perform certain identities that are in contradiction with others (whether for a role or in a personal capacity) over the course of their careers, weaving these together in their overall ‘star text’—a combination of oppositions similar to what may be found in hyphenated personas. while the multiplicity of stars’ performances can occur over time, they also perform various identities simultaneously, working with what barry king calls a “wardrobe of identities” (2003, p. 49). the amount of (identity) performances that a star undertakes means that “inconsistency, change and fluctuation are characteristic of star images, as if the ‘real’ person constituted by star publicity is as open to a change of definition as the actor’s roles themselves” (mayne 1993, p. 128). by nature of their profession, actors continuously perform a variety of identities seamlessly (in both films and publicity). therefore, while they may choose a singular coherent persona by which they define their ‘real’ selves in the media, this is equally subject to seamless shifts in performance and reception. while all stars may perform multiple identities across their film and promotional appearances, often categorised by and drawing from social ‘types’, this multiplicity is even clearer, and more visible, in transnational stars. these stars oscillate “between stereotypical notions of national or ethnic identities, on the one hand, and more universal subjectivities that ignore the specifications of nationality, regionality, class or ethnicity, on the other” (shingler 2012, p. 179). particularly as transnational celebrities cross geographical boundaries, “their cultural identities either become exaggerated or obscured [in public performance], being utilised in some instances rather than others” (shingler 2012, p. 179). thus, these stars become symbols of hybridity, and very clearly and tangibly demonstrate the protean nature of celebrity goff 64 identity performance, and identity performance more broadly. celebrities that can claim hyphenated identity, in particular, are useful to look at in terms of how (and when) they perform various national identities separately or simultaneously. just as hyphenated individuals, stars choose to a varying degree the level of identification they have with their country of birth, their ancestry and any country they may relocate to, exhibiting this through their various identity performances. we see this balancing of multiple national identities, along with the usefulness of enacting particular national affiliations in certain situations (as discussed regarding economic incentive), in performances of irish-american identity within the american star system. framing the irish-american celebrity irish-american identity, itself, has been characterised and performed in a variety of ways across time periods and communities. although irish emigration to the united states predates famine-era ireland, by the 1830’s the large amount of famine emigrants that had arrived in america meant that early irish-americans—largely centred in urban areas—became defined by associations with poverty, violence, alcohol, and crime (blessing 1985). faced with nativist stereotype and situated amongst the poorest social groups in america at the time—along with african-americans and native americans (kenny 2000)—the early irish in america were characterised by what peter quinn labels the ‘paddy’ stereotype: “a hairy, beetle-browed alien, with a ‘wild and savage aspect’” (2006, p. 676). the stereotypes defining early irish-americans were enacted by the first staged vaudeville performances of irish characters in america. the irish were usually portrayed as “bellicose yet fun-loving, drunken yet brave, rowdy yet patriotic,”, dressed in working immigrant’s clothing and often used in slapstick comedy, beating one another with shillelaghs (snyder 2006, p. 407) as they were also seen as “highly temperamental and always ready to fight” (quinn 2006, p. 667). however, the stage portrayal of the personality traits assigned to the irish was usually seen as good fun and “the stereotype became so ingrained in popular attitudes and perceptions that it passed from being regarded as a theatrical parody to a predetermination of group behaviour” (quinn 2006, p. 667). essentially, these stereotyped performances became markers for irish-american identity, shaping individual performances of it. although the popularity of vaudeville eventually segued into film by the 1910s, and vaudeville itself was virtually dead by the 1930s (snyder 2006), stereotyped portrayals of the irish in america carried over to film and continued to influence performances of irish-american identity. by the 1920’s the irish had found their footing in america, building their own urban communities, and their status rose. with this, the stereotype changed to the ‘jimmy’ type: “slick, smooth, an evolutionary adaptation to the american scene who not only looked and acted like he belonged, but at some level seemed to incarnate what urban life was all about” (quinn, 2006, p. 676). significantly, it is hinted here that the performance of belonging—the choice to enact a confident immigrant identity that had carved out its own place in america—is linked with actual belonging. as such, particular performances of irish-american identity could be used to raise socio-economic status. in fact, irish-american women often worked towards upward social mobility for their families so that “irish mothers pushed their children to americanize, but not at the expense of their catholic religion or by wholly abandoning their irishness” (lynch-brennan 2006, p. 346). many of these women worked as domestic servants, learned social codes of upper and middle-class america from their employers and ensured their children were educated (lynch-brennan 2006), thus incorporating these social codes in their own identity performance. these individual identity performances also had a symbiotic relationship with constructed performances of irish-american identity; irish women’s aspirations of upward mobility became an emergent pattern in popular culture where “women [were] almost always depicted as socially and economically ambitious [...]” (meagher 2006, p. 623). while, of course, a number of factors contributed to the socio-economic rise of the irish in america—including their participation in politics, organised religion, labour unions and world persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 65 war ii—it is evident through these ‘types’ of irish-americans that emerged in popular culture that particular choices of identity performance were also central to this rise, which saw a “steady climb up the occupational ladder in the second half of the twentieth century” for the irish (kenny 2000, p. 227). by this period, irish immigration to america had slowed, resulting in a growing number of second, third and fourth generation irish-americans whose only contact with ireland may have been through visits (made easier by transatlantic flights from the 1940s). the ‘typical’ irish-american now being of a later generation and the spread of irish-america to the suburbs meant that there was “significant diffusion and erosion of irish-american ethnicity in the second half of the twentieth century” (kenny 2000, p. 228). as such, these irish-americans either “had to work harder to be irish” (dowling almeida 2006, p. 548)—actively performing this as a hyphenated irish-american persona, perhaps visibly marked by celtic tattoos, apparel and the like—or began to blend in, performing a fully assimilated american identity. thus, when a new influx of immigrants came to america during the 1980s as financial hardship again hit ireland, it introduced another component to irish-america. these ‘new irish’ immigrants came from a contemporary ireland that had experienced economic prosperity and social progress, had the benefit of being exposed to international pop culture through their televisions and “carried with them the culture, style, and tradition of modern ireland [...], an ireland that the traditional irish american did not recognize” (dowling almeida 2006, pp. 562–563). perhaps most importantly, “they did not come seeking to become irish american, and in many cases they were critical of american foreign policy, culture, and lifestyle” (dowling almeida 2006, p. 563). in this sense, they often actively perform identities in opposition to ‘traditional’ irish-americans, or americans more broadly, in order to mark themselves as different—primarily through their understanding of the culture of modern ireland (although the retention of their irish accents also mark their identity performances as ‘different’). contemporary irish-america is thus a diverse group, mixed in a number of ways, but generally falling into the contrasting categories of these ‘new irish’, retaining a predominantly irish identity in america, and the traditional irish-americans, now a number of generations in, who “have been softened by sepia tint of nostalgia and selective memory” (quinn 2006, p. 678). these broadly defined different ‘types’ of irish-americans, along with various influences on the identity and performances of such, can be seen in the assorted irish-american connections invoked by celebrities. celebrity connections to both ireland and the united states are employed to varying degrees across different contexts—from social to economicii. broadly speaking, there are three main types of irish-american identity contemporarily performed by celebrities, largely determined by how closely connected they are—or appear to be—to each country. the first type includes those who largely perform as american, but, in certain contexts, speak of their (usually distant) connection to ireland or participate in cultural activities in order to enact this affiliation as a part of their persona for that context. an example of this is actor matthew mcconaughey, who expressed (to the irish media in 2016) pride in his irish heritage and a desire for his children to learn irish, even going as far as labelling them ‘brazilian irish’ (their mother is brazilian). the texas-born, thoroughly american, mcconaughey went on to relate how his time spent living in dublin while filming in 2001 felt like “coming home”, and that he wants his kids to keep a strong link with the country, notably by performing a kind of irishness: “i gotta keep up the gaelic. i want them reading the literature, i want riverdancing, i want them saying, ‘grand’ and ‘lunatic to the marvellous’” (‘mcconaughey wants to send his kids to the gaeltacht’ 2016). these statements, constructed for the media, have a specific purpose. for instance, mcconaughey has scottish, irish, english, german and swedish heritage, but has only elaborated on the irish part of this for his irish interviews. it is equally possible that this claim is made because it is what he most identifies with, or as a way of gaining favour in ireland or amongst irish-american audiences while promoting his films. as shingler has noted: goff 66 stars are not only made sense of in terms of cultural significance but are constructed in this way, so that some aspects of a star's image and films are privileged over others in order to make a star seem more representative of social groups or historical contexts. (2012, p. 150) it is therefore useful to note exactly when (and where) celebrities choose to invoke these connections, enacting particular identities as needed and when they are most valuable commercially, politically, socially, and even romantically. the second type is perhaps most commonly associated with an irish-american persona and includes american stars—such as edward burns, conan o’brien and jimmy fallon—who are of irish descent and were raised in proclaimed irish-american families (hyphenated through ancestry). stars in this group often assert a strong affinity for ireland as part of their public personas, frequently speaking of their irishness as a primary method of ensuring its inclusion in their persona, despite being life-long americans. additionally, they often incorporate performances of their hyphenation into their work: fallon sometimes includes irish gags on his talk show such as putting on an accent, o’brien traced his irish ancestry for tv, and burns’ first foray into writing, directing and acting, the brothers mcmullen (1995), depicted irish-american life. however, irishness for this group can only fully be conceived in terms of their americanness, rather than separated from it, because, for them, ireland and irishness are seen directly through the (often nostalgic, or ‘frozen in time’) lens of america, despite visits to ireland. this is reflected in their altered (nostalgic and/or often gimmicky or consumerist) performances of irishness, which, while in line with contemporary conceptions of irish-america, are out of touch with contemporary ireland. finally, the third type consists of stars that have direct connections to and extended experience in both countries. these include, amongst others: mel gibson, whose mother is from ireland; saoirse ronan, who was born in the us to irish parents and moved to ireland at the age of three; and jason o’mara, the irish actor who relocated to america. each of these stars holds dual united states and irish citizenship, hyphenating them in the legal (documented) sense of identity and, while they discuss and perform their connections to each country in different ways, they usually choose a primary national identification (american for gibson and irish for ronan and o’mara) for their persona (developed largely through promotional appearances), again enacting the other side of their identity as needed in particular contexts. this type is thus similar to the first, with hyphenation as a secondary aspect of persona, employed as needed and hidden when not. however, their hyphenation is authenticated not only legally but through performances that reflect their direct, contemporary experience of both countries—often more in line with those of the ‘new irish’ but in a way that is not in opposition to america so as not to alienate audiences. for the purpose of this article, however, my main focus lies in the irish-american performances of actor aidan quinn. quinn, who also holds dual citizenship and has spent significant time living in both ireland and america, is often vocal about his connection to both countries in public displays of his identity, and is framed accordingly in the media. while quinn is not of the traditionally conceived irish-american working class background, his family position and his parents’ emphasis on education allowed him to travel and live for extended periods between ireland and america during his formative years, developing a flexibility in his performances of identity. as such, he performs a highly active contemporary irish-american identity—somewhere between the ‘traditional’ irish-american (whose performances work well in america but not necessarily ireland) and the ‘new irish’ in america (who largely choose to perform as solely irish). quinn maintains reasonably current connections with and perspectives on both countries, allowing him to easily transition between, and be accepted in, the two as his (national) identity performances have been frequently renegotiated in terms of each. in fact, quinn has even linked his becoming an actor to his experience moving back and forth between persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 67 countries, adapting to each “and having to change your voice because you want to fit in. as a kid you do that automatically within weeks because your heart, your ear, and your mind are more tuned to adaptability” (balfour 2008). it is because of his considerable lived experience in each country, particularly throughout his childhood and teen years that quinn does not seem to work as hard as many other celebrities to defend or define his hyphenated persona (or to perform with realistic irish and american accents); instead, his status as ‘irish-american’ can often be taken as read, making the moments that his connections to the countries are invoked particularly interesting. equally, the fact that he is able to give voice to a more ‘traditional’ irishamerican experience (as we will see in his work) at the same time as performing a newer, more active, irish-american identity makes quinn an ideal case study for examining the nuances of contemporary irish-american identity performance, magnified by his stardom. in what follows i will interrogate how quinn’s experiences in each country are enacted and discussed, and ultimately argue that the two sides of his hyphenated irish-american persona are largely kept separate, resulting in multiple identity performances rather than forming a cohesive, singular performance. aidan quinn as irish-american celebrity aidan quinn was born in chicago, illinois, to irish parents. his father, who was a literature professor in chicago, instilled irish culture in his children from a young age, sharing his love of irish literature and sending them to live with relatives in ireland for an irish education, which he viewed as important (egan 2008). therefore, quinn and his siblings spent time living in both the united states and ireland during their childhood. quinn’s connection to both countries, solidified with his dual irish and american citizenship, is reflected in his mediated persona. a quick online search for quinn results in a number of sites with short biographies of the actor that discuss his national connections. the wikipedia page for him does not list his citizenship or nationality but calls him ‘irish-american’ and notes that he was raised between chicago and ireland (dublin and birr, co. offaly). biography.com similarly does not list his citizenship or nationality, nor does it label him according to these. however, it does list his birthplace as chicago and refer to his ‘irish heritage’, noting that he was raised by devoutly catholic parents between ireland and the united states. rotten tomatoes again highlights these points, stating that his birthplace is chicago, his parents are from ireland, and he spent much of his youth in that country. the topic of quinn’s nationality also arises in various news articles about the actor, influenced by his performance of such either on-screen or in interviews. while the articles that choose to label quinn most frequently do so as “irish-american” (hamill 1999; kennedy 2016; mcgoldrick 2008), he has also been labelled as solely “irish” (drew 2010). quinn’s acting career and on-screen star image, reveal clear links to this irish-american identity, sometimes separated into irish and american. quinn, who has been credited with 85 roles as an actor, got his start in theatre—working in both chicago and dublin, as well as appearing on broadway. his first film role was as a rebellious football player in the american film reckless (1984) and he has since starred in a number of other united states-based productions, perhaps most notably alongside brad pitt and anthony hopkins in legends of the fall (1994) and as captain gregson in the us television series elementary (2012–2017). however, he has also been involved in a number of irish films (or irish american coproductions), including the playboys (1992), michael collins (1996), evelyn (2002), song for a raggy boy (2003), 32a (2007) (written and directed by his sister marian quinn), the eclipse (2009), and a shine of rainbows (2009), and narrated the documentaries the irish in america (1995) and irish chicago (2009). his work on all of these projects clearly displays his connection to ireland, as well as its diaspora in america, but the film that best publicises this is this is my father (1998), which tells the story of an irish-american teacher based in chicago who takes a trip to ireland to reconnect with his roots and discover the truth about his biological father. the film was a quinn family enterprise: brother, paul quinn, wrote the script (based on a story told by their mother of her past in ireland) and directed the film, declan quinn did the goff 68 cinematography and aidan quinn was a central actor—playing the irish father of the protagonist (seen in flashbacks). this film, which is also the focus of some of quinn’s interviews to be discussed subsequently, displays both his familial connection to ireland and a broader desire to explore and give voice to the irish-american identity explored in the film’s narrative. while there are plenty of interviews of, and articles on, aidan quinn that do not focus particularly on his irish, irish-american or american identity, a number of them do. i will reference a collection of these here in order to illustrate how quinn deliberately frames his hyphenated national identity as part of his promotional star image by speaking about it. in three articles from around the time this is my father was released, quinn discusses the film and his own connections to its themes. ireland, quinn’s ties to it and its representation in the film are discussed in similar ways throughout the two us publications—the san francisco chronicle (stein 1999) and the new york daily news (hamill 1999)—and the irish publication, hot press (dillon 1998). however, the irish article does pay closer attention to stereotypes that arise in the film (which was the closing film of the galway film fleadh in 1998, at the time it was written), ultimately concluding that “although [the film] contains every cliché in the stage irish canon, it somehow transcends them” (dillon 1998). commenting on the pitfalls (such as stereotypification) of doing a period piece in ireland, quinn acknowledges his family’s experience in the country as directly contributing to the success of the film: we were very conscious of it but i don’t think we would have got stephen rea, brendan gleeson, colm meaney or any of the other irish actors to do it if there had been any element of paddywhackery going on. i think that was a tribute to the script, and to the fact that we had spent a lot of time here. it’s very different than for irish-americans who have never spent time in ireland; they don’t know how things are or how things work. i think you have to live in a place, in a way (dillon 1998). quinn is, of course, promoting his film here and using his background to do so, ‘authenticating’ both the film and his own performances of irish-american identity, by locating himself (with lived experience) in ireland as well as america. quinn also makes an important point about the diversity of the group categorised (and often self-categorised) as irish-american in this statement, especially regarding their (first-hand) knowledge of ireland. in doing this, he sets himself apart from what could be considered the ‘average’ irish-american as a result of his time living in ireland, perhaps trying to raise his esteem or credibility with irish audiences. quinn further ‘authenticates’ his performance of irishness in a subtle way through his description of gaining weight for this is my father: “paul had me gain about two stone and i haven’t lost it since” (dillon 1998). by referring to his weight in stones rather than pounds, quinn uses the irish unit of measurement rather than the american. interestingly, he goes on to conflate the terms saying, “i’ve only lost about five pounds of it”, and then, “now i have to lose about a stone”. while quinn demonstrates an awareness of both cultures here, the fact that he cannot stick to one country’s terminology enacts and performs a hyphenated persona—blurring the lines between cultures, unable to fully remain in one. at the same time, while quinn goes on to compliment ireland by stating that he’d “make a film here every year if [he] could” (dillon 1998), his statement implies that he cannot actually do this, most likely as a result of establishing his adult life and family in america. in this sense, despite harking back to the significant amount of time he spent living in ireland, invoking this as part of his persona, and hinting at his willingness (and even desire) to do so again, quinn has chosen one side of his hyphenated identity to predominantly (though not fully) remain in—america. while it is natural for quinn to praise ireland and his own connections to it while interviewing in that country, he also does this in his american interviews. he again highlights his time spent living in the country: “i spent four or five years on and off in ireland when i was persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 69 young, so i feel a very strong connection” (stein 1999). he also frames his youth in ireland in a more positive light than that in america: “i sowed more wild oats that year in ireland [at age 13] than i did in the ensuing five years back in the states. it was a wild year because it was the year i gained some confidence in myself” (stein 1999). comparatively, in america he claims he was considered an outsider because of his immigrant parents: “i was never part of the popular clique. i was always a weirdo. i just kind of embraced that” (stein 1999). his ‘outsider’ status in the us, linked here to his irish parents and, likely, his time spent abroad, speaks to a certain liminal quality of some hyphenated identities, not fully belonging in either side of the hyphen as long as the other side remains, instead caught somewhere in between. one way of combating this, as quinn does here, is choosing to belong in one place over the other at any given time, illustrating the flexibility of the hyphen. in this instance, quinn ‘embraced’, and publicly displayed his status as outsider during his school years in america. as an adult, however, quinn no longer appears to be an outsider in the united states, having chosen it as the location in which to base his life. still, he remains drawn to his irish side and even dreams of owning a home in ireland as well as new york, but notes that his italian-american wife (actress elizabeth bracco) does not have the same connection or desire as him (stein 1999). quinn’s home ownership in only one country ultimately marks a tangible example of how the two sides of his hyphenated identity are necessarily separated and given unequal weighting; quinn’s home in america bases his identity there and naturally tips the balance towards his american side, making his performances of irishness necessarily more overtly stated when enacted. just as quinn shifts between ireland and america, so too does his stardom. he acknowledges that he is a bigger star in ireland than in america, but that he doesn’t get the ‘star treatment’ when he visits: “they treat me better, and they are in awe of me a little. but the thing about the irish is, they never get in awe of anybody a lot. that would be totally against the irish character” (stein 1999). this statement is particularly interesting in that it attributes quinn with insider knowledge of the ‘irish character’ while at the same time separating him from the irish; his modified status as irish-american is reflected through his use of ‘they’ in reference to the national category rather than ‘we’, which would include himself in their designation. a similar knowledge of ireland, but differentiation of the irish-american, is expressed in quinn’s other us interview, this time regarding the film industry: for a long, long time, ireland exiled its best creative artists […]. now, the creative climate has changed. there has been an explosion of great film making coming out of ireland in the last 10 or 15 years. the prying-off of the cement lid of oppression in ireland has exposed the sexual abuse, the catholic church’s domination, the repression of sexuality, the repression of freedom. with that new freedom of spirit plus a roaring economy dubbed the celtic tiger film making in ireland is flourishing. but the irish-american experience is still untapped […]. i don’t know why that is. but some of us are starting to make those irish-american movies, stories that need to be told (hamill 1999). the purpose of this interview was for quinn to promote the first annual irish international film festival in new york, of which quinn was a board member and where this is my father made its new york debut, so it is natural for him to praise irish film and highlight the irish-american experience, connecting american audiences and the irish-american population to both the festival and his film. however, with this statement he also marks himself out as a proponent of the irish-american experience (both traditional and evolving)—giving voice to it by telling the stories that ‘need to be told’. at the same time, he puts his own irish-american identity on display through a demonstration of his connection to irish arts and culture, and his desire to bring them to american audiences with festivals such as this one. by doing this he further stimulates both a deeper cultural understanding of ireland and a feeling of connection or attachment to the country for irish-american, or even just american, audiences, perhaps inspiring new irish-american performances (through both the films and his own stardom) for these audiences. goff 70 although not in relation to this is my father, additional interviews where quinn reflects on ireland and irish-america are generally linked with his numerous irish films or his career as a whole. in an interview for the chicago tribune, he finds a way to connect ireland and america: i think there’s a down-to-earthness with midwesterners [in the us] and with people from the midlands—which is where my family is from—in ireland. it taught me very early not to take the highs too seriously and not to be brought down too much by the lows either and to take things with a sense of humor. (drew 2010) while quinn draws a connection here through the general character of each location’s population, he equally creates clear separations between the two countries in other interviews. one such example is when he reveals that his parents still haven’t decided if they want to be buried in ireland or america, but that he has already chosen a graveyard near his home in upstate new york for himself (egan 2008). while his hyphenated irish-american persona may allow for performed existence between places, the choice between one side and the other ultimately needs to be made. as with home ownership, one’s final resting place offers another tangible example of the division between the two sides of a hyphenated identity and their unequal balance. while the decisions that enforce a separation of the hyphenated sides are often geographical in nature, they ultimately alter the construction and performance of each side of the identity, further separating them beyond geographical boundaries—a fact revealed throughout other quinn comments. for instance, he notes in the same interview (where the irish interviewer goes as far as to link quinn with ireland and its countryside by describing his style of eating as that of a ‘bog man’) that “when he thinks of the things he did in the few years he lived as a teenager in ireland they are stronger in his imagination now than they were then” (egan 2008). this perfectly captures the crystallisation of his irish life in memory and the sense of nostalgia (also experienced by many irish abroad) with which he views this past, while at the same time connoting the nostalgic way ireland is often framed by irish-americans. although quinn has returned to the country often since his youth, visiting and filming there a number of times, the fact that his life is now primarily based in america prevents him from staying fully up-to-date with his knowledge of ireland. quinn reinforces this in another interview when he reveals during a discussion of irish politics that he is not as familiar with them as he used to be because the majority of his time is spent in america now (kennedy 2016). interestingly, in this same article, hypothesising on what michael collins’ opinion would be regarding current irish politics, quinn says: “a part of him would be proud and part of him would be dismayed and pissed off, like the rest of us” (kennedy 2016). presumably, the ‘us’ here refers to the irish, as they would be most familiar with irish politics, and, unlike in the other interview where he excludes himself with the use of ‘they’, quinn includes himself here with ‘us’. once again, quinn puts on display the simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of irish-american identity in the national context, as well as the flexibility of the hyphen. as quinn performs his identity in terms of national affiliation, both including and excluding himself across different contexts, it is important to consider how his fans in both ireland and america perceive this in order to consider the success of his hyphenated persona. while space does not allow for an extensive examination of quinn’s audience here, the following examples broadly demonstrate, and allow us to infer, several ways in which attention is (or isn’t) paid to quinn’s nationality across audience contexts. quinn is linked with ireland through his eating habits by the irish interviewer mentioned above, but is more explicitly attributed with irishness, yet still ‘othered’, by another irish journalist interviewing him for an irish publication and audience: having starred in such seminal irish films as michael collins and evelyn, as well as hollywood hits like legends of the fall and practical magic, it's no wonder we want to claim this emmy award-winning irish-american as persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 71 entirely our own. having moved around between dublin, birr and chicago as a youngster, aidan quinn now does a pretty good job at fooling even ourselves or perhaps that's more of a testament to his skill as an actor. (mulligan 2008) mulligan, while expressing a desire to ‘claim’ quinn as solely irish and noting his realistic performances as such, also acknowledges that he is not and refers to these performances as ‘fooling’ irish locals. in this sense he is placed in a unique category, able to pass as irish, but removed from being considered as completely ‘authentically’ irish because of the american side of his identity. quinn is placed in a similarly unique category by irish audiences commenting on the actor on the irish online forum boards.ie. for example, in a thread titled ‘most convincing non irish actor in an irish role’, an individual asked for examples of such, but made this distinction: now it can be a bit tricky defining who is and isin't [sic] irish in the case of someone like aidan quinn who was born in the states but spent a considerable amount of their childhood in ireland. so for arguments sake lets [sic] say someone who did not grow up in the old sod. (darkdubh 2015) once again, quinn is included in the category of being irish (without argument from any of the users that respond to the thread), but an explanation is needed for this, highlighting the fact that he is not completely irish. therefore, quinn is placed in his own category—occupied by few— distinguished from traditional conceptions of the irish-american because of his time spent living in ireland and his ability to authentically pass as irish in off and on-screen performances, but equally not quite the traditional conception of irish. instead, another hyphenated modifier could be attached to quinn, labelling him almost-irish for his irish audiences. in other instances, however, rather than ‘passing’ as irish, quinn is simply accepted as irish. another thread on boards, titled ‘non irish films with 2 or more irish actors’, noted numerous examples of major international films that happened to star two or more irish actors in non-irish roles, with one user providing the example of ‘the mission (1986): liam neeson, aidan quinn and ray mcanally’ (frcrilly 2008). equally, in a thread on ‘actors who failed to reach their potential’, one user commented: “from an irish perspective, aidan quinn, damn good actor but doesn't have a big profile that he deserves. arguably one of our best” (woollyredhat 2011). in both cases quinn is considered an irish actor, with no distinction made about the fact that he is also american, and no other users in the thread take issue with this categorisation. while it is possible that some irish audiences would not accept quinn as irish, these examples illustrate that many do validate his performances of his irishness. in america, on the other hand, some audiences may not even realise that quinn is irish. while there are numerous american articles referring to quinn’s irish heritage and time spent in ireland (as previously discussed), there are also a number of articles focusing solely on quinn’s american roles or other issues of importance to him, such as his daughter’s autism. on a site dedicated to television, fan reviews of the show elementary, in which quinn plays a new york cop, refer to his acting ability—both as “remarkable” (megd06 2015, auroragu 2015) and “a bit of an overactor” (sheajoy9 2013)—and his qualities: “(that voice, those eyes)” (megd06 2015). however, none of the users—fans of the american show—comment on quinn’s links to ireland. while this is not unusual, as it is not a prominent feature of the show, it does reveal that quinn’s irishness may not be a topic of particular importance for some of his american audiences, or even something they are aware of in certain instances, given that the american accent he normally speaks with signifies solely his americanness. at the same time, though, an international fan site dedicated to quinn (labelled as ‘the ultimate fan site’) extensively details his connections to, and experiences in, both countries in its biography of the actor, even quoting quinn on the matter: “‘we got used to living in two different cultures and being able to go back and forth’, he once said in an interview. ‘with declan, marian and myself it's always back and goff 72 forth, irish-american, american-irish…’” (garcia 2001). not only does this once again display quinn’s oscillating connections between the countries, noting a reprioritising of what comes first in the order of both hyphenation and performance dependent on context, it also reveals the fact that fans of quinn (as distinguished from his general audiences) have likely spent time learning about the actor and following his interviews. as such, his fans should be aware of both his national affiliations and the way he performs these across his acting roles, interviews and promotional appearances. fans of aidan quinn may even be aware of his role in the january 2017 ford ireland advertisement celebrating one hundred years of ford in ireland, which further highlights quinn’s connection to both america and ireland. in the advertisement (shot in ireland), quinn walks along an empty irish beach considering the past, the future and new technologies; this is blended with the use of ford’s “go further” slogan and a reference to henry ford crossing “that ocean” one hundred years ago “to open a ford plant in his ancestral home” (ford 100 2017). a sense of nostalgia is expressed in the advertisement as quinn looks out contemplatively over the beautiful scenery—itself evocative of nostalgic, rural considerations of ireland—and connects our desire to push forward with new developments to things from the past that will always remain (i.e. love and rain falling on a windscreen). equally, the irish-american connection is heavily evoked—through ford’s ancestry, the longstanding operation of the american business in ireland and the use of irish-american actor, quinn, who embodies the connection in this advertisement and beyond it (as seen in the construction of his hyphenated persona). an article in the irish examiner about the ford 100 campaign reiterates this, noting that “according to the company aidan quinn perfectly encapsulates the relationship between ireland and the usa” (graham 2017), which is why he was chosen for the role. this statement is similarly found on the ford ireland website for the campaign, which also highlights quinn’s “joint us and irish nationality” and links his relationship with both countries to henry ford’s (whose own roots are traced from county cork to michigan) (ford ireland 2017). however, economic motivations clearly underpin the advertisement; it is designed to draw upon ford’s connection to ireland, as well as the popular actor’s, in order to sell cars there. therefore, the expression of irish-american identity on display in the advertisement has both been purchased, in the hiring of quinn for the role, and is designed to sell—marking the identity, and connection between the two countries, as a type of selling point for the public. at the same time, the casting of quinn in this advertisement because of his pre-established irish-american persona— evidenced by his prior roles in films, his interviews and his involvement with cultural organisations—further reinforces this persona (as successful) for him. ultimately, quinn’s own existence between ireland and america during his youth and, to a lesser extent, his adult life makes his performances as irish-american strong examples of constructing the identity in perhaps its most active sense—more closely connected to ireland than the traditional irish-american, but not quite as distinctly irish as the ‘new irish’ immigrants to the united states. quinn’s direct experience in each place, and the knowledge of each that stems from this, affects his connection to both countries and, ultimately, how his hyphenated persona is enacted, promoted, and received. despite currently living in america and largely being raised there, his significant time in ireland and his irish parents have made quinn outspoken about the irish aspect of his identity as well as irish-american identity more broadly. this is not only reflected in his roles as an actor, and his promotional interviews, but also in the active roles he takes in bringing irish culture to america and in putting a voice to irishamerican identity—from his involvement with the irish international film festival in new york to narrating documentaries about the irish experience in america. both quinn’s legal and social senses of identity (as performed above) reflect his status as a contemporary, active, irishamerican, simultaneously revealing the connections and divisions that accompany this. however, although quinn remains strongly attached to both countries, his connections to each are often divided and affected by his current geographical location, just as his childhood was separated by time spent in each country. quinn, himself, recognises this, acknowledging that his persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 73 knowledge of irish current affairs slips with time spent away from the country, which necessarily distances him from it. just as one must choose a final resting place (and quinn’s is america), one must also choose a primary national identification (albeit open to renegotiation). as a consequence of this choice, then, constructions of this identification will stay current while the other(s) unavoidably fades, rooted in particular moments of time. while secondary national identifications can still bear influence on the performance of an individual’s overall identity, the multiple nationalities of hyphenated identities are necessarily separated not only by a hyphen, but by various identity performances, geographic location, and time. i dyer’s notion of a ‘star text’ is neatly defined by christine gledhill as “an intertextual construct produced across a range of media and cultural practices” (1991, p. xii). the ‘star text’, therefore, considers the full range of the star’s appearances in the media for the construction of their ‘image’. ii the commercial use of the irish-american celebrity identity was particularly evident when hollywood actor tom cruise, who has distant irish ancestry, was presented with a certificate of irish heritage by tánaiste (deputy prime minister of ireland) eamon gilmore in 2013 as part of ‘the gathering’ tourism campaign. the ceremony for, and subsequent publicity of, cruise’s certificate promoted both tourism and the purchasing of certificates of irish heritage which were available to anyone of irish descent from the irish government—a scheme since scrapped due to only threethousand being sold (halpin 2015). the certificates, which ranged in cost from €45 to €120, offered documentation to reinforce performances of irish-american identity, but also embodied the literal selling of the identity—promoted through cruise’s performance. end notes works cited 32a 2007, film, janey pictures, dublin. ‘aidan quinn’ 2017, rotten tomatoes, retrieved 5 january 2017, <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/aidan_quinn/>. ‘aidan quinn’ 2017, wikipedia, retrieved 5 january 2017, <http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/aidan_quinn>. biography.com editors 2014, ‘aidan quinn’, biography, retrieved 5 january 2017, <http://www.biography.com/people/aidan-quinn-16472533#synopsis>. auroragu 2015, “almost none of the characters displays himself the way he should,” 25 june, retrieved 4 april 2017, < http://www.tv.com/shows/elementary/reviews/>. balfour, b 2008, “aidan quinn explores academia, science and tragedy in dark matter”, pop entertainment, 27 june, retrieved 4 april 2017, <http://www.popentertainment.com/aidanquinn.htm>. baumann, z 1996, “from pilgrim to tourist—or a short history of identity”, in s hall & p du gay (eds.), questions of cultural identity, sage, london, pp. 18-36. blessing, p 1985, “irish emigration to the united states, 1800-1920: an overview”, in pj drudy (ed.), the irish in america: emigration, assimilation and impact, cambridge 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<http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/aidan-quinntalks-up-his-irish-heritage-92522949-237693401>. dyer, r 1979, stars, british film institute, london. the eclipse 2009, film, treasure entertainment, dublin. egan, b 2008, “aidan quinn’s ode to ireland of the seventies”, irish independent, 14 september, retrieved 19 december 2016, <http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/movies/aidan-quinns-ode-to-ireland-ofthe-seventies-26476804.html>. elementary 2012–2017, television programme, cbs, new york city. evelyn 2002, film, first look international, dublin. ford 100 2017, youtube, ford ireland, 3 january, retrieved 23 january 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg25vyyucay>. ford ireland 2017, ford 100: celebrating 100 years in ireland, ford ireland, retrieved 5 april 2017, < http://www.ford.ie/aboutford/ford-100-anniversary>. frcrilly 2008, “in recent years i’ve noticed a number of major international films”, boards, 27 december, retrieved 4 april 2017, < http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58389155>. garcia, r 2001, biography, rikkie garcia, retrieved 04 april 2017, < http://members.tripod.com/%7erikkie_g/aidan.htm>. gledhill, c 1991, “introduction”, in c gledhill (ed.), stardom: industry of desire, routledge, london, pp. xi–xix. graham, b 2017, “atmospheric advert starring actor aidan quinn kickstarts #ford100 celebrations”, irish examiner, 26 january, retrieved 30 january 2017, <http://www.irishexaminer.com/ford100/theproducts/atmospheric-advert-starringactor-aidan-quinn-kickstarts-ford100-celebrations-440967.html>. hall, s 1992, “the question of cultural identity”, in s hall, d held & t mcgrew (eds.), modernity and its futures, polity press, cambridge, uk, pp.274-323. —1996, “who needs ‘identity’?”, in s hall & p du gay (eds.), questions of cultural identity, sage, london, pp. 1-17. halpin, p 2015, “ireland scraps heritage certificate presented to tom cruise, obama”, reuters, 18 august, retrieved 15 february 2017, < http://www.businessinsider.com/r-irelandscraps-heritage-certificates-presented-to-tom-cruise-obama-2015-8?ir=t>. hamill, d 1999, “aidan quinn’s family values ever close to his roots, the actor is proud of the irish-american film he has developed with his siblings”, new york daily news, 28 february, retrieved 19 december 2016, <http://www. nydailynews.com/aidan-quinn-sfamily-values-close-roots-actor-proud-irish-american-film-developed-siblings-article1.838111>. hogg, m, terry, d & white, k 1995, “a tale of two theories: a critical comparison of identity theory with social identity theory”, social psychology quarterly, vol. 58, no.4, pp. 255269. irish chicago 2009, television programme, wttw pbs, chicago, 15 march. the irish in america 1995, television movie, a&e, new york city. kennedy, j 2016, “michael collins would be ‘p****d off’ with current irish politicians—aidan quinn”, irish independent, 20 february, retrieved 19 december 2016, 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london. “mcconaughey wants to send his kids to the gaeltacht” 2016, rté entertainment, 26 september, retrieved 30 september 2016, <http://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2016/0925/819091mcconaughey-wants-his-family-to-speak-fluent-irish/>. mcgoldrick, d 2008, “the mighty quinn”, irish voice, 28 september, retrieved 19 december 2016, <http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irish-voice/entertainment/articles/mightyquinn180908.aspx>. meagher, t 2006, “the fireman on the stairs: comunal loyalties in the making of irish america”, in j.j. lee and m. casey (eds.), making the irish american: history and heritage of the irish in the united states, new york university press, new york, pp. 609-648. megd06 2015, “love this show and the new words i am learning”, tv.com, 11 september, retrieved 4 april 2017, < http://www.tv.com/shows/elementary/reviews/>. michael collins 1996, film, warner brothers, dublin. morin, e 1960, the stars, trans. r howard, grove press, new york. mulligan, j 2008, “interview with aidan quinn”, entertainment.ie, 2 september, retrieved 4 april 2017, < http://entertainment.ie/movie/feature/interview-with-aidanquinn/202/31.htm#>. the playboys 1992, film, green umbrella, bristol. quinn, p 2006, “looking for jimmy”, in j.j. lee and m. casey (eds.), making the irish american: history and heritage of the irish in the united states, new york university press, new york, pp. 663-679. reckless 1984, film, edgar j sherick associates, new york city. sheajoy9 2013, “i enjoy elementary more”, 08 february, retrieved 4 april 2017, < http://www.tv.com/shows/elementary/reviews/5>. a shine of rainbows 2009, film, sepia films, vancouver. shingler, m 2012, star studies: a critical guide, british film institute, london. song for a raggy boy 2003, film, fantastic films, dublin. snyder, r 2006. “the irish and vaudeville”, in j.j. lee and m. casey (eds.), making the irish american: history and heritage of the irish in the united states, new york university press, new york, pp. 406-410. stein, r 1999, “it’s a family affair / aidan quinn joins his siblings in ‘this is my father’”, san francisco chronicle (gate), 23 may, retrieved 19 december 2016, <http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/it-s-a-family-affair-aidan-quinn-joinshis-2929414.php>. this is my father 1998, film, filmline international, los angeles. wollyredhat 2011, “from an irish perspective”, boards, 01 june, retrieved 04 april, < http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=72523591>. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 21 “i am in no way this”: troll hunters and pragmatic digital self-reference mi cha el le e hump hrey abstract if personae are masks used to communicate a certain character in performance, what happens in rapid unmaskings, especially as they occur in digital space? that question is central to the phenomenon of “troll-hunting”. employing both journalistic and algorithmic tools, troll hunters unmask the offline identity of purveyors of digital hate speech, child pornography, illegal commerce and sometimes just puckish behaviour. digital citizens have concerned themselves with the efficacy, privacy and ethics of such hunting, but have not as frequently explored another area: the narrative distance between a digital persona and a perceived “real” person behind that persona. such distances can range from some version of the sentiment, "i am in no way this kind of person" to a comfortable coupling between online-offline selves, even during public shaming. using textual analysis, i critically examine statements made by those whose digital troll persona were unmasked. i pay special attention to the word ‘i’ and the dissonance in offline-online personae, long discussed by academics, but also becoming an increasingly practical concern. key words internet persona; troll-hunting; digital self; anonymity; narrative of self introduction it appeared, at first, to be cause for celebration, and hanassholesolo, a reddit user, basked in it. in early june of 2017, president donald trump had posted a video version of an animated gif on twitter. plucking images from a televised event in which pre-president trump pretended to clothesline a central figure of the world wrestling entertainment, the redditor had replaced the face of trump’s original foe with a cnn logo. in a subreddit dedicated to all things trump, the anonymous member exclaimed, “wow!! i never expected my meme to be retweeted by the god emporer [sic] himself!!!” (romano 2017). but just days later, all of the commentary from hanassholesolo, and the gif itself, were gone. still anonymous to most of the world, but now known to cnn investigative reporter andrew kaczynski, the future of the person behind the gif rested in the hands of the news organisation he had mocked. in between those events were revelations that hanassholesolo was behind many putrid comments about people of colour, women and jewish people. on the verge of being outed, hansoloasshole posted on that same subreddit page: humphrey 22 first of all, i would like to apologize to the members of the reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened. i would also like to apologize for the posts made that were racist, bigoted, and anti-semitic. i am in no way this kind of person, i love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so for my entire life. (kaczynski 2017) with a single email from a journalist, which made clear that hanassholesolo had become the successful target of troll-hunting, the narrative of a digital persona flipped at breakneck speed. while this incident could be studied in many disciplines, troll-hunting’s effect on the privatepublic negotiation of identity in digital space is particularly rich and a useful lens on persona creation for all digital purposes. two practical definitions guide this research. troll-hunting, first, is the quintessential internet vigilante instinct. from journalists to hackers to social media platforms, the goal is simple: find internet trolls and stop them by blocking access to a platform or exposing (or threatening to expose) the offline person or people responsible. secondly, what defines trolls is negotiated both within online ecosystems (twitter denizens perceive it differently than redditors) and across social discourse in offline cultures. for a deeper look into the term, morrissey & yell’s (2016) article presents a useful etymology and history of the term “trolls” as it has emerged in digital space. edstrom (2016, p. 98) also offers a valuable definition when she writes that “trolls are a metaphor in the nordic countries that signify beings that fear the light; internet trolls are people who write offensive things in order to provoke reaction”. phillips and milner (2017, p. 17) also offer a helpful warning against defining trolling too broadly, using it as a “catch-all” for any mischief or antagonism, which “tends to minimize the negative effects of the worst kinds of online behaviors”. so what hanassholesolo created that inspired president trump’s tweet might not meet the most rigorous criteria, but many of the statements he made on reddit in other threads did. yet it was the image that trump used that made his unmasking big news. for this paper, i do not aim to plumb the depths of the trolls’ gratifications or the effect on digital life. that’s not to dismiss the complexities of assuming a separate identity for the purpose of trolling, a field of research that is rich in its own right (phillips 2011; milner 2013; bishop 2013 and 2014; dynel 2016) or the effects of online discourse, which can be severe (butler 1997) to the point of life-threatening (morrissey & yell 2016). i am interested, however, in the internal relationship between digital troll persona and what is still all too often considered the “real” person behind the digital name and what that tells us about the division between the online and offline self, regularly self-referenced in both spaces as i. the recent work of phillips and milner (2017), especially their description of “identity play”, can speed us forward quickly on this point. identity play is a fast-moving negotiation between our concept of self and the present or perceived audience, both sides playing critical roles in forming that present-moment identity. rooted heavily in goffman’s (1959) impression management, the authors argue that these negotiations mean “we all make conscious, unconscious, and sometimes semi-conscious behavioral and linguistic choices to highlight certain masks” (phillips & milner 2017, p. 76). we adjust the mask not only to conform to a certain audience, but also sometimes “toward a particular audience, against a particular object” (p. 79). this is where trolling finds its traction, such as when men target women for the delight of the like-minded and the horror or fury of others, and, “these behaviors, in turn, help create and sustain the i; they reveal what a person values, and the groups with which they identify” (p. 78). but this notion of play takes on another set of values, that of the game itself. in the instances i examine below, the light has been shone on the offline people who have stirred the emotions of online communities. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 23 but troll-hunting also snatches away a “win” in the gameplay of identity. if anyone has ever watched professional wrestling in which a masked grappler is involved, you know being unmasked is a greater defeat than being pinned. though the consequences can be more severe in troll-hunting, the unmasking itself entails a similar sort of victory. this is partially true because creating and sustaining i in such a moment is fraught with challenges. what happens in rapid unmaskings, especially as they occur in digital space? for hanassholesolo, a massive rift opens between the preand post-hunting i, but this is not always the case. in performing textual analysis of digital persona of trolls and their creators, the distance between the preand post-hunted troll persona varies widely. behind that variation is a collection of narratives, which also vary, but illuminate assumptions most users of the internet appear to hold. in discussing troll-hunting, digital citizens have concerned themselves with the efficacy, privacy and ethics of such searches, but have not as frequently explored another area: the digital dualism (jurgenson 2011) of considering a digital persona to be constructed by a “real” i, which remains prominent among digital citizens. to resist this common notion, many scholars convincingly address the realness of the online life. i hope to reframe the question by looking in the other direction: be questioning the realness of our offline self, or at least the way we reference that self, via an essay by philosopher g.e.m. anscombe involving the metaphysics of self-reference. coupled with the concept of the “dialogical self” by herbert j.m. hermans, a unifying theme is described of the offline self as a negotiation of many personae, which i will apply to the responses of trolls when they have been hunted down. i will then conclude this paper by exploring the underlying narratives that allow not only trolls, but most digital citizens, to overemphasise a divide between digital and physical selves. persona, i and dialogical self the questions of persona, seen as one side of a delineation of private/public selves, quickly became fodder for early digital theorists. turkle (1984) famously spoke of a “second self” as an affordance of computing before the world wide web existed and clark (1994, para 5) perceived the persona to be “supplemented, and to some extent even replaced” by the summation of the data available about an individual. he conceives of three types of digital personae—passive (data-creation), active (agentive-presence) and autonomous (digitally self-activating)—which can further be categorised as projected or imposed as well as formal and informal. but his most relevant contribution for this paper is an index of motivations to develop multiple personae in digital space (clark 1994, para 18): ● the maintenance of a distinction between multiple roles (e.g. psychiatrist or social worker and spouse/parent; employed professional and spokesperson for a professional body; and scout-master and spy); ● the exercise of artistic freedom; ● the experimental stimulation of responses (e.g. the intentional provocation of criminal acts, but also the recent instance of a male impersonating a physically impaired female); ● willing fantasy (as in role-playing in multi-user dungeons and dragons or mudds); ● paranoia (i.e. to protect against unidentified and unlikely risks); and ● fraud and other types of criminal behaviour. each mask created for digital consumption holds with the core concept of a creator’s internal expression negotiating with a public, the “identity play” of phillips and milner (2017). so, trolls humphrey 24 might perceive themselves creating a digital persona for “artistic (expressive) freedom” and very likely “stimulation of responses”. the data created in that digital performance does not supplement the persona, or replace it, but rather complexifies it. or, as nolan (2015) argues, it fragments the self. using catfishers (pretending to be someone you’re not) as a focus, nolan offers insights into its cousin, the troll, who, “lacks influence and legitimacy because through his similar, but calculatedly covert, interpretation of the fragmented self, he blatantly disregards the social protocols, conscious and subconscious, of lingual identity” (p. 62). to fragment successfully in digital space, the argument continues, the intent must be sincere and the self must be evaluated through a moral lens. nolan represents a tradition of scholarship that respects the meaningful implications of a digital persona. this tradition rejects the notion of irl (in real life) by asserting the “realness” of online life. as mentioned above, i intend to augment this tradition by taking a slightly different tack. to do i this, i begin by combining two arguments from anscombe. in the first, anscombe (1958) reintroduces, and advocates for, aristotelian virtue ethics, in which moral decisions are akin to skills developed in interaction with a community that seeks eudaimonia, rather than demanding adherence to a priori truths. the digital persona of a troll confronts these skills as either absent or prone to subversion, often in contrast to offline persona who might publicly adhere to them. but when the networked public of any, or many, digital platforms resists trolls, the skills needed for a digital eudaimonia are naturally highlighted. offline and online ethical skills, while different in some particulars, align enough that the unmasking of a troll persona can significantly affect the physical world of the bad actor. and here we can see the traditional argument of why online life, and its personae, could be considered “real”. the second, which demands more detail, is anscombe’s concept of first person (1975), in which she addresses the inability to reference anything with the word i, a frame to reconsider the “realness” of the offline self or, for that matter, any one self. i is, most often, accepted as a meaningful reference in both offline and online expressions of self. for example, readers might accept that i is a logical reference in both of the statements from hansassholesolo. if both were accepted in that case, we must assume a radical change of heart took place. but anscombe has a different solution: “‘i’ is neither a name nor another kind of expression whose logical role is to make a reference, at all” (p. 32). citing locke’s insight that one who thinks “i did it” might be a “different thinking substance” than the one thinking “i am doing it", she argues that a reidentification of the object must take place each time, thus losing its ability to name. perhaps, she considers, i works like a demonstrative, such as “this” or “that", rather than a name, which succeeds only if it “catches hold", of its object. descartes claimed it does, but he only meant this in regards to thinking, not a body. anscombe doesn’t buy it, and her answer portends the multiple digital personae we now experience: how, even, could one justify the assumption, if it is an assumption, that there is just one thinking which is this thinking of this thought that i am thinking, just one thinker? how do i know that “i” is not ten thinkers thinking in unison? or perhaps not quite succeeding. that might account for the confusion of thought which i sometimes feel. (p. 31) so, for anscombe, i is neither name nor any other expression of reference of a person: note that when i use the word “person” here, i use it in the sense in which it occurs in "offences against the person". at this point people will betray how deeply they are infected by dualism, they will say: you are using 'person' in the sense of “body” and what they mean by "body" is something that is still there when someone is dead. but that is to misunderstand "offences against the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 25 person". none such can be committed against a corpse. 'the person' is a living human body. (p. 33) the dualism becomes demonstrable if people suddenly speak of themselves as another person, because it assumes something is not quite right. anscombe employs william james’ imagining of a man named baldy who falls out of a carriage and bemoans the news that “baldy” was the one who fell out (“poor baldy!”) as if he were not the same baldy. perhaps he’s hit his head and has lost the connection between self and subject, but might still say, “i am sorry for poor baldy”. anscombe concludes, “[t]he (deeply rooted) grammatical illusion of a subject is what generates all the errors” in thinking about the self (p. 36). and so we find self-identity left on the side of the road, depending on a word, i, which has no real reference. all admit, however, that i has great function in english, so how can this be? rovane’s (2004) answer for establishing selfhood connects the dots nicely. she offers two premises for forming, rather than being biologically bestowed with, selfhood: 1) a person is “subject to the normative requirement to achieve overall rational unity within itself”; and 2) a person “must be committed to satisfying that normative requirement” (p. 238). this is an agentive notion of personal identity, and a relational one too. she employs research of dissociative identity disorder (did) as a beginning state from which we attempt to knit together rational unity, a metaphysical given of human nature. she writes: multiplicity is one of the possible states at which human rational activity could be deliberately and coherently directed. when such activity is so directed, it is not, of course, carried from one human-size point of view but from multiple points of view, each of which has separate ends for the sake of which it is striving to achieve rational unity within itself instead of striving for rational unity within the whole human being. (rovane 2004, p. 248) this rational unity is a narrative, so argue many personality psychologists (e.g. mcadams 1985; bruner 1994), that extends over time. if it is true that the use of i cannot properly refer to a subject, as anscombe argues, or consistently refer an object, it could still refer to an action: the i is a collection of narrated personae, fragmented, as nolan suggests. so, i is not the subject of “this living thing here", but instead the object of “that unifying act there", that character-being that is described as acting and thinking in the world and acting and thinking text in digital space. there is no fundamental difference in their “reality”. thus, the power of unmasking a troll. that it is not a subject, it seems, is not a problem, because it functions pragmatically in a similar way. i identifies an active process of becoming. this does not negate anscombe’s first person argument, but it might render her conclusion less significant. if we agree with the intersection of rovane and personality psychologists, that humans are generally about the business of unification of the fragmented personae, then it seems both possible and useful to refer to that action as i. this can be referred to, not as a body or as a thinker of thoughts, but only an action of a body and its connected brain that engages in a process of unification of components of the narrated self, whether the action is deemed successful or not. even if the character is not constant, though recognisable, the action is constant. so, in each of the statements—“i am going to the store tomorrow", “i am going to the store right now", and “i went to the store yesterday"—a narration emerges. it is created by the brain, or even algorithms, but is determined (to varying degrees based on the person’s ability and desire) by demonstrable things that happen in collectively meaning-making worlds. as dennett (1992) argues: we cannot undo those parts of our pasts that are determinate, but our selves are constantly being made more determinate as we go along in response to the way the world impinges on us. of course it is also possible for a person to engage in auto-hermeneutics, interpretation of one's self, and in particular to humphrey 26 go back and think about one's past, and one's memories, and to rethink them and rewrite them. (p. 279) in all of the cases, the i is the character in the midst of the action. but there is still a major problem. if i is a process, what is the subject? i would argue it is i. here kripke (1982) is useful when he refers to wittgenstein’s form of life, the set of agreements we create to make words mean something specific. the form of life agreement among a community of entities (people or perspectives of one person), would be the subject. it is the community of “selves” that exists in the brain to form unities that we call or accept as i. as rovane (2004) argues, it is not necessary for a full unification to take place for an i to emerge— any kind of unity of the fragments in which the community of self agrees to is i. for that is the character spoken about in the community. we can understand it simply by thinking about the communal agreement being the subject. if you wanted to get dizzying about it you could say, “[the form of life that agrees the community within this body has unified to create a perspective on one element of this body’s activity] went to the store yesterday”. or you could just say, “i”. all that is necessary here is agreement of what constitutes the i in any given narrative case, but to get agreement you must have more than one, because a beginning state of unity gets us back to the basic problem. to get to a meaningful first-person persona, and not just an empty pronoun, one must have another grammatical person; otherwise there is no community. this is where nolan and jurgenson lead us, and where hermans (1996) can round out the argument. hermans argues the target is a relational schema (self-to-self, self-to-other and interpersonal script) that drives the “dialogical self", conversations among the many aspects of the self to sustain the narrative of a unified i. a dialogical self does not present a “role” for each element of the self but rather a “position", which is voiced to other positions. the capacity of self-renewal and self-innovation allows the self to engage in an active process of positioning. the use of the verbs positioning and repositioning allows the dialogical self to take initiatives to position itself in new ways, as can be seen in the lives of artists, scientists, and people who renew themselves by breaking at times through the limits of custom and convention. (hermans 1996, p. 43) these “breakings” of custom and convention can be conceived positively, but they can also explain how a troll emerges, especially in an anonymous position. when that breaking occurs between the mental unified i and digital persona of a troll, the general assumption is that something dark is lurking inside. how the unmasked troll responds to that assumption can be critical to understanding how we, too, have created fragmented personae that start to cause conflicts, either self-to-self or self-to-other, sometimes to tragic effect. to deny that is true for all of us is a dangerous assumption, because our possible negative selves are left unchecked. perhaps the only mindset more dangerous is to believe that digital personae have little or no power. troll-hunting offers an unusual opportunity to understand what that disconnecting, or connecting, of physical-digital positions looks like. narratives of unmasking if my initial thoughts about trolling was that the creators’ motives were simplistic and cruel, a textual analysis of six recent unmaskings in the u.s. and u.k. at least disabused me of the notion of its simplicity. the narratives of unmasked personae, and how they aligned with the previous troll persona, ranged widely in both expression and content. while i could offer a simple division of contrite versus defiant, three more interesting categories emerged from the cases. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 27 to perform the analysis, i scraped information from media accounts, social media chatter by and about the troll, and media about the unmasking when it was available. employing fairclough (2003), i focused primarily on the multi-functionality of texts, which he categorises in three ways: action (including interpersonal), representation and identification. these three functions work nicely as a frame for persona as each represents a negotiation with publics in digital space. but i also focused heavily on “mediation", which fairclough cites via silverstone as the “movement of meaning", transported across “networks” of texts he calls “genre chains”: ... these are different genres which are regularly linked together, involving systematic transformations from genre to genre. genre chains contribute to the possibility of actions which transcend differences in space and time, linking together social events in different social practices, different countries, and different times, facilitating the enhanced capacity for ‘action at a distance’ which has been taken to be a defining feature of contemporary ‘globalization’, and therefore facilitating the exercise of power. (p. 31) this is particularly useful in analysing digital media, which now switches from kind to kind effortlessly, from the formal and attainable journalistic approach to informal and, at times, arcane discourse of social media. journalism often intensifies and reduces discourse due to professional norms, and the journalist's own limited perspective, to create efficient meanings easily consumed. and journalist-induced unmaskings shift the locus of control from the troll to the journalist. even then, however, the shock of unmasking did not homogenise the narratives among the outed trolls. each had a particular response to the revelation the he or she had been found out. the responses included three distinct narratives 1) “not really me”; 2) “freedom to speak”; and 3) “trolling as justice”. what is interesting in examining each is the relative size of the rift between personae of the unmasked. the “not really me” narrative suggests a large rift between offline and online persona, while the other two present much smaller gaps, but for different reasons. not really me as illustrated above, unmasking of some trolls led to a narrative of quick differentiation between personae, somewhat similar to the classic “devil made me do it” defence. the “devil” in these cases was often the affordance of anonymity. it seems in the statement shared at the beginning of this paper, the man who went by hansassholesolo on reddit uses i to refer to something approximating a unified self when he says “i am in no way this kind of person, i love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so for my entire life” (kaczynski 2017). but logic would dictate a rationale for his online actions and this would-be unmasked troll had the impetus to reconsider the effect of toxic digital discourse. he wrote on reddit: to people who troll on the internet for fun, consider your words and actions conveyed in your message and who it might upset or anger. put yourself in their shoes before you post it. if you have a problem with trolling it is an addiction just like any other addiction someone can have to something and don't be embarrassed to ask for help. trolling is nothing more than bullying a wide audience. don't feed your own self-worth based upon inflicting suffering upon others online just because you are behind a keyboard. (kaczynski 2017) it is reasonable to suspect that the chance to remain anonymous guided such rapid reflection and repentance. in a case with far greater consequences, a 24-year-old isabella sorley was jailed for twelve weeks for making menacing threats on twitter (thomas 2014). after she served the sentence, sorley agreed to be confronted by one of her victims, a woman named natalie, in a humphrey 28 meeting arranged by the bbc. this is a vigorous example of fairclough’s genre chains and the rapid shift in power. because the courts, traditional media and social media interact in this case, the powerless victim of trolling is given the upper hand, with the large media organisation dictating the structure and, ultimately, mediating the engagement for the gratification of an audience. in this situation, the fully unmasked sorley communicates a similar distance from her troll persona i on twitter. her narrative also takes on a “devil made me do it” theme, but sorley uniquely leaves room for uncertainty about the offline-online disconnect. here is an exchange from the bbc (thomas 2014): sorley: i'd say i'm quite a nice person. natalie: if you're such a good person. why did you send tweets including 'go kill yourself', 'rape?! i'd do a lot worse things than rape you!!' and 'just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you buried'? sorley: i'd been on an incredibly heavy night out. it was 80p a drink. so, take 20 quid, you're going to be smashed. i can't completely blame alcohol but it's definitely got a part to play in it. i'm a follower, not a leader, and i saw a lot of people were sending those tweets. to say that i'd do worse things than rape is utterly appalling, it's disgusting. i've questioned myself is there something wrong with my mental state? sorley creates clear divisions between three i’s in this explanation: the offline past self, the online past self and the present self. but, for sorley, the causes are largely mapped back onto her offline self—drunkenness and a proclivity to follow—rather than using the affordances of digital anonymity as a catalyst. this could be a result of time to reflect, and with that, she evokes a sense of confusion about how two personae connected to her i could be so disparate. here again, we see a capitulation to the closing of a gap between offline and online decision-making with a clear repudiation of one digital persona that sorley had created on twitter. these cases, however, proved to be the minority. freedom to troll a very common theme in trolling is either the harmlessness of digital actions and/or the implicit right to post nearly anything as a digital ethic. not surprisingly then, these are common narratives of an unmasked a troll. one interesting and complex set of reactions, in that regard, comes for a 2012 unmasking by gawker journalist adrian chen, who used deft digital forensics to root out the person behind the reddit troll violentacrez, known for his “unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest” (chen 2012). by the time chen had built his case to prove that violentacrez was michael brutsch, a 49-year-old programmer for a texas financial services firm, he was busy informing brutsch of the impending article to come and seeking comment. the similarities between the violentacrez story and hanassholesolo are overshadowed by key differences: the gawker journalist was clear on his intent to publicly unmask his troll, while the cnn journalist was ready to keep the offline identity secret based on a few conditions. in that sense, brutsch is more like sorley, but without the time to reflect. still, brutsch’s complete lack of regret is notable, even as he pleaded with chen to keep his offline identity secret. he argues that he needed to keep his job, because his wife was disabled. he offered to delete his most offensive posts and act as a spy for chen in reddit’s darkest spaces. but when asked if he regretted any of his trolling, the answer was blatant: "i would stand by exactly what i've done" (chen 2012). the rationale included a mild equivocation on harm (“it's not like i do anything illegal"), but the predominant narrative was freedom. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 29 he needed to keep his anonymity to protect his ability to express things many people think but hardly anyone says. with violentacrez, "i got the freedom to talk about my personal life, my personal feelings... i'm sure there's more than one person in this building who's a pervert", he said, referring his office building. (chen 2012) that logic reveals a narrative of greater unity between the online and offline i, probably because it is largely supported by a large reddit community itself, which forms a twisted kind of ethic. even before gawker published the article, more than sixty subreddits had banned the publication. chen quotes another online platform that covers social media, the daily dot, to lay out the ethic as it is practiced. here the real enemy is “doxing", the term of preference of unmasking for the internet: at web communities like reddit, which thrive because users are free to say and do anything they want, doxing is a severe crime, both to users and the site's staff. it's far worse than offensive speech like racism and homophobia or, yes, even posting surreptitiously snapped photos of innocent women for creeps to perv over. why? because doxing undermines the community's structural integrity: reddit simply would not exist as we know it if users weren't operating under the freedom of a flexible identity. so redditors aren't banning gawker to protect violentacrez, they're doing it to protect themselves. (chen 2012) freedom, rather than decency or civility, is the moral that transfers from offline to online. in claiming that, the unified i appears to defy convention on both sides of the digital divide. trolling as justice the narratives of trolling as justice and freedom to troll cross over into one another more than once. but the trolling as justice is unique in that it not only defends the troll persona, but also often attacks, again, the target of the trolling to justify itself. that was the narrative of an internet troll named @sweepyface, who was unmasked by television station sky news for trolling the mccann family, which had become public figures after their child went missing. in a brief confrontational interview caught on camera, the woman behind @sweepyface, 63-year-old brenda leyland of leicestershire, defended herself by saying she was “entitled” to troll the family (smith 2014). however, while still fully masked but clearly feeling pursued, @sweepyface narrativised her trolling persona as a force for justice and transparency, bolstered by the belief that the mccanns were involved in their child’s disappearance. “i fear that we are in this 4 the long haul, up to all of us to a) bang home the facts b) make #mccann s live in shame for years” (smith 2014). when the reporter who would eventually unmask leyland began to follow @sweepyface on twitter, she wondered in a tweet why he wouldn’t “investigate some of these facts and show neutrality”. this seemed, for a time, to fit neatly in the category of trolling as justice, but a brutal twist belied leyland’s narrative. just two days after sky news aired the report about her, leyland was found dead in a hotel room in a leicester hotel room, a death later determined to be suicide (davies & conlan 2015). in the inquest, it was clear that @sweepyface’s persona was no match for leyland’s offline persona in the battle for a unified i. in a conversation with the reporter before the story aired, she told him, “oh, i’ve thought about ending it all but i am feeling better. i have had a drink and i’ve spoken to my son”. while the inquest made it clear that leyland suffered from depression, and had attempted suicide before, her son wrote in a statement that was read at the inquest that leyland “could not bear to think she could be disliked by those in her community” (davies & conland 2015). humphrey 30 in a very different outcome, also in england, twitter troll @holbornlolz spun a narrative of defender of liberty and attacker of institutions, as well as a digital satirist. what distinguishes this narrative is the timeframe—he made one part of the argument during the unmasking confrontation, when it became clear he was 51-year-old robert ambridge of essex, and another part of the argument two years after being unmasked (murfitt & luck 2013; daubney 2015). here the power differential is more unclear: who is getting the best of whom in the exchange? on the one hand, the reporters are getting behind the digital persona, and arguably exposing the offline persona’s justifications. on the other hand, ambridge could arguably be normalising the act of trolling in the broader culture. in the moment of realisation that he had been unmasked, ambridge focused most of the harmlessness (“entertainment”) of his actions, which included making fun of people’s bodies and using tragedies such as the boston marathon bombing as fodder for his “satire”. he told the reporters who unmasked him: “this is dark humour. people might not like my humour but i think it is funny and it gets a chuckle” (murfitt & luck 2013). in that statement, the offline i seems to pull the online i closer, while simultaneously objectifying it with praise and acknowledgement of enjoyment from others. two years later, even after ambridge was forced to move to another town, his narrative had become more sophisticated and more tied to justice: "i’m here to expose the hypocrisy of it all. i despise politicians, their endless lies, their assumed authority and the constant interference of ‘the state’ in how i choose to live my life" (daubney 2015). but it wasn’t only offline institutions he intended to check, it was also the conventions of the internet itself. now let's be honest here, most people adore being outraged. it gives them the aura of moral superiority and they can parade their smugness for all to see and judge them by. they can wear it as a badge to indicate their adherence to ‘better standards’ as if that gives them the right to silence anyone who doesn't measure up to their ideals. (daubney 2015) what is clear in the juxtaposition of these two cases is that both online and offline personae can spin similar narratives while the distance between a perceived i and the digital persona varies greatly. it is also clear that distance does not necessarily determine the actions of the digital persona—both can spout hateful speech, but the unmasking of the digital troll can have very different consequences. morrissey and yell (2016, p. 29) examine this briefly in light of the leyland case writing, “[t]he relation between the public persona of the troll as manifested in their online discourse, and their private selves is complex and apparently contradictory”. in my analysis, i found that “apparently contradictory” depends on the troll him or herself. beyond authenticity and toward community the premise of this paper was to observe the responses about the distance between digital and offline i’s when trolls are unmasked by troll-hunters; not as a form of schadenfreude or even to better understand trolls, but as a lens into all personae in digital space. wrested from the subject of trolling, the three themes of why we divide our online-offline personae still hold: the online self is “not really me”; 2) we have the freedom to act differently online; and 3) what we do online is just. not surprisingly, the variation was as great as the masks themselves, but there are possible extrapolations. in this same journal, mcrae (2017, p. 25) makes a statement that resonates with the identity play of phillips and milner (2017): “to some extent, we all craft personas with a real or imagined critical audience in mind”. how we wish to affect those imagined audiences is a meaningful difference between most of us and trolls. however, the crafting of the persona as something different than our offline personas likely has fewer differences. it is still common, and understandable, to accept some “freedom” in crafting a digital persona. digital life affords “shaping” of a self, “no one knows you’re a dog", as the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 31 cartoon trope goes, but there’s a point missing in this. that point refers all the way back to a realisation that the collection of digital personae that populate social platforms come with different expectations and predispositions. in seeking or encountering audiences for the “game” of identity, users soon find themselves negotiating (or flat-out fighting) for virtues of “how to be” in digital space. that some of these spaces feel encapsulated from a larger society, digital or physical, would only reinforce the sense of freedom. in this negotiation, phillips and milner (2017, p. 85) convincingly argue the role of anonymity is not necessarily predictive of one form of behaviour: “in short, deindividuated, anonymous participation online can facilitate the bad, the good, and the in-between, resulting in every permutation of communicative expression imaginable”. this freedom, like all real freedom, takes on different forms. but what the unmasking of trolls demonstrates is how quickly the communicative expression can change when implications from two different aspects of the self collide. this is clear even in the most rigorous defence narratives of trolls. shame is just as powerful, if not more so, than confirmation and sycophancy. the consequences for “breakings” from a generalised norm can feel as meaningful online as it does offline, and that’s assuming that the consequences don’t cross-contaminate the other. mcrae (2017, p. 14) deftly explains why, despite these consequences, some trolls i examined (like any other social media persona) hold closely to their narrative of freedom or justice to resist judgment from others: when publics perceive evidence of unoriginality and inconsistency in [...] personas, they are less likely to accept personas as authentic, recognizing instead that personas are constructed. had violentacrez responded the way hanassholesolo did, he would have likely met the same digital fate: scorn and obliteration from his own community. it seems clear from violentacrez’s narrative that remaining “authentic” to his community of trolls was more important than becoming palatable to his offline community, such as his workplace, which fired him. the idea that one set of personae (the offline set) would have many important life implications, while the other set (online) would live free of those implications is a naiveté that has been exposed for years. in referring to cybersex, for example, dibbell (1993) made this point a quarter of a century ago: to participate, therefore, in this disembodied enactment of life's most bodycentered activity is to risk the realization that when it comes to sex, perhaps the body in question is not the physical one at all, but its psychic double, the bodylike self-representation we carry around in our heads. i know, i know, you've read foucault and your mind is not quite blown by the notion that sex is never so much an exchange of fluids as it is an exchange of signs. but trust your friend dr. bombay, it's one thing to grasp the notion intellectually and quite another to feel it coursing through your veins amid the virtual steam of hot netnookie. jurgenson (2011) extrapolates this one experience to all digital experiences when he contests the concept of a “second self” as digital dualism and argues that all of the experiences live in one sphere rather than two: “[w]e are not crossing in and out of separate digital and physical realities, ala the matrix, but instead live in one reality, one that is augmented by atoms and bits”. mine is less an argument to yet again defend the “realness” of online life and more an honest look at the construction of self through all aspects of a life. “in short, we all deceive, on the internet and in our own living rooms” (phillips & milner 2017, p. 81). even beyond deception of others, we daily deceive ourselves in constructing an a priori version of i. postmodernist thought, and much of personality psychology, has also travelled down this road for decades now. on a practical level, however, we continue to see daily signs that the humphrey 32 commonality among an individual’s personae, across all related i’s, is lost on many when they log in to digital platforms. the unifying theme of digital self, anonymous or not, is less a certain way to be, but the dualism itself. werning (2017) turns the common response, prosecuting the mask as inauthentic, into prosecuting the notion of reality as it is often perceived. in that light, the mask is what is authentic. in a postmodern world, this seems particularly wise. on the other hand, i am sceptical of mcrae’s (2017) solution of authenticity as labour, at least as it applies to negotiating the moral landscape of public digital life vis-a-vis trolls. unmaskings have taught us that the range of authenticity varies widely among trolls. instead, i would like to return to anscombe’s virtue ethics as a possible lever from which to activate a digital eudaimonia. it is sometimes lost that digital persona is a very new phenomenon, especially compared to ancient concepts of persona. just because persona acts similarly in digital space, and often evokes similar consequences, does not mean human beings have gained proficiency in learning to act morally as digital personae, yet. virtue ethics argues that building an atmosphere for thriving means developing social agreements and honing individual virtue. there is no clear right or wrong in digital space unless desired outcomes are widely agreed upon. to be authentic seems too individually constructed, both in creating and judging its presence. to create a space where the most people thrive reflects an age-old practice of building eudaimonic cultures. that’s not to discount authenticity as whole, but rather shifts the focus on developing strong, positive relationships for the good of the whole digital ecosystem. “i am in no way this” is less a 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http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3168. phillips, w & milner, rm 2017, the ambivalent internet: mischief, oddity, and antagonism online, john wiley & sons, new york. romano, a 2017, ‘trump’s anti-cnn tweet originated from reddit's largest right-wing extremist forum’, vox, 3 jul, retrieved 1 sept 2017, https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/7/3/15913966/trump-cnn-wrestling-tweet-thedonald-origins. rovane, c 2004, ‘a nonnaturalist account of personal identity’, in m. de caro & d. macarthur (eds.), naturalism in question, harvard university press, cambridge, pp. 231–258. smith, p 2014, ‘the deleted tweets brenda leyland sent about the mccanns before she died’, buzzfeed, 6 oct, retrieved 2 aug 2017, https://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/readthe-deleted-tweets-brenda-leyland-sent-the-mccanns. thomas, e 2014, ‘twitter troll: what i said was utterly appalling and disgusting’, bbc, 16 nov, retrieved 2 aug 2017, http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/30075370/twitter-trollwhat-i-said-was-utterly-appalling-and-disgusting. humphrey 34 turkle, s 1984 second self, simon & schuster, new york. werning, s 2017, ‘the persona in autobiographical game-making as a playful performance of the self’, persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 28–42. persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 1 political persona 2016—an introduction p. dav id mars hall and neil he nders on introduction it seems politics invades everything. we can rarely think of any activity, any building, any human-to-human interaction and not see some political dimension infiltrating and shaping it. and this very interpretation, in its language of invasion and infiltration, implies that politics’ ubiquity is not necessarily a wanted accomplice in our human world. nonetheless, its presence is expected, its strategic intentions acknowledged and negotiated. what is interesting is that persona—at least as it has been explored and defined in persona studies so far—always has a political dimension. it has been identified as a strategic identity, a form of negotiation of the individual in their foray into a collective world of the social (marshall and barbour). persona is a fabricated reconstruction of the individual that is used to play a role that both helps the individual navigate their presence and interactions with others and helps the collective to position the role of the individual in the social. persona is imbued with politics at its core. in this issue of persona studies, we explore political persona, a characterisation roiled in redundancy if our definitions above are adopted. the essays gathered in this collection debate these definitional affinities, and augment and nuance many other dimensions that help delineate what constitutes political persona. in this introductory essay, we will use the collected work on political persona that is developed in this issue to better define political persona. but before we evaluate and identify the intersections of our contributors’ work, we want to begin our exploration with what makes political persona constitutively different today than in the past. can we identify through some of the most prominent political personas—donald trump, hillary clinton, and bernie sanders in the united states’ 2016 presidential campaign, for example—and through a study of a major political event—brexit in 2016 in the u.k.—whether something has shifted and changed in these cultures? so here is our opening premise before we explore these political personas and political events, before we work out how trump emerged and triumphed or how brexit happened. first, that the changed media environment we now inhabit is producing a new, unstable political environment. this alone is an incredibly grand—perhaps technological determinist —claim. nonetheless it is a claim that is linked to very visible transformations transnationally in our media production and media use. to particularise this further, central to this instability is the massive mediatisation of the self through the integration of online culture into everyday life. what we would like to claim is this: persona is a way to explore and investigate this shift and moment of instability, both in the way it operated in the past as a mediatised identity, and the way it is now pandemic and pervasive as a way of being in contemporary culture. what is emerging in our political cultures is a new competition between what we call a representational media and cultural regime—where the systems of representation and the array of individuals privileged in both politics and media are relatively stable and mutually legitimising—and the marshall and henderson 2 emerging presentational media and cultural regime—where the pervasive mediatised and public self and its online performance, networking and sharing, operates as a complex filter for both the organisation and meaning of politics and culture. to make this claim that there is some tectonic shift in our cultures, and that this particular tool of persona research can in some way elucidate how it has occurred and how to comprehend some of its future directions and manifestations, it is important for us to identify political persona more completely. so our first step in this introductory essay is to ask what kinds of ideas inform the concept of political persona. how is political persona connected to preexisting fields and disciplines? from that basis, we might be able to discern the particular and peculiar dimensions of contemporary political persona that have led to some of the strangest political campaigns to emerge in the united states and the united kingdom—and, as some of our articles in this special issue identify, well beyond these settings—in 2016. political persona research to date research that specifically identifies political personas is quite recent. in political communication, there has been some exploration related to persona around authenticity and image. for instance, one of the most interesting studies tried to determine the relationship between the performances of the public persona and private persona of two american presidents (sigelman). through a comparison of public speeches and what richard nixon and lyndon baines johnson actually said in the white house in private conversations, sigelman was able to ascertain that, with a few exceptions (particularly around profanity) their speech patterns were similar. however, after nixon’s collapse through the watergate scandal, which was exacerbated by the blatant and sometimes tampered-with private conversations, no future presidents recorded their private conversations for posterity, and thus no new research has advanced to determine these different registers that politicians employ. nonetheless, this research underlines that there are different registers of performance and that further analysis of this separation of identities into strategic personas needs to be explored and developed. a politician structures a distinct identity in these different registers: a television interview, for instance, is a different constitution of persona than a televised speech, despite the use of the same technology of communication. and we can readily observe how current politicians use different registers of performance between their online twitter posts and their political rally speeches. other research in political communication has investigated whether there is a recognisable difference between a politician’s persona and their position on issues (hacker et al.). persona, in this research, is clearly identified with a candidate’s image as it is perceived by the electorate. through a survey of issues and perceived image of bob dole and bill clinton in 1996, hacker et al. discovered that there was a high correlation between their perceived persona and the issues represented—a finding contrary to assumed understanding that image and issue were separate and distinct in politics (233-234). another research trajectory that provides an understanding of political persona has emerged from the study of politics and its peculiar transformations through contemporary media. john corner began developing the idea of how the political persona was a mediated entity and how strategically politicians worked and performed within the exigencies of that particular arena. building from machiavelli and paralleling the current research in persona studies, corner explains that politicians work towards particular ends via the tools and techniques that allow for the expression and articulation of power, “playing off the ‘outer’ [self] against the ‘inner’ [self]” (387). corner’s analysis directly builds on goffman’s work on the persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 3 presentation of the self. furthermore, corner’s insight is expanded in his subsequent work with pels, with their research including a further focus on an aspect of contemporary politics that has some resonance with the current trump campaign of 2016: that is, the blending of entertainment values with political values in the mediatised representation of politicians (pels and corner). this perceived migration of politics into the realm of entertainment was the trajectory of some of the original research into celebrity culture (marshall, celebrity and power 203-247) and has led to extensive literature that deals with celebrity and politics that mark wheeler has pulled together in his recent book celebrity politics: image and identity in contemporary political communications. much of the research on politics and celebrity has a direct value to the constitution of political persona. research, such as john street’s work on categorising celebrity politics and political activity, can be usefully applied to various forms of negotiated public identity that express the notion of political persona and its sometime dependence, liaisons with, and appropriations from other forms of identity that are predominantly connected to the world of entertainment (street 435-52). the extensive work on celebrity activism, where celebrities become associated with particular causes, has also served to underline the moving constellation of what constitutes politics and who can be thought of as a political persona (tsaliki; fridell and konings). it is now surprisingly commonplace to see figures such as bono, from the rock group u2, comfortable at summits. similarly, angelina jolie has become a legitimate presence within the un, the american council on foreign relations, and the london school of economics (totman). part of this capacity of celebrities to move across fields of activity is connected to the way that politics and its public display are seen synergistically with these wider dimensions of performance. although not identical, a successful politician often has to have the same mediatising abilities to attract attention, to express emotion, and to build audiences as followers as a leading actor or popular music performer must do. and it is interesting that several of our contributors in this issue have explored the link between politics and cultural forms such as film and popular music. these qualities of political persona can be collectively understood as processes of mediatisation, broadly conceived and reconfigured into political practice, staging and, perhaps most specifically and visibly, in election campaigning. although mediatisation of the public self is differently constituted in different political contexts and ecologies, over the course of the twentieth century it has converged towards a much more commodified identity. part of this transformation of the politician into a commodity is related to the way advertising and promotion has become a shorthand of political messaging specifically in democratic election campaigns. the commodified political persona has been most thoroughly explored when it has been linked to political marketing. in that particular research context, persona becomes close-tosynonymous with the brand. brand identity simultaneously generates and depends on the emotional connection between the politician and the voter, and thus works in the space that can be thought of as the territory of persona. in persona studies, persona can be thought of as neither individual nor collective, but rather the way the individual negotiates their move into the collective and the way that the collective interprets this now organised individual entity. from its corporate legacy when it began to be employed with serious intention in the late nineteenth century, a brand was meant to contain the value of the product through its consistency and its readily identifiable form (moor 26). the brand was the embodiment of the corporate ethic and integrity and its array of products. with simple variations and consistencies in design, the brand clearly differentiated one product from other products in the marketplace. marshall and henderson 4 in politics’ reconfiguration into political brands attached to individual leaders, professional practitioners working in campaigns have advanced on research that identifies the kinds of “affinities” that can be established between an electorate and a leader. as cwalina and falkowski underline, political brands have some qualities that make them “fuzzier” or more openly defined than product brands precisely because of the human dimension of politicians (hampson and goldberg, cited in cwalina and falkowski 156). in their reading of political brands, they identify two “basic aspects” that are reconfigured somewhat by the political: “brand awareness and brand image” (156). in their research on the polish presidential election of 2005, cwalina and falkowski claim that the real work of political marketing is to simultaneously blend positive associations with the political leader and mitigate negative associations so that the political brand image is best connected to the electorate most likely to vote for a given candidate. their research recognises that the political leader is perceived differently by different demographics, and thus there is a need to make the “associative affinity”match with the way that politics is actually thought of by different groups (161). in related research, speed, butler and collins emphasise the “human” element of the political brand scene (129). in its adaptation of approaches from business marketing, political marketing has to identify the “product” more clearly and thereby formulate the “political offer” that is conveyed to the electorate (129). the personal dimension of politics is central, as it becomes the way that parties and policies are made real and realisable, and this close affinity to the personality is the critical difference in politics. the objective, then, is to translate and link party to leader and electorate to leader, where the human element of the leader’s brand is not just an endorser of a position like a celebrity endorsing a product, but is what they call an “organizational actor” (145). because of this potential “human” brand dimension, a focus on establishing the “authenticity” of the leader’s message is critical to both party and elections (147). in a very direct way, what is evident from this research is that political marketing is devoted to the construction of strategic public identities—personas—that can be deployed for political agendas and outcomes. the objective of blending image and associations, of authenticity with authority and organisational identity in political marketing is to build the identities so that they function effectively and win elections. this research on political brands and the field of political marketing also reveals the way that the “personal” figures so largely in how politics is both conveyed and sold. the personalisation of politics is often configured as a threat to “real” issues; emerging from leadership studies, personalisation is perceived as a move away from rational decision-making into emotional associations (garzia). joshua meyrowitz provocatively claimed in 1985 that leaders had lost their aura via the blanket and microscopic coverage by the media (cited in garzia) and this has led to the further expansion of the personalisation of politics. poguntke and webb have linked this shift in international politics to all countries—even those without presidential and republican systems of government—and found their political forms of promotion have become progressively more “presidentialized” where the entire political system is focused on the singularity of leadership that the presidential system expresses (3). partially emerging from a similar understanding of the personalisation of politics has been research that has worked to understand the increasing move to affect in politics. for jessica evans, the “mediated persona” is derived from celebrity and its discourse of “intimacy, confession and revelation” (73). our connection to politics becomes “parasocial”, as if the electorate know the politician (74-75). evans’ “psychosocial” approach explains this move to the personal as producing a dual “identity politics”: voters are drawn to politicians who resemble their values and attitudes and politicians reconstruct themselves as personal persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 5 friends/recognisable personas that can relate directly to these identities (77-78). evans exemplifies the complicated nature of personalised identity politics for the female public persona through an analysis of hillary clinton and sarah palin in the 2008 us presidential and vice-presidential campaigns as a psychosocial problem that filled “contradictory demands” of public identity and performance (82). similarly, liesbet van zoonen investigates the different way that women politicians are critiqued as they move into prominence in the political public sphere. the feminist adage of the “personal is political” is transformed via its political remediatisation and produces an identity scrutiny that continuously integrates judgements of beauty and femininity in a recurrent delegitimising counterpoint to expressions of power and authority that are somehow still seen naturally as the province of masculinity. her analysis of the mediated political personas of the early career of angela merkel and the emergence of the first female finnish prime minister tarja halonen elucidate their identities as personalised via the media, but their personas are arrested in their capacity to express a private and celebritised identity in a manner that male politicians have been able to embrace more directly. there is no question that a complex variation of this form of political persona still lingers in our “reading” of hillary clinton and her run for president in 2016. a final further area of inquiry into political persona can be seen in political biography. lebow presents an interesting argument that biographers such as caro have produced valuable forms of political theory in their interpretation of intentionality. certainly, the contemporary political autobiography is used as a sophisticated production of legitimised public identity for emerging political figures. in the american context, almost all leading presidential candidates have produced a book to describe how their personal identity is connected to their political ambitions. for example, we can think here of barack obama’s audacity of hope or even jfk’s profiles in courage and its efforts to link past figures to his own desires. a similar pattern of strategic identity construction through autobiography is present in many other political systems and can serve as a useful primer for the ways that an idealised political persona can be constituted for strategic deployment in contemporary politics and a pathway to interrogate its formation. as is evident, political persona has been explored in many fields and directions of inquiry. although not always identified fully as persona studies, these approaches—from political communication, mediated politics and celebrity studies, political branding in marketing research, leadership studies, feminist and psychosocially-derived research, and political biography—reveal insights into the way that persona operates in political culture. as much as these approaches are valuable, they are also useful in identifying what is being overlooked with political persona and what areas—particularly in the contemporary moment—are emerging that are genuinely producing some new and perhaps dangerous configurations of political persona. from this mapping of political persona, we now return to investigating the issue that emerges from our original premise: that something profound is changing our political landscape, and persona is one channel to investigate this shift. understanding the political persona in the representational media and cultural regime: the emergence of the macro-actor the representation of individualised political authority is not new to democracy or even the nation-state. there is a long history of techniques to extend the power of an individual beyond their physical presence—or, in other words, to produce mediated versions of a political persona that can operate as a form of legitimacy. mediatisation can be understood as the translation or communication of a message through a technology that extends that message or the intentions of the messenger outwards. research into mediatisation has looked marshall and henderson 6 predominantly at how our contemporary world allows more of its production of meaning to be translated into technological forms such as television or the internet (lundby). one of the best ways to understand this early mediatisation is not through poems or songs, but through its instantiation through coinage. alexander the great was one of the first to produce a stability in everyday culture by ensuring that coins bore his image, albeit sometimes twinned with ram’s horns which worked to link his identity with the gods (braudy). because coinage is specifically designed for exchange, it linked alexander with the most mundane activities, but specifically as a guarantor of value, where the coin had the assurance with his image imprinted that it was genuinely worth its weight identified in silver. this form of mediatisation of political leadership has continued ever since and can be seen in its peculiar and particular constitution through the living queen elizabeth ii on coins across the commonwealth. the queen does not necessarily represent political power in its ebbs and flows of elections, but she does embody the nation and the security of its monetary system that transcends the change in prime ministership across the many countries her profile is used to guarantee monetary value. a useful way to unpack contemporary institutional support for select individuals’ political authority over people and land—and its current turbulence—is to consider michel callon and bruno latour’s early reading of hobbes’ leviathan. callon and latour extend a strand of hobbes’ argument, in which hobbes claims that a “person” can refer to a multitude of individuals if a single individual is authorised to act in the name of all (hobbes 160), to a more general theory of how leviathans (in the plural) assemble and legitimise their authority over micro-actors (callon and latour). in hobbes’ original text, the leviathan was the product of a “covenant of every man [sic] with every man” (168) to surrender their right of self-governance to one single “person”: the sovereign/leviathan. for callon and latour, a leviathan arises from the apparatus that transforms a micro-actor into a macro-actor with extraordinary agency. hobbes postulates a social contract that works to bind the social world together, where the sovereign/leviathan fulfils their role of ensuring order and the people accept this macro-actor’s authority. callon and latour break with hobbes in asserting that a leviathan cannot be maintained by a social contract alone. in latour’s larger project of actor network theory, he points to how objects, things, and environments serve as forms of agencies that establish and maintain social relations (latour). callon and latour’s interpretation of the leviathan points to how all of these things, not just people, are micro-actors that are enrolled into the service of the leviathan. there are many techniques that a leviathan structures to make this seem normal and natural, and callon and latour point to these as apparatuses that hide the operation of power. the castle or the palace, with its intimidatingly grand architecture, works precisely to leave authority unchallenged. callon and latour use the metaphorical expression of placing particular actors/objects in a “black box” when their contribution to the leviathan’s stability and power becomes “a matter of indifference,” such that the contingency and necessity of their contribution is no longer readily visible (285). in our extension of callon and latour we propose that, over time, the leviathans constituting western political systems of government have developed a naturalised relationship with—or, have put into a “black box”—the technology of distribution of information, news and images as they circulate for the given purposes of the organisation of democracy. the technologies we are identifying are usually collectively called the media. even this characterisation of the media as unified, already has embedded, in its meaning systems, those structures and techniques that are hiding their practices of naturalising our relationship to what is significant (usually characterised as news) and who is important (identifiable characters from persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 7 politics and entertainment). for the last two centuries, one of media’s general practices has been to simplify the social in this way through image-making (broadly conceived, for it incorporates the image made by both text constructions and sound) around a small group of people in each polity and in each culture and across the transnational divides as well. identifying this pattern of power as a “representational media and cultural regime” (marshall “presentation of the self”; marshall “mapping”) captures the way that our systems of political and cultural representation have been closely linked to our media systems, a relationship that has been building and normalising over the last two centuries. employing callon and latour’s notion of macro-actors, putting into “black boxes” the technology of media and the connected audiences that they produce with regularity, an odd but powerful paradox becomes apparent: media make certain people highly visible to a point that they become naturalised as legitimately representative of the populace across the domains of politics and culture, but the media are also making invisible their “social” work in constructing a coherent system of representation. in this essay, we are opening up this “black box” (callon and latour) by pointing to the way that the media work to both construct and make at least part of the social and political negotiation patterned and predictable. the array of leaders in a democracy—the visible faces of our contemporary leviathans—are regularly simplified to a recognisable range and number through this highly visible process that is invisibly connected to the organisation of power. this representational media and cultural regime has built through the development and increasing prominence of film, radio, television and the various iterations of the published press to what was its zenith from the 1960s to the 1980s in many democratically inspired polities. television, as a technology of the social by the 1970s, was at its peak in terms of co-ordinating power and structuring attention, and provided a visual leadership and hierarchy of popularity and influence across media forms. news anchors and hosts, visible entertainment performers across film, television and popular music, and political and cultural leaders were the visible television identities that helped organise a stable system of representation, a kind of stability that didn’t require deeper negotiation beyond the two hundred or so individuals already part of this “network.” the emergence of the presentational media and cultural regime although still powerful, this representational media and cultural regime has been under some threat as many of its key agents and actors have been in transformation. the stability of the system of representation that television as its leader had provided began to be undermined by the mid-1990s, as the world wide web started to have both wider use and quite different relationships to the populace. the term “legacy media,” with its apparent first use in 1998 (nielsen), captures both its power and its historically contingent configuration of power. on one level, legacy media produced the patterns that normalised the personalisation of politics, where leaders, like celebrities, were made more significant than either political parties or issues. legacy media were “technologies of the social” (marshall, celebrity persona pandemic 38-39) in their capacity to build collectives as audiences. simultaneously, these older media forms set up legitimising structures that allowed political leaders to lead and to become highly patterned and visible political personas as the few mediatised political identities in any polity. online culture from the 1990s began to produce a new “technology of the social” and a related reassembling of agency. from the original personal websites which resembled the look of powerful media forms via hypertext and integration of images (wynn and katz), to the development of weblogs that served as a traversal of personal mediatised activity into the marshall and henderson 8 twenty-first century (blood), a challenge to legacy media was emerging. the expansion of services such as youtube, myspace, urkut and slightly later facebook, twitter and instagram among many others produced new patterns in the movement of information, news and sharing (van dijk). at the centre of this new organisation of media and communication operating as a structured intermediary was the individual “user,” to use a parlance from early studies of online culture. some internet researchers in the 1990s and 2000s labelled this as more democratic, if not anarchic (levinson; cairncross; benkler). a dominant “cyberlibertarian” ideology, espoused by organisations such as the electronic freedom foundation and the progress and freedom foundation, proselytised the libertarian quality of the emerging online culture and actively worked to avoid constraints, limitations and legalised policies (bell et al.; dyson et al.). out of this emerged an odd but powerful information economy that generated several economic bubbles. the internet became a territory for a new capitalist-like enterprise modalised around different models of value, but fundamentally organised around two parallel constructs: the individual as gatekeeper and the network of connections this individualisation produced as the economic generator and multiplier. in contrast to the representational media and cultural regime with its legacy media and a system of public personalities produced by national and international leviathans, a “presentational media and cultural regime” was in ascendancy. the fundamental component of this emerging regime was an extension of the personalisation complex that structured the highly systematised network of visible personalities of legacy media and its systems of representational legitimacy. personalisation accelerated in several ways. first there was the personalisation of technologies through individualised devices such as personal computers and mobile phones. second, there was the personalisation of the modes of individual activities and displays of the self through personal websites and blogs as described above. third, and more profoundly, there was a new layer of personalisation proliferating through an expansive market and culture of apps and applications that emerged with, and were related to, social media applications that regularised individual participation, visibility, sharing and networking. in contrast to a small number of individuals who were initially mediatised (with mediatisation the representational culture of images and texts of the famous as they were displayed through legacy media), over the last 12 years a system has emerged where billions are mediatised. like their legacy media progenitors, these newly mediatised individuals managed their production, distribution and exhibition of themselves, developed something resembling audiences of follower and friends, and networked in a cultural world where their image, visibility and what they liked both appeared to matter and resembled past and current media (for a valuable extension of this, see senft). a massive and complex system has emerged via these technologies that has permitted a sense of agency as these billions of networked individuals produce forms of strategic public displays of themselves that are designed to move and connect to different collectives. once again, as opposed to the relative stability of legacy media and its limited repertoire of recognisable personas and its construction of clearly identifiable and economically validated audiences, we now have a pandemic of persona construction. this persona construction is a hybrid of forms and mediated speaking positions. although social media sites differ in the way they give prominence to certain kinds of messages and posts, there is an emerging pattern where facebook, twitter, instagram and weibo resemble each other in overall structure. the posts of microblogs on twitter and weibo correlate with the news feeds and walls of facebook and instagram. images, still and moving, persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 9 abound and serve as forms of attention and attraction structures. collectively, the material from the avatar/image that identifies the “source” as an individual to the flow of posts and news establishes the online identity of the user and is reinforced by the social engagement of perfunctory likes and comments by a network of friends. it is the intersection of the interpersonal with the highly mediated that produces a culture of “intercommunication”: users are drawn into levels of engagement that are a melange of personal, public, sometimes professional, sometimes intimate, and frequently connected to videos, images and other texts and comments (marshall, celebrity persona pandemic 67-75). hybrid media and political turbulence the effect of pandemic persona production and the emergence of a presentational media as a cultural regime on politics is generally one of destabilisation. legacy media and structures of political representation are now challenged by a personalised attention economy where a layer of mediatised online identities structure the flow of news and the patterns of attachment and connection to an electorate. andrew chadwick explains that politics now operates in what he calls hybrid media—which is neither the traditional legacy media nor the online structures of social media, but a movement between these layers in an elaborate game of influence and power. legacy media trawls online culture as a source of breaking news to maintain its currency. the wider dimensions of online culture structure odd forms of loose networks of connection that are based on hashtags, prominent online personas and further connections to political candidates, movements and party leaders. the old conception of the personalisation of politics is a threadbare starting point of a new generation of personalised politics, where the personal is determined by online posts, photos and tweets that attract emotive attention in a manner perhaps most similar to the operation of banner headlines in a tabloid newspaper. the difference from the tabloid overblown headline are two distinct levels of the personal. first, the candidate or the politician must produce a “feed” that allows it to be both picked up and shared by potential allies, constructing a “micro-electorate” (see usher’s article in this issue). and second, it must generate a meme-like series of related posts by millions of interconnected followers who are similarly working through these political postures to construct their own public identity with their choice of sharing, their structure of added texts, and their relation to their audience of followers and friends who may or may not extend the emotional discussion as they also play in their construction of mediatised identity or online persona. from this perspective of a new, layered personalised politics that works simultaneously through online culture and legacy media, let’s look briefly at our two flagged examples—brexit and the 2016 us presidential election—to identify this transformed political persona. this is a persona that literally struggles to embody the body politic; the leviathan of the contemporary that once was intricately manifested through the close and legitimising relationship between politics and the media. brexit and the 2016 us presidential election recent research from the oxford internet institute has explored how online activities have produced what they call “political turbulence” (margetts et al.). although their research has been more focused on social movements rather than political persona, their approach does identify the sometimes-intense activities that individuals produce as a form of online identity formation. in their study, the researchers conducted a social experiment where they tried to determine the effect of participants’ support for a charity through shaming and visibility of their marshall and henderson 10 activities of support. their experiment, in its replication of online sharing of activity, pointed to how revealing the activity of others produced more support for the charity as individuals competed with each other for their level of caring (146-7). their research reveals that online culture produces a changed political environment that privileges forms and strategies of higher visibility. in addition, their research explores how the usual determination of political activity is in flux through the use of social media. instead of demographics being a predictor of political activity, where the richer and the more educated, for instance, are more likely to vote and participate, something else is arising—at least in the analysis of social media and politics—as a more accurate determination of engagement. drawing on the five great personality traits originally developed in psychology research, margetts’ team of researchers found that personality traits that influence people’s engagement with social media correspond with their online-inspired political activity. specifically, the traits of extraversion and agreeableness match their previous research on the significance of visibility, and are instrumental in understanding the relationship that social media has with the production of contemporary politics. in a follow-up blog that was attempting to explain the united kingdom 2016 european union membership referendum, commonly known as brexit, margetts concluded that there was a link between brexit and the us presidential election in a visible era of political turbulence, all of which was connected to the new organisation of involvement and participation in online culture: this explosive rise, non-normal distribution and lack of organization that characterizes contemporary politics as a chaotic system, can explain why many political mobilizations of our times seem to come from nowhere. in the us and the uk it can help to understand the shock waves of support that brought bernie sanders, donald trump, jeremy corbyn (elected leader of the labour party in 2015) and brexit itself, all of which have challenged so strongly traditional political institutions. in both countries, the two largest political parties are creaking to breaking point in their efforts to accommodate these phenomena. (margetts) margett et al.’s research is part of a growing body of work that is situating online activity as something that is transforming our culture in a variety of ways. if we look a little more closely at the statistics of engagement related to brexit, we can discern that there was massive activity online by both the leave supporters and stay supporters, even if that activity was done simply as “liking” something and thus sharing that “like” with personal networks: basic facebook likes of #strongerin were recorded at 568,363 during the campaign, while #voteleave generated 555,030 (vickers). online activity is evidence of how many people construct their own personas through political events and share those positions and postures with others. this identifies how politics via social media is a particular form of expression of the public self for sharing with others. thus, what must be understood about political persona in the contemporary moment is that it is not only a construction of political leaders, but also a construction of how the political becomes part of all social media users’ personas. to augment this analysis, here are some very basic statistics related to who voted in the brexit referendum. this research revealed that as low as 36% of 18-24 year olds voted and the next lowest percentage of 56% of 25-34 year olds voted. in addition, less than 13% of 18-24 year olds actually registered to vote, which produced a massive skewing of referendum results to the desires of older britons: almost 80% those aged 45 years and older voted and so that voting age dominated the final results (vickers). many interpretations can be made from these voting statistics, but what is critical to understanding this changed politics is seeing that there is a disconnection between place and persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 11 online identity that is more evident in the younger age group. older age groups physically voted and were connected to the way that representational systems have operated under the representational media and cultural regime. in other words, their identities were grounded in where they lived and their everyday lives, which included knowing where to vote within that community identity. we would conjecture that younger potential voters, however, were not as connected to actual voting, the polling booths and the community organisation of politics that has been part of this system of representation for generations. their politics and the dimensions of their “political” persona were done in the performative moments of their public persona online. unfortunately, the representational system of politics does not calibrate that online work: it is not voting! this disconnection from the representational systems of government and media is complex and, as the brexit referendum reveals, does not capture the entire populace within any nation or polity. politics, like the media, has become hybrid as well. political election campaigns and elections are navigating through old and new forms of connection to their citizenry, with varying results. in the american political system, it has been a truism for the last century that the key to victory has been getting your supporters to actually vote. voter turnouts in the united states have not been above 60% since 1968 (statista) and the political game is ensuring that likely sympathetic voters to your cause are registered to vote. the 2016 presidential election in the united states provides some similar connections and disconnections with the political and media representational system that we have outlined above in interpreting the 2016 brexit vote in the u.k. what can be seen much more clearly in a presidential campaign is how these shifts in online activity and relationship to place are articulated in the production of a presidential-level political persona. although there is not the space to present a full analysis of the 2016 presidential election and the ultimate success of donald trump, we want to situate the particular rise of this political persona as exemplary of this new era of turbulence where representational structures and institutions clash, compete, and sometimes exploit the newer presentational structures that are emerging. the former stability of the representational leviathan that was dependent on a legacy media system to legitimise its power and presence is breaking down. first of all, trump’s status as a highly visible public persona in the united states has been dependent on the patterns of the representational media and cultural regime for very close to 40 years. attached and related to his designed-to-be-prominent real estate development business, trump made concerted efforts to be on national television with regularity. from television commercials promoting products such as pizza hut and mcdonald’s, to other marketing efforts promoting his own products and others, trump sold his own “success” as a persona. his ability to express a brash billionaire by the 1990s led to a series of scenes in popular film and television, including appearances on american situation comedies the nanny, the fresh prince of bel air, and spin city, along with film cameos in such films as home alone 2 (weisman). invariably, trump played himself or on occasion, an acting personality that resembled his public identity. he also bought into programs and franchises that were televisual, with his miss america pageant perhaps being the most prominent. in the 2000s, trump starred for eleven years as the boss in the reality show the apprentice (2004-2015) where once again he played his own construction of a business tycoon making rash and quick decisions for the benefit of apparent profits. the effect of this media work was two-fold. in its consistency and seriality (marshall, celebrity persona pandemic 48-63) across performances and public appearances, it constructed trump as a character whose performative dimensions were over-coded and stereotyped. it also marshall and henderson 12 constructed a somewhat unlikeable, unscrupulous, but opinionated individual who had achieved his right to the public stage through his wealth. trump was, and is, a persona that was highly dependent on how legacy media has operated (for more, see andrejevic). from those constructions and his own extensive work on making a public image that was an extension of his “work,” there is no question that trump’s was, and is, a celebrity. as opposed to constructing a political biography, trump’s business autobiography the art of the deal has served to establish how his business acumen represents his public skill and, by implication, his political value, but also exemplified his persona of political destabilisation in its disconnection from established political practice. hillary clinton’s constitution of a public persona was predominantly derived from various fora into politics. the many political biographies about her (for example, david brock’s 1996 the seduction of hillary rodham) and her own autobiographies (living history and hard choices, published in 2004 and 2014 respectively) establish her as a political persona, and the prominence of her positions—particularly as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 under president obama, us senator from new york from 2001 to 2009, and her 2008 presidential candidacy—further accentuate this particular public identity. however, because of her status as the wife of bill clinton, us president from 1993 to 2001, this identity was somewhat conflicted by its identification with her role as “first lady”—a quasi-official position that she politicised further during her tenure. as first lady, along with her previous role as governor’s spouse when bill clinton was governor of arkansas before being elected president, her identity became somewhat connected to a celebrity-like figure with its prominence and with the effects of the 1992 and 1996 sex scandals. nonetheless, for over 40 years hillary clinton established herself as part of the political elite and establishment within the democratic party, as well as a visible champion of women’s rights and universal health care. from the perspective of legacy media and legacy politics, hillary clinton embodied a legacy politician status during her 2016 presidential candidacy, a kind of status that allowed her to legitimately embody a potential representational media and cultural regime leviathan. donald trump’s ultimate victory over clinton was remarkable for many reasons. first of all, although trump derived much of his symbolic power from his prominence in legacy media, his particular migration into politics was not twinned with the representational political institutions in any way. for instance, he had never held political office or had a public service position in his career, something that made him historically unique once he had successfully become the nominee of the republican party. and, as he pursued his presidential candidacy through the republican primaries, he progressively situated himself as an outsider related to legacy news media. by election day, six papers (all of them from small or regional markets) had endorsed trump, in comparison to 200 for clinton and a further 12 or more endorsing what could be called “not-trump” (arrieta-kenna). although endorsements by newspapers are not generally thought of as politically-determining in terms of outcomes, this was the lowest by far for any major-party presidential candidate in history and did identify a disconnection from the news media (arrieta-kenna). when one considers how trump first alienated conservative television news media such as fox news, the more centrist services such cnn, cnbc and the major national network news, and even most of the major coverage that looked at his presidential campaign from an entertainment/celebrity perspective, one can see that, at least strategically, what he presented was definitively not embraced by legacy media. this disconnection from legacy media and legacy politics would in the recent past have determined the illegitimacy of trump’s candidacy even as it surfaced. however, as we identified in the brexit example, something different is occurring in the organisation of politics that is producing different effects and outcomes. trump’s ascendancy is difficult to read, partially persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 13 because of the structure of media coverage which was conveyed via a nearly wholesale official rejection of the candidate, but more directly because of the way that the new “attention economy” now operates and moves through contemporary culture. over the past eight years there has been a gradual migration of the production of attention—what we could call “media” attention through the broadest definition of media—via online forms and social media (crogan and kinsley). the different nature of this attention economy is the new intersections between the public, private and intimate that are promulgated in a world where individuals reveal themselves collectively, share those revelations and network with others in different constellations of public and publicity structures. once again, this massive presentation of the self—a pandemic of individual persona construction for use in this online world—is instrumental for making sense of the movement of information, value and reputation in the contemporary attention economy. regarding the 2016 us presidential election, donald trump managed to shift the flow of public debate, whether in legacy media platforms or newer social media, through provocative posts and tweets on different platforms that he also replicated in his public addresses. his extreme attacks on hillary clinton and other candidates often focused on very personal dimensions of these individuals, his persistent racist characterisations and his openly aggressive identifications of a need for a new american relationship to the world served as both click-bait for social media users and were too alluring as headlines for legacy news media coverage to not use as leading stories. in other words, for sixteen months prior to election day donald trump dominated the attention economy to a point where legacy news media followed him “live” to capture the possibility that something newly provocative would emerge from his mouth at any time, and they would fulfil their desired status to take the lead in routing what was said through the attention economy. central to this remarkable cultural dominance of attention was trump’s peculiar ability to move the social media culture of personal revelation as a form of attraction in politics itself. his signature persona performance was to cross the lines of public and social etiquette repeatedly and with force never seen in public political performance. that challenge to public identity was oddly but persistently elemental to social media and individual persona construction online: trump converted that affective attention economy of the personal and the private into contemporary politics and drew legacy news media to expansively participate in its conversion into a legitimate and now prominently visible form of contemporary politics. interpreting the actual result of this election from this perspective of political persona is even more fraught. trump produced an extreme form of strategic public identity, built from his business man/art-of-the-deal celebrity persona but fundamentally organised to draw attention and congeal that attention around discontent. legacy politics and its associated legacy media fell into a hybrid media structure and a dependence on this sensational persona, possibly with the hope of delegitimising the truth-claims of this trump political persona. however, the instability that trump generated may have been all that a disenfranchised populace was looking for: not some claim to authenticity, not some form of truth, but the sheer need for political turbulence in and of itself. with clinton over-coded as the legacy politician, a persona with the quintessential embodiment of elite thinking and action (and who had already eliminated the left’s trump persona doppelganger in the equally interesting persona of bernie sanders) trump’s persona inhabited this territory with little challenge. our use of political persona and, more widely, persona to understand contemporary politics identifies pointedly how this changed cultural landscape needs the work of persona studies. persona is a fictive public identity drawn from elements of one’s individuality but marshall and henderson 14 designed for public use. we made the claim near the beginning of this introductory article that the massive mediatisation of the self has produced this new political instability, this era of persona generation, that challenges the organisation of citizenry as voters as much as it challenges those trying to represent the citizenry in the representational system. like brexit, one of the other transformations is a disconnection of some citizens from place as their online identity, and the massive active work that goes into producing a shared persona, produces a different and not necessarily geographically-defined identity. there are many reasons why political experts and polling mis-predicted the results of the 2016 presidential election, but i think it is worthwhile to conjecture one further claim that has emerged from this destabilised mediatised system. we would claim that the presentational media and cultural regime does produce an active participant in debate—a very lively, sharing and networked pervasive political persona—but not necessarily active in the representational systems of government. actual voting in its geographical and community specificity of polling booths is part of legacy politics and somewhat disconnected from this emerging presentational media and cultural regime. the disenfranchised individuals that have been identified as the trump supporters are just slightly more likely to be in particular communities and not part of the disconnected online culture that is displaced from where they live. the attention economy produced the persona that aligned with this disenfranchised but more-likely-to-vote citizen because of their legacy-like cultural connection to place. in the current cultural moment, the relationship between the individual and the collective is in turbulence. in terms of political persona, the fictive quality of political public identity can be traced via the transformation of the media-cultural regime that supports it. from callon and latour’s actor-network theory-informed reading of hobbes’ leviathan, the political moments of brexit and trump’s election expose the contingency of the political apparatus of the western liberal-democratic state—the representational “leviathan”—and of tracing how the work of supporting and legitimising this representational “leviathan” is being both challenged and co-opted. thus, the democratic leviathan is exposed in the new politics via the new political personas. the revelation of the fictive quality of political public identity is also exposed. the way that democratic politics absorbs the agency of many into a singular entity/persona as president is also made visible. from an actor network theory approach, the current election exposed the sociality of agency and the instability of the leviathan, as well as the apparatuses of governing and the technologies that have supported its structure. journal article summaries in this special issue of persona studies, we have published five articles that use political persona to engage with these issues of confrontation, co-optation and transformation. many of the articles focus on moments of instability or conflict within existing political orders, and how political persona can help elucidate those moments. each in their own way traces the trajectory of a political persona (or personas) in a contemporary cultural and political environment. our contributors have considered a us president and president-elect, british parliamentary candidates, a politician and women’s rights activist in botswana, a paparazzi turned mayor of an australian regional city, and a polish rock musician turned national politician. together, they trace the diversity of strategies and challenges around the operation of political persona today. usher empirically examines the strategic operation of u.k. leaders’ political personas during the 2013 british election. extending and reorienting the term “micropublics” (marshall, “mapping”), she highlights how the leaders of the main u.k. political parties used twitter and facebook to construct microelectorates. the variations in these political leaders’ construction of persona studies 2016, 2 (2) 15 persona online suggest new and alternative means of attracting democratic participation, if not necessarily in-depth engagement, in a presentational media and cultural regime. played out on facebook and twitter, these members of the established political parties each have carved out a niche for themselves within the structures required of them on newer media platforms. while usher’s investigation shows how established political players can maintain continuity of political power in the new regime, others who have transferred status between cultural regimes have not so much transferred political power as translated their old celebrity status into a new political one. we have already mentioned trump’s rise to fame through legacy media. however, he is not the only beneficiary of prominence in the representational regime who has then translated that prominence into a political career. two articles published in this issue engage in case studies of a celebrity-turned-politician and the difficulties that arose from conflicts between celebrity persona and the expectations of traditional political display. notably both celebrity politicians examined, despite numerous differences in nationality, reasons for celebrity status, and even the level of politics in which they were involved, shared the common denominator of relying very heavily on social media rather than legacy media to present their political persona. casson investigates a celebrity-turned-politician at the level of local australian government. her case study is darryn lyons, the former mayor of geelong, a large regional town in victoria, australia. she focuses on the framing in newspaper reporting and in online commentary of lyons wearing a provocative t-shirt at an event he attended in his role as mayor. the apparent contradictions between the persona of celebrity and mayor do not appear to have been adequately resolved in this case, which has raised questions about the very process of mayoral election in the state of victoria. olczyk and wasilewski analyse the media presentations, both on television and on facebook, of polish rock star-turned-national-politician pawel kukiz. his engagement on facebook, his political platform of change/risk in stark contrast to the mainstream political parties’ emphasis on stability and security, and his dynamic performance on talk shows and televised debates, situated him as an explicit alternative to the political status quo. however, olczyk and wasilewski also point out the difficulties that such appeals to authenticity face when confronted with the requirements of existing political structures. the question of conflict between authenticity and political structure looms large in seru and magogwe’s contribution as well. here, the division between role and persona, authentic presentation and artificial seeming, official position and actual intention, is examined in the conflict between the male-dominated politics of botswana and prominent female member of botswana and prominent female member of the botswana democratic party (bdp), margaret nasha. while the bdp ostensibly supported gender equality, seru and magogwe use nasha’s experience within the party to show the contrast between the public face and the private actions of bdp members. although we have already discussed trump ourselves, there is no doubt that further evaluation of the “trump phenomenon” will be forthcoming in the coming months and years. rademacher’s article in this issue offers a unique take on trump’s persona. she offers an analysis of the resurgent genre of “noir” to illustrate the conventions utilised by both trump himself and by the legacy media in the mediated presentation of a political persona. that persona, of the “hard-boiled detective,” situates a particular, and a particularly american, mythology about success and power very uneasily in the current political context of america and trump himself. marshall and henderson 16 as we look forwards toward president trump, we should not forget to look back on the persona of president obama. totman and hardy query us president obama’s political legacy, interrogating the relationship between his political persona and actual attempts to implement his foreign policy in the middle east. they find little to support the early popular interpretation of obama as a “man of peace,” and argue that his image even now stands in contrast to his political agenda. they also find that his various successes and failures have not significantly impacted his domestic popularity, and suggest that, at least for the moment, foreign policy in the middle east does not play a strong part in either the production or the reception of the political persona of the us president. conclusion as we stated at the outset of this introduction, persona—the negotiated construction of the individual in their interactions with the collective—is imbued with politics at its core. however, the means by which some individuals make a claim to explicit, legitimate political authority over others, and the means by which these claims are accepted, is the distinct domain of political persona investigated in this special issue. existing research into political persona has demonstrated the wide range of matters to which political persona has relevance, from issues of authenticity and image, to issues of managing and making use of emotional presentations and connections. brexit and trump’s triumph suggest that many of the assumptions around how politics and political persona work must now be questioned. with the apparent stability and naturalness of the political order in the representational media and cultural regime disrupted, and political power personalised in the new presentational regime, new negotiations of the relationship between individual and collective agency are underway. the study of persona is ideally positioned to examine questions of collective agency and political power that have been raised by the new vulnerability of these once seemingly unassailable leviathans, as we, and they, enter new and unfamiliar political territory, armed—so far—only with the tools that have served us in the 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"lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of leaders." public administration review 73.4 (2013): 553-65. print. vickers, francesca. “brexit: the effect of social media on politics.” one: social media. web. 15 august 2016. weisman, aly. “donald trump’s forgotten but incredible tv and movie cameos from the 90s.” business insider australia. web. 29 august 2015. wheeler, mark. celebrity politics: image and identity in contemporary political communications. cambridge: polity, 2013. print. wynn, eleanor and james e. katz. “hyperbole over cyberspace: self-presentation and social boundaries in internet home pages and discourse.” the information society 13.4 (1997): 297–327. web. svanfeldt-winter 18 writing a folklorist’s persona in the field: how defining the object of study defines the scholar lisa sva nf eldt-wi nte r abstract in this article, i approach negotiations of belonging by studying the relationship between folklorists and their informants. i examine how young finnish folklorists on their first collection journeys in the early 1920s positioned themselves as scholars by stressing both their identification with and their differences from the informants. the discipline's high status as a "national science" required the collectors to approach the locals as carriers of a national heritage shared between the collectors and informants. on the other hand, the pursuit of scholarly acknowledgement urged the scholars to emphasize their position as experts who could evaluate the authenticity and academic relevance of the information offered by the locals. one effective way to do so was to highlight a temporal distance between the describer and the described, placing the informants in an earlier time of lower social and cultural development than the scholar. i discuss how the alternation between identification and difference can be interpreted as a means for the scholars to negotiate their places in their academic community and to form feasible scholarly personas within it. the article places special focus on how the young collectors performed this negotiation by describing informants in their correspondences with student friends and cooperating to find shared ways of approaching the informants in acceptable ways according to their discipline. key words scholarly persona; history; nationalism; ethnography; folklore collections introduction research on the histories of scholarly personas has given us exciting insights into how culturally and socially bound expectations affect who could participate in research and academic debate and the consequences this selection of participants has had on what knowledge is produced and accepted as relevant and true (daston & sibum 2003; paul 2016; bosch 2013). the aim of this article is to contribute to these discussions by asking how objects of study were used in persona formation. i argue that the object of study is a prerequisite for scholars to do their work and thus for scholarly personas to exist. where would the historian be without sources or the botanist without flora? still, the relationships with the objects of study have not been given much attention in research on scholarly personas. i approach the matter by discussing how finnish students of folklore in the field, persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 19 the countryside in the 1920s, described the locals, their objects of study. by writing letters to each other about the locals and so positioning themselves in relation to them, the students tried out and negotiated their scholarly personas. folkloristics and the finnish context the discipline of folkloristics examines immaterial culture, such as beliefs, proverbs and songs. folkloristics had and still has somewhat fluid borders to related disciplines, such as anthropology, ethnology and language and literature studies. it developed as an academic discipline during the nineteenth century, in close connection with the national romanticist and nationalist movements. for a long period, the primary focus remained on collecting and studying folk culture within the scholars’ own nations, and the field gained relatively high status in many countries since it was used to demonstrate a nation’s traditional, unique, and civilized culture. this was particularly the case in many new states with little political history to build national pride on (baycroft 2012, pp.3–5; ó giolláin 2000, pp.4, 76–77). to this end, researchers strove to find the most archaic folklore they could, agreeing upon that this information had survived most untouched among the elderly in the countryside. the material for research was to a large extent collected by scholars, students and amateur collectors who travelled the countryside and interviewed locals about their dialects and proverbs, oral poetry and beliefs (ó giolláin 2000, pp.50–51). finland was one such typical new state in the beginning of the twentieth century. the territory was part of sweden until 1809, when it was lost to russia and gained status as an autonomic grand duchy. during the autonomic period, the intelligentsia followed the national romanticist ideas of finding and bringing forward a national self-awareness. when russian rule towards the end of the century moved from extensive autonomy and cultural heterogeneity within its realm towards so-called russification politics, this newly “found” national culture was used in the resistance to these politics. in 1917 amid the turmoil of the russian revolutions and the first world war, finland claimed independence. a four-month-long civil war between socialists and conservatives followed and was eventually won by the conservatives. it was in this context that the finnish folklorists were working with finding the "authentic" culture of the finns (anttonen 2012, pp.336–228). the finnish case is not only interesting in national history-writing but also gives broader insights. the finnish folklorists were at the centre of developing the historicgeographic method, also called the finnish school, which was a dominant approach to folklore scholarship at the time (seljamaa 2008, p.85). although finland’s location was rather provincial, the scholars’ ways of being folklorists were not without significance. folklorists’ participation in the nation-building project was also not exclusively a finnish phenomenon and corresponded to parallel circumstances in others parts of europe. approaches to studying a folklorist’s persona i use h. otto sibum and lorrain daston’s general definition of persona as an intermediate concept between individuals and institutions as a point of departure, which allows for the study what it takes to be a good, acknowledged scholar in academic communities bound to time, place and scholarly field (daston & sibum 2003, pp.2–4). i view the function of persona through the lens of conal condren, stephen gaukroner and ian hunter’s work, who argue that persona functions as an office, a position from which the scholar acts and speaks as a scholar and with the authority of a scholar. the office or persona offers individuals authority but comes also with a framework for what is suitable and possible within its parameters. a feasible persona, they svanfeldt-winter 20 argue, authenticates scholars’ arguments. in their interpretation, scholars purposely form themselves—construct a persona—in order to adapt to the expectations of their field (condren, gaukroger & hunter 2006, p.10). in order to study how this forming happens, i use mineke bosch’s approach of persona formation as a performative process which can be linked to judith butler’s theory of how gender is made by repetitions that create and confirm identity and norms (bosch 2013, p.17; butler 1999, pp.42–44). previous research on the scholarly persona has often focused on scholars in single disciplines, just as i do here (see e.g. carson 2001; paul 2017; tai & dongen 2016). what would one more study of one more discipline—and a very small one—give us that has not yet been discovered? i argue that this small, even peripheral, discipline offers us a new perspective by letting us study how scholarly personas were constituted in relation to the scholars’ objects of study. inspired by the finnish folklorist jyrki pöysä's interpretation that “essentially, the field is not a place, but the relationship between the researcher and the people put into objects of study”(pöysä 2004, p.25), i discuss how this relationship out in the field shaped the folklorists’ personas. the active role of the informants made them visible and an object of debate within the discipline. similar to contemporary historians, who critically evaluated (and to a large extent discarded) the validity of their sources, folklorists discussed not only how to choose informants in order to gain valid information but also how to approach and interview them (lilja 1996, p.240; fabian 2006, p.143). however, in order to remain authorities over folkloristic knowledge, the scholars needed to assert control over the information provided by the informants, who could, intentionally or unintentionally, change the access to and the extent of the information provided as well as the content itself. folklorists also observed that the informants could act differently depending on how they felt about the collectors; for example the collector’s dialect, gender or appearance could affect the outcome of the interviews (kallio 2013, pp.59–60). informants were even known to criticise the scholars’ interpretations or share their information with a larger audience without using the researcher as an intermediary (tarkka 1989, pp.247–248). i wish to approach this relationship by studying how students described the people in the countryside and how they, by the performance of writing these accounts and repeating certain models of being a good scholar, manifested and formed personas. inspired by condren, gaukroner and hunter, i look at how the students pursued positions that would give them authority to speak as folklorists and what was used to authenticate the folklorists’ arguments. when reading the sources, patterns can be identified with the help of three theoretical approaches that have had great impact on (critical) folklore studies. the first is regina bendix's work on authenticity. authenticity holds a special place within folklore studies. the collectors and scholars of the discipline’s early years hunted for the authentic folk culture, just as their colleagues in, for example, anthropology intended to map authentic culture in exotic places (bendix 1997, pp.5, 95–96; compare junkala et al. 1998, p.68). when something is declared authentic, it gains the status of being worthwhile to archive and analyse. at the same time, making a declaration of authenticity can legitimize the person declaring it. in most cases, authentic folklore equalled archaic culture, which was the most highly valued information (bendix 1997, p.7; compare dundes 1980, pp.2–5; koski 2011, pp.38– 39). according to bendix, folklorists accentuate scholarly authority by claiming a position that allows them to judge what information should be considered authentic folklore (bendix 1997, p.7). i use this approach to examine how the folklore students used descriptions of authenticity as a means for manifesting themselves as folklorists. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 21 the second is johannes fabian’s work on anthropologists’ making of the objects of study as their other. fabian claims that anthropologists create their objects of study by systematically placing the observed in another time than the observer, which creates a distance and difference between them, a tendency that he calls the denial of coevalness. it positions the observer as a modern creature, while the observed lives in a supposed older time and is thus more primitive. this makes it possible for the observer to claim a position from where they can analyse the information given (fabian 2002, pp.25, 31–32). fabian’s work is rooted in a larger postcolonial critique of the ethnographic disciplines, which gained in strength during the 1980s. this critical tradition claimed that the disciplines’ knowledge was produced by understanding and presenting its objects of study as counter-images of the scholars’ cultures (said 2000, pp.110– 113, 120, 130; loomba 2002, p.48; clifford & marcus 1986, pp.4–5; boon 1982, pp.vii–xvii). both the approach of the folkloristic search for archaic (authentic) culture and fabian's theory take as a premise that the practice of describing cultural traits from a time that the describer did not belong to gave scholarly authority. at the same time, the nationalistic foundation of folkloristics adds an element of conflicting interest for the scholars, which brings us to the third approach: as one key motivation for folklore research was to save what was left of an ancient national heritage, to a certain degree, the scholars needed identify themselves with their objects of study (anttonen 2005, p.148; spring 2001, pp.80–81). when searching for what constituted the folklorist’s persona, this creates an interesting tension. on the one hand, the scholars manifested their scholarly authority by distancing themselves from the objects of study. on the other hand, the function of their discipline as a tool in the nation-building project—which also brought the discipline much of its status—urged them to identify themselves with the same objects (bendix 1997, p.49). this tension further reminds us of the strong impact of nationalism in this context. however, this article is not primarily a study in nationalism but in how scholarly personas are shaped. nonetheless, as folkloristics was embedded in the nation-building project, it must be viewed as an inherent component of the folklorist's persona of the time and is therefore also part of the empirics and analysis in this study. in this article i ask how two students in the field described local people and circumstances and how they expressed their own personas as aspiring folklore scholars. i study how they positioned themselves as the legitimate observers and describers of the people and culture, while simultaneously having to stress that they themselves were describing their own national culture. building particularly on these three approaches, i examine how the young folklorists alternated between describing their own cultural heritage and stressing their differences from their objects of study. i argue that this alternation can be viewed as a means of negotiating their places as scholars in a nationalistically-driven discipline as well as a construction of a scholarly persona as it develops from a student to a researcher persona. cases and sources to address the questions posed above, i use personal documents written by two folklore students in finland during the 1920s: elsa enäjärvi (1901–1951) and martti haavio (1899– 1973). they were both from middle-class backgrounds, originally from rural areas. they earned ba degrees in folkloristics in 1921 and 1923 respectively, and continued from there with phds and academic careers. typically for the students and scholars of their time and field of study, they participated in right-wing nationalist associations and cultural societies. after several years of friendship, dating and collegial camaraderie, enäjärvi and haavio got married in 1929 (sievänen-allen 1993, pp.9–10, 116–119, 388, 392; majamaa n.d.; eskola n.d.).the documents used in this study consist of diary notes and private letters to family and friends, all from svanfeldt-winter 22 personal collections archived at the literary archives of the finnish literature society in helsinki. i have left out sources such as newspaper articles, the material sent to the funding organisations’ archives and letters of more formal character because they contain much less in terms of personal accounts of the students’ relationships with their informants. haavio and enäjärvi wrote a majority of the documents used as sources here on the finnish countryside between 1921 and 1924. in 1921, haavio made a month-long fieldwork journey to south karelia in southeastern finland on a scholarship from the finnish literature society. enäjärvi, again, spent five weeks in 1924 in her childhood village, vihti, where she collected proverbs and dialectal words for the dictionary foundation (fi. sanakirjasäätiö). in the summer of 1923, both took a long journey to north karelia. the journey was organised by the right-wing nationalistic academic karelia society (akateeminen karjalaseura, aks), and the aim was to “enlighten” people in line with the karelianistic ideology. the ideology embraced vernacular culture in the border region of karelia. the region was considered to have preserved the last pieces of an archaic finnish culture, mainly thanks to its peripheral location and many rather isolated localities. it was also the region where the finnish scholar elias lönnrot (1802– 1884) had collected folk poetry for the national epic kalevala, which further strengthened the region's status as a treasury of folk culture. for that reason, it engaged many scholars, especially in the humanities, as well as common people and artists. besides the romanticising gaze on karelian landscape and people, the movement also had a political, irredentist side, supporting the fights for independence by karelians on the soviet side of the border and promoting finnish annexation of soviet territory inhabited by finnic people (fewster 2011, pp.38–39; virtanen 2001, pp.135–141). during the aks tour, the students visited towns and villages where they propagated the society's agenda, but they also made small excursions in national romantic landscapes, swam, and held parties on their own. the purpose of the journey was not to collect folklore, but i have included the texts written during this time because they describe the locals in the same way as they are described during collection journeys. in other words, the relationship between the describer and the described or the observer and the observed seems to have been the same in these descriptions as in descriptions of informants. national landscapes and people the students’ letters and diaries radiate enthusiasm for being out in the countryside, observing and describing the locals. the students describe an eagerness to participate in the larger project of collecting and promoting finnic culture, to which their fields of study were so tightly connected. the students biked through national romantic landscapes encountering helpful locals and knowledgeable informants of finnish and finnish-related origin. when describing the landscape, enäjärvi's and haavio’s accounts mirror the observations that previous research has made on how nationalistically minded ethnographers tended to describe their national landscape. in the finnish context, that meant birches, forested pinewood hills, glittering blue lakes, grazing domestic animals, fields and cottages. although urban imaginings were more frequently published during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rural landscapes were long considered to be the most typical national imaginings of finnishness (häyrynen 2000, pp.9–10; lcmh 730 (2:3:15); mcmh 5.1, (7.6.1921); eskola 1999, p. 179; lcmh 758 (23:6:1)). in that sense, we can read enäjärvi's and haavio's landscape descriptions as ways of portraying their surroundings in a stereotypical national way. the descriptions of the landscape were predominantly positive, radiating the same enthusiasm as other accounts of the fieldwork journeys. enäjärvi and haavio also wrote of a picturesque landscape with enjoyable weather conditions. this did not necessarily exclude rain, persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 23 cold and thunder from the travel letters, but these elements did not appear in connection to remarks of the landscape (lcmh 736 (8:4:1–2); lceeh 785 (13:10:25); eskola 1999, pp.175– 178, 321. by exclusively connecting good weather with the national landscape, the students reinforced its idyllic aura, filling what was popularly considered their “own” landscape solely with idealizing content. one way of looking at the students’ mirroring of a common rhetoric among nationalistically minded educated people is that the students wished to be included in that group and thus adapted to its jargon. however, i argue that the common rhetoric reflects more active agency. tricia cusack, who has studied imaging of “authentic” irishness, argues that the repetition of imaging functioned as a reinforcement for painters and travel letter writers in search of folk roots (cusack 2001, p.224). a student repeating the same descriptions of scenery as they can be assumed to have read and heard about before in similar contexts would not only follow an established writing tradition but also allow them to participate in the consolidation of the imaging. in terms of scholarly persona, they demonstrated adjustment to models of how to be a folklorist and this performance reproduced the folklorist’s persona (bosch 2013, pp.17, 22). in comparison to the landscapes, the descriptions of people were more versatile. recurring positive descriptions of the people in general were that they were friendly and kind (lcmh 731 (3:2:2); lceeh 764 (1:7:1); 785 (13:10:25); mheeh 5, 8.7[.1923]). for the travelling collectors, it was also a great advantage when the people were generous and hospitable, helping them with their work and transportation, repairing shoes and offering food and accommodation (lcmh 731 (3:2:2, 3:10:4); lceeh 764 (1:8:1; 1:9:1); mceeh 5, 12.7.1923; eskola 1999, p.321). other positive features included resilience and vividness ( lcmh 731 (3:10:3); lceeh 785 (13:10:25); mceeh 5, 8.7[.1923]; lceeh 764 (1:8:1)). an interesting feature in enäjärvi's accounts is that she wrote positively about all persons whom she in some way marked as having some form of higher status. the person could be the patron or matron of a house, a priest or a local leader. still, no characteristics were solely used for the people of rank, and any of the people in the documents could be described as friendly, generous or vivid. the main difference was that when the social rank was marked, the descriptions were almost exclusively positive. consequently, the persons with relatively higher social status received comparatively more positive descriptions than the others (lceeh 764 (1:8:1); mceeh 5, 8.7[.1923], 12.7.1923; lceeh 785 (13:10:26)). when the students gave positive remarks of the locals, they repeated the identifying and idealising rhetoric of the nation and its people, the approach to national heritage that combined their political convictions and their discipline’s greater aim. in this way, they manifested the politically coloured folklorist’s persona. if the people of rank evoked positive descriptions of places they recognized, smaller rural societies as wholes could be marked as particularly different from the students by being described as “uncivilized” (fi. sivistymätön) and “primitive” (fi. primitiivinen) (lcmh 731 (3:2:2, 3:10:6); lcmh 730 (2:4:10); lcmh 758 (23:4:1); lceeh 764 (1:8:1); lcmh 736 (8:4:2)). these words were mainly used to describe communities or other larger entities, while individuals would instead be described as “sophisticated” (fi. sivistynyt)(mceeh 5, 8.7[.1923]). haavio could, for example, tell his old friend and later colleague lauri hakulinen (1899–1985) that he was travelling to the municipality of salmi and its surroundings, and that it “almost scares me to go there, being surrounded by those barbarians, so far from the civilized” (lcmh 731 (3:2:2)). he wrote this account when he was in sortavala, a town on the northwest shore of lake ladoga. salmi lies some 80 kilometres east of the town, next to the soviet border. the geographical distance between sortavala and salmi is rather short, but the former apparently was more “civilized”. the cultural distance might very well in haavio’s view have been greater; the former svanfeldt-winter 24 was a relatively bustling town with upper secondary schools and a seminar for teachers’ education, shops and a lutheran majority, while the latter was a small municipality with few possibilities for education and an orthodox majority (‘tietosanakirja’ 1922, pp.662–663, 1633– 1638). according to finnish historian maria lähteenmäki, the localities closest to the russian border on the karelian isthmus were commonly considered exotic among finnish visitors. maybe salmi, which also lies next to the border, but north of lake ladoga, had a similar exotic connotation for haavio (lähteenmäki 2009, pp.28–29). although haavio’s statement about salmi does not sound particularly positive, low levels of education or differences from the collectors did not necessarily need to be described negatively. this is exemplified in enäjärvi’s diary note about the people of taipale in north karelia, who were, in her words, “the smartest we have met so far on our journey” (mceeh 5, 8.7.1923). according to her, this could be explained by a relatively high standard of living based on good farming, and that the locality at the same time was “for the time being still protected from smugness and arrogance by the locality’s status, which is not yet a village”(mceeh 5, 8.7.1923). this statement indicates that being “smart” did not necessarily have the same meaning when referring to educated, urban people and to uneducated, rural people. the term seemed to indicate quite the opposite: by pointing out that the locality so far had been protected from negative influences by being small and isolated enough to not even be categorized as a village, enäjärvi placed herself in a position from where she could evaluate the locality’s authenticity and unspoiled nature. following fabian, both primitivism and unspoiltness are means of creating the folklorists’ othered study object. when the students described the locals as primitive, uncivilised or not affected by modernity, they created their other, who—if the collector was lucky—was still carrying traits of an archaic national heritage. in a postcolonial understanding, they further manifested themselves in relation to their other (e.g. loomba 2002, p.48). in this self, i believe that we can see some of the folklorist’s persona. in contrast to the object, the scholar quite naturally is modern, educated and civilized (anttonen 2005, pp.28, 49). the practice itself of defining what constituted the people (the “folk” in folkloristics) was a way of defining oneself as scholar (sääskilahti 1998, pp.66–67; fabian 2002, p.25; anttonen 2005, p.139; vakimo 2001, p.26). in their accounts, enäjärvi and haavio showed their peers, themselves and their families that they qualified as folklorists, enough so to identify and analyse their objects. celebrated finnishness and deleterious russian influences after the students identified and described their objects of study, the carriers of finnish and finnic culture, they needed to demonstrate further their expertise and membership in their academic community by showing that they knew what this finnishness entailed. in the sources, a common measure of finnishness was the degree of russian influence. this becomes particularly visible in the accounts from karelia. partly, this characterization was likely a result of the political aim of the journey. it also demonstrates the special status of karelia as having a long history in the crossfire between swedish and russian cultural impact which called for scholars to distinguish archaic finnish from swedish/west european and russian/east european features in the folk culture they collected (fewster 2011, pp.31, 48–49; apo, starkarola & nenola 1998, p.16). enäjärvi’s and haavio’s searches for traces of “original” finnishness were not limited to recordable manifestations of folk culture. the traces could also be observed in the way they described the locals particularly when they praised people for embodying what they considered distinguishable finnish or finnish-related qualities; in contrast, the two took a highly critical stance toward whatever they considered alien to finnishness. in practice, these persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 25 negative factors equalled russian influence in their accounts, and, typically for their right-wing political peers, they used an anti-russian rhetoric. one recurring feature in the descriptions was references to karelia as a border zone between two cultural spheres the west and the east. this was clear, for example, when enäjärvi refers to the area as “those poor border regions!” (lcmh 736 (8:4:2)), or in haavio’s locating his place of writing as “the most distant corner, where civilized social structure extends to the east" (lcmh 731 (3:10:6)). these statements clearly marked the writers’ positionings as the civilized west against the uncivilized east. the border region in north karelia, where haavio and enäjärvi made their statements, had indeed rather poor inhabitants and a low level of industry. in practice, however, this was true for several other finnish regions, where agriculture was still the dominant livelihood and infrastructure in the 1920s. however, according to anttonen, finnish folklorists were keen to emphasise the poor conditions of karelia. in this way, they manifested the difference between “their” (urban) finland and karelia, the treasury of archaic finnishness. similarly, karelians were categorised as living within nature and tradition, while finns lived within culture and history (anttonen 2005, p.139). the observations of finnish and russian traits in the travel accounts are not necessarily either/or, but, rather, spread over a scale stretching between these two trait categories. on the scale's far end of finnishness, we can find a description of a people outside finland's territory, the ingrians. haavio came across ingrians in south karelia, where they were queuing to formally immigrate to finland. in finland, they were referred to as refugees, since many had fled the russian federal soviet republic after being defeated in fights for independence after the october revolution, while others fled the fights and mobilisations of world war i and were therefore referred to as refugees in finland (lähteenmäki 2009, pp.205–206, 213–215; nevalainen 1991, pp.242, 247). for the folkcultural archives, the immigration was a good opportunity to collect finnic material and so they sent collectors, haavio being one of these, to the border. in haavio's telling, the ingrians were “the cream of the finnish people”(lcmh 731 (3:2:2)). other people could be described as finnish but partly influenced by russia. a north karelian vicarage, in which the “russki peeked from behind the order of the house and the children’s savo-karelian dialect”(mceeh 5, 8.7[1923]) expressed this russian slant. when referring to anything russian or soviet, enäjärvi and haavio used almost without exception the word “ryssä”, for which i here use the translation “russki”(‘russki’ 2018). the term was especially frequently and disparagingly used in the 1920s by the anti-russian movement (keiho 1994). also, it was commonly used when referring to the orthodox church, which was a faith much more common among the karelians than the rest of the finnish population. the term had a pejorative tone by the 1920s and we have considerable evidence that enäjärvi and haavio embraced right-wing anti-russian ideas and thus used the term quite consciously. however, what we only can speculate upon is the degree to which we should read every use of “ryssä” to describe a person, object or phenomenon as a negative remark; or perhaps it was a way of marking their position in and currency with the anti-russian discourse. for example, should the naming of a karelian orthodox priest as a “russki priest” (lcmh 731 (3:1:13)) be read as a negative account of all eastern influences or should we see it merely as the writer’s choice to use the degrading word anywhere it could be deployed? at minimum, we can see in enäjärvi’s documents that haavio’s choice of words was not the only possible one within their circles. in place of haavio’s “russki” characterization, enäjärvi used the expression “the greek catholic church”, which, in the beginning of the twentieth century, usually still referred to the greek orthodox church, although the meaning later shifted to refer to catholic churches in eastern europe (‘finto: koko: ortodoksinen kirkko’ n.d.; forsman et al. 1925, p.735). this more correct term did not necessarily mean that it she was positioning her svanfeldt-winter 26 description in a much more positive context; it is more accurate to say that she used that term rather unflatteringly to characterize the village of hattuvaara in her words, a “greek catholic primitive village” (lceeh 764 (1:8:1)). haavio’s accounts about the people of sosnovo (fi. rautu) also speak to the students’ descriptions to a large extent reflecting an antipathy for most things russian more than an academic quest detached from political conviction. sosnovo was a finnish locality close to the russian/soviet border until it was ceded to the soviet union in 1944. haavio called the people “traitors, reptiles, beggars, smugglers and gulashs” (lcmh 731 (3:2:2)). the term gulash referred to black marketers but could be used for any workers in shady business (nyström 2013, p.83). in the finnish civil war, the socialist side in sosnovo had been heavily backed by russians, and the battles there had been particularly bloody. eventually, the conservatives, for whom haavio had been fighting in southwest finland, won both sosnovo and the entire war (lähteenmäki 2009, pp.120–121). presumably, haavio's critical stance toward the sosnovo was coloured by the war circumstances, or at least he did not specify upon what else he would have based this judgement. if this personal circumstance shaped his judgement in any way, it would make the description and statements a result of political opinions rather than because of his understanding of folk culture. nonetheless, related political perspectives have to be seen as relevant when exploring scholarly personas in folkloristics. previous research has shown how folklore studies in europe were very closely bound to right-wing politics and nation-building pursuits. in the finnish case, this political affinity meant, to a large degree, an evident distancing from primarily (soviet) russia and secondarily sweden and instead emphasising a distinct finnish heritage (baycroft 2012, pp.1–2; garberding 2012, p.25; anttonen 2012, pp.337–338). in this light, haavio’s anti-russian and anti-socialist statements illustrate how these were commonly combined in a finnish folklorist’s persona. his and enäjärvi’s remarks on the russian presence as parallel to an uncivilized and negative influence further illustrate how the folklorists did not only other their objects of study. in this case, the immediate other identified in their descriptions was an intruder on the national self. a good folklorist would, in this sense, be able to separate between the finnic (identifiable) and russian (alien) elements in folk culture. the tendency to determine the degree of finnishness by contrasting it against russian features found an exception in haavio’s comments on the olonets karelians. olonets karelia (fi. aunuksen karjala) lies east of lake ladoga. the people mainly spoke livvi which, in the 1920s, was referred to as a dialect branch of karelian but is today usually categorised as a separate language (‘karjala’ 2015). haavio, too, recognized the difference between the olonets karelians and the other immigrants, depicting them as less relatable as finns than the others. he by no means questioned the kinship between finns and olonets karelians but admitted that he felt “like a stranger, only understanding half of their most peculiar language” (lcmh 731 (3:1:13)). to be able to communicate with them, he told hakulinen that he needed to use “russki” and interpreters (lcmh 731 (3:1:13)). russian is present here, too, but not necessarily as influential as finnic culture. instead, the olonets karelians in haavio’s letters could be assumed to have been able to speak russian—at least to some extent—as it was common among the finnic people living near saint petersburg/petrograd. these people were in relatively regular contact with the city, particularly when it came to trade and work opportunities (engman 2003, pp.11– 15). although not commending olonets karelians or honouring them like the ingrians, haavio did not refer to them in particularly negative terms either. he recognized them as relevant informants for the task of recording finnic folklore, but did not idealize them as particularly exemplary representatives of finnishness. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 27 the accounts of the olonets karelians nuances my earlier statement about the folklorist’s persona as consisting of a tight entanglement of anti-russian, nationalist ideology and the actual study of finnic folk culture. the political anti-russian element is clearly visible as inherent in haavio’s and enäjärvi’s descriptions of the locals, both during their propagandaladen journey in 1923 and haavio's collection journey in 1921. haavio’s descriptions of the olonets karelians, in turn, illustrate a proportionately neutral mapping and collection of finnic culture. this indicates that these two elements of the folklorist's persona—the–the nationalist agenda and the scholarly mapping of culture—could be activated at the same time, but a scholar could also emphasise either one separately. in other words, the two would not constitute one symbiotic entanglement but two salient, though often co-acting, elements of the persona. authentic folk culture as stated in the introduction, one of the most important aims of folklore studies was to collect, preserve and analyse a national folk culture that was as authentic as possible. authentic culture was considered archaic, national, and original. the folklorists were part of that culture, as it was their heritage, but they were also in another world: the folklorists were modern and, though nationalistically minded, international (anttonen 2005, pp.28, 49, 53–54, 90; bendix 1997, p.35). according to bendix, the notion of authenticity is crucial in gaining authority in folkloristics. when information is claimed as authentic, it legitimizes the scholar as a (scientific) expert (bendix 1997, pp.7, 46, 49, 54, 67). in the following section, i discuss how the students used the notion of authenticity in their writing and how they, by doing so, repeated models of being a folklorist, or a folklorist's persona. as much as the collecting and studying of authentic folklore was an act of building the nation, it was also an act of rescue. the old, original national folk culture was understood to be disappearing due to modernization. the best-preserved folklore was thought to be found in rural areas, among illiterate people who had not moved and had been in as little contact as possible with the outside world (e.g. vakimo 2001, p.26). symptomatically, enäjärvi and haavio always added upbeat comments when they wrote about finding old information to collect. overall, all descriptions of people who could offer folklore information were positive (lcmh 731 (3:3:1); lcmh 736 (8:5:6); lceeh 785 (13:10:25); mceeh 5, 7.6.1921; eskola 1999, pp.177, 179). similar to how positively persons of rank were described, the informants were mostly portrayed with valued virtues as those assigned to people in general but with the exclusion of any negative features. only once did haavio add some more gloomy notes on such a situation, interposing that “when one crone sang 9 hours without breaks, i started having some other feelings than happiness too.” (eskola 1999, p.181). the use of the term, “crone”, identifies a second feature usually connected to finding authentic information: the collectors were primarily in search of informants who were as old as possible . there was a consensus among scholars that old people usually best filled the role of carriers of authentic folklore, as described above, even to the extent that they might have rejected good informants due to their young age. enäjärvi and haavio wrote in the exact manner as research has identified as typical for the folklorists’ approach to old informants: they wrote appreciatively about the elderly, especially if they thought that the informant was particularly clear in thought (lceeh 785 (13:10:21); eskola 1999, pp.177–179; compare vakimo 2001, p.25; keinänen 2004, pp.95, 99; skott 2008, p.146). the students also celebrated archaism in their writings about collecting dialects. the feelings could be put into words in various ways. enäjärvi, for example, told lauri hakulinen on her tour of karelia that there was so much language material “that it would titillate someone svanfeldt-winter 28 like e. a. t.” [assumingly the linguist e. a. tunkelo] (lceeh 764 (1:9:1)). haavio described excitedly about finding informants with distinct dialects, pure from interference of other dialects and languages, living relics from an ancient past, or reminding him of the finnish national poetic epos kalevala (lcmh 730 (2:3:15); lcmh 731 (3:3:1)). talking with bendix, this can be interpreted as the students demonstrating that they knew what material was desirable and placed themselves in a position to evaluate what was authentic folklore and dialect and thereby legitimizing themselves as scholars. lotte tarkka has shown that the collectors marked their positions in relation to the informants by making sure they were in charge of deciding what information was of scholarly interest and how much it was worth, measured in rewards paid to the informants (tarkka 1989, p.248; compare with clifford 1984, p.132). this is exemplified in haavio’s presentation of his encounter with a troubadour. at first glance, the old man had given an impression of väinämöinen, the hero in the finnish folklore epic kalevala: white-haired, ancient, stiff in posture, wearing birchbark lapti shoes and carrying a kantele-zither. on haavio’s inquiry, the man had assured him that he indeed knew old folksongs. disappointingly, the man turned out to know only one song that haavio deemed relevant and the song was not so rare (eskola 1999, pp.179–182; lcmh 731 (3:3:1)). following tarkka, the man in question had not complied with the collectors’ expectations and view of order. he had given an account of himself as a collector’s perfect find but lacked or declined to deliver the desired knowledge. possibly, the man had not staged his authenticity but only stumbled into the situation due to chance or haavio’s misjudgement. however, rural people were often well-informed about the travelling collectors, particularly because the collectors often followed the same trails. as a result of this awareness, locals often could try more or less actively to offer their knowledge to them (tarkka 1989, p.248; kallio 2013, pp.58–60). karelian rune singers were aware of the popularity of their singing and offered to perform for a fee. according to tarkka, this was a threat to the collectors’ authority and so the collectors tried to counteract it. there was a consensus among the organisers of collections that informants had a right to be paid a minor reward for their information, but also that the collectors were the ones assigning the value and setting the prize. the singers performing for larger audiences for money could, for example, face collectors’ smear campaigns, where their information was claimed untrustworthy (tarkka 1989, p.248; compare torgovnick 1990, p.9). the old man in haavio’s letters could be interpreted as a singer who tried to take an active part in the knowledge production of karelian folklore but was dismissed as a bad informant by the collector. writing a folklorist's persona when the students wrote about the rural people, they simultaneously wrote about themselves: by defining and describing their objects of study—the rural, traditional finnish and finnic people—they also defined themselves as folklorists. since the primary aim of folklore research of the 1920s was to investigate the scholars’ own national heritages—in the finnish scholars’ case, the finnish-related cultures—they needed to identify themselves to some degree with their informants. this need for identification led scholars in part to write idealistically about the national landscape and people with traditional livelihoods. the folklorist’s persona was built on both an identification with their objects of study and a distance from them. enäjärvi and haavio claimed scholarly authority by marking their differences from the locals and their belonging in their discipline. one strategy they used was to label some locals as primitive, a state of being that can only be labelled by one who considers persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 29 himor herself civilised. similarly, describing someone as smart or enlightened simultaneously establishes one’s own knowledge in what counts as such. the students also demonstrated an awareness of their discipline’s jargon by using it to describe landscapes and people. moreover, they manifested their professional knowledge of their objects of study by pointing out observations of what they considered alien influences on finnish culture. the students used their objects of study to position themselves as scholars. in addition to the describer and the described, the intended reader also has a function in this persona formation. in most of the cases that i have used as examples in this paper, the intended reader was a student friend, though some letters were sent to family and some accounts were written in private diaries. the various intended readers can be interpreted as shaping different sides of the persona. the letters to student friends offered a playground where students could try out and negotiate ways of describing the objects of study within a shared scholarly field. the similar content in the letters home show that the students also portrayed themselves and their objects of study in the same way outside the scholarly community. the private diary notes further illustrate how a scholarly persona differs from a professional role or self-fashioning; these private diary notes are also a useful tool for investigating how the folklorist persona worked to shape scholars' personal understanding of themselves. works cited anttonen, p 2012, ‘oral traditions and the making of the finnish nation’, in t baycroft & d hopkin (eds), folklore and nationalism in europe during the long nineteenth century, brill, pp. 325–350. anttonen, p 2005, tradition through modernity. postmodernism 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(80) 2001:1, pp. 75–99. tai, c & dongen, j van 2016, ‘anton pannekoek’s epistemic virtues in astronomy and socialism. personae and the practice of science’, bmgn low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4. tarkka, l 1989, ‘karjalan kuvaus kansallisena retoriikkana. ajatuksia karelianismin etnografisesta asetelmasta’, in runon ja rajan tiellä, finnish literature society, helsinki, pp. 32–46. torgovnick, m 1990, gone primitive. savage intellects, modern lives, university of chicago press, chicago. vakimo, s 2001, paljon kokeva, vähän näkyvä. tutkimus vanhaa naista koskevista kulttuurisista käsityksistä ja vanhan naisen elämänkäytännöistä, finnish literature society, helsinki. virtanen, m 2001, fennomanian perilliset. poliittiset traditiot ja sukupolvien dynamiikka, finnish literature society, helsinki. wichmann, y et.al. 1922, tietosanakirja. tietosanakirja-osakeyhtiö, helsinki. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 43 constructing the antichrist as superstar: marilyn manson and the mechanics of eschatological narrative patri c k osb orne abstract this article examines the moral crusade against marilyn manson’s antichrist superstar, the various sign-vehicles that contributed to his persona, and the social construction of a folk devil. by fashioning his persona using previous claims concerning satan’s influence in society—primarily, those employed during the 1980s satanism scare—manson ensured that antichrist superstar would incite panic as moral crusaders interpreted his pseudo-ostensive actions using collective memories and explanatory millenarianism. he achieved this aim by attacking middle-class christian ideologies and connecting his persona to previous social problems and cultural scripts to delineate his deviant character. the pseudoostensive characteristics of manson’s stage performances and blasphemous lyrics grant creditability to traditional folk beliefs concerning satan’s influence in rock music therefore allowing conservative groups to interpret his persona using preexisting rumours and narratives. by presenting himself as the antichrist, manson became a social problem for fundamentalist christianity: a reiterated moral panic greatly blown out of proportion, and produced using traditional exaggerations and deviant stereotypes in a collective attempt to construct a folk devil. because manson’s image and lyrics are meticulously fashioned from various cultural symbols concerning evil and the antichrist, he encourages his own demonization by enticing his audience to employ explanatory millenarianism and the knowledge of previous cultural scripts to interpret the traditional representations of evil he dangles before them. key words marilyn manson, persona, moral panic, eschatology, satanism, social constructionism throughout the late-nineties, the self-proclaimed antichrist superstar, marilyn manson, spread a contagion of anxiety across america by exploiting christianity’s fear of satan’s presence in society. the band’s grotesque image, anti-christian ideology, and offensive lyrics addressing american taboos, such as sodomy, sadomasochism, fascism, and the destruction of god compelled many conservatives to deem manson the “sickest group ever promoted by a mainstream record company” (manson 1998, p. 262). by rejecting christian hegemony, manson incited cultural conflict: his tours prompted protest across the nation, his lyrics directed the senate subcommittee on oversight of government management and reconstructing to consider the effects of violent music on adolescents, and the antichrist superstar album became an osborne 44 exemplar of moral decay in american society. for a band claiming to be dead to the world, an irony was apparent: manson, styling himself as an ominous new voice for the antichrist, was very much alive in 1997. christianity thus found itself at war, and as florence hensell appropriately stated: christian america was “fighting for god against satan” (manson 1998, p. 262). threatened by the deterioration of traditional christian values manson represented, the american family association (afa) protested the band and, to gain support for rallies against the dead to the world tour, spread fictitious and defamatory affidavits advocating the satanic dangers manson posed to america’s youth.i ironically, it was the afa’s moral crusade that made manson a household name, gave credibility to his persona as the antichrist superstar, and illuminated the mechanics and rhetoric of eschatological narrative. the purpose of the following essay is to examine both the antecedents and rhetoric surrounding the war against antichrist superstar, the various sign-vehicles that contributed to manson’s persona, and the social construction of a folk devil. while manson has relatively remained out of public controversy since his connection to the columbine massacre in 1999, a semi-historical analysis of his persona provides insight into america’s culture of fear and the diffusion of ‘fake news’ in what many deem a post-truth era. glassner (2009) argues that feardriven legislation and media permit those in power to control moral principles and, in turn, enable criticism of undesirable groups and institutions to maintain hegemony (p. xxxi-xxxiv). in regards to a post-truth era, frank (2015) identifies striking similarities between fake news reports and folklore and highlights the difficulties that arise from consumers’ inability to distinguish fact from rumour. he suggests, “fake news bespeak our sophistication as news consumers. our susceptibility to news hoaxes, on the other hand, reminds us of just how authoritative that news ‘voice’ continues to be, even amid an unceasing stream of complaints about inaccuracy, sensationalism, conflicts of interest, and bias” (p. 317). when coupled together, the dissemination of rumour and the rhetoric of fear incite a volatile catalyst for the construction and transmission of social problems that will be explored in relation to the moral panic surrounding manson’s antichrist superstar. manson serves as a reminder concerning the power that fear maintains in america and contemporary society’s vulnerability to false claims. best (1999) argues that “declaring war is simply one instance of a broader tendency to use militarized language to describe social problems” using a clearly understood metaphor that encourages open conflict with a unanimously chosen enemy (p. 144-145). as a product of a delineative process, social problems typically develop under three conditions: first, an individual or group must declare something or someone as a potential threat to normalcy. subsequently, the perceived problem must stimulate a general cause for concern among a large population of people, and, finally, those individuals acknowledging the social problem must labour to eliminate the irritant through a collective moral crusade. in this sense, “social problems do not exist ‘objectively’ in the same sense that a rock, a frog, or a tree exists; instead, they are constructed by the human mind, called into being or constituted by the definitional process” (best 1994, p. 151, italics in original). eschatology provides a straightforward way for christians to interpret various social problems, as satan essentially causes the decline of christian morals and the afflictions of earth. the purpose of apocalyptic myth, lamy (1996) argues, is “to make sense of the senseless, as a meaningful metaphor for those alienated or confused by society or their position in it, and [therefore serves] as a rallying point for social change or even revolution” (p. 38). the perceived danger of listening to manson’s music and the inherent evils that have become seemingly synonymous with rock music can be viewed as an excellent case of the construction of a social problem, as satan’s influence on society cannot be objectively measured. instead, the evidence for satan’s presence must be defined through an analysis of the moral persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 45 deterioration of society; i.e. an individual’s interpretation of the ‘signs of the times.’ claims concerning satanism therefore rely on the symbolism of a larger apocalyptic metanarrative, and ultimately stem from the reiteration of cultural patterns involving the diffusion of religious myths as a means of blaming scapegoats for social problems (victor 1993, p. 75). the witch-hunt that followed manson throughout 1997—like many witch-hunts that preceded it—was the reiteration of various apocalyptic panics that have occurred throughout human history. from the vilification of the jews in the middle ages, to the salem witch trials, and just prior to manson’s arrival, the satanic panic of the 1980’s, the christian populace has instigated hysteria by utilizing cultural scripts composed of well-known legends and myths to demonize the enemies of christ. victor (1990) argues that “there are a number of genuine social evils in american society today, especially threats to the safety and well-being of children, which resemble the symbols of the legend[s]” concerning satan’s power in contemporary culture (p. 78). these symbols grant credibility to satan’s presence in society, and allow individuals to interpret enigmatic individuals and situations using traditional understandings of evil. it was such apocalyptic and satanic symbols that made manson and his antichrist superstar a phenomenal success as he effectively infused them in his persona. marshall and barbour (2015) argue, “persona helps us understand the construction, constitution, and production of the self through identity play and performance by the individual in social settings” (p. 2-3). manson constructs his persona via numerous sign-vehicles derivative of the apocalyptic tradition that ultimately forced his christian adversaries to interpret his enigmatic character using explanatory millenarianism. manson in his autobiography, the long hard road out of hell, delineates his understanding of the antichrist tradition: i’ve thought about being the antichrist ever since the word was first taught to me at christian school. in the bible, the word antichrist is only used as a description of people who don’t believe in the teaching of jesus of nazareth. he is not described as one satanic entity—as the beast of revelation which many people believe—but as a person, any person, who deviates from christian orthodoxy. but through years of myth-making and fear-sowing, christianity metamorphosed antichrists into a single antichrist, an apocalyptic villain and christian bogeyman used to scare people much as santa claus is used to regulate children’s behavior. (1998, p. 213, italics in original) by viewing the antichrist as the satanic figure needed to mirror christ and create a threatening opponent to christianity, manson recognized the beast of revelation as a metaphor constructed from both fear and resistance against the moral ambiguities of society. this reinterpretation of the antichrist serves two primary functions within christian ideology: first, the unequivocal definition of the antichrist delineated by the author of 1 john provides an avenue for explicating the confusing and mythical elements of revelation. analyzing revelation’s symbolism in terms of a foreboding totalitarian world leader allows the mysterious beasts of the bible to be re-arranged within christian thought, for better understanding, using a clearly defined eschatological narrative. as frykholm (2004) notes, “readers admit that revelation is a struggle for them in their bible reading because it is full of strange visions and bizarre images. they cannot read it literally,” however by reinterpreting mythic creatures, such as a giant locust as a helicopter, the reader can “use the image of the locusts to offer a broader interpretation of contemporary life” (p. 120, 118). because christians cannot foresee an actual beast rising from the sea, the fantastic imagery of revelation generates a sense of cognitive dissonance within believers. fuller (1995) argues osborne 46 this dissonance could be reduced by interpreting world events against the background of apocalyptic myth. that is, the cryptic and evasive symbols associated with apocalyptic belief made it possible to see the ‘signs of the times’ being fulfilled and therefore gave reassurance that the divine timetable . . . was nonetheless right on schedule. (p. 19) secondly, because of christianity’s interpretation of “‘signs of the times’” and the construction of the antichrist into a single satanic being sent to destroy the modern world, the eschatological narrative subsequently shifts the threat of evil from the past and present to the imminent future. hughes (2005) argues that “it is the sense of dreaded anticipation, even in the absence of a literal or predictive imminence, that fires desire to ‘keep awake.’ it is this ‘sense of an ending,’ the ‘awareness that time is growing short’ that gave early-medieval apocalyptic symbols their persuasive power” (p. 9). by granting the mythological beast of revelation a face and sinister purpose, the eschatological narrative instills an anxious anticipation within the lukewarm christian because the antichrist could come at any moment. furthermore, as fuller (1995) argues, “belief in the antichrist invokes a mythic framework for interpreting the cognitive dissonance and vacillating intellectual that believers, particularly the young, often find themselves struggling against . . . [as] unacceptable doubts are explained away as the tactics of a treacherous enemy” (p. 170). the eschatological narrative therefore allows the believer to perceive all forms of social malaise as the work of satan and a sign that the foreboding antichrist is present on earth. for this reason, the believer develops a compelling desire to interpret the ‘signs’ to alleviate both the neophobia and anxiety of influence generated by the antichrist’s perceived presence in society (parker 2007, p. 10). frykholm (2004) notes that “the narrative lays out a formulaic series of events and characters. believers do the work of filling in the blanks in order to understand and give shape to the world they live in” (p. 120) and goes on to argue that “evangelicals seek to ‘read’ the contemporary world through this mythological structure, variously interpreting the scene at different historical moments” (p. 120). such explanatory millenarianism appraises the current problem using eschatological narrative, and allows christians “to analyze current affairs in terms of sacred prophecy. [for example,] a recent earthquake, a terrorist bomb, the spread of homosexuality, or even an international trade agreement shows that the end is not far off” (thompson 2005, p. 27). this christian methodology for explicating the present using the terminology of a larger apocalyptic metanarrative is vital for understanding the many appearances of the antichrist that have occurred throughout human history. as fuller (1995) argues, “over the last two hundred years, the antichrist has been repeatedly identified within such ‘threats’ as modernism, roman catholicism, jews, socialism, and the soviet union. today, fundamentalist christian writers see the antichrist in such enemies as the muslim world, feminism, rock music, and secular humanism” (p. 5). understanding the explanatory and combative desires underlying eschatological narrative, manson marketed antichrist superstar to challenge and trouble fundamentalist christianity. hjelm’s (2014) use of the term “secondary symbolism” provides insight into manson’s marketing strategies. employing a labeling theory approach, hjelm argues controversies surrounding metal music are often a product of “secondary deviation” in which “a person or group internalizes the controversial label given to them from the outside and starts to act according to role expectations” (p. 164). hjelm claims, “symbols, paraphernalia, t-shirts and so on which are considered ‘satanic’ are displayed because it is part of identifying with the genre, not because of a personal commitment to a particular worldview” (p. 170-171). manson, in accordance with secondary deviation, thus becomes “a symptom of something much more persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 47 pervasive, a much deeper social memory, and there is a massive groping toward some cultural trough abounding in signs of social decay” (gunn 1999, p. 421). manson employs sign-vehicles derivative of the apocalyptic tradition “to be the loudest, most persistent alarm clock [he] could be, because there didn’t seem to be any other way to snap society out of its christianity-and media-induced coma” (manson 1998, p. 80). he achieves this aim by attacking middle-class christian ideologies and connecting his persona to previous social problems and cultural scripts to delineate his deviant character. for this reason, wright (2000) argues that manson clearly surpassed his “heavy metal forebears by painstakingly deconstructing contemporary north american culture and ‘mutating’ (his word) into a prophetic persona whose essence is to be reviled, condemned and ultimately sacrificed by that culture” (p. 377, italics in original). such deconstruction deliberately leaves manson’s incomprehensible actions open to interpretation, and, because his image and lyrics are meticulously fashioned from various cultural symbols concerning evil and the antichrist, manson encourages his own demonization by enticing his audience to utilize explanatory millenarianism to readily define the traditional representations of evil he dangles before them. manson ensures his demonization through the employment of both religious and folk symbols. marilyn manson—as the name itself evinces—is a carefully constructed amalgam of cultural icons and motifs that, while being attractive to rebellious youth, can be easily understood as overtly satanic iconoclasm by conservative parents of a past generation. as wright (2000) notes, manson’s pseudonym plays on 1960s-era pop cultural iconography, while antichrist superstar spoofs jesus christ superstar, the 1970 ‘rock opera’. . . his make-up is borrowed from rather obvious 1970s-era sources, including alice cooper and slasher movies. . .[and] he made his first splash on mtv with a ‘demonic’ cover of eurythmics’ adult contemporary radio staple, ‘sweet dreams (are made of this)’—a strategy he likened to ‘a piece of cheese in a trap.’ (p. 379) direct linkages between manson and social problems of the past allow parents to assign him an identity by interpreting the band’s overtly satanic symbolism. cohen (1972) suggests, for the construction of a folk devil, “imagery is an integral part in the identification process: the labels are not invented after the deviation. [rather,] the labelers . . . have a ready-made stock of images to draw upon. once the initial identification has taken place, the labels are further elaborated” (p. 74). manson’s antichrist superstar and demonic façade provided his audience with the necessary images to initiate this labeling process. he embodies the claimsmaker’s understandings of evil and through his secondary symbolism incorporates the deviant label into his persona to appeal to the cognizance of previous cultural scripts concerning satan’s influence in rock music. best (2001) argues that, “social problems do not develop in a vacuum. claims about one social problem often influence those about another: claimsmakers borrow rhetoric and tactics from one another; in some cases, experienced claimsmakers join efforts to call attention to other social problems” (p. 2). manson has indubitably studied the traditional folk beliefs concerning the antichrist’s influence in society, and has incorporated cultural scripts concerning satanism into his persona to stir anxieties and reinforce previous claims by moral crusaders. for this reason, manson’s persona and stage performances are rich in what folklorists define as pseudoostension, or the deliberate reenactment of well-known folk narratives to deceive and/or frighten. for example, individuals that masquerade as satanists or even fabricate evidence of ritual abuse to frighten their communities are performing pseudo-ostensive behaviours. heavy osborne 48 metal musicians that employ backward masking, pentagrams or other satanic symbols in their artistry act from similar impulses (ellis 1989, p. 209). manson’s performances are vivid displays of pseudo-ostension that validate claims concerning satanism and are rich with what bettez halnon (2006) describes as the carnivalgrotesque: in heavy metal carnival, the grotesque body is dramatized by a communal flow of human excretions . . . for example, in a parodic inversion of good and evil, sacred and profane, this-worldly and other worldly, and life and death, ‘reverend’ marilyn manson (of levay’s church of satan) engages in baptismal (life-giving, purifying, renewing) spitting at the audience from a profanely branded water bottle. (p. 37) manson’s stage performances reinterpret christian iconography and, like most folk beliefs concerning satanic cult ceremonies, present the iconoclastic spectacle as a blasphemous reversal of traditional church services. this is important, as ellis (2001) notes, because “to the extent that satanism does exist in folklore, it exists as an ‘antiworld,’ a deliberate protest against institutionalized norms. this means that whatever structure exists in folk satanism derives from institutional structures, which they adopt in mirror image” (p. 1). in his most controversial stage performance, manson impersonates the antichrist: a totalitarian dictator that artificially blows kisses to the audience while tearing—or, in some cases, burning—pages from the book of mormon while convulsing inside an oversized pulpit. manson, acting as a demonic preacher, demands his audience “repent” ironically presenting the christian church as a fascist regime and delineating an antiworld of satanic ritualism. manson’s antichrist superstar presents a methodology for mutating into the allamerican antichrist using christianity’s eschatological narrative and the claims-making process. manson presents his work as a prophetic text by employing several motifs prevalent in apocalyptic works: “common to apocalyptic writing is their tendency to be pseudonymous, to use mythic imagery, and build on a series of narrative ‘cycles’ that repeatedly describe and resolve the community’s spiritual turmoil” (fuller 1995, p. 21). manson’s antichrist superstar meticulously follows the apocalyptic tradition, as he breaks the album into three distinct cycles delineating his triumph over christian oppression and the satanic rebirth he achieves through the self-discovery of the nietzschean ‘higher man’. throughout the three cycles, manson chronologically presents his metamorphoses from an insignificant wormboy into a threatening rock star, and concludes the album with his ascension to the position of the antichrist superstar advocated by fundamentalist christianity and the eschatological myth. the first cycle of antichrist superstar, “hierophant,” illuminates the oppressive christianity that enslaves the wormboy and ultimately encourages manson’s rebellion and selfvilification. the album opens with “irresponsible hate anthem,” a song that serves as a negative toast advertising the horrible qualities of manson and greatly contributes to his deviant persona. in the opening lines of “irresponsible hate anthem” manson (1996) declares, “i am so all-american, i’d sell you suicide / i am totalitarian, i’ve got abortions in my eyes.” within the first two lines of the album, manson openly challenges the values of christian america, discloses himself as an enemy of established religion, i.e. a totalitarian antichrist, and rhetorically appeals to the individual most likely to interpret and combat a perceived threat to spirituality using eschatology: the blue-collar christian that uncritically holds traditional family values as the measure of stability in a given society and perceives patriotism as a significant cultural value (victor 1993, p. 55). by mocking america and promoting suicide, totalitarianism, and abortion, manson becomes evil in the eyes of christianity “because [believers] tend to view their nation as persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 49 uniquely blessed by god”; those that threaten the american way are often labeled antichrists and must be eradicated to maintain normalcy (fuller 1995, p. 5). “irresponsible hate anthem” therefore serves as the antichrist superstar’s introduction to christian society and acts as an attack on american culture and traditional family values. manson iconoclastically likens “irresponsible hate anthem” to the “star spangled banner” in concert, and will often burn or use the american flag as toilet paper during performances of the song (halnon 2005, p. 37). accordingly, manson opens the album by attacking christian america to condone his own vilification and incite explanatory millenarianism for interpreting his demonic characterization. manson desires to be viewed as the antichrist and uses “irresponsible hate anthem” as a method for providing his audience with the deviant labels in which to readily interpret his ambiguous persona. manson, however, longs to be hated not for the sole purpose of gaining notoriety but rather to demonstrate the christian hypocrisy that causes many individuals to rebel from religion. manson’s opening track, while elucidating manson’s villainous actions, simultaneously suggests that christian america is irresponsibly hating and constructing its own demise by “kill[ing] everyone” defined a villain and letting “god sort them out” (manson 1996). accordingly, manson “has appropriated moral panic throughout his career, and his purpose has been twofold: to reveal the hypocrisy and corruption of the so-called normal world, and to portray himself . . . [as] someone who is constructed by a corrupt society” (conaway 2010, p. 109). kinnaman and lyons (2007) note that almost 80% of non-christians and over half of christians that attend church regularly perceive the church as being overtly judgmental (p. 185). the primary goal of manson’s antichrist superstar is to expose this judgmental behavior and present, as manson (1998) writes, christianity’s “disgusting similarities to nazi germany” (p. 263). for this reason, antichrist superstar is rich with imagery pertinent to hitler’s third reich: the antichrist superstar album is represented by an insignia that bears a close resemblance to the sieg rune, and manson’s stage show often “resembles a fascist rally more than a rock concert” (baddeley 2005, p. 123). manson employs these images, of course, to invoke a direct connection with hitler: a man that was given the moniker of the antichrist throughout wwii. furthermore, totalitarianism is a major theme of christianity’s eschatological narrative, as revelation foretells that christians will be forced to bare the mark of the new world order or be put to death. for this reason, manson desires to be linked to totalitarianism (as “irresponsible hate anthem” brazenly suggests) because it provides his christian audience with the necessary symbols to interpret his persona as the antichrist. in addition, manson’s utilization of fascist imagery provides the album with its ironic allegorical message: antichrist superstar presents christianity as a fascist regimen that rejects all notions of tolerance and strives to eradicate anyone that deviates from religious values. manson’s beliefs concerning christianity and his illustrations of religious oppression closely follow the philosophy outlined in nietzsche’s the antichrist. in promotional interviews for antichrist superstar, manson suggests the album is “like the superman theory that nietzsche had, i think every man and woman is a star . . . if you want to have people tell you how to see [the world], then you can. but if you want to look at it, then it’s limitless what you can do” (qtd. in baddeley 2005, p. 131). nietzsche suggests in the antichrist that christianity “has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man, it has banned all the basic instincts of this type, it has distilled ‘evil’ and the ‘evil one’ himself, out of these instincts” (2005, p. 5, italics in original). to win the war against the “higher man,” nietzsche suggests anyone that attempts to gain knowledge or physical happiness is labeled by christianity as a deviant that must be snuffed out. the primary goal of antichrist superstar is to illustrate this holy war as a fascist osborne 50 genocide that destroys anyone deemed evil and, in turn, present a methodology for overcoming such oppression by embracing a deviant nature. antichrist superstar’s second track, “the beautiful people,” continues implementing manson’s themes of christian totalitarianism and constructs auditory images of an army preparing for war using distinctive militaristic drumbeats. ellis (2008) notes that “‘the beautiful people’ featured the zombie groove, possessed vocal hiss, and sinister intent that came to characterize [manson’s] general oeuvre, while the song’s lyrics portrayed a ragged class of mindless and threatening subhumans, by-products of warped darwinism on the verge of an impending cutthroat fascism” (p. 264). the beautiful people to which manson alludes in the songs title are fundamentalist christians that deem everything that deviates from religious values as ugliness: they are the christians delineated in nietzsche’s the antichrist, that “want to rule over beasts of prey; its method is to make them sick—weakening is the christian recipe for domestication, for ‘civilization’” (2005, p. 19, italics in original). reiterating the philosophy outlined in nietzsche’s the antichrist, manson (1996) states to the wormboy that “it’s not your fault that you’re always wrong / the weak ones are there to justify the strong.” throughout the song, the wormboy has been made feeble—held down by his christian oppressors—and can only survive his intolerable situation by reversing the master/slave dialectic and becoming “the animal that will not be himself” (manson 1996). the final song of the first cycle, “tourniquet,” shares similar motifs with antichrist superstar’s opening tracks by demanding christianity “take your hatred out on me.” manson desires to become the scapegoat, or tourniquet, that can stop the bleeding and aid christianity in its attempt to regain hegemony. manson argues in “tourniquet” that he will achieve this aim using antichrist superstar to become a “prosthetic synthesis with butterfly /sealed up with virgin stitch.” albeit a cryptic image, manson’s illustration depicts the transfiguration of the wormboy into a threatening higher man. the image depicts two fake bodies, manson and the church, being conjoined by an exigency concerning the spiritual welfare of virginal children. manson, playing the role of the antichrist, strives to tempt america’s children from jesus therefore leaving the church the obligation to fight for their salvation. the two entities become inexorably linked as they rely on each other for a sense of purpose due to a desire to eradicate its counterpart. because of this christian interest, the wormboy gains power and perpetuates his satanic rebirth. the second cycle, “the inauguration of the worm,” thus begins with “little horn”: a song that provides the album’s first direct connection with the biblical antichrist. daniel writes that he had a dream about four terrible beasts, one of which had a little horn that “was making war against the saints” (dan. 7:21). this fourth beast with the “little horn” is often linked to the antichrist of revelation by theologians. by identifying himself as little horn, manson continues his self-vilification as an antichrist and, for this reason, transfigures into a threating rock star via his secondary deviation. the seventh track of antichrist superstar, “deformography,” presents the album’s overarching thesis. “deformography,” of course, acts as a pun on the word “demography”: the social science of studying human populations. demography is important to the rise of the antichrist superstar, as it is essentially the study of christianity’s attempts at self-preservation that grants the insignificant wormboy his power. “deformography” offers manson’s most lucid blueprint for becoming the antichrist in christian america: manson (1996) growls, “i will bury your god in my warm spit, / you’ll be deformed in your porn.” manson suggests that his iconoclasm will incite christians’ defensive mentality, their employment of explanatory millenarianism to define a perceived threat, and the construction of a folk devil via the oftenpornographic folklore that accompanies spiritual warfare. the application of eschatology grants manson power and identity, as he embraces everything christianity labels him: for manson persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 51 (1998), to be the antichrist an individual simply needs to be viewed as one. manson writes in his autobiography that “by telling people he was a satanist [anton] lavey became satan in [the public’s] eyes—which is not unlike my attitude toward becoming a rock star. ‘one hates what one fears,’ lavey had written. ‘i have acquired power without conscious effort, by simply being’” (p. 165). christian vilification aggrandizes manson to the position of the antichrist superstar as the album reaches its title track and the first song of the third cycle. “antichrist superstar” offers a panoramic picture of manson’s rise to power: “you built me up with your wishing hell / i didn’t have to sell you” (manson 1996). eschatology encourages a self-fulfilling prophecy as christianity labels anyone and everything that deviates from god as a “sign of the times,” thus forcing every generation to believe that theirs will mark the return of christ and the inevitable apocalypse. manson suggests in “antichrist superstar” that the apocalyptic tradition and explanatory millenarianism has granted him the tools to gain infamy; rather than persuading his audience he simply looked the part. prophetically addressing the libelous defamations of his character spread by various religious groups, manson (1996) states: “i am the hydra / now you’ll see your star.” manson employs the allusion to the hydra perfectly, as it suggests christian attacks will only strengthen his campaign against christianity: it gives the antichrist its power and ultimately proves the thesis of antichrist superstar. the pseudo-ostensive characteristics of manson’s carnival-grotesque and blasphemous lyrics (albeit parodies), grant creditability to traditional folk beliefs concerning satan’s influence in rock music therefore allowing concerned parents to interpret his onstage antics using preexisting rumours and narratives. feldman-savelsberg, t. ndonko and yang (2005) argue that collective memory is thus related to rumor in at least two ways. first, collective memories create fertile ground for the reception of rumor; within the structures of collective memory, certain truth claims ‘make sense,’ are linked to a set of beliefs and attitudes about the nature of the social order, and thus appear plausible to the audience of rumor . . . second, collective memories, including memories of past rumors, can actually contribute to the production of new rumors; speakers may draw upon or refer to the past events in their creation of new rumors. (p. 60) manson plays to collective memory in his pseudo-ostensive actions and directly connects himself to past social problems. the success of manson’s music and the blatantly iconoclastic spectacles of manson’s dead to the world tour that ran from september 1996 to september 1997 piqued the interest and enmity of the afa: an organization seeking to “restrain evil by exposing the works of darkness” (“action statement,” afa). after interpreting manson’s lyrics and performances as overtly satanic, the afa launched a highly organized campaign to battle the perceived threat. the war against manson resulted in a media driven mass-hysteria and incited a rumour-panic precipitated by the afa’s libelous affidavits propagated by previous cultural scripts.ii many of the claims produced during the war against manson, reiterate warnings about satanism that had developed in the previous decade: during the 1980’s, elements of apparently unrelated social movements converged in the cause of antisatanism. each movement brought its own concepts and concerns. five precursor movements—fundamentalist christianity, the anticult movement, the developments of ‘satanic churches,’ the new wave of child saving, and the survivor/recovery movement—made osborne 52 particular important contributions to social construction of the satanist menace. (richardson, best and bromely 1991, p. 5-6). manson ensures his music and image will incite moral panic by addressing the fears of the five precursor movements, a marketing strategy that allowed him to gain notoriety by rehashing claims of a past generation. thus, rumour and contemporary legend elevated manson to the status of the antichrist superstar by granting him a mythical folk identity and allowing him to become a cultural phenomenon. the name manson, for example, has a strong cultural resonance in american society. a vivid connection between charles manson and marilyn manson is inevitable and grants a previously unknown band the same status as an established cultural icon. charles manson, as ellis (2001) illustrates, was “interpreted by the media as the leader of a satanic cult, and . . . [h]is ability to hold [a] loose assemblage of dropouts together gained him a reputation for hypnotic powers, and stories soon circulated that while in prison he had learned how to implant ‘subliminal motivations’ into the minds of his fellow inmates” (p. 171). in fact, it was the publicity that surrounded charles manson’s trial that first transformed the word “cult” into a potentially dangerous, satanic body that opposed traditional values in the eyes of many americans (victor 1993, p. 9). by including the name, “manson,” into his pseudonym, marilyn manson implies that his music can hypnotize and force his audience to do things against their will: a suggestion playing to previous warnings of the anticult movement, and a preconceived fear many have concerning rock music. indubitably, manson’s design succeeded as rumours began circulating that, during the dead to the world tour, manson adopted runaways into his circle of friends, and that, invoking charles manson again, he called them his “family” (manson 1998, p. 245). as mentioned, manson argues in his autobiography that to become satan in society’s eyes an individual simply needs to look like a satanist; for him, becoming a threatening rock star is no different (manson 1998, p. 165). for decades, heavy metal music and satanism [have been] synonymous for many adults, particularly since some musicians have in fact been influenced by occult writers like aleister crowley and many others have incorporated satanic trappings into their music and stage acts . . . some critics have gone so far as to say that the songs are satanically inspired and, if played backward, reveal subliminal messages magically inducing the listener to commit suicide or worship satan. (ellis 1990, p. 44) understanding the stigma rock music holds, manson plays to these parental fears by mimicking and adopting the traditional folk beliefs concerning satan’s power in rock music. in 1994, manson befriended anton lavey, a man who gained notoriety in 1969 from the publication of the satanic bible, and was ordained a reverend in lavey’s church of satan. due to manson’s pseudo-ostensive actions, rumours began circulating that “manson perform[s] a satanic church service toward the end of the concert in which he preaches from the satanic bible, and . . . gives and invitation to receive satan into your life” (manson 1998, p. 256). manson claims in his autobiography (1998) that “the day i became a satanist also happened to be the day the allied forces of christianity and conservatism began mobilizing against me. just after our meeting [with lavey], i was told that the delta center, where we were to play in salt lake city, would not allow us on the bill” (171). the afa spread even more horrific rumours about manson’s pre-concert actions: persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 53 manson will come out on stage by himself dragging a big bag either just before the band starts playing or the band will start jamming and then stop abruptly as manson comes out with the big bag. i have witnessed manson pull out small chickens, several puppies and kittens out of the bag and throw them into the audience. these are live animals . . . manson will then tell the audience to make a sacrifice to the music and he will not start the show until all the animals are dead. (manson 1998, p. 254) both rumours employ claims from the past and appropriate the cultural scripts from subversion and blood libel myths. victor (1993) notes, “satanic cult rumor stories derive from an ancient legend, usually referred to as the ‘blood ritual myth.’ it tells the story of children being kidnapped and murdered by a secret conspiracy of evil strangers” (p. 75). the blood ritual legend is often combined with the subversion myth, i.e. the continual spiritual battle between christ and satan, and strengthens the power of the claim by appealing to both secular and sacred symbols (victor 1993, p. 77). note that this story has manson bringing out the bag of animals alone, for he, and no one else, serves as the scapegoat for all the satanic decadence in america. the bag consists of only infantile animals that serve as symbols for america’s children that are likely to be ripped apart by the horrific message of manson. lastly, manson is said to force an ultimatum on the impressionable youth by demanding that they sacrifice the animals or go without a show. this statement is of upmost importance as it suggests that the youth of america have a choice: they are not willing to sacrifice animals or themselves without the influence of a satanic being. thus, the rumorus suggest that manson, as a destructive satanic force, must be stopped while simultaneously implying that, by endorsing the afa’s moral crusade, christianity can deter manson’s influence. as victor (1993) notes, satanic cult rumours gain power and credibility by appealing to both religious and secular symbols. rumour suggests that manson is not only a spiritual threat to impressionable children, but a physical threat as well. the industrial style of music that influenced antichrist superstar permitted the incorporation of masked messages that resemble the subliminal verses that compel the adolescent listener to commit suicide in traditional folk narratives. for example, antichrist superstar includes a hidden track in which manson (1996) mumbles: “god will crawl at my feet” and “when you are suffering, know that i have betrayed you”: an allusion to aleister crowley’s the book of the law. manson likewise incited controversy when he began marketing a t-shirt that read: “warning: the music of marilyn manson may contain messages that will kill god in your impressionable teenage minds. as a result, you could be convinced to kill your mom & dad and eventually in a hopeless act of suicidal ‘rock and roll’ behavior you will kill yourself” (manson 1998, p. 259; emphasis in original).iii albeit satirical, the t-shirt and the masked messages contained in antichrist superstar grant credibility to folk beliefs concerning satan’s influence in rock music and reinforce claims surrounding a preconceived social problem affecting youth culture: a strategy often used in heavy metal music for shock value rather than a religious witness (richardson 1991, p. 210). as wright (2000) claims, “marilyn manson is a semiotic threat from deep within the dominant culture. he knows full well that he is playing, not only with inter-generational dynamite, but with the legacy of the pmrc, the neoconservative right, the censorship lobby, the hegemony of banal rock radio and, above all, the thoroughly fraudulent claim that rock music causes teen suicide. a tee-shirt for sale at his concerts summarises his agenda succinctly” (380). during a period of high anxiety concerning the effects of media on america’s youth, the senate subcommittee on oversight of government management and reconstructing met to discuss violence in music. manson’s antichrist superstar was one of the most cited albums throughout the discussions due to its extreme references to violence and suicide. on november 6th, 1997, raymond kuntz testified against manson stating that, “his 15-year-old son killed osborne 54 himself last december after listening to songs about death and the antichrist” (stout 1997, p. 21). manson’s violent lyrics, hidden messages, and his own suggestions that his music could induce a listener’s self-inflicted death, permit bereaved parents to claim a correlation between manson’s music and their children’s suicides. although most adolescent fans did not adopt the antisocial behaviors illustrated in albums such as antichrist superstar (bostic, et. al 2002, p. 54), the folk narrative concerning the influential power of rock music allows parents to find closure and solace in the form of therapeutic magic: the rumour allows the distraught parent to interpret an ambiguous act of suicide in the terms of a clearly defined mythology, i.e. the devil made the child do it (ellis 1990, p. 44). concerning his son’s suicide, kuntz argued, “the music wasn’t symptomatic of other problems. i would say the music caused him to kill himself” (stout 1997, p. 21). by using satan’s influence as a coping mechanism, blame is projected onto the scapegoat and feelings of parental failure are avoided through the construction of a social problem. furthermore, kuntz’s statements strengthen traditional folk beliefs, as he becomes a rumour carrier: “rumor ‘carriers’ do not create the satanic cult rumor stories. however, they make use of them to enhance their own ideology. they also lend credibility to the rumor stories, because of their positions of authority” (victor 1990, p. 75). through his pseudo-ostensive actions and self-effacing lyrics, manson presents himself as a potential scapegoat for distraught parents and benefits from negative publicity when labeled as such. conaway (2010) notes, “manson does not call for the death of the art of scapegoating, but instead, appropriates scapegoating narratives, making himself a martyr . . . in order to point out, in shaw-like fashion, the unacceptability of the discourse of moral panic and its efforts to condemn the youth culture of his fans” (p. 105). manson’s self-vilification and lyrics appeal to previous concerns of satanic conspiracies and present his message as a threat to a child’s physical safety. by the late 90s, the satanic ritual abuse narrative had been highly discredited. however, manson weaves nuances of these tales into his image and rehashes the legends by donning the persona of the child catcher. manson makes use of overtly satanic symbolism and addresses incendiary topics like child abuse in his second album, smells like children (baddeley 2005, p. 42). the album cover features a photo of manson resembling the child catcher from the 1968 film, chitty chitty bang bang, and features “kiddy grinder”: a song providing a direct warning to parents that all manson (1994) wants “is just your children.” by addressing child abuse in his presentation and music, manson links himself to a past social problem; he becomes the satanic criminal threat that will not hesitate to physically harm your child as his “fists are lined with suckers” (manson 1994). manson’s persona plays on the collective memories of the 1980s satanism scare and reinforces previous claims of ritual abuse. for this reason, the afa’s narratives concerning manson’s dead to the world tour adopt these previous understandings of satanist recruitment strategies, and strive to demonstrate his criminal influence to appeal to a secular audience. while kuntz’s suicide acted as an actual case concerning satan’s potential threat to adolescents, many rumours concerning satanic cults often employ the techniques of conspiracy theories and gain credibility through apocryphal stories about individuals that escaped the dangerous lifestyle. champion-vincent (2005) argues that individuals typically accept conspiracy stories that present the following cognitive attributes: first, an evil agent is named and given a specific evil purpose. the villain has the power to cause a massive disturbance to normalcy, and, finally, the individuals that accept the claims generally agree that the conspiracy has taken place before (p. 104-105). conspiracy stories are crucial to the antisatanist’s rhetoric in that it redefines a religious social problem in secular terms, thus making it applicable to nonchristians. these conspiracy narratives tend to present the satanist as a criminal threat. the tales characterize the satanist as a murderer, kidnapper, drug addict, or child molester: problems that even the most skeptical individual can view as a threat to children. ottens and persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 55 myer (1998) provide a detailed discussion concerning the threat satanism poses to adolescents and offer warning signs for concerned parents in their book, coping with satanism: rumor, reality, and controversy. taking a conspiracy approach, ottens and myer argue satanists often lure children into their practices using similar methods of urban gangs. satanists appeal to outcasts by involving them in parties and other social activities, and strive to get the child addicted to drugs. during drug-induced states, the satanist will brainwash the child and use blackmail to keep the child from leaving the group (p. 77-88). the afa’s affidavits suggest that 100% of the audience at a manson concert are high on drugs and, consequently, children as young as nine years old are induced to have sex in the audience (manson 1998, p. 256). in addition, manson supposedly engaged in a game called “blood bath” in which a group of manson’s friends, the “family,” murdered a young girl in a sacrificial act of satanic vampirism (manson 1998, p. 258). albeit sensationalized, the afa’s libelous affidavits create ethos by employing the “occult survivor” story: a powerful technique used by moral crusaders during the 1980’s satanism scare that negated the lack of physical evidence for satanic crimes using testimonies and first-person accounts of individuals that witnessed the horrors of satanism first hand (best 1991, p. 99). the affidavits concerning manson demand credibility from such first-person accounts: “i [name withheld] hereby swear, affirm, declare and affitt: 1. i am a seventeen year old male and reside at [address withheld] oklahoma city, oklahoma [zip withheld]. 2. three years ago i was a runaway fourteen years old when i first met marilyn manson (brian warner) and was accepted by him into his circle of friends or "family" (manson 1998, p. 246). such tales typically involve a recently “born-again” survivor that, after witnessing such horrors as satanic worship, blood drinking, and deviant sexual acts, flees from the cult group to safety (jenkins and maier-katkin 1991, p. 127). accordingly, the afa’s affidavits suggest the runaway began fearing for their own safety following the “blood bath” ritual and refused to return to manson’s circle after turning their life around and giving their “life to the lord jesus christ” (manson 1998, p. 258). the rumours and libelous affidavits aimed at destroying manson transformed him into an ominous juggernaut and ultimately made him a household name. without the mass hysteria and rumour panic surrounding manson and antichrist superstar, many americans would, perhaps, not be aware of him today. governor keating—illustrating his understanding of manson—argues that “from what [he had] learned of the content of their lyrics and message as well as their conduct on stage, [marilyn manson] are clearly bent on degrading women, religion and decency, while promoting satanic worship, child abuse and drug use” (manson 1998, p. 262). in regards to the infamous shirt sold at manson’s concerts, senator shugars stated “[he] was not even aware of a group called marilyn manson until . . . [he heard] their message is kill god, kill your parents and then commit suicide” (manson 1998, p. 262). in both cases, the state leaders were not aware of manson until they heard about his pseudo-ostensive actions and the apocryphal stories constructed by the afa. manson is a cultural phenomenon dependent on christian interpretation and his persona is ultimately a representation of evil in popular music that gains infamy by being defined as such. as manson (1998) suggests, “everything and everyone that tried to beat the album down had only made it stronger, more powerful and more effective” (p. 244). antichrist superstar therefore serves as a warning concerning the power fear maintains in contemporary society and how the distribution of ‘fake news’ can create chaos. employing a wonderfully appropriate image of his persona’s development via eschatological narrative, manson (1994) appropriately warns christian america in “rock n’ roll nigger”: “i am the all-american antichrist / i was made in america, /and america hates me for what i am / i am your shit. /you should be ashamed of what you have eaten.” osborne 56 by constructing his image using claims concerning satan—primarily, those employed during the 1980s satanism scare—manson ensured that his music would incite panic as moral crusaders interpreted his pseudo-ostensive actions and deviant persona using previous collective memories and explanatory millenarianism. as baddeley (2005) notes, the music is “seldom the most interesting part of the marilyn manson package,” for “marilyn manson is a monster stitched together from the pieces of a thousand other creatures” (p. 12). manson, as a persona, is more reliant on presentation and shock value derivative of cultural scripts than lyrical content. consequently, manson is an entity that exists almost entirely in the folk-realm as rumour and contemporary legend constructed his identity and took his band mainstream. by presenting himself as the antichrist, manson became a social problem for fundamentalist christianity: a reiterated moral panic greatly blown out of proportion, and produced using traditional exaggerations and deviant stereotypes in a collective attempt to construct a folk devil. manson provoked his audience using pseudo-ostensive displays of satanism and forced many individuals to interpret his nefarious façade using the knowledge of past social problems. thus, manson gains power via social constructionism: he becomes the devil worshiper, the antichrist, an ominous “sign” that the world is coming to an end. i mirapaul (1997) of the new york times writes, “a better place to find depraved entertainment could well be on the internet, where descriptions of manson's concerts are given by some of his detractors. in anonymous affidavits bearing january dates, two oklahoma city youths stat[e] that manson and his ensemble perform satanic rites onstage and engage in sex acts with animals and each other. . . until two weeks ago, the debauchery-drenched text of the affidavits could be found right where you'd expect it to be: on the web site of the gulf coast american family association, an affiliate of rev. donald wildmon's national christian organization.” covering the mass-hysteria that surrounded manson’s tour, boehlert (1997) states “moralists have been protesting the antics of marilyn manson -whose outlandishly savvy, button-pushing frontman is a self-professed minister of the church of satan -since the late-1996 release of their latest album, antichrist superstar. communities including richmond, va., columbia, s.c., and rutherford, n.j., have tried, with varying degrees of success, to sidetrack the band's shows. but in recent weeks, it has become clear that the religion-fueled outbursts are not just impulsive expressions of local concern -they're an odd mixture of old-time tent revivals and high-tech information campaigns spread via the internet. ‘people were clearly sent, faxed or e-mailed information here,’ says will berkheiser, general manager at the utica memorial auditorium, in utica, n.y. the hysteria surrounding manson's shows began to take on strikingly similar patterns, often with the same public (and false) accusations made against the band. berkheiser received only a handful of complaints following the announcement of manson's utica show and then, weeks later, was suddenly inundated with calls of protest. ‘it's almost like something was planned,’ he says” (p. 27). the affidavits were removed from the web in 1997 following manson’s threats to sue for libel, however were reprinted in manson’s autobiography: the long hard road out of hell. therefore, all references to the affidavits in this essay derive from manson’s text. ii strauss (1997) notes in rolling stone that “ever since marilyn manson formed, in 1990, rumors have stuck to the band's frontman like the eyeliner that he wears onstage. even selfprofessed fans have speculated on the internet that manson planned to kill himself during a show last halloween, that he removed a rib so he could perform fellatio on himself and that he cut off his testicles. manson has done little to rectify these obvious lies. ‘i never dispel rumors, because people can believe what they want,’ he explained last year. now that the rumors are end notes https://partners.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/042497mirapaul.html#1 https://partners.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/042497mirapaul.html#1 persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 57 coming from his enemies instead of from his fans, manson has been doing a lot of dispelling -to police officers, legislators, concert officials and parents” (p. 18). iii manson’s controversial t-shirts were also connected to several legal battles. john schroeder was arrested on obscenity charges for wearing manson’s t-shirt with the slogan “i am the god of fuck” in a grocery store (bendersky 1998), and, in 2001, “the u.s. supreme court declined to hear the appeal of a high school student who was barred from wearing marilyn manson t-shirts to school. the justices declined without comment to hear the appeal of nicolas j. boroff, who was a 17-year-old senior at van wert high school in ohio in 1997 when he got into trouble for wearing t-shirts of the gothic rock group, whose lead singer also performs under the name marilyn manson . . . a panel of the appellate court ruled 2-1 last year that the school had the authority to prohibit t-shirts that ‘contain symbols and words that promote values that are so patently contrary to the school's educational mission’” (walsh 2001, p. 29). works cited american family association, “our mission,” retrieved 10 may 2017, <http://afa.net>. baddeley, g 2005, dissecting marilyn manson, plexus publishing, london. bendersky, a 1998, ‘marilyn manson t-shirt sparks controversy,’ rolling stone, retrieved 10 may 2017, < http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/marilyn-manson-t-shirtsparkscontroversy-19980130>. best, j 1991, ‘endangered children and antisatanist rhetoric,’ in j t. richardson, j best, & d bromley, (eds), the satanism scare, pp. 95-106. aldine de gruyter, new york. best, j 2001, how claims spread: cross-national diffusion of social problems, aldine de gruyter, new york. best j 1999, random violence: how we talk about new crimes and new victims, university of california press, berkeley. boehlert, e 1997, ‘manson mania,’ rolling stone vol. 762, no. 2, pp. 27-28, retrieved 10 may 2017, academic search complete. bostic, jq., schlozman s, pataki c, ristuccia c, beresin e & martin a 2003, ‘from alice cooper to marilyn manson: the significance of adolescent antiheroes,’ academic psychiatry vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 54-62, retrieved 10 may 2017, springer link. champion-v 2005, ‘from evil others to evil elites: a dominant pattern in conspiracy theories today,’ in ga fine, vc vincent & c heath, (eds), rumor mills: the social impact of rumor and legend, pp. 103-122. aldine transaction, new brunswick. cohen, s 1972, folk devils and moral panics: the creation of mods and rockers, macgibbon & kee, london. conaway, c 2010, ‘manson’s r+j: shakespeare, marilyn manson and the fine art of scapegoating,’ in eb christian, (ed), rock brands: selling sound in a saturated media culture, lexington books, blue ridge summit. ellis, b 1989, ‘death by folklore: ostension, contemporary legend, and murder,’ western folklore, vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 201-220, retrieved 10 may 2017, jstor. ellis, b 1990, ‘the devil-worshipers at the prom: rumor-panic as therapeutic magic,’ western folklore, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 27-49, retrieved 10 may 2017, jstor. ellis, b 2000, raising the devil: satanism, new religions, and the media, university press of kentucky, lexington. ellis, i 2008, rebels with attitude: subversive rock humorists, soft skull press, washington. feldman-s, pamela, ndonko f & yang s 2005, ‘how rumor begets rumor: collective memory, ethnic conflict, and reproductive rumors in cameroon’ in ga fine, vc vincent & c heath, http://afa.net/ 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1996, millennium rage: survivalists, white supremacists, and the doomsday prophecy, plenum press, new york. manson, m 1996, antichrist superstar, [cd] nothing/interscope. manson, m 1998, the long hard road out of hell, regan books, new york. manson, m 1995, smells like children, [cd] nothing/interscope. marshall, d & barbour k 2015, ‘making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective,’ persona studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-12, retrieved 10 may 2017, <https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/ps/article/view/464/489>. mirapaul, m 1997, ‘the traveling controversy that is marilyn manson,’ the new york times on the web, the new york times company, retrieved 12 may 2017, <https://partners.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/042497mirapaul.html>. nietzsche, f 2005, the anti-christ, ecco homo, twilight of the idols: and other writings, trans a ridley and j norman. cambridge university press, cambridge. ottens, a & myer r 1998, coping with satanism: rumor, 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https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/ps/article/view/464/489 https://partners.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/042497mirapaul.html persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 1 59 thompson, d 2005, waiting for antichrist: charisma and apocalypse in a pentecostal church, oxford university press, oxford. victor, j 1990, ‘satanic cult rumors as contemporary legend,” western folklore, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 51-81, retrieved 10 may 2017, jstor. victor, j 1993, satanic panic: the creation of a contemporary legend, open court publishing , chicago. walsh, m 2001, ‘supreme court lets stand ruling that gives schools right to restrict t-shirts,’ education week, vol. 20, no. 28, pp. 29, retrieved 10 may 2017, academic search complete. wright, r 2000, ‘i’d sell you suicide”: pop music and moral panic in the age of marilyn manson,’ popular music, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 365-385, retrieved 10 may 2017, jstor. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 3 old parameters/new tricks: the place of celebrity journalism in persona construction (and what we might do about it…) b e t h a n y us h e r n e w c a s t l e u n i v e r s i t y celebrity journalism is a founding discourse for the construction of persona. as the first mass-circulated media, journalism made celebrity a “very public form of discourse about the dimensions of what is public and what is private, and ultimately what is intimate” (marshall 2014, p. xii). it created parameters for the construction and visibility of different facets of selfidentity in public spheres (connell 1992; hartley 1996), which often perpetuate inequalities of social structures through offering narrow versions of self, for example against the priorities of capital (littler 2004; couldry 2000, 2002). this created an incessant focus on self-fulfilment through consumerism and display of consumption as if this was an accurate public reflection of who we are (marshall 1997, 2010; decordova 1990). as journalism naturalised and rationalised celebrity, together they created tools through which public personas became powerful cultural signifiers and props of the socio-economic and political systems in which we live. celebrity journalism is a principal and founding characteristic of these systems, our collective understandings of self-identity within them, how we perform this to others, and the mediation of these things. as a genre, celebrity journalism ties together the contradictions of public and private dichotomies of capitalist democracies and humanises our place in it all. journalism and celebrity helped develop the fabric of persona, establishing threads of politics and commerce, ordinary people made extraordinary through media rituals, interwoven public and private spheres, the constructions of reality and the celebration and contestation of new ideologies. over the past five years, i have considered the place of journalism and celebrity in persona construction across a range of different settings including mainstream celebrities (usher 2015), politicians (usher 2016), social media influencers or “microcelebrities” (usher 2018a), and journalists (usher 2019). as i did so, i became fascinated by how such dynamics formed and shifted over time, and in journalism and celebrity (usher 2020) i consider how the pervasive displays and constructs of journalism and celebrity together helped to establish what persona is and means. there are two arguments from this body of work i wish to highlight here. firstly, how an addition to rojek’s (2001) “taxonomy of fame” might help us consider the influence of the themes and construction patterns of celebrity on persona construction more broadly, including by all of us on social media. secondly, how we might tackle cultures of attack and public shaming which jealousy guard the parameters of persona construction and display. in a media now governed by networked constructions of reality and self-display, celebrities may still be “achieved, attributed, ascribed” (rojek 2001), but are equally likely to be famous for having “applied” rituals of celebrification to themselves to attract attention and strategically construct persona (usher 2018a). this dynamic reframes how we might consider how we all work, debate and socialise within worlds where clicks, shares and likes have become markers for professional and social capital. social media offers platforms for us to demonstrate who we are and what we think to fluid audiences across personal and non-personal circles. usher 4 ‘applied’ celebrity “derives from the application of longer established components, techniques and tools for building fame” (usher 2018a, p. 185). it uses mass communications and staged authenticity to deliberately foster parasocial bonds of intimacy. as part of networked celebrity culture, this often builds and maintains self-as brand and perpetuates consumerism as if a personal liberation. for others areas of communication, such as political or journalistic, this can offer affective ways to balance authoritative voice with authentic self-display in order to engage news audiences and voters. the term ‘applied celebrity’ might help us to negotiate the influence of longer established processes of communication on self-presentation. but on the other side of the exchange, representational media frenetically maintains traditional elements of power and place in public persona fame-making. newspaper stories about public figures are shared by, at times, seemingly never-ending groups of others on social media, and as these people add opinion and comment, they make word-of-mouth an industrial-level news dissemination tool. in this process, the established processes of celebrification by news media provide powerful tools to gain attention and social traction. for example, cultures of public shaming (in itself a process of celebrification) are derived from long-established traditions of attack journalism (usher 2018b), and news organisations often lead moments of public trolling and ‘cancel culture’ across media channels and streams. since origin in the 18th century british press and to this day, attack journalism has both social and political purposes and consequences. on one hand, the moderation of public personas links into the ideals of journalism as watchdogs of democracy and there are those who see part of this role as ensuring integrity and honesty of the famous. on the other, it can become a useful channel for maintaining hegemony over public debate and understanding of political and social norms through mixing the personal with the professional and political. at worst, persistent publication can become targeted harassment aimed specifically to cast an individual out of public spheres and this can have significant social and political impacts. in the conclusion to journalism and celebrity (2020), i argue that our best hope of tackling this media malaise is via codes of media practice and regulation. for example, as a journalist i deferred to codes of practice for the british press and found many others who did so in regional and national newspapers. at present, both the independent press standards organisation (ipso) and broadcast ofcom codes of practice address persistent pursuit as harassment as part of ‘unfair’ newsgathering practices. neither directly address abuse through persistent publication. this might be tackled through simple additions to existing clauses, and as the british government have recently published a white paper relating to “online harms” (february 2020) that recommends ofcom has additional powers to tackle social, commercial and criminal abuses which, for example, lead to trolling, change to the latter is pressing. however, due to the fluidity of social media spaces, these changes must be international. for example, both the american society of professional journalists (spj) code of ethics and the australian press council’s codes of practice directly address issues of privacy and avoidance and harm. but neither clarify that both persistent publication would equally breach their codes as persistent pursuit during newsgathering. if we understand that the power of representational media in social space is multifaceted – and that without tackling one area of culture that causes similar social harm we cannot correct others – then we might be best placed to navigate, negotiate and identify the ways media regulation needs to change. in light of the complex networked media ecosystems that now support the construction of persona across multifaceted layers of personal, social, public, professional, political and capital, we must better grasp the power dynamics at play. but we also must find tools to help steer cultures that are conducive to persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 5 open and honest self-display, less linked to consumer based capital, and which have mechanisms in place to tackle persona(l) attack. works cited connell, i 1992, ‘personalities in the popular media’, in p dalghren and c sparks (eds) journalism and popular culture, london, sage, pp. 64–84. couldry, n 2000, inside culture, london, sage. couldry, n 2002, ‘playing for celebrity: big brother as a ritual event’, television and new media, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 295–310. decordova, r 1990, picture personalities: the emergence of the star system in america, urbana, il, university of illinois press. hartley, j 1996 popular reality: journalism, modernity, popular culture, london, arnold. marshall, pd 2014, ‘celebrity in the digital era: a new public intimacy’, in celebrity and power, 2nd edn, minneapolis, university of minnesota press. littler, j 2004, ‘celebrity and ‘meritocracy’, soundings: a journal for politics and culture, vol. 26, pp. 118–130. usher, b 2020, journalism and celebrity, routledge, london. usher, b 2019, ‘the celebrified columnist and the opinion spectacle: production, performance and purpose’, journalism studies, online, https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884919897815. usher, b 2018a, ‘rethinking microcelebrity: key points in practice, performance and purpose’, celebrity studies, vol. 11, no. 2, pp 171-188. usher, b. (ed) 2018b, the state of the media, byline media, london. usher, b 2016, ‘me, you, and us: constructing political persona on social networks during the 2015 uk general election’, persona studies vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 19-41. usher, b 2015, ‘twitter and the celebrity interview’, celebrity studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 306-21. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1464884919897815 old parameters/new tricks: the place of celebrity journalism in persona construction (and what we might do about it…) bethany usher newcastle university works cited persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 1 online persona research: an instagram case study kim bar bour, kat j a lee & ch rist op h er moore introduction in the last issue’s editorial, “five dimensions of online persona” (moore, barbour & lee 2017), we turned our attention to the proliferation of public identities through online platforms, and traced key nodes of research that inform how we think about and theorise online personas. we also proposed and outlined five primary dimensions to the online persona that we characterised as public, mediatised, performative, collective, and having intentional value. the scope of that work was deliberately broad and far-reaching—we envisioned that piece as neither tool nor template but, we hoped, a conceptual starting point for further thinking and research. in this editorial, we seek to continue that work by putting these theoretical foundations and concepts into practice through a study of the persona work of instagram. this work constitutes, in many cases, significant labour: decisions are made and remade around sharing different types of images, along with the use of hashtags, framing, timing, filters, captions, or tags. abidin (2016b, p. 90) describes this as “visibility labour”, which is “the work individuals do when they self-posture and curate their self-presentations so as to be noticeable and positively prominent” to their audiences or micro-publics, and notes that the labour itself becomes invisible in the persona creation process. this distributed visibility labour forms the basis of persona work, where users and their micro-publics, in conjunction with the platform and the algorithms that drive it, are continually iterating on the persona that is produced. with over 800 million users active on a monthly basis (and 500 million on a daily basis), instagram is a tremendously popular platform for creating and sharing photographs and videos (instagram 2017). through both the content uploaded and the activities of sharing, the platforms’ users are heavily involved in persona work. although not always framed in terms of persona, scholars have been intrigued by the identity practices of instagram users from the visual media offered by public figures and celebrities to how instagram content and activities respond to, influence, and depict physical, emotional, and psychological health (brown & tiggemann 2016; djafarova & rushworth 2017; duguay 2017; highfield & leaver 2016; leaver & highfield 2018; markham 2015; moon et al. 2016; moreno et al. 2016; olszanowski 2014; pittman & reich 2016; zappavigna 2016). however, the vast majority of users are not public figures and, indeed, much content and activity on instagram is not very glamorous and more mundane. in our case study, we pointedly take up the everyday and the (potentially) banal, by tracing a singular hashtag, #watchingtv, as an opportunity to not only understand how instagram users are performing the watching of television, but to think through and experiment with different methodological practices. online persona research is, we contend, not easy. when online persona performances are continuously changing, updating, and revising, our scope of study is both rich and potentially overwhelming. we must grapple with issues of the volume, boundaries, and interconnectedness of our texts, as well as sample size, reading strategies, the mutability and temporal nature of some archives, the legal frameworks defined by the platform’s terms of use and privacy policy, and a broad range of other considerations. core to all of this must remain highfield and leaver’s (2016) emphasis that scholars must consider the barbour, lee & moore 2 role they play in potentially surfacing and amplifying content that, despite technically being publicly accessible, may have instead been intended and experienced as a more private engagement with photo sharing. the dimensions of instagram persona work although celebrities and other public figures can legitimately lay claim to having more followers, the practical reality of instagram is that the vast majority of the 800 million plus monthly users are everyday folk capturing and sharing visual representations of both the exciting and everyday aspects of their lives. therefore, instagram followers are intentionally moving into public, even when on a relatively small scale, or with a private account, and, as lee (2016, p. 220) has argued elsewhere, “the individual […] who moved or authorises the movement of the private into the public has entered the realm of image management and public relations”. instagram, as we know, is not in this sense particular. such movement into and through online publics is the raison d’être of social media platforms, and instagram’s particular contribution is popularising the role of visual media in that project. like other platforms, instagram also has a “particularly wide-ranging spectrum of publicness” (moore et al. 2017) wherein users might operate within contained and regulated publics but have opportunities to broaden that scope and enter (and entertain) a global public audience. the role and function of the hashtag has been much discussed in this respect (alam et al. 2017; highfield & leaver 2015, 2016; leaver & highfield 2018), yet of particular interest to us is the persona work that is done when hashtags move instagram users beyond their micropublics (marshall 2014) to broader publics, and signal a desire to not only contribute to and participate in particular conversations, but mark and legitimise specific archives and taxonomies. by inviting viewers to consider the relation between the image and the tag, hashtags also provide opportunities for performances of wittiness and cleverness to sarcasm, politics, and even dullness: #dog, when accompanied by a picture of a dog, indicates a movement from the individual’s relationship to the animal, towards a much larger public of dog owner’s sharing their images via the platform. #dog is broad enough to be both potentially banal and very flexible, inclusive of a whole range of content not related to animals, yet it specifically and intentionally seeks out an enormous public in ways that a specific breed, such as #havanese, does not (assuming #havanese is not also accompanied by #dog). this use of many hashtags also does persona work and signals a desire to enhance the richness of one’s instagram experience and broaden their networks. while to some the extensive use of hashtags might be read as unseemly or over-eager, the proliferation of tags signals a readiness to participate and be represented across multiple conversations and interests. the public nature, movement, and momentum of the hashtag, like the instagram user’s activities in general, are inseparable from a consideration of another key dimension of online persona—the connectivity that results in collectives (moore et al. 2017, p. 5). as a platform, instagram enables users to reach across multiple platforms by publishing their images simultaneously on facebook and tumblr, with an image link posted to twitter. this interconnectivity and interoperability of instagram broadens not just the reach of the user’s content and activity, but the richness and complexity of the persona work that is done within and across networks and collectives. this feature of instagram is built upon increasing levels of comfort, skill, and degrees of naturalisation of public mediatisation, and, in particular, a visual production and performance of that mediatisation. with the popularisation of the built-in camera feature on mobile phones for capturing images (still and moving), and internet connectivity enabling rapid and effective sharing of these images, we have become particularly skilled and adept producers of visual images in the last decade for both personal and persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 3 professional purposes. for many of us, these skills have come through play and experimentation on personal devices, but for younger generations this is often augmented by formal training as well. for example, in a first-year course in communication and media studies at the university of western australia, students develop image production and manipulation skills, and must produce a series of image tasks and a final remediation portfolio project. students in the media program at the university of adelaide are assessed on their abilities to produce and maintain presences in a number of online platforms. at the university of wollongong, students in the bachelor of communication and media are required to curate an online presence across multiple platforms, responding to weekly tasks which require them to create visual media including tweeted memes and gifs, snapchat and instagram posts, and online video. a case study of #watchingtv the impetus behind the #watchingtv pilot project was to investigate the photography of banal activity as a way of understanding how people perform an element of everyday media consumption. through an analysis of the photographs posted to instagram, along with a hashtag analysis associated with the images, this particular case study focuses on how people visualise the ways they perform the activity of television watching from their homes. this previously private undertaking—the activity of watching television in domestic spaces—is being surfaced by the prevalence of the public sharing of personal photography, and thus now contributes to the persona of the individual who produces and shares the images, or at least the persona presented through that account. as people turn to social media as a second screen to augment their engagement with television, building on earlier online communities and discussions, they are reaching out not just through their commentary on the shows they are watching (baym 2000; barbour 2016) but also through the presentation of their watching environment. this is a shift in our understanding of what constitutes the private realm of the home, as well as our understanding of the privacy of our leisure time, and the context in which this change is happening requires investigation. this study was also envisioned as an opportunity to experiment with methodologies of social media and persona research. while the data collection activities developed mechanisms for creating a meaningful but finite dataset for analysis, a thematic approach to engaging with these instagram activities models a study of persona that is not built on unpacking individual or group identities, but instead on patterns of performances. to produce this dataset, barbour used the browser-based service websta.me to search for posts tagged with #watchingtv. (in an effort to maintain the in-the-moment nature of the postings, the active tense #watchingtv tag was selected for study; at the time of writing, the hashtag had over 402,500 public posts (websta 2017) making it the most popular tag of its type). twenty posts were captured each day during the data collection period by using a screen shot, and then each image was coded. the research methodology and method of data collection were developed in response to the instagrammatics approach outlined by tim highfield and tama leaver (2015, 2016). although the data were collected manually through screenshots and a third-party application (websta), rather than querying the instagram api, the methodological design took into consideration highfield and leaver’s (2015) key concern around conducting instagram research: that the data is dynamic, in that each comment adds to the original post, rather than becoming a data point on its own. by manually accessing posts tagged #watchingtv, the dataset avoided the inclusion of posts where the hashtag was mentioned in the comments (potentially repositioning the original post). however, given a common practice of a user listing out a range of descriptive hashtags in a comment under the original post, which may be a strategic choice in order to garner more likes and attention for the post (abidin 2016b), this may have meant some images were excluded which may have been fruitful inclusions. once barbour, lee & moore 4 coding and analysis was complete, the screenshots were deleted. in order to identify any differences in the types of images associated with the hashtag across the day and week, the most recently posted images were collected at 10am for the first seven days, at 12pm for the second seven days, and at 8pm for the final three days (australian central daylight time). initially designed as a 28-day data collection period, it was determined that, for the purposes of this pilot study, data saturation was reached after seventeen days. this resulted in a data set of 340 posts. case-by-case decisions regarding the age of the user were made during data collection, as ethics approval for the study excluded participants under eighteen years of age. these determinations were made using visual clues (school bags, teen décor), and textual clues (references to school, parents), as well as the users biographical statement. if there was doubt as to whether the user (in this case understood as the account holder) was eighteen or older, their post was excluded from the data. the images were coded in a spreadsheet. this coding included the user handle (collected to allow for identification of repeat users), whether the image was a still photograph or a video, how many images were included (as in the case of collated images), and the visual elements of the image: number of adults and children, types of animals, inclusion of food, whether the television was in the frame. this coding schema was based on the first week's images, and was used consistently from that point forward. the captions and associated hashtags were also collected, as well as a short description of each image. the description was necessary to both provide a memory prompt as to what the image looked like, and to allow for analysis of the types of images, rather than purely noting the contents. as noted by highfield and leaver (2016, p. 48), "[t]he visual adds levels of trickiness to such analyses: first in accessing the images, videos, or other linked and embedded files, and then in studying them, which requires more individual intervention and interpretation than samples of 140characters". some common notes made in the coding description related to framing or colour choices, that the image was poorly lit, or that the subjects were “watching intently” something outside of the frame; this was usually presumed to be the television referenced in the #watchingtv tag. the frequency of these types of notations is key to understanding the types of images that were included in this data set—they were largely snapshots (poorly lit or framed) and the television was often implied by the gaze of the human or animal subject rather than included in the image itself. of the 340 posts that made up the final data set in this study, sixty-two captions included a reference to the show or film they were watching, with fifty-two distinct shows named. the captions alone were often difficult to decode and thus while it is possible this number is higher, this data set would still show fewer than twenty per cent of the posts referencing specific shows.i although a little under a fifth of the posts named what was being watched, using a hashtag connected to a media provider such as netflix was significantly rarer. there were nine providers named in the data set, with netflix referenced four times, and the bbc referenced twice. in total, only thirteen of the 340 posts in the data set named the provider or channel being watched.ii what these findings suggest is that with #watchingtv, it is the broad reach of the (banal) activity and not the specific content, program, or even broadcaster that is the focal point (or one of the focal points) of the post. this is affirmed through visual analysis of the images which reveal that #watchingtv is less about television and more about the conditions and contexts of watching; these not only give the activity new or altered significance but become a rich site of persona work. manovich (2016) describes three categories of image aesthetic as visible on instagram: the casual, equivalent to a personal or family snapshot; the professional, which mirrors commercial photography in terms of following the rules of photography as laid down in the persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 5 20th century; and the designed, which uses flat layouts, shallow depth of field, and mirrors the style of contemporary graphic design. these categories correlate loosely with earlier distinctions in film photography between personal, amateur, and professional photography (hand 2012, p. 7). the first is represented by the home snapshot, the second by images that show more care or technical skill in their production, but run the risk of being seen as pretentious (rose 2010), and the third are those created for commercial purposes. manovich’s casual aesthetic would match to the personal domestic photography of the past, although encompasses a much more banal range of subjects. the designed aesthetic, meanwhile, is similar in intent and production to the idea of amateur photography while being quite different in terms of the qualities of the photographs themselves, given amateur photography utilises the traditions of structure, perspective, and deep depth of field that is rejected by the designed aesthetic. finally, although there is an aesthetic relationship between the professional photography of each typology, manovich’s categorisation is of images produced without an outright commercial imperative (that is, the photographers do not make a living from their work). all three of these photographic aesthetics can be seen on instagram, but the first—the casual—characterises the vast majority of #watchingtv images captured for this project. rather than being intended to be beautiful or attention grabbing through their display of skill, these casual snapshots instead work as records of a moment in time and are shared in that moment for whomever might be watching. the casual domestic photograph, a style reflected in the bulk of the images in the #watchingtv dataset, can be understood as the photographic answer to the question, 'what are you doing right now?' that prompted early facebook users. these images are, in many ways, reminiscent of the genre of private and personal photography utilised for the purposes of the family photo album where photographic images record and stand in for memories (hand 2012; sontag 1979). through these generic images, we understand who and what a family is; as slater (1995, p. 130) comments, "it is through the family at leisure, at play, at busy rest, in a time of extraordinary ordinariness, that we have come to represent the family to its members and its publics". the banality of the images, of course, belies the complexity of family life. the carefully collated family albums speak to barthes’ (1981, p. 98) assertion that we “want to utter interiority without yielding intimacy". the albums testify to the domestic life we want to remember—holidays and celebrations and successes—rather than the everyday living that fits in between the photograph-worthy special events. unlike the family photography that appears in albums, these images may not show the same "very selective visions of [...] family life" (rose 2010, p. 13), but rather are much more inclusive of the boring, the banal, the messy, and the momentary than a traditional family album. however, being largely composed of snapshots, and attracting minimal comments and favourites from other users, the posts in this dataset can be understood as personal communication, despite being shared publicly. in order to minimise any possible risk to the instagram users who posted to #watchingtv, it is necessary to "consider whether the act of researching surfaces material that would otherwise had little attention and whether amplifying that material through research and research reporting has the potential to do any harm" (highfield & leaver 2016, p. 57). in reporting the results of the research below, we have opted to discuss aggregate findings rather than specific images. equally, it is important to note that the users posting to #watchingtv were not "seeking to be part of an imagined community" as had initially been anticipated, but rather the tag was used descriptively, "explaining to that user's existing audience the context and content of the media shared" (leaver & highfield 2016, p. 5). the images stand in for personal contact, function as memoranda of the everyday lives of the photographers, and record the banalities of people’s engagement with both the production and consumption of media. yet it is in the contexts of that consumption and within the framework of barbour, lee & moore 6 those banalities that we detect both persona performances and the labour of making that visible. in connecting the consumption of television programming with the production of photographs in this data set, there emerged six key motifs within the photographs. these themes are labelled “feet up”, “snacks”, “pets”, “kids”, “date night”, and “daddy time”. feet up the first motif identified running through the data set is a point of view shot with lower legs and feet in shot, which sometimes (if the photographer was horizontal enough) included stomach and groin as well. feet were raised on coffee tables, chaise lounges, ottomans, sofas, cushions, and beds, sometimes covered with blankets or throws, usually alone but occasionally in pairs or threes, or with pets included. a distinctive feature was the television in the distance, usually too saturated or badly lit to allow the viewer of the photograph to identify what show was being watched. perhaps not surprisingly, “feet up” images in various forms were incredibly prevalent, constituting ten per cent of all images in the data set. this image corresponds well with the idea of television viewing as a leisure activity, allowing people to relax in the privacy of their homes. in line with zappavigna (2016, p. 9), we can understand the inclusion of the lower body as an invitation “to share in the experience represented” in real time, inferring the presence of the photographer through the angle, framing, and visibility of what is presumed to be the photographer’s body. “feet up” images seem to visualise the sentiment “wish you were here” or, perhaps, “you could be here”, but the subtext remains that you are not. the images are a performance of leisure that simultaneously includes and excludes the viewer, and that, in its angle and composition, seeks to render invisible the mediatisation of the moment while the sentiment ultimately recalls the presence of that mediated frame. snacks aligned with the role of television as a leisure activity that encourages relaxation is the second theme, which reflects the popularity of food imagery in social media. as reflected by the title of the theme, the photographs usually depicted junk food or treat food, but images of people's main meals were also included. this shot, despite the use of the #watchingtv tag, often did not include the television in the frame, but rather was focused only on the food. in contrast to a lot of the food photography seen on instagram, the #watchingtv tag appeared not to attract food stylists or fans of “flat lays”, whose images would usually feature "prevalent use of shallow depth of field and light-flooded settings" (dejmanee 2016, p. 442). by contrast, these snapshots of snacks were in line with the domestic/personal photography. the images of snacks or other food were most often collections of food items dumped on a blanket, couch, or coffee table, and occasionally were taken after eating, showing empty bowls or packaging.iii it is a motif that suggests not just the privilege of leisure but also desirable forms of consumption: adding a #watchingtv hashtag to food imagery is a cumulative “piling on” of pleasure. pets of the 340 posts, 128 contained petsiv; of those, 112 were focused solely on the animal to the exclusion of the possible people in the room. this popular motif often sought to demonstrate the poster’s sense of humour. these images were generally accompanied by captions poking fun at either the animal or the photographers themselves. where pets are overly ambitious in their attention to the screen—for example, housecats watching shark week, or lapdogs watching sheep herding—the captions would often reflect on the absurdity. in addition to posts of pets actively watching television, there was also a secondary theme featuring animals that had fallen asleep with their paws or heads on the remote control. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 7 kids despite the continued debate as to the advisability of sharing photographs of children online, often presented as dangerous or exploitative in the popular media (appleton 2017; blatchford 2016; haelle 2016; kelion 2017; orlando 2016), images of young children—babies, toddlers, and primary schoolers—were prevalent in the data set. of the 340 posts, forty-one contained children in the image, both as the focus of the photograph, and as incidental to the composition (the latter not analysed in this theme). the level of attention given by the child(ren) to the television screen, regardless of whether or not the television was included in the frame, was a key element of interest. the children photographed were absolutely focused on the television, to the exclusion of all else. some images showed kids clearly distracted from another task—food or toys abandoned in favour of the screen—while others showed kids sitting on couches or the floor looking intensely up at the television. where a group of children were pictured together, there was a comment exclaiming about how good it was that they were all watching the television together (presumably instead of getting into mischief). like the “pets” and “snacks” motifs, the instagram user’s interest in television here is usually contextual rather than an expression of personal experience. date night only a small number of images (six in total) fit into this theme, which was surprising—the colloquial use of “netflix and chill” led the researcher to expect a greater number of images of couples watching television. these images certainly exist, but they did not appear in this dataset, possibly due to the lack of focus on actually watching television coded into #netflixandchill. however, the six images were near identical in construction, presenting young heterosexual couple-selfies, all taken and posted by the woman in the photograph, and usually followed by a string of complimentary hashtags about the male in the picture: for example, "#love #of #my #life #i #love #him", or "#ilovehim #himlovesme". it should be noted that many of the images of people with their animals used similar language, including #soulmate.v there were no images of non-hetero couples or groups in the dataset, although this does not preclude their existence within the hashtag despite not being represented in this data set. indeed, there were images that referenced non-hetero sexualities, but these were selfies and point of view (feet up) shots; all were posted by one self-identifying gay man using other hashtags including #gayguy, #gayman, and #gayboy. daddy time the final visual theme identified in the data set has been titled “daddy time”. this shot featured a man, usually sitting on a couch either holding or beside a small child (baby, toddler, preschooler), with both subjects watching the television intently. the caption often referred to daddy's girl, or daddy's boy, as well as an exclamation about how lovely it was the child and parent were spending time together. the context of each shot and caption indicated that it was being taken by the child’s other parent. the images were clearly taken without either party taking notice of the camera, and the angle usually suggested the photographer was standing at the edge of the room to snap the shot. the consistency of the composition and caption made this theme stand out, despite the fact that it was not common; as with the “date night” theme, only six of the images fit into the “daddy time” category.vi here again sentiment and sentimentality are explicitly and intentionally performed, and watching television recedes to a context for that expression. domesticity and domestic felicity “accumulate” here through multiple textual and visual cues, and the motif bares a strong resemblance to the casual, domestic, and personal photography of the private family photo album. barbour, lee & moore 8 these various motifs identified in the dataset represent patterns of persona work that are performed not through the consuming of television programs, but the contexts and conditions of watching. these contexts are consistently routine, banal, private or personal, and domestic as befitting a medium intimately tied to domestic spaces. the visual aesthetic of these images—often unpolished, informal, poorly lit, and amateur snapshots rather than compositions—affirms these conditions and seemingly makes invisible the persona work being done by the second screen that lies outside our field of vision—the implied but rarely articulated mobile phone/camera. it is an activity so readily implied that its labour is invisible. indeed, the ubiquity of photography throughout so many aspects of contemporary life means that for many people, media production is a continual, banal process, made almost invisible by its prevalence. that people are sharing these amateur images publicly speaks to the intensity with which we produce our personas through digital imagery and networked visibility labour. this persona work is ongoing, largely invisible, can be laborious, while simultaneously being framed as a leisure activity for the bulk of users who do not receive income from their efforts. the translation of the private space of the home into the public realm through the sharing of photographs demonstrates the comfort that many users have with the ubiquity of digital photography, as well as the role of sharing in curating and collaborating with micropublics. the use of instagram also indicates the mediatised nature of the persona work. the identifiable visual themes in the photographs in this data set show that app-specific visual languages emerge from the user base, but are also enabled by the platform itself. the 1:1 ratio of most instagram images persists despite the relaxation of the requirement from instagram, while the point of view shot demonstrated in the “feet up” theme is facilitated by the always-to-hand nature of the smartphone camera. we can also see rejection of mediatised norms of behaviour in this dataset, with most images lacking the highly stylised, short depth of field, flat-lay “instagram aesthetic” spruiked by many “how-to” blog posts. these images garnered very few, if any, likes and comments, in a sense negating the collective nature of persona work. although this visibility labour is an element of persona production, there are other elements of personas that do little to increase visibility and engagement. these images are, as noted earlier, a kind of personal communication and, despite their participation in a broad public hashtag, their intent or aim has more to do with the pleasures and gratifications of personal/self-expression, asserting oneself in public, and imagemaking and archiving than with asserting particular identities and leveraging their value and visibility amongst a broad community. to play with one’s phone, to capture images, to frame them with hashtags that give meaningful context, and to post them on instagram are activities that are labour, arguably pleasurable labour, but also iterative practices of persona production and performance in themselves regardless of the visual and textual content. and when such content is banal, amateur, and/or ambivalent about cultivating admiring or engaged publics, then the persona work of these practices warrants particular attention. whether it is possible for researchers to engage with the full extent of this persona work is another question, however. the ephemerality of both emergent and established social media platforms and tools— snapchat, for example, or instagram and facebook stories, where posts are deleted after a set time-period—means that images and text, whether in the form of hashtags, captions, or annotations, are being produced and shared as transient, momentary artefacts. there remains resistance to the recording and maintaining of day-to-day banalities, making it difficult to gain a holistic understanding of these practices, or the platform vernaculars that are developing around them. all of this points to the iterative, emergent nature of persona work, both in digitally networked spaces, and through our embodied selves. practices and norms differ from space to persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 9 space, platforms have their own vernacular languages (gibbs et al. 2015), and their usage and popularity shift with time. as a result, our own practices as researchers must likewise remain responsive and reflexive. the five articles featured in this edition speak to a range of approaches to understanding persona in a variety of contexts, while our creative practice contribution visualises the relationships between different understandings of persona to draw connections between practice and theory. in this issue we begin this issue with a creative practice work. aaron humphrey takes on the familiar panel presentation of a comic, with hand-drawn illustration and imagery, to trace some important relationships between different types of studies of persona. drawing on his work in user experience design (uxd), humphrey examines the looping connections between uxd personas and social media profiles, questioning the wisdom of conflating the two while demonstrating how conceptually interrelated they are. the first featured article, “‘i am in no way this’: troll hunters and pragmatic digital selfreference” (michael lee humphrey) examines the contested persona of the online troll, as well as those who seek to expose the physical individual behind the digital representation. the dissonance between the online and embodied presentations asks questions of the perceived degree of distance between the two, and whether it is appropriate to hold one accountable for the actions of the other. following humphrey’s work are two articles that explore female fans and the objects of their attention and affection. jocelyn smith’s piece “the politician/celebrity and fan(girl) pleasure: the line between queen hillary and presidential candidate clinton” is a timely analysis of the construction (and then dismissal) of clinton’s female supporters as fangirls rather than politically engaged supporters. smith investigates the relationship between the fangirl and clinton’s political persona and celebrity, and the impact these constructs had on clinton’s ability to seize the presidency and seize presidentiality. in “teenagers, fandom, and identity”, pilar lacasa, julián de la fuente, maría ruth garcía-pernía, and sara cortés examine how fans engage with popular celebrity personas through multimodal discourse. reporting the results of ethnographic research into three different fan communities, the authors examine the varied ways that fans demonstrate their identification with, and contribute to the production of, the celebrities’ personas. oskar milik’s “persona in mmo games: constructing an identity through complex player/character relationships” explores the complex relationships between players and their characters in online gaming. in the construct of the persona he finds a useful methodological paradigm for managing and making sense of the vast and unwieldy datasets that can emerge from studying the identity performances of both players and characters. finally, in this present cultural climate where truth or post-truth invokes and relies upon persona performances, matteo stocchetti proposes that parrhesia may have renewed significance in how we evaluate and understand social constructions of the real. drawing on foucault, “persona and parrhesia: research notes on the dialectics of the real” investigates the conditions under which the authority of personas and the speech of personas are mutually legitimising, and the crucial role of risk and risky political speech that allows a persona to play the “parrhesiastic game”, particularly in digital environments. barbour, lee & moore 10 i for example, it was impossible to determine from the image and caption whether the young woman who posted a selfie tagged with #inspectorgadget was referring to the fact that she was watching the children's show, or the fact that she was wearing large, square-framed black glasses. additionally, it is possible that some of the captions in languages other than english included references to shows that are not counted here. the diversity of captions, descriptions, and viewing choices complicates further textual analysis from this data. it is important to note that although all the posts in the dataset used #watchingtv, this tag could have been incidental to the intended purpose of the photographer. in analysing the textual and visual components of the posts, we acknowledge that the findings are limited both to the dataset collected, and to the researcher’s own interpretation of said dataset. ii in terms of broadcast television, fox, the food network, golden channel, and discovery channel were all named, as was abc4kids (an australian-based children's channel). the streaming service amazon prime was named in one caption, as was nc+go (a polish subscription-based streaming service). iii eighteen of the 340 images fell into this category, a surprisingly low figure—perhaps ones’ food choices for television are simply too banal even now. v this adoption of affectionate language relates to the role of pets as companion animals, performing a surrogate role for either partners or children (dotson & hyatt 2008; sanders 1990; veevers 1985). vi what was also striking here was that the “daddy time” image was not mirrored by “mummy time”. rather, images of children with their mothers were taken as selfies. this contrasting display of the visualisation of parenting merits further study. in doing family photography (2010), gillian rose noted that mothers take the bulk of family photos, saying that the mothers she spoke with reported having to make sure they were also represented in images and albums simply because they were more often behind the camera than in front of it. the role of mother as picture-taker would mean that mothers are simply less likely to be present in shared images unless they are simultaneously taking the picture. also, it is possible these images reflect a socio-cultural expectation that sees any time that a father spends with their child as noteworthy, and therefore worth recording. this relates to the idea of dads “babysitting” their own children (coe 2013; garcia 2016; toalson 2016), while mothers caring for children is so normalised as to be invisible and therefore unworthy of photography. although divisions of labour within the home, and around childcare in particular, have been changing, the role of the father as caregiver is still finding its feet, which may also contribute to their representation in these images. end notes works cited 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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-toalson/a-dad-is-not-a-babysitter-or-a-helper_b_8911878.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-toalson/a-dad-is-not-a-babysitter-or-a-helper_b_8911878.html persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 35 the politician/celebrity and fan(girl) pleasure: the line between queen hillary and presidential candidate clinton joc elyn smit h abstract whenever there is a major political event and the #thebachelor livetweeting continues, or popular online media outlets such as jezebel go ahead with their pre-planned celebrity gossip coverage, there is outrage: seemingly, it is impossible to keep up with—and care about—both the kardashians and election campaigns. during the 2016 united states’ election, however, this outrage emerged from within campaign coverage, drawing a line between “serious political supporter” (who is interested in facts and policy) and “emotional fangirl” (who is interested in memes, feelings, and “girl power” above all). despite donald trump’s history of reality tv and non-political celebrity, hillary clinton’s supporters were called “fangirls” and accused of celebrity-worship, of solely getting their news from “pop” media like buzzfeed—where foreign policy coverage is found alongside discussions of how “dead” we are from a clinton eyeroll—and of allowing fandom to cloud political judgment. this paper is not engaging in the “fake news” debate; rather, this paper explores the intersection of political celebrity and politician in a moment when governmental politics, celebrity, social media, and reality tv are overlapping in unprecedented ways, as well as the intersection of “serious” political campaigning and fannish pleasure in an historic moment for women in american politics. key words political persona; social media; fandom; american politics; hillary clinton; postfeminism trump’s twitter, hillary’s fangirls: responding to “this political climate” it seems urgently necessary and, at the same time, redundant to talk about the celebrity persona of the politician, or the politician as a celebrity persona, in a post-2016 north america. the explosive and polarising events of the 2016 u.s. election left many people, myself included, hesitant about how to continue talking about political persona, and the celebrity practices employed by politicians, particularly through social media such as twitter. perhaps this is indicative of late night comedians becoming america’s hardest-hitting reporters, but the mere mention of a politician tweeting sounds more like a punch line, or the beginning of a rallying speech, than an academic essay. the papers i received from my firstand second-year students smith 36 in the winter 2017 term, following donald trump’s election and hillary rodhami clinton’s historic loss, showed this same kind of hesitancy; they kept vaguely referring to “this political climate”, as a catch-all phrase for “stuff got weird and i don’t know how to write about it in the ‘unbiased’ way i’ve been trained to write in high school”. but “this political climate” and the “weirdness” of the past two years is not only referring to trump’s election, his celebrity status and dynastic-business-tycoon-cum-reality-star persona, or his cultivation of his reactionary political persona through his unconventional use of twitter. it also refers to clinton’s historic campaign, how her political persona, and her use of celebrity practices and strategies, created an unprecedented narrative of “fangirling” around the election. that is, young women in particular were understood to be fans of clinton’s rather than constituents or supporters, and this language of emotional attachment, as opposed to critical distance, was used to dismiss clinton and her voter base along gendered lines. clinton’s political persona became deeply intertwined with her social positioning within feminised spaces of pop culture and the rallying, emotional cries of “girl power”. it is not enough to say that “what happened”, and why clinton lost, is “simply” because she is a woman. her inability to seize the presidency, and to seize presidentiality, is rooted in “a new, unstable political environment” that requires “the massive mediatisation of the self through the integration of online culture into everyday life” (marshall & henderson 2016, p. 1), and that brings the previously private expressions of feminised emotional attachment and “fangirling” into the public sphere. this paper is a preliminary exploration into the role of “fangirling” in clinton’s historic loss. the discussion to come continues the work on political persona done in the wake of brexit and trump through a consideration of the intersecting discourses of pop culture fandom and postfeminism. the concept of “persona”, and political persona in the age of social media in particular, provides the groundwork to begin to take up these questions as persona studies as a field, first, recognises the political dimension of all social interaction and, second, bases its understanding of the individual as a relation to the social—“[persona] is neither individual nor collective, but rather the way the individual negotiates their move into the collective and the way that collective interprets this now organised individual entity” (marshall & henderson 2016, p. 3). i would add that, especially in clinton’s case, the way the collective reflects and is incorporated into this now organised individual entity is crucial to political persona as well. in p. david marshall and neil henderson’s introduction to the topic of political persona (2016, p. 1), they claim: “persona is a way to explore and investigate this shift [in the media environment] and moment of instability, both in the way it operated in the past as a mediatised identity, and the way it is now pandemic and pervasive as a way of being in contemporary culture”. through an analysis of the evolution of clinton’s political persona, her postfeminist “girl power!” messaging, her public relationships with other female politicians, celebrities, and her “regular” supporters, and the particular gendered rhetoric of emotional attachment surrounding her 2016 campaign, this paper continues the work on political persona introduced by marshall and henderson last year when they asked: “what makes political persona constitutively different today than in the past” (p. 1)? on the flip side, how is the past present in today’s political persona? a politician having “fans” is not a new phenomenon—the kennedys certainly had fans, and hollywood celebrity affiliations; ronald reagan certainly did as well, albeit in a different way; alexander hamilton has cultivated a celebrity persona and fan base posthumously through a broadway musical; and, thinking more globally, winston churchill had and has fans, and gains more as he continues to be represented in film and television (e.g. netflix’s the crown; bbc’s peaky blinders, both within the last few years), as does the frequently shirtless vladimir putin, persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 37 whose images make the rounds on social media. a fan, particularly a fan of a politician, is understood differently than a supporter. this is similar to the often fraught distinction between fan and academic, where the fan is understood, as delineated by joli jenson in the adoring audience (1992, pp. 9 & 19), as “deviant” and “excessive” for their passion and investment in an “object of desire […] popular with the lower or middle class […] and widely available”, as opposed to the academic, whose interests fall in line “with the wealthy and well educated” and thus are understood to be “preference, interest or expertise” rather than unfiltered enthusiasm. politicians are not the kinds of cultural texts and objects of desire/interest jenson describes. and while certain politicians, and their supporters, may be taken more or less seriously based on their class positions (this was certainly the case for george w. bush and donald trump and their supporters, and how they were represented particularly in leftist conversation), it is not specifically class i want to consider here. i focus on age and gender, and how “the girl” as subject position connotes a passion and lack of detachment that precludes critical distance and becomes grounds for the dismissal both of the girl and the object of her passion and attachment. for clinton’s supporters (her voters, both famous and not, as well as her political campaigners and colleagues), to be cast by both sides as not only fans, but fangirls, contributes to the construction of a political persona that is, first, closely tied to the frivolity and femininity of hollywood and “traditional” pop culture celebrity (as opposed to political celebrity), and, second, connotes an immaturity and an inability to make decisions based on reason and logic, as opposed to instinct and emotion. whenever there is a major political or world event and the #thebachelor live-tweeting continues, or popular (women’s) online media outlets such as jezebel go ahead with their preplanned celebrity gossip coverage, there is outrage. it is seemingly impossible to keep up with— and care about—both the kardashians and election campaigns, particularly for girls and women. similar to the way the female sports fan needs to prove her fandom through knowledge of obscure trivia, it seems that girls and women must prove their commitment to serious news and topics—or sports—by abstaining from their more frivolous passions during more serious times. it is this distinction between the serious and the frivolous, and how this distinction occurs along gendered lines, that is at the core of my analysis of clinton’s political persona. political persona is distinct from, although inextricably related to, “persona” more broadly, as it is based not necessarily on a desire for emotional attachment or affective response (although this is part of it), but on her “claim to explicit, legitimate political authority over others, and the means by which these claims are accepted” (marshall & henderson 2016, p. 16). thus, while i explore clinton’s persona in relation to pop culture fandom and the rhetoric of “fangirling” more broadly, my goal is to bring these increasingly more public discussions of fan attachments specifically into the conversations around (gendered) political persona that have come to the fore in the field of persona studies. rhiannon bury, in cyberspaces of their own: female fandoms online (2005), argues that this view of female fans, and girls and women generally, as unable to separate their fannish passions from more serious concerns has as long a history as the concept of “fandom” itself. bury states: in the 1920s, when the abbreviation of the latin fanaticus came into use, sports writers used it playfully whereas film and theater critics used it pejoratively in reference to women who supposedly attended performances for the sole purpose of admiring the actors. (pp. 36-37) to be a fan of sports, an area of pop culture fandom dominated by boys and men, is to be playfully engaged—and to be playfully engaged with the game, and the rules and the strategy, smith 38 not the players and their bodies, personalities, or feelings. similarly, boys and men who are “into politics” are often imagined to be spectators, interested in strategy and policy, and are maybe even described as “policy wonks”, a term clinton used to describe herself in a keynote address at a conference of minnesota health care professionals in 1993, although she came off as cold, rather than playfully strategic (campbell 1998, p. 9). masculine passion and obsession are associated with technical mastery, data, and memorabilia collection; men have, as henry jenkins has been arguing for decades, been pathologised for their fan attachments and “geeky” behaviour, but the engagement and the connotations of (and therefore responses to) said engagement for male fans is drastically different from that of female fans, or fangirls. jenkins (2013) argues that the male fan, especially the science-fiction or comic-book fan represented in the big bang theory, are seen as emotionally detached from everyday life. like the boys and men “into politics”, they do not connect on a human or emotional level, but through their “fantasy worlds”, whether that is star trek or star wars or foreign policy. this often translates into a perceived inability for the male fan to engage with women, or to engage in sexual or romantic activity. jenkins states: [e]ven though big bang has added female characters in recent seasons, the women remain largely outside the fannish circle: it’s almost a crisis anytime a woman ventures into the comic shop; bernadette and amy are both female scientists, but they do not show much interest in science fiction. (p. xvi) not only does the big bang theory—which jenkins argues is a more nuanced representation of fans on mainstream television than he had previously seen (p. xv)—represent male fans as weird and detached from human emotion, but the tv show also represents women as outside of that world. when penny, the main female character, is depressed about her dead-end job and gets into online gaming to cope, it is only at the suggestion of one of the fanboy characters (sheldon), and she quickly becomes addicted, has a “lightbulb” moment when she is hit on by one of the other fanboy characters (howard) within the online game, and snaps out of it, all within one episode (“the barbarian sublimation” 2008). clearly, this is not her world, and not how she copes with sadness, loss, or lack of direction. when women are “fans”, both the objects of their fandom (often, celebrities or relationships between characters, as opposed to science-fiction world-building) and their mode of engagement are understood to be different from male fans. female fans carry with them the connotation of being “too close” to the object of their fandom; they care too much, are too involved, and are, as fan studies scholars katherine larsen and lynn zubernis (2012, p. 1) say, “anything but detached”: male media fans may fear that being a fanboy evokes images of the 40-year-old virgin still living in his mother’s basement and collecting star wars light sabers. in other words, the fear is of being perceived as sexually unsuccessful […] for female fans, the site of fan shame may be different, and perhaps more persistent in a decade when comic con fanboys are reclaiming the word ‘geek’ with revolutionary fervor. while male media fans fear being perceived as not sexual enough (the stereotypical fanboy virgin living in his mother’s basement), female fans seem fearful that being a fan makes them too sexual, or at the very least too emotional. (p. 59) bury notes that the term fangirl “quickly became a powerful heteronormative minusmale subject position” (2005, p. 37), always the hopelessly delusional fangirl, carrying the “pejorative connotations of crazy, hysterical, and stalker” (zubernis & larsen 2012, p. 228), and persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 39 never a woman, never an objectifying or objective fan or supporter. during the 2016 u. s. election, however, this outrage emerged from within campaign coverage, drawing a gendered line between the behaviours and emotional responses of the “serious political supporter” (who is interested in facts and policy) and the “emotional fangirl” (who is interested in memes, feelings, and “girl power” above all). the “personalisation of politics” that “is often configured as a threat to ‘real’ issues” (marshall & henderson 2016, p. 4) is even more threatening when the candidate, her supporters, and her “brand” are rooted in the figure of the “girl”. “affective clusters” and twitter followers: political persona, celebrity, and social media while celebrity politicians and political celebrities are not a new thing, the requirement for a politician to have a celebrity “brand” (and for a celebrity to take a political stance, although that is another matter outside of the scope of this paper) is relatively new. in 2004, graeme turner wrote in understanding celebrity that it is “probably a commonplace observation to point out that the systems used to produce celebrity in the entertainment and sports industries are very similar to those now used to produce the public persona of the politician” and he predicted that the “rise of gossip journalism and the talk show” will continue to influence “how the process of mass mediated self-presentation must be organised” (pp. 130-1). similarly, in a 2006 chapter on celebrity politicians focusing on bono and arnold schwarzenegger, philip drake and michael higgins suggested that politicians were beginning to address their electorate as audiences, and that “[c]ontemporary politicians are aware that an appearance on a popular television show enables them to reach a wider public and circulate their image more effectively than any conventional political speech in parliament” (p. 88). thus, just over ten years ago, celebrity studies scholars were viewing political celebrity as the cultivation of a distinctly different persona, with a different “audience” in mind, than hollywood or “traditional” celebrity. reaching even further back to the 1990s, bill clinton’s sex scandal being both political and celebrity news was a novelty. his saxophone playing on the arsenio hall show (which was, of all places, late night television:, a media slot that has now become almost mandatory for politicians to retain relevancy, particularly with younger constituents) in 1992, made political history (“3 june 1992”). by june 10, 2013, however, hillary clinton had “taken to twitter” (to use the terminology employed when a celebrity tweets in a noteworthy manner, usually in response to a controversy or a particular story. for example, kim kardashian “took to twitter” to defend herself against critics of her nude selfies). as karrin vasby anderson and kristina horn sheeler point out in “texts (and tweets) from hillary: meta-meming and postfeminist political culture” (2014, p. 224), in her “inaugural tweet”, she addressed “the short-lived but enormously popular tumblr ‘texts from hillary,’ in which [then] secretary of state clinton was pictured engaging in fictional text exchanges with politicians, leaders, and celebrities”. what is fascinating is that not only has the culture shifted in the last two or three decades —from seeing politicians’ appearances on television shows that are not dedicated to politics or news as noteworthy, to seeing obama’s tweets going viral or clinton responding to a tumblr meme about herself as not just entertaining but normal—but also that hillary clinton was there the whole time. thus, while i consider her political persona as the first woman to almost become president, i want to keep in mind her status and reputation as a political celebrity, public figure, and feminist icon prior to her run for president, and how her previous persona impacts this particular narrative of “fangirling”. clinton and her supporters were often dismissed in an explicitly gendered way specifically during her 2016 presidential campaign. but this dismissal, smith 40 and the employment of the rhetoric of fangirling that became the grounds for this dismissal, is inextricably tied to clinton’s previous political persona (as a lawyer, senator, first lady, and secretary of state) as well as her move to seize power (rather than having it bestowed upon her by bill clinton—i.e. her role as first lady—or barack obama—i.e. her role as secretary of state— or the viral memes of tumblr—i.e. her role as the sassy, taking-no-shit, badass texting hillary) and her cultivation of a pop-culture-savvy celebrity persona in “this political climate”, where a social media presence is a requirement seemingly regardless of who you are or what you do. in 2014, marshall published a call-to-action for “persona studies”, or “the mapping of the proliferation of the public self”. he argued that since the 1970s, celebrity news has become more and more normalised as part of our culture, with the biggest moment perhaps being “the migration of celebrity stories from the back-sections to the front pages of the newspapers” and the consequent collusion of gossip and news, the breakdown of celebrity and politics “via a more intense revelatory news discourse on the intimacy of political scandals and their play of public and private” (pp. 154 & 157). perhaps no one—outside of the royal family—experienced this collapse of public and private in political news in the same way that bill and hillary clinton did with the infamous monica lewinsky scandal, and hillary clinton’s involvement in said scandal—both the fact that she was implicated in a scandal at the apex of celebrity and political news, and the fact that she was both pitied and blamed as the “jilted wife” in the narrative of the scandal—cannot be ignored in an analysis of her 2016 persona. the reasons marshall gives for this desire for “intimacy” in both celebrity and political news offer more insight into hillary clinton’s ongoing celebrity; he argues that the fascination and focus on celebrity demonstrates that “despite all the efforts at providing the material and information for an informed citizenry, we are drawn to emotional connections that express another force of organisation, interest and connection” (2014, pp. 153-4). that is, we want to engage emotionally. while we may scoff at the newest scandal, or laugh at former leader of the canadian new democratic party tom mulcair doing drake’s “hotline bling” dance in an attempt to appeal to youths, or even dismiss those who want to keep up with the kardashians while terrorist attacks are occurring in the world, we do care. marshall explicitly links this contradictory response to individualised consumer capitalism and contemporary advertising’s focus on selling sentiment and emotion—similar to pepsi’s attempt to sell the refreshing taste of resistance against police brutality using kendall jenner in 2017 (“kendall jenner for pepsi commercial”). marshall posits that as “celebrity culture” becomes more of a “wider persona culture”— meaning, as alice marwick and danah boyd (2011) argue, that celebrity is less of a line separating the famous from the regulars, but a continuum along which we all engage in similar practices of self-branding, or constructing a “persona”—what is at the heart of this wider persona culture is affect (2014, pp. 161-2). according to marshall: [lawrence] grossberg’s (1987: 175-197) concept of an “affective economy,” where emotion is attributed and in a sense rationalised, captures the way that public individuals congeal not only attention but clusters of support not dissimilar to the way that social media use attracts friends and followers for individuals. […] moreover, affect can move through populations as it attaches to other retained but unconscious emotional memories and thus can exhibit patterns of contagion, magnification and amplification […] affect allows us to understand the movement between the self and the social [… and] in combining affect theory with making sense of how social networking is reorganising persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 41 society, one can begin to see that the various micropublics social network culture produces are in effect affect clusters. (p. 162) in other words, people’s emotional responses and attachments congeal around particular figures, celebrities, or personae, and these attachments—which marshall likens to social media followers—can define the relationship between the self and the social, the private and the public, and can therefore create “affect clusters” or “micropublics” around particular figures and/or feelings. there are several reasons why this argument is particularly enlightening when it comes to clinton’s persona and her so-called “fangirls”, one of which anderson and sheeler (2014, p. 228) state succinctly: back when “she officially launched her [first] presidential campaign in january of 2007, clinton was a known political commodity with a long public history” (emphasis added). her “affective cluster”, so to speak, already existed when she launched her twitter account, her bio (in 2007) lauding her as a “wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, floar, flotus, us senator, secstate, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, tbd” (qtd in anderson & sheeler, pp. 224-5). anderson and sheeler focus on how, in her bio and elsewhere, she tried to capitalise on that pre-existing affective narrative and congeal new emotional attachments around a pre-established figure. but, at the same time, these attempts “to define herself ‘not as a staid politician but as a witty, self-effacing and almost hip netizen’” and “by [her] passions, [her] famil[y], and the chapters in [her] li[fe]”, as opposed to simply her profession, were ultimately ineffective at broadening her affective cluster (anderson & sheeler, p. 225). the passion, enthusiasm, and lack of rational detachment associated with her political persona and her affective cluster limit “its potential to promote effectively female presidentiality” (anderson & sheeler, p. 230). democratic strategist and digital director of obama’s re-election campaign teddy goff claims that clinton’s twitter bio “suggested someone more interested in building genuine relationships with her fans than in being ‘on message’ in the traditional, political sense of the term” (qtd in llorente 2013). marshall and henderson (2016, p. 4) point out that this move is in line with contemporary political marketing strategies: there is an “increasing move to affect in politics” and “voters are drawn to politicians who resemble their values and attitudes”. but as anderson and sheeler point out, clinton was “a woman who once was reviled in u.s. political culture” (2014, p. 238). karlyn kohrs campbell recounts in her article, “the discursive performance of femininity: hating hillary” (1998, p. 1), that clinton was pictured on the cover of spy magazine in 1992 with “her head on the body of an s & m dominatrix”; she was “given a defined and recognized role” in the white house “as a way to counter fears of the power of the first lady”; in 1996, henry louis gates jr. “wrote that ‘hillary-hating has become one of those national pastimes which unite the elite and the lumpen’”; also in 1996, garry willis wrote that “hillary hate is a large-scale psychic phenomenon […] talk shows are full of speculation about hillary’s purported lesbianism and drug use”. any attempts to soften or make likeable clinton’s political persona must not only take clinton’s femininity into account, but they must also occur within the context of this “hillary-hating” that has become integral to clinton’s persona. as of may 2017, clinton has removed “glass ceiling cracker” from her twitter bio, but she has left her political credentials as well as “hair icon” and “pantsuit aficionado”—clear cracks at her celebrity persona, rather than her politics (@hillaryclinton 2017). however, this persona, and the jokes about her hair and her clothing, is inextricably tied to clinton’s decadesold, persisting image as a tough, authoritative, ball-busting, masculine and/or emasculating woman succeeding in a place she does not really belong (campbell, for instance, describes how she is both inappropriately feminine and masculine: she rhetorically performs masculine smith 42 expertise, as opposed to feminine intuition, as a woman in “male spaces”, e.g. the courtroom, the white house, and thus unsettles everyone (1998)). the political persona she is attempting to capitalise on in her twitter bio is the same political persona that has kept her from breaking the glass ceiling, as opposed to just cracking it. by cheerfully gaining the upper hand with a “cool” twitter bio, and through “imagined exchanges with politicians, leaders, and celebrities” in the “texts from hillary” memes (smith and lambe 2012), clinton generates a strong affective response amongst her supporters, primarily women, who have stood by her, respected her, defended her, and idolised her all along. however, this affective response, while celebrating “women’s power”, does little to address “the misogyny that constrains women in politics” and “derid[es] women who fail to achieve the successes modeled by […] tokens of success” (anderson & sheeler 2014, p. 233). in other words, the power of clinton’s persona is a postfeminist power; it celebrates the (potential) success of one “glass-ceiling cracker” while failing to address the underlying misogyny—the equation of presidentiality with masculinity—that stops women from destroying said ceiling altogether. despite her failure to turn “cool” into “presidential”, clinton is more than just the first woman to almost become president of the united states, and the impact of her persona reaches far beyond her political office. she is and has been a feminist icon for many women for decades, and has been a consistently present figure in the lives of many women (and men) who voted in the 2016 u.s. election, or watched (nervously) from afar. personally speaking, i recall bonding with my own mother over the media’s unfair treatment of clinton during her husband’s presidency and the fallout of the lewinsky scandal. clinton is referred to as the hero for nerdy, driven girls growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s in television series such as gilmore girls— an entire episode revolves around the protagonist, rory gilmore, worrying she will not get into harvard because her “hillary clinton essay will be just like every other girl’s hillary clinton essay because apparently that’s all we can think of” (“application anxiety” 2003)—while young female celebrities such as lena dunham, amy schumer, katy perry, ilana glazer, abbi jacobson, and more tout her as their badass, political, pantsuit-wearing hero. for these women, hillary clinton is madeleine albright meets princess diana meets madonna meets meryl streep. there is a power (and a longevity) to her persona as a distinctly female celebrity that transcends her simply being a politician. in “this political climate”, governmental politics, celebrity, social media and reality television are overlapping in unprecedented ways, and “serious” political campaigning is intersecting with fannish pleasure and outrage in an historic moment for women in american politics. potential voters are viewed simultaneously as potential “fans”, and the discourse of fangirling is used both to dismiss women’s affective responses to political candidates (female political candidates in particular) and to create affective communities, or clusters, that cohere around women’s responses to their queen hillary—a political celebrity and trailblazer in her own right for decades—almost becoming the first female president of the united states of america. the cultural value of (fan)girls: political persona, fans, and femininity while politicians having a celebrity persona and fan base is not “new”, the use of the specific rhetoric of fangirling, and the incorporation of fangirl desire and enthusiasm into the politician’s celebrity persona, is a more recent phenomenon, as pop culture fandom and the practices of fangirling in particular have entered the public sphere and the mainstream media. fangirling has become more visible as the “bedroom culture” of “teenybopper” celebrity worship that persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 43 angela mcrobbie (1991, p. 11) discusses in her earlier work—creating collages of new kids on the block from tiger beat, pretending to make out with a poster of donny osmond, watching 90210 while gushing about the newest plot developments on a three-way call during commercial breaks—has become part of the public sphere of online social media, so much so that the language of fangirling has entered into dominant discourse (e.g. using the word “squee!” to respond to something that gives one “the feels”, or makes one feel overwhelming emotion). the private sphere is now being enacted in public; the bedroom is both in the privacy of the home and on the public platforms twitter and tumblr. consequently, these once private expressions of emotion are witnessed by the general public, and by the objects of the fangirls’ fandom, thus shifting cultural perceptions of fans, girls, and the object of fandom: and these “objects”, or cultural texts or celebrity personae, shift to respond to these newly public displays of adoration and support. clinton did not invent the concept of a politician having “fans”, but the persona that was cultivated for herii throughout her 2016 presidential campaign (which is distinct, although not wholly separate, from her previous political persona) was unique in three ways. first, this discourse of fangirling had already become public and mainstream, so was easily leveraged by politicians, journalists, and other commentators in response to her vocal, passionate, and largely female fan/supporter base. second, while politicians have arguably always been “celebrities”, the cultivation of a social-media-based celebrity persona for politicians has only become mandatory within the last decade, as discussed in the previous section, and thus clinton is part of the “new class” of politicians required to use the tools and practices of persona and image management used not only by “regular” or hollywood celebrities, but by everyone else as well (kim kardashian-west has a twitter account; as does barack obama; as does hillary clinton; as do i; as does my retired, decidedly non-famous father). third, hillary clinton is a woman. both former u.s. president barack obama and current canadian prime minister justin trudeau have “fangirls”—they are relatively young (for politicians), attractive, photogenic, amicable, and clearly successful, so of course the girls would fall for their smiles. but there are some key differences between obama, trudeau, and clinton. obama’s and trudeau’s fangirls are understood to base their fandom on sexual or romantic attraction (the stereotypical fangirl previously discussed). clinton’s fangirls, alternatively, are running on a message of solidarity and “girl power”, which is inherently more threatening to the status quo. for example, during obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, a “fangirl” became a celebrity in and of herself: the “obamagirl”. in june 2007, she, along with a four-person team, released the “crush on obama” video, which bustle claims struck “comedic, political, and somewhat sexual gold” (chang 2014). obama and his campaign team never embraced nor endorsed the video, likely due to its raunchy innuendos, which could detract from the potential presidentiality of a relatively young, black, and not socially conservative man. however, this articulation of america, and american women in particular, having a “crush” on obama, as the “obamagirl” amber lee ettinger said, “encompassed what a lot of americans were feeling, the excitement for hope and change” (hannity 2012). in some ways, this video may not take the “obamagirl” or obama entirely seriously, and may reflect poorly on his presidentiality, as it has been defined by his white male predecessors. but, as ettinger points out, “crush on obama” responds to an already heightened level of excitement, optimism, and hope around the 2008 election that transcended gendered lines, and the obamagirl’s specific enthusiasm falls in line with the expectations i outlined above, in that she expressed heterosexual desire for obama. while she may not be taken seriously—the comedic nature of her song, plus the fact that she was hired to do this and never personally endorsed obama, aligns her more with late-night sketch comedy smith 44 than tumblr fangirling—this is the kind of fangirling we are comfortable with, as opposed to the aforementioned unabashed “girl power” enthusiasm for clinton and a potential first female president. while obama and trudeau may face criticism for their youth, celebrity affiliations, and lack of seriousness, the unabashed girlishness of the fangirls’ behaviour does not reflect on them in the same way is does on clinton. regardless of the girls, the men’s work is their work, and their personae retain (for the most part) the gravity associated with political office. because of the girls, and because of clinton’s unprecedented femininity as a presidential candidate, clinton becomes increasingly associated with the frivolity of pop culture and the leisure sphere, and her political persona loses weight (and not in the way that trump has suggested many women should lose weight). it is worthwhile to return to jenson’s aforementioned frustrations with the divide between “serious” academic pursuits and “deviant” or frivolous fan attachments. jenson takes issue with the academy’s seemingly arbitrary lines between what authors/artists or texts/works qualify as appropriate academic “work” (in her case, james joyce) and what is “fun” or decidedly “not work” (again, in her case, barry manilow). this divide is reflected in how, even if the joyce scholar admits to “enjoying” joyce or being a “fan”, joyce has been culturally positioned as labour and manilow as leisure. this is not completely arbitrary, nor is it not understandable, but the point is that cultural understandings of what differentiates labour from leisure depends on an infantilisation and feminisation of particular modes of engagement with cultural texts and objects that is inextricably tied to the economic and cultural valuation of the bodies engaging and the texts/objects with which they are engaging. this narrative of fangirling (as opposed to just being a fan) is mobilised differently in regard to clinton than it is for obama or trudeau, because the object of the fangirl affection (i.e. clinton) is inherently feminised. the cultural valuation of this enthusiasm emerges not solely from the fangirls, but from the reciprocal relationship between the fangirls and the object and/or celebrity of their affection. thus, clinton being a woman, and being the first female democratic presidential nominee, is crucial to understanding the impact of clinton’s fangirls, and her engagement with her fangirls, on her political and celebrity persona. the incorporation of the rhetoric and practices of “fangirling” into clinton’s presidential candidate persona is both explicitly gendered and tied to her particular celebrity persona, which has been part of the north american political and public consciousness since the early 1990s, and her social media and pop culture “literacy” or fluency, which concretises her always already feminised image in the sphere of leisure and emotional attachment, as opposed to labour and rational thought. a defining characteristic of both girls and youth in western culture is a lack of “work”, of participation in paid labour (with this definition often used to dismiss girls’ labour as “just for fun” rather than compensable). thus, it follows that, for youth, leisure affiliations become the way identities are negotiated, communicated, and maintained. this is similar to how dick hebdige’s (1979) punks and mods identified themselves and their socio-political and racial positioning through fashion and stylistic choice, musical tastes and affiliations, and their regular hangout spots (the street, the club). hebdige was integral in shifting the way that cultural studies scholars write about youth. rather than approaching youth as a “problem to be solved”, he took the styles and objects of youth (sub)cultures seriously, interrogating the “processes whereby [these] objects are made to mean and mean again as ‘style’ in [these] subculture[s]” (1979, p. 3). he imbued these youth cultures, and the specific cultural objects they take up and use for their own purposes and pleasure, with value—not monetary value, but social, cultural, and political value. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 45 however, hebdige’s work does not do the same to value girls’ youth cultures as it does boys’. not all leisure, and not all work, is created equal, or valued equally, within patriarchal capitalism, and the value of said leisure and labour is not inherent. instead it is constantly being created and recreated through those who engage in, witness, and critique these forms of leisure and labour. in where the girls are: growing up female with the mass media, susan j. douglas (1994, p. 5) writes of baby-boomer girls: according to the prevailing cultural history of our times, the impact of the boys was serious, lasting, and authentic. they were the thoughtful, dedicated rebels, the counter-culture leaders, the ones who made history. the impact of the girls was fleeting, superficial, trivial […] histories of the sixties still focus on the boys, their music and their politics, while [the girls] appear as nothing more than mindless, hysterical, out-of-control bimbos who shrieked and fainted while watching the beatles or jiggled our bare breasts at woodstock. idiots, hysterics, dumbos—empty vessels. in other words, the stories we tell about the (gendered) past become our gendered past. the boys of the sixties counterculture have cultural value because they have been imbued with cultural value by scholars such as hebdige, who proposed viewing the boys as politically and culturally meaningful rather as a “problem”, and other members of the “parent culture” (e.g. parents, teachers, politicians, journalists, other authority figures). anderson and sheeler argue that the panoply of digital discourses that comprise political culture does not substitute for political reality it becomes political reality. political identity is, therefore, less a reflection of a politician’s authentic self and more a conflation of diverse and sometimes conflicting image fragments. (2014, p. 228) just as the stories of the countercultural boys of the sixties become the prevailing narrative of the 1960s, these affective clusters of enthusiastic girls and women become hillary clinton’s political persona. while this “girl power” sentiment functions as a rallying cry, and while it clusters support based on affect similarly to the way obama clustered support around the affective economy of “hope” and “change”, it could not succeed in the same way as obama’s messaging did because of how girls’ and women’s emotional responses are seen as overriding or precluding rational, logical, or critical thought. this performative intimacy that marwick and boyd argue is required on interactive social media platforms such as twitter works to both create an affect cluster around, and undermine, clinton’s presidential persona, because she is a woman, as are most of her fans. however, this is rendered invisible through the very same narratives of postfeminist empowerment clinton leveraged in the launch of her twitter account and her presidential campaign. anderson and sheeler describe the narrative thusly: [w]omen can and do capably run for president. they have the potential to be as popular with the u.s. electorate as male candidates. any failure of their candidacies should properly be ascribed to their personal shortcomings or strategic miscalculations rather than to the continued influence of sexism in u.s. culture. (2014, p. 2) in other words, clinton’s failure to “congeal” enough support to secure her the presidency is her failure, and her campaign’s; it is completely divorced from the sexism seemingly inextricably woven through u.s. politics that equates the presidency with masculine authority. smith 46 but the naming of clinton’s supporters—from lena dunham, to huma abedin, to some of my colleagues and friends—as “fangirls”, made explicit the implicit gendering of the presidential candidates’ supporters (not just the candidates themselves) throughout the campaign. fangirls are different from fans. the term “fangirl” works to contain “feminine” expressions of fandom or adoration within a particular nonthreatening ideological space; the passion of the hysterical fangirl, shrieking and physically and emotionally out of control at the sight of her hero, can be tolerated because it is just a teenybopper phase. the “obamagirl” can be tolerated because her desire is expected, and does not threaten the political status quo. this ideological incorporation of the overly passionate girl is how barbara ehrenriech, elizabeth hess, and gloria jacobs (1992, p. 526) argue parents and journalists “dealt” with beatlemania: convince yourselves it is “as inevitable as acne and gum-chewing, and [that] adults [will] just have to weather it out”. this firmly associates this behaviour with not only femininity but with youthfulness. thus, while clinton’s pop culture affiliations and fluency, and the fangirl passion directed her way, may construct a “cool” persona, and may “congeal” followers and fans around her, the association of pop culture with the feminine and the infantile ultimately conveys a lack of seriousness on behalf of both her and her supporters. hebdige argues that male youth subcultures should be taken seriously, not just as a “problem to be solved”, but because they have the “ability to symptomatize a whole cluster of contemporary problems” (1979, p. 87). despite decades of work by feminist cultural studies scholars such as angela mcrobbie and ehrenreich, hess, and jacobs, we, as a culture, like to deny girls this ability; we like to deny that girls’ fannish pleasure and intense culture attachments might mean something beyond “girl power!” and may carry weight that does not need to be left behind in the “teenybopper” stage of life. this is why it is particularly interesting that this rhetoric of “fangirling” was employed in a presidential election: what would it mean to take “girlish” emotional responses seriously, particularly when they have tumbled out of the “bedroom culture” of “teenybopper” worship and into the very public sphere of electoral politics? along these same lines, if “persona”, as marshall and henderson argue, is always already political in its strategic negotiation of the individual in the social, “a fabricated reconstruction of the individual that is used to play a role that both helps the individual navigate their presence and interactions with others and helps the collective to position the role of the individual in the social” (2016, p. 1), then how is clinton’s persona reconstructed as her role as an individual becomes more publicly positioned within this explicitly and loudly “girly” social? “yas queen”: the female political persona and hillary’s fangirls despite donald trump’s history of reality tv and non-political celebrity, hillary clinton’s supporters were called “fangirls” and accused of celebrity-worship, of solely getting their news from “pop” media like buzzfeed—where foreign policy coverage is found alongside discussions of how “dead” we are from a clinton eye-roll—and of allowing fandom to cloud political judgment. what is interesting is how this “fangirling” was not used as merely a descriptor for her “regular”, “non-famous” supporters who were screaming at her as if she were a “teenybopper” celebrity like harry styles. she did have a fair number of these regular, nonfamous supporters, many not even of voting age. a popular image, and one of the first that comes up (in november 2017) in a google image search for “hillary clinton fangirls”, is that of a young blonde girl meeting clinton and ecstatically looking back over her shoulder with the classic open-mouthed “omigod mom/dad/best friend, i’m meeting madonna/the spice girls/britney spears/selena gomez!” fangirl face. it is not just her reaction that is notable here, but also the fact that she literally is a girl. she could not actually vote for clinton in the election, yet she is “fangirling” nonetheless. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 47 beyond this, however, the rhetoric of “fangirling” was also used to discuss the affection, respect, and worship clinton’s peers and colleagues had for her. the term “fangirl” was not always used pejoratively. sometimes it was, but often women—including first minister of scotland, nicola sturgeon, and huma abedin, the vice-chair of clinton’s 2016 campaign—selfidentified as “hillary fangirls”. abedin recalls being a 21-year-old intern meeting the then-first lady and says she “had such a fangirl moment” and was “hooked” (tacopino 2016); sturgeon, on the other hand, spoke of her excitement prior to meeting clinton at a recent new york event, stating, “i’ve got to be careful i don’t act like a fangirl” (aol 2017). while the term “fangirl” is not always used in the same way, it is always an acknowledgement of excess—whether it is presented as a straight-up criticism or an apology, it suggests that the enthusiasm one feels for clinton is too much, and too much in a particularly feminine way. it is an excuse to dismiss the over-the-top reactions as celebrity worship or gender solidarity. both sturgeon and abedin wore their clinton fangirl labels as both a point of pride and shame (i.e. “i respect this woman so much, but unabashed enthusiasm is so unprofessional”). jessica tarlov (2017), writing for fox news online, began her article on trump’s first 100 days by stating: “i’m a hillary clinton fangirl and i feel no shame”, as if shame were the default. she continues: “does that mean i don’t see her faults? of course not”, again, as if a fangirl cannot also be a critic. nora kelly (2016) opened an article in the atlantic: “they were a bunch of hillary clinton fangirls, the women who filed into the women’s national democratic club here last week to volunteer for the democratic nominee”. kelly characterises them as “all in service to a candidate they feel duty-bound to defend: not only a woman who could be the nation’s first to serve as president, but a candidate who looks, thinks, lives, and talks like them”. this narrative of fangirling works to dismiss women’s support of hillary clinton in two interrelated ways. first, women’s support and enthusiasm is reduced to gender solidarity. as anderson and sheeler state, “[w]hen support for #teamhillary is reduced to gender solidarity, her constituency and policy platform can more easily be dismissed even as it is cited as proof of broad cultural support for women presidential candidates” (2014, p. 238). it appears, on the surface, to be positive thing, but it also works to reduce the candidate and her supporters to solely their gender. second, their political work is the result of fangirl attachment rather than logical reasoning and support of policy, and these women are infantilised. this is a presidential election, not a twilight premiere; these are women working for a political cause, not girls and women engaging in fantasy escape (and although i am suggesting this should be discussed differently, i am not suggesting that we do not also take the girls and women at the twilight premiere seriously, merely that we acknowledge these as different kinds of emotional attachment, even if they are expressed in similar manners through similar bodies). to conclude, i want to briefly look at clinton’s appearance on the episode “2016” of broad city, a comedy central series about two twenty-something female friends in new york city “fucking around”, as anne helen petersen puts it (2017, p. 54). in march 2016, in the middle of her campaign, clinton appeared on an episode of the sitcom when ilana, one of the two protagonists, works for her campaign. both ilana and her friend abbi are ecstatic to meet hillary, but need to be instructed on etiquette; for starters, screaming “yas, yas, yas” is deemed inappropriate. however, what is more interesting than abbi and ilana’s fangirling and lack of professionalism generally—which is completely in character for them—is the response to the episode. was “2016” a fangirl endorsement, and, if so (or if people read it as such), how is such an endorsement folded into clinton’s political persona? many people read the unbridled smith 48 enthusiasm for clinton as an unbridled endorsement by the shows stars, writers, and creators, the real-life ilana glazer and abbi jacobson, who argued in interviews that they were not trying to make a political statement. in fact, they had written the episode a year prior, when the impact may have not been the same. jacobson states, however, that “hillary, even regardless of where we stand—and we love hillary—is such an iconic figure. these girls being around her is not an everyday thing. that’s how we felt being around her. it was like, ‘oh, this is a different world’” (qtd in rosen 2016). glazer and jacobson reserve the right to critique, or not endorse, clinton, but what jacobson says here relates back to marshall’s “affect clusters”: clinton’s power as a political and public figure, as well as her status as the almost first female president, was aweinspiring, was deserving of unbridled enthusiasm and passion. this fangirl attachment, this pleasure at seeing this woman you’ve grown up admiring run for president of the united states, is powerful, but it is used to preclude critique and rational thought, and deny that girls’ and women’s emotional attachments and responses might “symptomatize a whole cluster of contemporary problems” (hebdige 1979, p. 87). political endorsement and fangirl attachment are conflated in clinton’s political persona; the presidential candidate cannot be separated from the pop culture feminist hero and her fangirls. the episode is called “2016” because it focuses on all the things that the united states should have achieved by the year 2016: an efficient department of motor vehicles, to begin with, but also a female president of the united states. this fangirling, then—and the subsequent mourning of clinton’s loss—is not solely a result of the “buzzfeedification” of political news, but of an often lifelong desire to see this badass woman beat the odds in the biggest boys’ club in the world. anderson and sheeler close their paper with a chillingly accurate prediction that i will repeat here: “in the context of postfeminist political culture, winning the internet proves to be an easier task than winning the u.s. presidency” (2014, p. 239). i i refer to her by her full name here, “hillary rodham clinton”, because the inclusion of the “rodham” is a significant part of her cultivation of her persona as a female married politician and lawyer. however, throughout this paper, i also refer to her as “clinton”—both to adhere to writing conventions, which privilege the “official” surname at the expense of the “first” surname, often the spot reserved for the mother’s surname, and to adhere to how she was referred to, and how she referred to herself, throughout the campaign: as hillary clinton (madame president if you’re nasty). ii i use this passive sentence construction to note that, although clinton was an active party in constructing her persona, it is never clear who is “behind” a celebrity’s image, and, furthermore, the persona is not a top-down construction: her supporters, fans, fangirls, and critics all contribute to the creation of said persona. end notes works cited ‘3 june 1992’, the arsenio hall show, television program, cbs, usa. ‘2016’, broad city 2016, television program, comedy central, march 16. anderson, kv & sheeler, kh 2014, ‘texts (and tweets) from hillary: meta-meming and postfeminist political culture’, presidential studies quarterly, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 224-243. persona studies 2017, vol. 3, no. 2 49 ‘application anxiety’, gilmore girls, television program, the cw, october 8, netflix, retrieved 3 november 2017. aol 2017, ‘‘fangirl’ nicola sturgeon meets hillary clinton at new york women’s event’, aol uk news, 7 april, retrieved 1 may 2017, <http://www.aol.co.uk/news/2017/04/07/fangirlnicola-sturgeon-meets-hillary-clinton-at-new-york-wome/>. ‘the barbarian sublimation’, the big bang theory 2008, television program, cbs. bury, r 2005, cyberspaces of their own: female fandoms online, peter lang, new york. campbell, kk 1998, ‘the discursive performance of femininity: hating hillary’, rhetoric and public affairs, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-19. chang, l 2014, ‘does amber lee ettinger, a.k.a. the ‘crush on obama’ girl, still have a thing for the president?’, bustle, 24 june, retrieved 24 november 2017, <https://www.bustle.com/articles/32774-does-amber-lee-ettinger-aka-the-crush-onobama-girl-still-have-a-thing-for-the>. crush on obama 2007, youtube, the key of awesome, 13 june, retrieved 24 november 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksoxhyicqu>. douglas, sj 1994, where the girls are: growing up female with the mass media, three rivers press, new york. drake, p & higgins, m 2006, ‘‘i’m a celebrity, get me into politics’: the political celebrity and the celebrity politician’, in s holmes & s redmond (eds), framing celebrity: new directions in celebrity studies, routledge, new york, pp. 87-100. ehrenreich, b, hess, e & jacobs, g 1992, ‘beatlemania: a sexually defiant consumer subculture?’, in k gelder & s thorton (eds), the subcultures reader, routledge, new york, pp. 523-536. hebdige, d 1979, subculture: the meaning of style, routledge, new york. @hillaryclinton, ‘wife, mom, grandma…’, hillary clinton, twitter, retrieved 3 november 2017, <https://twitter.com/hillaryclinton>. jenkins, j & scott, s 2013, ‘textual poachers, twenty years later’, textual poachers: television fans and participatory culture, twentieth anniversary edition, routledge, new york, pp. vii-l. jenson, j 1992, ‘fandom as pathology: the consequences of characterization’, in la lewis (ed.), the adoring audience: fan culture and popular media, routledge, new york, pp. 9-29. kelly, n 2016, ‘the hillary clinton disciples getting out the vote’, the atlantic, 7 november, retrieved 1 may 2017, <https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/hillary-clinton-women-getout-the-vote/506579/>. kendall jenner for pepsi commercial 2017, youtube, kendall and kylie, 4 april, retrieved 3 november 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5yq1dlsmq>. llorente, e 2013, ‘hillary clinton’s debut on twitter cranks up speculation about 2016’, fox news, 12 june, retrieved 3 november 2017, <http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/12/hillary-clinton-debut-on-twittercranks-up-speculation-about-2016.html>. marshall, pd 2014, ‘persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self’, journalism, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 153-170. marshall, pd & henderson, n 2016, ‘political persona 2016—an introduction’, persona studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 1-18. marwick, a & boyd, d 2011, ‘to see and be seen: celebrity practice on twitter’, convergence: the international journal of research into new media technologies, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 139158. mcrobbie, a 1991, feminism and youth culture: from jackie to just seventeen, unwin hyman, boston. petersen, ah 2017, ‘too gross: abbi jacobson and ilana glazer’, too fat, too slutty, too loud: the rise and reign of the unruly woman, plume, new york, pp. 51-72. rosen, c 2016, ‘broad city: hillary clinton cameo not a political statement’, entertainment weekly, 12 march, retrieved 1 may 2017, <http://ew.com/article/2016/03/12/hillaryclinton-broad-city-episode-wednesday/>. http://www.aol.co.uk/news/2017/04/07/fangirl-nicola-sturgeon-meets-hillary-clinton-at-new-york-wome/ http://www.aol.co.uk/news/2017/04/07/fangirl-nicola-sturgeon-meets-hillary-clinton-at-new-york-wome/ https://www.bustle.com/articles/32774-does-amber-lee-ettinger-aka-the-crush-on-obama-girl-still-have-a-thing-for-the https://www.bustle.com/articles/32774-does-amber-lee-ettinger-aka-the-crush-on-obama-girl-still-have-a-thing-for-the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wksoxhyicqu https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/hillary-clinton-women-get-out-the-vote/506579/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/hillary-clinton-women-get-out-the-vote/506579/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5yq1dlsmq http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/12/hillary-clinton-debut-on-twitter-cranks-up-speculation-about-2016.html http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/12/hillary-clinton-debut-on-twitter-cranks-up-speculation-about-2016.html http://ew.com/article/2016/03/12/hillary-clinton-broad-city-episode-wednesday/ http://ew.com/article/2016/03/12/hillary-clinton-broad-city-episode-wednesday/ smith 50 smith, a & lambe, s 2012, ‘texts from hillary’, tumblr, april 4-11, retrieved 1 may 2017, <http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/>. tacopino, j 2016, ‘huma abedin gushes about how she became a hillary ‘fangirl’’, new york post, 5 april, 1 may 2017, <http://nypost.com/2016/04/05/huma-abedin-gushes-abouthow-she-became-a-hillary-fangirl/>. tarlov, j 2017, ‘trump’s first 100 days, hillary clinton and america’s missed opportunity’, fox news opinion, 21 april, retrieve 1 may 2017, <http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/21/trumps-first-100-days-hillaryclinton-and-americas-missed-opportunity.html>. turner, g 2004, understanding celebrity, sage publications, london, uk. zubernis, l & larsen, k 2012, fandom at the crossroads: celebration, shame and fan/producer relationships, cambridge scholars publishing, newcastle-upon-tyne, uk. http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/ http://nypost.com/2016/04/05/huma-abedin-gushes-about-how-she-became-a-hillary-fangirl/ http://nypost.com/2016/04/05/huma-abedin-gushes-about-how-she-became-a-hillary-fangirl/ http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/21/trumps-first-100-days-hillary-clinton-and-americas-missed-opportunity.html http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/04/21/trumps-first-100-days-hillary-clinton-and-americas-missed-opportunity.html persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 1 introduction: international conference special issue p. da v i d m a r s h a l l d e a k i n u n i v e r s i t y a nd ki m ba rb our u n i v e r s i t y o f a d e l a i d e scholarship and academic enquiry are complex entities. individuals sequester themselves to complete their projects, publications, and manuscripts, and this solo activity can make us collectively think that the ivory tower of academic life is real. but the real hub of research, and its genuine success, is built from the process of exchange: conversations, discussions, engagements, re-readings and – building from this activity – amendments and integration of other related ideas, concepts, and trials. this journal has built from these exchanges as are the scholarly and academic personas (barbour & marshall 2012; marshall, barbour & moore 2018) that we enact to present and perform our work: we depend on this “verkehr” (marx & engels 1970) to both advance our ideas and to ensure that those ideas (and our professional identities) have some impact and value. this issue has been directly built from these exchanges, collaborations, and discussions. persona studies the journal, and persona studies the field, held its first major international conference on the 25th and 26th of june 2019, hosted by newcastle university in newcastleupon-tyne uk and led by dr bethany usher and a team of nu scholars and supporters. the papers in this special issue have emerged from this inaugural conference, building from an elaborate interchange among scholars from original abstracts for the conference, questions and queries generated by an engaged audience, informal discussions at wonderfully catered lunches, dinners, and drinks throughout the conference, to follow-up re-iterations and amended texts that were read and reviewed once again with further prompts for elaborations and development and final submissions. we have to admit that we (kim and david) were overjoyed by this conference, building the research culture of persona studies significantly further. we could see the level of engagement of all who attended, and the desire and intentions enveloped collectively in their works and participation. the conference’s final discussion session, entitled where next for persona studies, is a presage of future directions: this issue provides the beginnings of that intellectual journey. that conversation pointed to what we have both found most interesting and engaging in investigating persona: is the flexibility of the concept, its capacity to be taken up and utilised in unexpected ways. we sincerely hope that others continue to take this work in new, diverse, and challenging directions. we want to also congratulate the team, led by bethany usher, who pulled this together during perhaps one of the most difficult years for collaborative scholarship. the launch of the new perspectives section sees usher, along with darren kelsey, gareth longstaff, and elisa kannasto explore new directions for the field in short form (around 1000 words); this is an exciting new space, and we look forward to both seeing the ideas proposed here develop, and see what else is pitched in this section (open for rolling submissions across the year as well as themed contributions). in the full-length article section, we have four papers emerging from the conference, beginning with giles’ fascinating and detailed examination of the path of persona studies to date. this is followed by three papers that explore particular personas of public figures, whether fictional or non-fictional. helena bassil-morozow uses the concept of a trickster persona to explore fleabag, drawing on ideas from jung and socially acceptable femininity to marshall & barbour 2 unpack the impact and value of phoebe waller-bridge’s award-winning character and show. samiran culbert turns his attention to another landmark character, that of the ‘blackstar’, examining how david bowie’s final persona was produced by himself, by the music industry, and by fans, and how fans used this persona in their mourning of bowie on reddit. collaborative persona production continues in nicholas qyll’s analysis of the many personas of madonna, focusing particularly in this case on the visual components that make up her brand. finally, chris miles draws together the jungian perspective of bassil-morozow and the branding focus of qyll to see what these two can offer both persona studies and marketing. to round out the issue, we are delighted to finally be able to publish a wonderful exploration of the facebook personas of modernist authors by will best. this paper ties together literary studies with online culture and persona studies in a deft and useful way in our open submissions section. publishing this issue is a substantial achievement. this year, when so many of us were forced away from the casual interactions and informal collaborations had in office buildings, we have had to become intentional in engaging with our colleagues while also managing the complexity of working from home and sharing workspaces with partners, housemates, and children. in some ways, this has brought us together with colleagues living in similar circumstances across the world, and it has been heartening to see the collective solidarity across the tertiary sector as we deal with online teaching, cancelled or reorganised conferences, timezone challenges, health concerns, massive job losses, political disruption, and the opportunity cost of such a tremendously disruptive year. these struggles were real, and have real impact on our scholarship and publishing schedules – we are so pleased to help these nine scholars have these fantastic papers published (just) within the bounds of 2020 – and our international collective solidarity needs to continue for years to come. in this vein, we hope to host an online conference in the third quarter of 2021, likely spread over a month or so, with a series of weekly webinars and live discussions to support prerecorded video and podcast presentations. we have been eagerly watching and engaging in the experimental sessions run by many more established conferences this year, and plan on learning from these experiences in building a collaborative, interactive, and rewarding space for scholarly exchange. confirmed details and a call for submissions will be circulated in early 2021. we also wish to thank the professional staff at deakin university who support the journal, particularly josipa crnic and the it team, for their work in upgrading the journal website and ensuring the look and feel of the site is functional and contemporary. our archive of issues is there, as is our continued commitment to open access publishing without cost to author or reader, but both of these rest on the hard work and support of these professional colleagues. thank you. references: barbour, k & marshall, pd 2012. the academic online constructing persona. first mondays [online], 17, available from: <http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewarticle/3969/3292>. marshall, pd, barbour, k & moore, c 2018. ‘academic persona: the construction of online reputation in the modern academy’, in: lupton, d, mewburn, i & thomson, p (eds.) the digital academic: critical perspectives on digital technologies in higher education, london, routledge. marx, k & engels, f 1970. the german ideology, new york, international publishers co. http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewarticle/3969/3292 introduction: international conference special issue p. david marshall deakin university and kim barbour university of adelaide references: kelsey 6 celebrity personas, self-help culture, and collective psychology: reflections and transformations da r r e n k e l s e y n e w c a s t l e u n i v e r s i t y the self-help industry bombards us with books and messages about how to live happier lives, but their advice is not always helpful. celebrity endorsements of self-help methods and mythologies in popular culture create communicative tensions in our collective psyche, feeding messages of hope and optimism that are often, somewhat ironically, detrimental to our happiness. as a result, we now have a growing body of anti-self-help literature telling us to ditch the positive thinking, cut the endless fixation on goal setting, and live more resiliently in the face of life’s inevitable adversity (brown 2016; manson 2016; brinkmann 2017). celebrities who tell mystical stories about secret laws in the universe and the magnetic power of positive thinking (see kelsey 2018) often tap into the psyches of hopeful self-help consumers who painfully fall for the confirmation bias of celebrity success stories. those advocates and followers of rhonda byrne’s the secret, for example, rarely stop to ask where the unsuccessful people are – those who tried to “think positive” but didn’t try hard enough and failed to attract fortune, fame, and success. this positive thinking model of self-help has been critiqued as an unhelpful hangover from our protestant past, having a particularly detrimental impact in american society (ehrenreich 2010). but it isn’t all bad news. there are other performative contexts in which celebrity personas can intervene and shed light on the shadows of illusive self-help dupes, dreams, and false promises. the charisma, successes and stories of celebrity personas can provide inspiring contexts for sharing self-help methods and philosophies. it is what these celebrity personas embody and how they share advice that warrants critical attention. here, the field of persona studies has a significant role to play in scrutinising the role of celebrity personas in the growing public discourse around psychology, mental health and collective wellbeing. when i started writing the book that i am currently working on, i had just recovered from a serious bout of anxiety that stemmed from my accumulative life struggles with imposter syndrome. many readers will be familiar with the story of imposter syndrome: the symptom of self-doubt that is deeply engrained in an individual’s psyche through various personal, cultural and psychological experiences in their life. many of us mask this trait with various personas on a daily basis, and we often get along just fine. but sometimes, for some people, it is debilitating. for many years, i had struggled to enjoy success or achievement. as i grew up, my worries and sense of impending doom intensified and became an engrained pattern of my inner dialogue. dysfunctional tensions in my psyche controlled my inner authorship and my selfdoubt grew. i adopted a resilient persona to fool myself as much as anyone else. i masked fear with extroverted confidence and self-deprecating humour in my personal, social and professional personas. this worked for some time, but not forever. in 2018, at the age of 35, i decided i could no longer endure the fear and anxiety that was stopping me from enjoying life. i was ready to fracture my persona, lift my mask and ask for help. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 7 through a combination of serendipity, curiosity and perseverance, my experience motivated me to write a book about the work of a celebrity persona that resonated with me on my road to recovery. whilst receiving cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt), i read one of those ‘life-changing’ books. derren brown had been the guest on two of my favourite podcasts: the joe rogan experience and making sense with sam harris. during these two conversations he promoted his latest book, happy: why more or less everything is absolutely fine (2016). having been influenced by the stoics, brown drew on stoic philosophy to write “an anti-self-help-selfhelp book” on happiness. brown offered ways of living a more considered life without the burden of blind faith, self-blame and disappointment that often comes with positive thinking. the foundations of cbt draw on stoic philosophy, and happy soon became a recurring talking point when i met my therapist. i found countless similarities between my thoughts and habits and brown’s examples of the stories we tell ourselves and how they affect us. happy nudged me into a reading marathon on stoic philosophy: i had soon read the ancient works of marcus aurelius (2014), seneca (2004) and epictetus (2008) followed by more recent stoic endorsements from massimo pigliucci (2017) and ryan holiday (2014, 2016, 2019). but when i caught up on more of brown’s recent work, i realised something: in his performative persona, which reflects distinct characteristics of the magician archetype (campbell 1949; barlow 2017), brown speaks to us as individuals and collectives – trying to help us transform and individuate through those personal and cultural struggles in the psyche. when enlightened, the archetypal stage magician uses their performative skills, intellectual knowledge, intuitive tendencies, healthy scepticism, and visionary talents to the benefit of others. all individuals and collectives can foster this archetypal trait when those potentials are realised and utilised. in brown’s case, he is trying to tell us stories and engage us with dramas and illusionary theatrics that are meaningful and resonate with audiences in ways that help to realise those potentials. brown’s television mini-series, apocalypse (2012) showed how stoic meditations of gratitude and negative visualisation can guide us through transformative journeys – away from the childish tendencies that we often carry into adulthood and towards transcendence – fulfilling our duty to others and a greater good. in his stage show, miracle (2018a), brown echoes his disapproval of the self-help industry for duping us into a culture of goal-setting and positive thinking, providing us with a compelling case for living life in the moment rather than endlessly chasing the holy grail of happiness that never arrives. likewise, in miracle, brown uses his stage persona to expose the faith healing industry as a case where the dark side of magic cruelly misleads it victims with false hope and illusive dreams based on the power of god. brown’s more recent shows, the push (2018b) and sacrifice (2018c) were both available at on netflix at the same time, demonstrating the contrasting potentials of the human shadow. the push shows how social conformity can lead good people to commit a terrible crime. sacrifice shows that whilst a politics of fear and polarisation suppresses our empathy towards others, even a man with strong views against immigration will take a bullet to protect an illegal immigrant. as jung (1959) proposed, the unconscious does not only host our darkest traits, it holds our greatest potentials that are often suppressed through our cultural experiences. the shadow contains the dark and the light, from the demonic to the divine. brown sheds light on our personal and societal shadows; addressing the state of a collectively anxious, fearful and polarised culture that’s in need of some better collective selfhelp. whilst applying the concept of “collective psychology” (see the collective psychology project 2018) in this book about brown, i’ve continued listening to him talking about his work, his ethos as a performer and the meanings that he tries to convey through his performances. as kelsey 8 brown admits, magic is often about the ego of the performer and other childish urges to impress. therefore, in recent years, he has adapted his persona to orchestrate theatrics and performances that resonate with the audience – forcing us to reflect on ourselves as humans and the nature of our beliefs. some critics see brown himself as a shadow magician, fooling and tricking audiences with hoaxes and fake stunts. but perhaps it is the case that brown’s work has remained popular for over 20 years because, by his own admission, his performative persona has moved beyond the self-serving urges of ego, towards a meaning making ethos that resonates with audiences and the times in which we live. celebrity personas have a part to play in guiding us through the transmedia terrains of collective storytelling and the self-help industry. but we must keep a critical eye on the what and how of this work, and the influence it has in popular culture. works cited aurelius, m 2014, meditations, london, penguin. brinkmann, s 2017, stand firm: resisting the self-improvement, cambridge, polity press. brown, d 2012, apocalypse, objective productions, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x09pdp6yx7a> brown, d 2016, happy: why more or less everything is absolutely fine, london, penguin brown, d 2018a, miracle, netflix, vaudeville productions. brown, d 2018b, the push, netflix, vaudeville productions. brown, d 2018c, sacrifice, netflix original. barlow, s 2017, ‘understanding the magician archetype’, retrieved 07 july 2020, from <https://susannabarlow.com/on-archetypes/understanding-the-magician-archetype/> campbell, j 1949, the hero with a thousand faces, california, new world library the collective psychology project, 2018, a larger us, retrieved 11 november 2019, from <https://www.collectivepsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/a-largerus.pdf> ehrenreich, b 2010, bright-sided: how the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined america, london, picador. epictetus 2008, discourses and selected writings, london, penguin. holiday, r, 2015, the obstacle is the way: the ancient art of turning adversity into opportunity. london, profile books. holiday, r 2016, ego is the enemy, london, profile books. holiday, r 2019, stillness is the key: an ancient strategy for modern life, london, profile books. jung, cg 1959, the archetypes and the collective unconscious, new york, routledge and kegan. kelsey, d 2018, ‘affective mythology and 'the notorious' conor mcgregor: monomyth, mysticism, and mixed martial arts’, martial arts studies, vol. 5, pp.15–35, doi: http://doi.org/10.18573/mas.47 kelsey, d (forthcoming) 2021, the magic of stories: collective psychology and the work of derren brown. manson, m 2016, the subtle art of not giving a f*ck: a counterintuitive approach to living a good life, new york, harpercollins. pigliucci, m 2017, how to be a stoic: ancient wisdom for modern living. london, penguin. seneca, l 2004, letters from a stoic, london, penguin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x09pdp6yx7a https://susannabarlow.com/on-archetypes/understanding-the-magician-archetype/ https://www.collectivepsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/a-larger-us.pdf https://www.collectivepsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/a-larger-us.pdf http://doi.org/10.18573/mas.47 celebrity personas, self-help culture, and collective psychology: reflections and transformations darren kelsey newcastle university works cited hoegaerts 6 chewing demosthenes’s pebbles: embodied experience making the scientist’s persona, ca.1830-1910 josep hi ne hoe gae rts abstract this paper argues for an embodied approach to the scientist’s persona, using ‘experience’ as its focal point. rather than noting that embodied experiences influenced scientists’ practices and identities amidst (or despite) ideals of objectivity, i want to draw attention to the ways in which personal, embodied experiences were celebrated in nineteenth-century science, and presented as primordial for the practice of competent research. i am focusing on those scientists involved in the study of the voice in order to do so. because the physical workings of the voice are largely hidden inside the body, fields such as laryngology and phoniatry developed a number of touch-based, experiential scientific practices before and alongside tools of visual observation. these non-visual practices were very closely connected to researchers’ sensations of their own bodies, and connected to their identity (whether as a middle-class amateur singer, a hoarse professor, a stammerer, etc.). as scientific disciplines studying the voice developed over the century, personal ‘experience’ (understood both as particular practices and notions of personal background and identity) was increasingly brought forward as a unique source of understanding and expertise. this resulted in a highly diverse field of experts on the voice, in which otherwise non-elite researchers could participate and even rise to fame. they did so because, and not despite, physical and social impediments such as a stutter or a limited education. studying the experiential practices and memories brought forward by this network of experts allows me to look at the construction of their scientific personas from an intersectional perspective. a focus on the nineteenth-century notion of ‘experience’ and its inclusion in scientific discourse allows us some insight into the various constituent elements of a persona built within the context of a particular field. experts drew liberally on aspects of identification that do not always fit the classic categories of gender, class, age, health, etc. key words experience; gender; voice; laryngology; speech impediments; observation in 1890, charles rivail spoke to his peers at the cour d’appel (court of appeal) in grenoble, urging for more attention to children’s and youngsters’ vocal education. in order to learn to speak well, he argued, pupils needed practical exercise of their voices and were being badly served by an educational model of quiet classrooms. “the art of speech can be learned”, he persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 7 insisted, “and to be an orator, one always has to have, more or less, chewed on demosthenes’ pebbles” (rivail 1890, p.16). he would know. rivail, a barrister and political speaker (he would later become mayor of grenoble) was known as a particularly artful orator, so his pronouncements on the subject were likely to carry authority. it is interesting to see where or, rather, whom he himself bases that authority – and therefore his right to speak – on. the figure of demosthenes looms large in rivail’s construction of the competent barrister and consummate speaker, a sensible choice for a role model, perhaps, as knowledge of the great classic orator’s work showed off rivail’s education and erudition. it also allowed him to inscribe himself into a long tradition of illustrious orators. but demosthenes was also known for his (initial) difficulties with oratory and –most notablyhis struggles with speech impediments. yet that is exactly the aspect of demosthenes’s life that rivail highlighted, by mentioning the ‘pebbles’. it represents the very tangible pain of impeded speech, and the physical fight against it. what makes a good orator, according to rivail, is not great learning, but hard-earned experience. and that experience is both emotional and embodied: it encompasses the practices of mouth, lungs, and larynx (if necessary weighed down with marbles, like how demosthenes famously exercised his tongue and jaw), and the failures that precede the birth of a good orator. rivail’s phrasing is, true to type, particularly eloquent, but the ideas he was expressing were far from original. at the end of the nineteenth century, he was part of a large and growing number of authors who connected good speech to experience and practice. whether they were mostly concerned with vocal health, rhetorical aesthetics, or social propriety, vocal ‘experts’ not only argued for an experiential and embodied approach to cure, ameliorate, and polish speech. they also based their own claims of expertise increasingly on their own, embodied experiences as brilliant or impeded speakers, and as ‘scientists’. the latter aspect of their identity was somewhat unclear, however, and will be central to my argument below. experts on vocality, speech, speech impediments, and laryngeal health proliferated throughout the nineteenth century to form a somewhat chaotic network of researchers and practitioners in a field that could not really be properly named. (authors on the subject identified themselves as ‘vocal physiologists’, ‘phoniatrists’, ‘vocal hygienists’ and other neologisms). it is perhaps no surprise that the need to present oneself as a credible and dependable authority on one’s subject of expertise was keenly felt in such an unstable disciplinary environment. although not all who participated in the discussions on this emerging field of knowledge would later be counted among the forerunners of the discipline that would eventually become speech therapy, or logopédie, i will argue that it was common practice for most of them to adopt and adapt a scientific persona in order to claim legitimacy and authority throughout most of the nineteenth century. the scientific personas produced in this emergent community on vocality borrowed some characteristics from more general tropes of (mainly experimental and medical) science at the time, but – like rivailalso drew liberally on the physical realities of their throats, lungs, and tongues. embodied experiences were so central to their practices and identity-formation, that they regularly reported on them in their written work, thus underlining their amalgamation of strategies in building an identity as a ‘scientist’ (as defined by daston and sibum 2003, p.4). this reliance on experience in the formation and expression of a scientific persona was not wholly particular to the field of vocal health. for scholars in the humanities, for example, henning trüper (2013, p.1349) has shown that “the virtues constituting scholarly authority easily cohabitated with the precepts of scholarly travel and experience”, and experimentation on the researcher’s own body occurred in different branches of the medical field. i will argue, however, that the role ‘experience’ played in the scientific persona of practitioners in the field of vocal hoegaerts 8 health was particular, partly because the nature of their object of research, the voice, defied ‘observation’ and therefore demanded a thorough engagement with experience through senses other than sight, and partly because the somewhat disjointed field of expertise on vocal health accommodated bodily experiences in a particular way through the close ties between vocal artistry (both in speech and song) to middle-class civility. in order to retrace the different ways in which embodied experience was mobilized in the production of the vocal expert’s scientific persona, i analyze written, and largely published, documents. focusing on three centres of knowledge production (london, paris, and leipzig), i draw my source database of c.600 works on vocal health and education from collections that roughly represent the material that was available to both ‘professional’ vocal experts and interested amateurs in these cities. currently held at the wellcome library, royal college of music, royal academy of music, samuel heinicke institut, hochschule für musik und theater felix mendelssohn, bibliothèque de la conservatoire nationale, and the bibliothèque nationale, these works roughly represent the knowledge available and exchanged in and between the uk, france, and saxony in the nineteenth century. the three cities in which these collections were gathered were remarkable hubs of knowledge acquisition and exchange regarding vocal health and esthetics. they are home to major (and some of the oldest) music conservatories of europe, but also to important institutions for the research on and cure of vocal pathology (schools for the deaf and dumb, for example, but also ‘laboratories’ in the new disciplines arising around vocal health, such as laryngologist johann czermak’s spectatorium in leipzig, the hospital for diseases of the throat founded by his student and colleague morrell mackenzie in london, and colombat de l’isère’s institut ortophonique in paris). although the database consists of documents in several genres, aiming for audiences including fellow-professionals as well as a more general ‘educated’ reader, they share some characteristics that make my performative and ‘experience’-driven approach feasible. firstly, because of the heightened attention given to the physiology of voice and voice production in the nineteenth century, the body and particularly the organs related to speech were very consciously presented as a central concern in these texts, as authors were often arguing against older, disembodied, notions of vocality. secondly, the prescriptive nature of educational manuals prompted authors to explicitly address vocal ‘performance’ – either in describing patients’ faulty vocalization, presenting idealized performances to be attempted by the reader, or indeed by presenting their own vocal performances as examples to be studied or imitated. in what follows, i read these texts for the way in which they describe and prescribe individual, embodied practice. first, i attend to the specific physicality of the voice. i explore the theoretical implications of its links and tensions with visual observation, and the consequences of a more varied sensorial approach for the notion of the scientific persona as it has been developed by historians. second, i present cases of authors presenting their own identities and bodies in their scientific and educational work. this allows me to zoom in on the role of experience in particular constructions of modern individuality that allowed vocal experts to adapt tropes of experimental science to their own field. and third, i suggest that these adaptations, despite being largely predicated on the conventional authority bestowed upon middle-class white men, also created openings for ‘other’ researchers and practitioners to adopt these particular scientific personas, and we shall see a number of authors whose credibility was not compromised by their non-conventional bodies, but rather bolstered by the experiences these bodies afforded them. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 9 experience as a basis for evidence and embodiment the focus on experience is hardly a new one: social and cultural historians have attended to historical actors’ experiences throughout the last three decades. often they have done so, as i do here, partly to account for diversity. relying on experience as an analytical tool comes with its own challenges and dangers. as joan scott noted in her 1991 analysis of ‘the evidence of experience’, privileging personal experiences, and its resulting documents, as sources in historical enquiry risks leading us toward a fixed and essentialized understanding of identity the very thing an analysis of persona is trying to avoid. experience, scott warns, “serves as a way of talking about what happened, of establishing difference and similarity, of claiming knowledge that is ‘unassailable’” (scott 1991. p.797). yet, whilst the notion of unassailable knowledge is an unproductive one, experience also serves as a way to give credence to the irreducible reality of the body and its foundational role in performing the ‘self’ (including the different personas construed by any one actor throughout their lifetime). despite its pitfalls, i will therefore insist on the importance of experience precisely because it can “establish difference and similarity” and thus can make ‘others’ visible in the historical record. the visual metaphor – so often used in studies sensitive to issues of diversityis not coincidental: “when experience is taken as the origin of knowledge, the vision of the individual subject becomes the bedrock of evidence on which explanation is built” (scott 1991, p.777). it therefore differs from the more explicitly emancipatory project of ‘giving voice’ to historical actors – yet insists that the personal is indeed political (or cultural), and that physicality co-creates social reality. for our analysis here, however, ‘vision’ cannot quite suffice. the historical actors under scrutiny here deal with a largely invisible phenomenon, and that had a profound influence on the experiences they relied on to perform subjectivity and aspects of difference. the voice (one’s own or somebody else’s) is, as many theorists have discussed, of the body, but distinguishes itself from other corporeal features in its eeriness (e.g. dolar 2006, barthes 1972, cavarero 2006). for nineteenth-century observers as for contemporary historians, it is elusive in its intangible, invisible nature. the practice of observation, therefore, has a different meaning and weight for vocal experts than it did for other scientists. if we take their experiences of their (socio-cultural and physical) world as a ‘bedrock of evidence’, a wider field of sensorial perception needs to be taken into account. that is not to say that visual observation was of no importance in the field of vocal science or, more pertinently, that the codified practice of ‘observation’ played no part in these experts’ performances of their professional selves. to the contrary, efforts to ‘see’ the workings of the voice were central to their scientific and therapeutic practices. instruments were developed to see the vocal cords in action (first by an obstetrician who modelled his instrument on the speculum, later by several physiologists and singers who introduced laryngoscopic mirrors in their own and others’ throats), and earlier experiments on ‘dead’ larynxes were equally visual in their approach (e.g. merkel 1857, müller 1839). visual representations of the larynx and vocal folds were included in medical and educational treatises as a matter of course (e.g. fournie 1866, browne 1878) and pictorial representations of the expert ‘at work’ often presented them in the course of laryngoscopic examination (e.g. johnson 1864). nevertheless, the ultimate invisibility of the voice itself, combined with the inaccessibility of its producing organs, urged medical and educational experts alike to rely on a wider variety of sensory experiences, proprioception chief among them. if vocal practice was difficult to observe, it was very easy to ‘perceive’ in one’s own body, after all. this particular reliance on proprioception and other means of mobilizing one’s own body in the practice of science will also have some bearing on how to understand the notion of hoegaerts 10 a ‘scientific persona’. as lorraine daston and otto sibum have noted, the mask-like character of the persona does not represent a clean break from the persona’s performing body. it is “a cultural identity that simultaneously shapes the individual in body and mind and creates a collective with a shared and recognizable physiognomy” (daston and sibum 2003, p.2). whilst the persona ‘shapes’ the body, it seems clear that corporeal practices and experiences also shape the mask – a delicate balancing act that has long been recognized for other performances, such as musical practice for example. freya jarman, in her analysis of the queer voice, presents the voice itself as ‘a mask’ that is performance, identity, and body in one (jarman 2011). like these musicologists’ analysis, i do not want to suggest that an ‘authentic’ body (or an unassailable experience) somehow precedes the formation of the scientific persona. rather, in keeping with gadi algazi’s comments on scholarly personas, i want to insist that even in the cerebral worlds of science and scholarship, “social relations and trajectories are not external to actors but inscribed in them”(algazi 2016, p.30-31) . and that inscription, i argue, is an embodied, practice-based matter, more performative than performance (i.e. understanding the performative quality of bodily practice much in the way judith butler (1990, p.25) has suggested it should be understood: as performative utterance). in studying a type of expertise that was relatively ‘new’ in the nineteenth century (if not an entirely new field of science), this paper focuses on quite specific iterations of scientific persona. nevertheless, the case of vocal science might be illuminating in a wider sense. as daston and sibum have noted, “the rise of a persona is a relatively rare event”, and “to fashion a new persona requires a delicate balance between old and new cultural forms” (daston and sibum 2003, p.5). in what follows, i will analyze the practices of vocal experts as building blocks in what danston and sibum have called the persona of ‘the scientist’ in a wider sense, rather than as a specific disciplinary construction of self. nevertheless, the tension between ‘old’ and ‘new’ will be of particular salience for these practitioners as not all of their work was considered legitimately ‘scientific’ – and not all would later be recognized as ‘scientists’. experience as a basis for competence throughout the nineteenth century, phoniatrists, vocal physiologists, vocal hygienists and the like struggled to gain legitimacy as ‘scientists’. as the field developed, anxieties over ‘quackery’ in the ranks rose frequently and disagreements over the best cures for speech impediments or vocal ailments gave rise to long disputes. individual experts were at pains to establish their own trustworthiness and reputation – partly by distinguishing their own work from that of others they were quick to denounce as charlatans. according to dr. f. angermann for example, stammering was “an issue” that had been “subject to the greatest charlatanism” (angermann 1853, p.iii) meanwhile, the very novelty of their specialism and the lack of institutionalized education or medical care for the voice presented experts with problems of legitimacy and credibility. as mineke bosch has noted, “the creating of a credible or reliable scientific identity” (italics mine) is particularly salient for the formation of the scientific persona (bosch 2016, p. 42), and the fragility of that credibility in this particular field makes vocal scientists an interesting case study to look at how it was sought, constructed and performed. a number of experts seeking credibility, like rivail, made efforts to embed their ‘new’ knowledge in the older, and much respected, classical traditions of rhetoric and natural philosophy (by referring to aristotle’s notions of man as a social, speaking animal, for example). from the 1840’s onward, however, the legitimacy of individuals’ methods would increasingly be based on their novelty and their departure from conventional medicine as well. most notably, experts on dysfluency increasingly turned away from surgery, and towards therapeutic methods (rockey 1984), persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 11 claiming for the tongue, for example, that “all operations on that innocent organ are useless” (hunt 1861, p.120). the shift from a medico-surgical approach to a field in which legitimacy was constructed outside the established medical practice coincided with changes in the ways in which the voice and its pathologies were understood. the surgical method of almost literally ‘removing’ vocal pathology had rested on a very material understanding of the vocal organs as the seat of an almost mechanical production of sounds. although the term ‘voice box’ remained (even now), the idea that the voice could be understood as easily localized in one small organ was increasingly seen as absurd. morell mackenzie, an influential laryngoscopist whose work consisted largely of looking into what we would commonly call the voice box noted in 1886 that “the larynx is sometimes absurdly called the “voice-box”, as it were one of those ingenious toys which grind out a thin strain of wiry melody on being wound up” (mackenzie 1886, p.13). throughout the nineteenth century, vocalization would increasingly be understood as a process in which not only the whole body was involved, but the mind as well. neurological and psychological avenues to understand speech and vocalization were explored, and the modes of perception to study this newly holistic understanding of voice needed to widen. no longer caught in a ‘box’, the voice had nevertheless become even more invisible – and its study would come to rely even more on the researcher’s ability to mobilize his own embodied and psychological experiences. that evolution was possibly also strengthened by the simultaneous rise of recording technologies: gramophones, telephones, and other machinery had, on the one hand, made sound and voice even more eerie and immaterial, and on the other hand gave the ‘live’ embodied voice an even more individual status (a voice on the phone or on a recording could ‘stand in’ for a person) (picker 2003). nevertheless, information gathered on the voice was narrated in a form that resembled that of experimentation and its reliance on observation. experts not only reported to have ‘experimented’ on their own larynxes, they also encouraged their readers to do so. the experiment/experience within one’s own throat was subsequently used to give meaning to information gathered in other ways. it allowed readers to imagine the implications of statistical information, for example, or to match the visual representation of vocalizing throats to their own ‘felt’ one. carl ludwig merkel noted in his work on vocal anatomy that selbstbeobachtung (a very literal introspection) was the best way to become familiar with “the living larynx”. the greatest gain is to be expected from self-observation. in the observation of other singers etc, one is always limited to the ear and the eye; the senses of feeling and touch can only rarely be called upon, all important vocal organs are inaccessible to the eye or direct manual exploration: therefore the observer is in a better position, when he is at least capable of operating somewhat more broadly within his own vocal organs.(merkel 1857, p. 580) although the language of observation was used, experts referred to empathic practice to explain their findings, and appealed to similar performances of empathy to be understood. the repetition of experiments in ‘other’ throats was used as a way to further bolster the argument and lend it scientific credence, but in a field dominated by the technique of ‘autolaryngoscopy’, proprioceptive experiences were foundational. indeed, the man usually credited with the invention of the laryngoscope used it first and foremost on his own throat or, as morell mackenzie phrased it: “m. garcia’s laryngoscopic investigations were all made on himself; indeed, he was the first person who conceived the idea of an autoscopic examination” (mackenzie 1865, p.28). hoegaerts 12 rather than turning them away from modern conceptions of ‘objective’ observation, this minute attention to their own bodies brought them closer to another tenet of nineteenthcentury practices of observation: their practice was an entirely personal one. the personal self, as a modern individual, was central to their work. in insisting that aspects of the voice could not be seen, authority was conferred—by the unconventional means of ‘feeling’—to the expert who was willing and capable of putting his own body on the line. according to swiss singing teacher heinrich pestalozzi, who published a small monograph on the “avoidance of failure” in voice building, teachers would only be capable to help their pupils to amend their faulty vocalization if they could “empathically feel the students’ mistakes in their own throats”. his own authority, in that regard, was immediately established on the first introductory page: during the last ten years – including the last years of my university studies – i have occupied myself with the problem of singing, experimented with my voice and have tried everything imaginable, until after many wrong turns and much fruitless effort i have found the right path. what i write down here, i have therefore largely experienced firsthand [am eigenen leib] and has been confirmed by my experiences as a teacher. had i accidentally found the way my individual vocal disposition needed to be developed at the time, immediately at the start of my vocal studies, i might have come to positive results more quickly, but i would have lost so many experiences. (pestalozzi 1910, p.4) in many ways, the embodied and emotional practices of vocal experts contributed to a specific iteration of the figure of the gentleman scientist. it dependent on a ‘management’ of feeling that was generally coded masculine and middle-class (boddice 2016). it also allowed practitioners to walk the line between new demands of professionalization (by developing specific skills, operating new instruments such as the laryngoscope) and older notions of the learned gentleman (by engaging in scientific debates in a somewhat dilettantic style, liberally citing personal anecdotes interspersed with classical literature). the ‘performance’ of scientific or medical knowledge underwent a process of considerable professionalization between the eighteenth and nineteenth century (see e.g. vandendriessche 2014), but ‘medicogentility’ (brown 2011) did not simply disappear. although many laryngologists and vocal physiologists were, in practice, consummate professionals who depended on their therapeutic and scientific practices for their income, they often presented a public image much closer to a life a leisure. collaborating with singing teachers (or sometimes citing their own amateur musicianship), they exhibited a penchant for cultural pursuits – next to the classical education they so proudly displayed. marc colombat de l’isère, who dubbed himself an ortophonist provides an excellent example of this struggle to combine aspects of gentlemanliness with a more professional, businesslike persona. colombat, son of a merchant and a founder of his own institute for the treatment of stammerers displays many of the characteristics of the busy ‘self-made’ newcomer in this (sub) field of medicine. on the title page of his tableau synoptique et statistique de toutes les espèces de bégaiement, he presents himself as a respectable scientist by citing his many credentials within the world of scientific sociability: doctor, founder and director of the ortophonic institute for the treatment of stammerers and deaf-mutes; collaborator on numerous medical and scientific journals; member of the anatomical society of paris, of the consulting committee of the society for intellectual emancipation, of the circle of surgeons of montpellier, of the medical-surgical society of lyon, correspondent to many philantropic and literary societies, etc. (colombat de l’isère 1833). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 13 reading his many published works on stammering and vocal physiology, the constant interplay between his work as a practitioner and his ‘scientific’ interests becomes even clearer, as his discussions of vocal health are interspersed both with quotations of other recent (published) work and case-studies of patients under his care. but what stands out, too, is colombat’s reliance on literature, poetry, music, and the emotions these cultural products elicit. his publications advertised his institution and bolstered his reputation, but they also chronicled a careful practice of crafting a persona that would allow him to enter a world that was understood as more than just a ‘profession’. it is perhaps because he was located on the edges of gentlemanly respectability that colombat understood the need to display skills and sensibilities beyond his actual specialism in order to gain access to the persona of ‘the scientist’. although most of his work engages with thoroughly rigid modes of research (experimentation, observation, statistics) emotions and ‘the soul’ generally get a mention as well. after all, as he noted in the introduction to his vocal hygiene, “no sound goes more directly to the soul than the human voice” (colombat de l’isère 1857, p.15). throughout the text, poets, composers, and philosophers are cited and, when laboriously describing the deeply personal nature of the object of his research, the ortophoniste turns to plato: plato knew well that the sound of the voice could, in a sense, help to discover man’s moral state and, when he wanted to know those who approached him the first time, he told them ‘speak, that i may see you’ (colombat de l’isère 1833, p.43-44) in constructing a persona of credibility these aesthetic and emotive experiences (indicative of classand gender-dependent sensibilities) seem to have had an importance similar to his mastery of the discipline proper. non-normative experience as a professional credential as colombat’s story shows, the reigning persona constructed in vocal science in the nineteenth century was largely a conventional one for its time and social context. the highly individualistic nature of these personas, and their connection to the particular bodies onto which they were grafted, often rested on the dependable propriety of those bodies. overwhelmingly male, white, able and healthy, they could pass as ‘neutral’ in nineteenth-century understandings of humanity (bourke 2011). yet colombat’s story also hints at a less conventional characteristic of the ways in which the persona of the vocal scientist could be built and – consequentlythe less conventional bodies these personas could inhabit. unlike other practices of self-observation or self-experimentation, which essentially sought to find out how the human body ‘is’ or how it intuitively reacts to various stimuli, the vocal experiences used by these researchers and practitioners were studied as examples of what their body ‘did’, and how it performed. this set it apart from the increasingly standardized practice of experimentation, in which the repeatability of an experiment was defined very narrowly. it carved out a space for experts whose knowledge of the ‘performative’ experience of voice had to be far more intimate than was the case for other researchers with their test-subjects. the clearest example of this mobilization of non-normative bodily experiences for the construction of a particular, trustworthy scientific persona is the work of stammering experts. throughout the nineteenth century, as speech therapy and laryngology gained legitimacy as a field of research and practice, several experts in the field drew attention to their own dysfluency. the narratives of these experts – a youthful pathology, a period of struggle, and then cure and success in adulthood – replicated stories of heroism usually connected to war or battle. ‘former’ stammerers showed their own strength by overcoming the enemy of pathology or hoegaerts 14 impediment. they are stories of transformation, but not of forgetfulness. rather than simply inhabiting the persona of able-bodied, fluent, men, authors like alfred appelt, benjamin beasley, walter yearsley, claude vernet and numerous others stressed their stammering tongues not only as a weakness they had overcome, but as a basis for their legitimacy and success as scientists. their intimate experience of the impediment they studied provided them with knowledge others lacked and therefore conferred to them an authority that was entirely dependent on inhabiting an improper body. walter yearsley’s practical self-cure likened it to having gained a degree: when i say practical experience, i mean that greatest of all qualifications – a life-long suffering with this galling affliction. no one understands the stammerer better than one who has likewise gone through the same hard school of suffering. every stammerer knows this; he recognises that his experience carries with it the best possible diploma, and one better than any so-called specialist can ever hope to win. (yearsley 1909, p.9) likewise, the french doctor claude vernet – who, unlike yearsley, was a physician and would not seem to need another source of credibility, took care to mention his own experience with stammering. vernet’s publication – a contrived conversation between father and daughter – shows how this experience of a stammering body could be mobilized to construe a particular, masculine, scientific persona. both ‘characters’ in the narrative stammer (a rarity, as stammering was widely believed to occur almost exclusively in male speakers), but only the male adult character can present himself as an authoritative scientist. it is vernet-père who has gone through a heroic struggle toward fluency. when coralie asks “daddy, have you already had occasion to apply your methods?” he answers: “my dear, i have tested them on myself, and even though i am old, they have been of great advantage to me because at present i consider myself cured” (vernet 1841, p.8). coralie, even though she is named as a co-author on the title page, is presented mainly as a foil unto which claude can project his own, transformed, and surpassed, former self. her role in the narrative is to ask the questions her father can then expertly answer: “dear daddy, why can i not express myself with the same ease and facility as my friends antonine and eugénie?” (vernet 1841, p.5) nevertheless, with distinctive vocalic bodies and their experiences playing such a pivotal role in the discourses and practices of laryngeological science, embodied notions of gender could be moulded and mobilized in different ways as well. whereas coralie’s voice was merely presented as an object of study, to be transformed before it could be a physical attribute of the ‘experienced’ scientist, several women did present their own, explicitly female, vocality as a strong basis for their scientific work and performance of self. emma seiler, for example, who was a student of helmholtz and combined her practice as a singing teacher with that of laryngoscopy, depended on her own experiences and observations on her own throat for her scientific arguments. noting that studies of tessitura and vocal registers had always been performed on male voices, she too turned to autolaryngoscopy. “when, in using the laryngoscope upon myself, i slowly sang the ascending scale”, she noted, and promptly reported to have found that the change between registers in female voices occurred in a different place than had been expected based on experiments on ‘male’ throats (seiler 1879, p.54). or, more accurately, her observations on her own throat differed from those reported by manuel garcia, and she interpreted these differences as a result of her differently gendered body. her authority would have been difficult to question: if autolaryngoscopy counted as one of the most credible ways of establishing vocal registers, she was the only credible source of knowledge on the female voice. like other voice professionals, seiler was convinced that a female voice would benefit from having a female teacher. the notion of gendered ‘experience’ plays an important role in this argument (one that male authors, incidentally, were less eager to make). leo kofler, persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 15 for example, who dedicated several pages of his art of breathing to biographical notes detailing his own experience as a vocalist, felt perfectly at ease discussing the registers of the female voice from a more distant position: let us ask a lady to sing the low treble c and, while sustaining it, to hold her flat hand firmly on the upper chest. she finds the chest vibrating with strong oscillastions, too numerous to count. (kofler 1901, p.165) kofler eventually refers back to the listener’s perspective to assess the register break, and although the ‘lady’s’ own felt experience plays a role in his account, her gender is only relevant to him as part of the particular qualities of a ‘test-case’. female voices could be trained, according to kofler, by any number of teachers (including organists), and were to be trained and developed in the same way as treble voices. seiler’s contention, to the contrary, was not that female voice teachers and singers were ‘as competent’ as their male counterparts, but that the experience of inhabiting a female body has a particular value for teachers and scientists. it would be easy to read her published work as the reflection of a scientific persona calqued on the masculine model of the vocal expert: she, too, employed the language of observation for an embodied practice, used personal experience alongside a more experimental approach and leaned on a middle-class notion of cultural fluency to exhibit trustworthiness. however, the simple fact that seiler spoke from a body that could not ‘pass’ as a neutral one gave new meaning to how her experiences were scientifically relevant, and could be mobilized in the construction of a scientific persona. conclusion for some unconventional scientific actors, then, embodied experience could have an emancipatory quality. benjamin beasley did not only gain authority from his great business acumen and his manly appearance, but also – or perhaps even more so – from his stammering tongue. emma seiler was respected for her musical literacy and her scientific ability not despite, but also because she was a woman and used her experience of the female body for her scientific work. this supplementary authority, moreover, was not based on the simple fact that their idiosyncracies made them good test-subjects (as was the case with numerous cures invented by those afflicted), but because the long-term experience they could boast was understood as something more profound than self-observation or mere familiarity. the experience of producing a particular voice (with all the cultural associations it carried) was both embodied and affective, and thus the owners of ‘other’ voices could lay claim to ‘other’, otherwise inaccessible, knowledge and skill. the reliance on embodied experience in vocal science overall was strongly connected to modern understandings of individuality: no-one could understand the modern individual’s voice better than that individual himself. however, cases like that of pestalozzi insisting that he alone could truly understand his own vocal journey also show that such individuality could only be understood in highly contextualized terms – as the result of a number of embodied, affective, and culturally defined practices. and thus the individuality experience leads us to consider is not a matter of irreducible uniqueness. rather, the embodied, affective, and context-dependent qualities of experience should lead us to consider its necessary intersectionality. even if a heightened role of ‘experience’ in certain scientific fields opened doors for experts inhabiting unconventional bodies, this did not lead to broad access to the field for anyone inhabiting such bodies. experiences of producing a voice from a female body were relevant only if that body also moved in culturally literate circles, and spoke a language recognizable to middle-class scientists. and just as femaleness was co-defined by class and education, ability was co-defined by notions hoegaerts 16 of gender and age (and, indeed, race which was absent in these discussions of expertise or credibility, but only because the scientist’s white and western identity was so dominant it was never under question). the scientific persona constructed by actors within the field of vocal science was therefore a particularly, but not endlessly, accommodating one. the mask changed considerably for each wearer, accommodating many (but not all) different bodies, and changing its form and meaning on many (but not all) socially defined attributes and contexts. works cited algazi, g 2016, ‘exemplum and wundertier. three concepts of the scholarly persona’, low countries historical review: special issue scholarly personae: repertoires and performances of academic identity, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 8-31. angermann f 1853, das stottern, sein wesen und seine heilung für ärzte und pädagogen, druck und verlag von trowitzsch und sohn, berlin. appelt, a 1911, the real cause of stammering and its permanent cure. a treatise on psychoanalytical lines, methuen & co, london. barthes, r 1972, ‘le grain de la voix’, musique enjeu, 9, pp.57-63. beasley, b 1888, stammering: its treatment, waterlow and sons limited, london. boddice, r 2016, the science of sympathy. morality, evolution and victorian civilization, university of illinois press, champaign il. bosch, m 2016, ‘scholarly personae and twentieth-century historians. explorations of a concept’, low countries historical review: special issue scholarly personae: repertoires and performances of academic identity, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 33-54. bourke, j 2011, what it means to be human: reflections from 1791 to the present, counterpoint, london. brown, m 2011, performing medicine: medical culture and identity in provincial england, c. 1760-1850, manchester university press, manchester. browne, l 1878, the throat and its diseases. with one hunderd typical illustrations in colour, and fifty wood engravings, designed and executed by the author, baillier, tindall and cox, london. butler, j 1990, gender trouble. feminism and the subversion of identity, routledge, new york. cavarero, a 2006, for more than one voice: toward a philosophy of vocal expression, stanford university press, redwood city ca. colombat de l’isère, m 1833, tableau synoptique et statistique de toutes les espèces de bégaiement : et des moyens curatifs qui conviennent à chaque variété, chez les principaux libraires de médecine, paris. colombat de l’isère, m 1833, l'orthophonie ou physiologie et thérapeutique du bégaiement et de tous les vices de la prononciation, mansut fils, paris. colombat de l’isère, m 1857, a treatise upon the diseases and hygiene of the organs of the voice, redding & company, boston. colombat de l’isère, m 1873, l'enseignement ortophonique au conservatoire national de musique et de déclamation de paris, p. asselin, paris. daston, l & sibum, ho 2003, ‘introduction: scientific personae and their histories’, science in context, vol,16, no. 1/2, pp.1-8. dolar, m 2006, a voice and nothing more, mit press, cambridge ma. fournie, e 1866, physiologie de la voix et de la parole. avec figures dans le texte, adrien delahaye, libraire-éditeur, paris. hunt, j 1861, stammering and stuttering, their nature and treatment, longman, green, longman, and roberts, london. jarman, f 2011, queer voices.technologies, vocalities, and the musical flaw, palgrave, new york. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 1 17 johnson, g 1864, the laryngoscope. directions for its use, and practical illustrations of its value in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the throat and nose. two lectures delivered at the royal college of physicians, robert hardwicke, london. kofler, l 1901, the art of breathing as the bases of tone-production. a book indispensable to singers, elocutionists, educators, barristers, clergymen, and to all others desirous of having a pleasant voice and good health, j. curwen and sons, london. mackenzie, m 1865, the use of the laryngoscope in diseases of the throat. with an appendix on rhinoscopy, robert hardwicke, london. mackenzie, m 1886, the hygiene of the vocal organs. a practical handbook for singers and speakers, macmillan and co, london. merkel, cl 1857, anatomie und physiologie des menschlichens stimm-und sprachorgans (anthropophonik). nach eigenen beobachtungen und versuchen wissenschaftlich begründet und für studirende und ausübende ärzte, physiologen, akustiker, sänger, gesanglehrer, tonsetzer, verlag von ambrosius abel, leipzig. müller, j 1839, über die compensation der physischen kräfte am menschlichen stimmorgan. mit bemerkungen über die stimme der säugethiere, vögel und amphibien, a. hirschwald, berlin. pestalozzi, h 1910, zur vermeidung von irrwegen bei der ausbildung der menschlichen stimme durch individuelle stimmbildung, albert stahl, berlin. picker, j 2003, victorian soundscapes, oxford university press, oxford. rivail, c 1890, de l'art de la parole au barreau, disocurs prononcé à la séance solennelle des conferences, impr. de f. allier père et fils, grenoble. rockey, d 1984, speech disorder in nineteenth century britain: the history of stuttering, croom helm, london. seiler, e 1879, the voice in singing, j.g. lippincott &co, philadelphia. scott, jw 1991, ‘the evidence of experience’, critical inquiry, vol. 17, no. 4, pp.773-797. trüper, h 2013, ‘dispersed personae: subject-matters of scholarly biography in nineteenthcentury oriental philology’, asiatische studien, lxvii, 4, pp.1325-1360. yearsley, w 1909, a practical self-cure of stammering and stuttering, publ. by mrs. yearsley, accrington. vandendriessche, j 2014, ‘setting scientific standards: publishing in medical societies in nineteenth-century belgium’, bull, hist. med., vol. 88, pp. 626-653. vernet, c & vernet c 1848, leçons théoriques et pratiques sur la cause, le siège, la nature, le mécanisme et le traitement du bégaiement, ou méthode naturelle de traitement du bégaiement en 20 leçons, mise à la portée de tout le monde par mlle coralie vernet et claude vernet son père, a. veysset, clermont-ferrant. chewing demosthenes’s pebbles: embodied experience making the scientist’s persona, ca.1830-1910 josephine hoegaerts abstract key words experience as a basis for evidence and embodiment experience as a basis for competence non-normative experience as a professional credential conclusion works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 17 brilliant disguises: persona, autobiography and the magic of retrospection in bruce springsteen’s late career ric har d ell iott abstract popular musicians with long careers provide rich source material for the study of persona, authenticity, endurance and the maintenance (and reinvention) of significant bodies of work. the songs of successful artists create a soundtrack not only to their own lives, but also to those of their audiences, and to the times in which they were created and to which they bore witness. the work of singers who continue to perform after several decades can be heard in terms of their ‘late voice’ (elliott 2015a), a concept that has potentially useful insights for the study of musical persona. this article exploits this potential by considering how musical persona is deand re-constructed in performance. i base my articulation of the relationship between persona, life-writing and retrospective narrativity on a close reading of two late texts by bruce springsteen: born to run, the autobiography he published in 2016, and springsteen on broadway, the audiovisual record of a show that ran from october 2017 to december 2018. in these texts, springsteen uses the metaphor of the ‘magic trick’ as a framing device to shuttle between the roles of autobiographical myth-breaker and lyrical protagonist. he repeatedly highlights his songs as fictions that bear little relation to his actual life, while also showing awareness that, as often happens with popular song, he has been mapped onto his characters in ways that prove vital for their sense of authenticity. yet springsteen appears to be aiming for a different kind of authenticity with these late texts, by supplementing the persona developed in his earlier career with an older, wiser, more playful narrator. i appropriate springsteen’s ‘magic trick’ metaphor to highlight the magic of retrospection and the magical formation of the life narrative as an end-driven process. key words musical persona; autobiography; narrative; authenticity; late voice introduction at the start of the two-minute spoken introduction to his broadway show, as streamed on netflix from 16 december 2018, bruce springsteen provides a litany of “elements that will come in handy” for anyone who finds themselves “face-to-face with eighty thousand screaming rock ’n’ roll fans … waiting for you to pull something out of your hat … something that, before the faithful were gathered here today, was just a song-fuelled rumour” (springsteen on broadway 2018, henceforth sob). it is a routine that enables the veteran musician—who was 68 at the elliott 18 time the show was filmed—to do at least two things straightaway. firstly, he breaks the ice by commenting on what is happening at that moment: an individual introducing himself to two expectant audiences, one in the theatre and the other on the other side of a screen. secondly, he marks this event as different to those arena shows for which he has long been famous. the theatre audience is removed from the arena concert by the intimacy of the event, which is taking place—as it would for its 236-show run—at manhattan’s walter kerr theatre, a venue with a capacity of less than 1000. the netflix audience, meanwhile, is removed from the live experience altogether, experiencing the show as captured by director thom zimny and mediated through film production and the streaming platform. this difference between springsteen as stadium rock star and theatre monologist finds a parallel in a series of mythbusting anecdotes that make up sob and which previously found voice in springsteen’s (2016a) autobiography born to run (henceforth btr).i the introduction to the broadway show is based on the two pages that make up the foreword to the autobiography, albeit re-ordered and rephrased to work more directly as speech.ii as any orator knows, what works as written prose needs adapting for direct speech if it is to be affective and memorable for speaker and audience. however, the changes springsteen makes to his btr script for sob are less surprising than the continuities from one medium to the other. common to both is the framing mechanism of the magic trick, alluded to in sob by the line about pulling “something out of your hat” and more explicitly in what follows: “i’m here tonight to provide proof of life to that ever elusive, never completely believable … ‘us’. that’s my magic trick. and like all good magic tricks, it begins with a setup” (sob 2018). the book’s narrator is inaudible and invisible (though some home-sourced photographs are included at the end of the book); the audiobook adds the author’s speaking voice; the netflix special adds the visual presence of the body; the broadway show provides the aura of physical presence: all do their magic tricks in ways particular to their medium but all are involved in the work of dismantling, maintaining or rebuilding the “song-filled rumour”. this raises questions as to whether springsteen is creating a new persona or adding layers to existing personas, an ambiguity that gives these late narratives a considerable part of their appeal and which will be at the heart of this article. vital to the narrative of sob is the inclusion of sixteen songs drawn from across springsteen’s performing career, each interspersed with or interrupted by a series of monologues drawn from btr. springsteen uses the “magic trick” at the start and close of both the book and the broadway show. in the former, it appears in the foreword and again at the end of the final chapter (springsteen 2016a, p. 505), ahead of one final anecdote; in sob, it is mentioned at the outset and again in the monologue that precedes dancing in the dark, not quite the last song of the show but close to the end. this device allows springsteen to shuttle between the roles of life-writer, myth-buster and lyrical protagonist, repeatedly highlighting his songs as fictions that bear little relation to his actual life, while also acknowledging how he has been mapped onto the characters of his songs in ways that prove vital for their sense of authenticity. at the beginning of btr and sob he offers the first of many confessions: “i come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. so am i. by twenty, no race-car-driving rebel, i was a guitar player on the streets of asbury park and already a member in good standing amongst those who ‘lie’ in service of the truth ... artists with a small ‘a’” (springsteen 2016a, p. xi). yet, as we soon learn from these late projects, springsteen is far from giving up on authenticity, supplementing the persona developed in his recorded work with an older, wiser narrator focussed on the late depiction of life, love and loss. he repeatedly presents his life as the thing he set out to achieve, able to do so with the useful and secure knowledge that he has achieved it and that he and everyone experiencing his narrative knows it; this is all part of the facade, part of the “magic trick”. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 19 the retrospection allowed by lateness and successful ageing is key here. popular musicians with long careers provide rich source material for the study of persona, authenticity, endurance and the maintenance (and reinvention) of significant bodies of work. successful artists’ songs create a soundtrack not only to their own lives, but also to those of their audiences, and to the times in which they were created and to which they bore witness. the work of singers who continue to perform after several decades can be heard in terms of their “late voice” (elliott 2013, 2015a, 2015b), a concept that refers to chronology, vocal conviction, afterlife, retrospection, and the writing of age, experience, lateness and loss into song texts. in this article, i explore those aspects of lateness most pertinent to considering the musical persona, especially as it is deand re-constructed in retrospective, autobiographical performance. in doing so, i present the multiplicity identified above as crucial to springsteen’s persona. the process whereby he simultaneously deconstructs and maintains his various personas provides a vital component to what i will call the ‘affective pact’ that he shares with his audience. my main primary sources here are springsteen’s autobiography and his broadway show, though i also make use of interviews the artist has given to journalists and to some of the now voluminous critical writing devoted to him. in selecting from this body of work, i emphasise a set of recent texts that cover springsteen’s later career.iii i proceed from two assumptions that are worth stating now. the first is general: that audiences are aware of and invested in musicians’ personas. indeed, they are more than invested, in that they play a vital part in maintaining these personas (auslander 2004, 2006) and in using them to authenticate their (the audiences’) own personas. my second assumption is particular to this case study: that springsteen’s audience is knowledgeable about his history. it could be argued that an audience with a less developed understanding might still wish to engage with these works and there is evidence from online commentators on review sites that people who profess not to like springsteen’s music find his autobiography interesting precisely because of its attempt at deconstructing his persona. however, the inclusion of so many mythbusting comments by springsteen in these texts, the repeated quotation of these by reviewers, and the reactions by his broadway audience to these comments, make a strong case for an artist and an audience who share a body of knowledge and/or assumptions that are based on the successful development of a set of musical personas over a sustained period of time. combined, the two assumptions shared above mean that, even when i am presenting springsteen as a “text” to be read, i see such reading as a productive act, recognising that springsteen is producing his persona(s) in collaboration with the reader-producers who are his audience. the persona is both the thing that springsteen is performing and an object of exchange and coconstitution circulated among a network of actors (latour 2005). if “personas are the material forms of public selfhood” (marshall, moore & barbour 2015, p. 290), then the circulation of persona-objects is how these forms get materialised. it is worth underlining that i am writing about a musician who has successfully maintained a career over decades , which may challenge some existing accounts of fame and celebrity applied to musicians’ careers. pop music careers have, for example, been presented in terms of “dissipation” (marshall 2006, p. 217) or as a process in which an artist moves into fame as “a career in itself” (turner 2014, p. 8). as a challenge to this, it is useful to consider the growing interest in long careers in which stars are seen as moving impressively into late style (gardner 2012; jennings 2012; elliott 2015a, 2015b, 2015c). dissipation may still be a key aspect of popular musicians’ careers but it is far from being the final word in the story as we become more aware of the waxing, waning and second comings of pop careers across the life courses of artists and their audiences. similarly, while some musicians who perform into later life may “freeze a popular persona” to re-present it on the “oldies concert circuits” (auslander 2004, p. 9), others are notable for reinventing and reframing their careers. in btr, springsteen elliott 20 narrates the concern he felt over his “midnineties drift” (2016a, p. 398), but this is only one episode of many more and he can look back from the retrospective space of autobiography to see this as a precursor to “the second half of my work life”, which he dates to the composition of 1995’s the ghost of tom joad (springsteen 2016a, p. 389). persona discussions about popular musicians’ personas, especially for musicians considered over extended periods, are often guided by two dominant categories: the artist as shape-shifter and/or the artist as consistent, layered self. the former category tends to focus on the radical reconfigurations or “refractions” (banauch 2015) evident in artists who have adopted several distinct personas; typical candidates include bob dylan, david bowie and madonna (scobie 1991; banauch 2015; fouz-hernández & jarman-ivens 2004). the latter category tends to focus on the gradual enriching of the persona over time, via layers of experience that build on a solid core (simmons 2013; jennings 2012; gardner 2012; elliott 2013, 2015a, 2015c) and several recent accounts of springsteen follow this model (carlin 2012, colombati 2017, hiatt 2019). it would be a mistake, however, to think of these categories as exclusive binaries; the shapeshifting aspect of a star might be the most consistent thing about them, while the seeming consistency of the gradually layered self relies on the accumulation of multiple selves, some of which might be as varied as the shifting light across a landscape. we should instead consider a dynamic or dialectic tension between shape-shifting and layering, and indeed some of the above-cited studies have done this for dylan, bowie and madonna, along with other studies that highlight consistency across the life course of these artists (marshall 2007; elliott 2015a; mcmullan 2019; watson & railton 2012). joanna demers (2017, p. 27) has even suggested that “the defining trait of [bowie’s] career was less his rapid and frequent stylistic metamorphoses than the consistency of his underlying persona” (see also auslander 2004, p. 7). this dialectical tension between shape-shifting and layering can be found in the personas associated with bruce springsteen. while it is often noted that he has maintained a consistent, if increasingly layered, self that dispenses with the aliases and pseudonyms of nearcontemporaries such as dylan (see, gross 2016, for example), springsteen has also been presented as an artist with “multiple selves” (cologne-brookes 2018, pp. 140–54). there have even been comparisons with bowie, such as when a guardian review of sob reports that “bruce springsteen is as much a contrived character as ziggy stardust – a stadium-filling exaggeration of springsteen’s troubled factory-worker father – and that we should be wary of treating what he says as gospel” (petridis 2018). writing about bowie’s 1973 cover of springsteen’s growin’ up, chris o’leary (2015, p. 310) suggests a recognition by bowie of “a kindred spirit, a fellow self-mythologist whose instincts were theatrical … both were labelled magpies and imitators by critics, both would age into curators and revivalists”. springsteen himself has noted the multiplicity of personas he inhabits, sharing this self-objectification with audiences at concerts and in interviews. it is a quality he alludes to frequently in btr and in interviews following the publication of the book. discussing the creation of his onstage persona with terry gross in 2016, he recognised it as a site of desire and identification: people see you on stage and, yeah, i’d want to be that guy. i want to be that guy myself very often, you know? i had plenty of days where i’d go, “man, i wish i could be that guy.” and there’s a big difference between what you see on stage and then my general daily, my daily existence. (gross 2016) as marshall and barbour (2015, p. 2) note in the inaugural issue of persona studies, the notion of the persona can be traced back to the greek use of wooden masks on stage that allowed “actors to play more than one role” while also creating the possibility for “a univocal identity” when persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 21 different actors wore identical masks (for example, in the chorus). if we relate this dual possibility to the dialectic of shape-shifting and layering, we may understand how an artist such as springsteen (or bowie, dylan or madonna) could seem to be many different personas (by changing the masks) or the same persona (by maintaining the same mask while the person behind it changed). this accords with the idea of persona as “the relative and strategic posture of different versions of the self” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 4). in springsteen’s case, these have taken the form of nicknames and honorifics bestowed upon the artist over his career: the boss, the bard of asbury park, the new dylan (see streight & harde 2010 for these last two) and the seeming non-persona of the name chanted by audiences in stadia across the world: bruce. peter ames carlin provides a prologue to his 2012 biography, bruce, in which he justifies his use of the simple first name term as the one that audiences use to build rapport with the artist. at the same time, he notes that “the boss” started as an insider nickname and still holds that status for those in springsteen’s inner circle: “one of the privileges of being a boss is controlling who can and can’t call you that” (carlin 2012, p. x). carlin also notes the “bruce-bestowed nicknames” given to springsteen’s bandmates and associates: “southside [johnny], miami [steve van zandt], albany al, and so on” (carlin 2012, p. x ). then there are the different roles that springsteen has played in his fans’ lives. reflecting on the evidence amassed in studies of springsteen fans, such as daniel cavicchi’s tramps like us (1998) and in online resources such as backstreets.com, irwin streight and roxanne harde (2010, p. 7) write that the artist “is adored and venerated beyond rock star status, as would be a spiritual master, a pop philosopher, a revolutionary, a head of state, or a saint”. gavin cologne-brookes (2018, p. 141) notes the effect of the success of born in the u.s.a. on the maintenance of springsteen’s personas: by 1984 bruce springsteen had become ‘bruce springsteen.’ in the public eye, he was a postmodernist rock star with no actual heartbeat or voiding of the bowels: a cartoonish figure, epitomized by the lip-synced ‘dancing in the dark’ video, the action man pose on the album’s inside cover, and—for an example of mass-media by-products—the sepiatinted, garish cover of the bio-catalogue bruce springsteen: blinded by the light (1985), where our hero, in superimposed, photo-brushed technicolor, gazes askance a tequila sunglow and resembles a 1950s b-movie pirate matinee idol. cologne-brookes’ study recognises the changes that are wrought upon artists’ personas as they encounter shifts in fame and fortune, as they continue to try and produce art in the face of this and—as springsteen told a reporter in 1998—to not let celebrity “blur and obscure the story that [they’re] interested in telling” (cited in cologne-brookes 2018, p. 143). two decades later, springsteen evidently felt the need to engage with this in new ways by making that blurring the very story he was interested in telling. btr and sob attest to this need or desire and also help us to consider the ongoing unfolding of springsteen’s persona over time and how this relates to authenticity. as richard peterson (1997) demonstrates regarding genre, the extent to which authenticity can be thought of as a “renewable resource” is intimately connected to what is considered credible at different historical moments. so too with individual careers and authenticity across the life course: the authentic springsteen of 2018 needs to be different to the authentic springsteen of the 1990s, which in turn was different to that of the 1970s and 1980s. this is equally the case with representations. the sepia tinted photograph that cologne-brookes highlights tells us as much about graphic design choices of the 1980s as it does about fame and persona. in another vein, the emphasis on celebratory life-writing found in the canonical literature on springsteen (marsh 1979 and 1987 being the most cited examples) seems to require a critical counterpoint that provides a more nuanced account of the life course and which considers the cultural milieu in which springsteen’s late career unfolds. it is important elliott 22 that contemporary biographical narratives (such as those cited in this article) feel right for right now. this notion of changing authenticity may not always be in line with the expectations of fans, some of whom might prefer to live with the myths that the older springsteen seems so keen to dampen and who might prefer the boss to get out on the road with the band for some “proper” concerts. however, it seems as likely that a large proportion of springsteen’s long-term fan base will recognise the need for him to articulate his inhabitation of the personas of son, parent, husband, friend, bandleader, and so on, not least if they are looking for him to reflect some of their own experiences. what btr and sob provide, then, is not just the narration of these aspects of springsteen’s persona(s), but the addition of a new (or newly foregrounded) persona, the wise, “late” storyteller operating retrospectively. what we also witness in springsteen’s presentation of wisdom-as-lateness and lateness-as-wisdom is the “heroic” taking on of the role of self-narrator rather than the one who is narrated by others.iv this can be seen as an appropriation of one’s “narratability”, a term that adriana cavarero (2000) uses to recognise the latent layers of narrative in all of us, from the unconscious workings of our memory to the conscious acts of remembering and self-narration. at the same time, in springsteen’s case, we should remember that we are dealing with someone who has consistently taken on the role of hero-narrator. in addition, springsteen has long acted as one whose story will have been told or one whose destiny was always to star in a particular kind of narrative, built on tropes of “pulling out of here to win”, “no surrender”, and a refusal to “give up living” (lyrics from, respectively, thunder road, no surrender and racing in the street). (auto)biography perhaps one of the defining traits of the popular music persona, in contrast to the personas of other stars and celebrities, is the ingrained tendency in popular song to conflate the “i” of the singer with the “i” of the lyric. the processes whereby the opinions, desires and intentions of lyrical protagonists are confused with those of the composers and performers who bring them to life is part of the authenticating work done by popular musicians and their fans (frith 1996; auslander 2004). while it is certainly possible to speak of different voices at work in classical song (see cone 1974), there is arguably a stronger sense of the mediations at work in that practice, just as there is with actors on stage or screen. the tendency to read lyrics as autobiography in popular song leads to a species of interpretative debate amongst its critics and fans that would seem out of place discussing other arts. it is a confusion that springsteen relies upon in btr, and, to an even greater extent (because it is delivered in a more concentrated form), in sob. among the most reported of the myths he sets out to bust in the book and the show, are the following (quoted from sob): • “i’ve never worked five days a week until right now. [pause]. i don’t like it!” • “i’ve never seen the inside of a factory, and yet it’s all i’ve ever written about.” • “standing before you is a man who has become wildly and absurdly successful writing about something of which he has had [dramatic pause] absolutely no personal experience.” • “i made it all up! that’s how good i am.” • [on revealing that he lives ten minutes from his hometown:] “‘born to come back’: who’d have bought that shit?” persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 23 these revelations also act as moments of humour in springsteen’s narrative, something he had earlier brought out strongly in the audiobook of btr (springsteen 2016b) and builds on with dramatic pauses and shifts in vocal register in sob. this is all part of the strengthening and foregrounding of his narrator persona. as springsteen repeatedly distances himself, in the autobiography and broadway show, from the “i” of the songwriter and performer, a shift of authenticity occurs. we are now asked to believe that the “i” of the autobiography is the truth-teller, the one who tells it as it really is. at the same time, the references to the continuation of the magic trick and the occasional detours into poetic, biblical and literary narrative styles offer clues that we are still under the spell of some illusion. this illusion does not prevent springsteen from making pronouncements that come across like profound experiential insights or lasting truths. in this way, he seems to exemplify an observation made by the pioneering theorist of autobiography, philippe lejeune: “telling the truth about the self, constituting the self as complete subject—it is a fantasy. in spite of the fact that autobiography is impossible, this in no way prevents it from existing” (lejeune 1989, pp. 131–2). this continuous illusion is perhaps something we already know from pop artists, because the conflation of singer and lyrical protagonist is similarly an effective fantasy, part of a set of “thought-fictions” we like to tell ourselves about music (demers 2017). by lejeune’s early definition of autobiography—“retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality” (lejeune 1989, p. 4)—only btr, of springsteen’s late memory projects, would count as true autobiography. yet it is possible to recognise what lejeune calls “the autobiographical pact” in all the texts being considered here, as well as in springsteen’s longstanding practice of storytelling at his concerts. lejeune’s initial description of the pact, as set out in an influential article in 1973, is based on the observation that “[i]n order for there to be autobiography (and personal literature in general), the author, the narrator, and the protagonist must be identical” (lejeune 1989, p. 5). v we might wonder how the autobiographical pact might work for the self-confessed fraudster who narrates his story in btr and sob. is it worth, for example, making a distinction between a truth presented in the act of narrating the self and a veridical truth to which it must bear some correspondence but not always map onto directly? lejeune does allow for some flexibility in autobiography that distinguishes the practice from the demands of factuality in third-person biography. as paul john eakin notes, the emphasis in the autobiographical pact given to enunciation (énonciation) over utterance (énoncé) marks it out from the more veridical demands of biography: “unlike biography, where the resemblance of the protagonist to the verifiable facts of the life of the historical model constitutes the decisive criterion for authenticating its structure of reference, in autobiography such resemblance is of distinctly secondary importance” (in lejeune 1989, p. x). furthermore, as noted already, popular song—the area in which springsteen has plied his trade—has its own kind of autobiographical pact, one which would not necessarily be recognised by lejeune (due to his insistence on prose as a condition for autobiography) but in which, nevertheless, the frequent conflation between the “i” of the songwriter, singer, and lyrical protagonist suggests its own promises, commitments and affective misreadings. springsteen recognises this himself by explicitly comparing his song lyrics with his “real” life in btr and sob and by making explicit mentions of the pact he is making with his audience that are in keeping with the themes of many of his songs (the promise, promised land, no surrender). in btr, he admits, “i haven’t told you ‘all’ about myself … but in a project like this, the writer has made one promise: to show the reader his mind. in these pages i’ve tried to do that” (springsteen 2016a, p. 501). elliott 24 when terry gross interviewed springsteen on the release of btr, she asked him about the construction of his stage persona and whether he felt it “[drew] both from the angry and uninhibited side … and the more inhibited, timid side” that he had shared in his autobiographical reflections. springsteen responded by saying: i think it’s both there … if you just looked at the outside, it’s pretty alpha-male, which is a little ironic, because that was personally never exactly really me. i think i created my particular stage persona out of my dad’s life and perhaps i even built it to suit him to some degree (gross 2016). he then alluded to a passage in the book in which he talks about taking on his father’s voice: those whose love we wanted but could not get, we emulate. it is dangerous but it makes us feel closer, gives us an illusion of the intimacy we never had. it stakes our claim upon that which was rightfully ours but denied. in my twenties, as my song and my story began to take shape, i searched for the voice i would blend with mine to do the telling. it is a moment when through creativity and will you can rework, repossess and rebirth the conflicting voices of your childhood, to turn them into something alive, powerful and seeking light. i’m a repairman. that’s part of my job. so i, who’d never done a week’s worth of manual labor in my life (hail, hail rock ’n’ roll!), put on a factory worker’s clothes, my father’s clothes, and went to work (springsteen 2016a, p. 414). this passage, which springsteen presents in slightly modified form before his sob performance of my father’s house, does a lot of work itself. not only does it provide a more nuanced version of the myth-busting that permeates btr and sob (i sing about things i have no experience of), it also provides insights into the construction of persona through intimate connections and disconnections. returning to the notion of persona as the wooden mask through which the actor speaks, is it too fanciful to think of doug springsteen as the blank and inert facade brought to life by his son’s performance and, simultaneously, of the singer-actor’s need of the mask that was his father’s indifference to make the transformation from introvert to extrovert? given that these are the kinds of connections the post-therapy springsteen himself makes at various points in the book, in his show and in a number of late interviews, it seems not. as he told terry gross, “most people’s stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography and they’re trying to create something that solves a series of very complex problems inside of them or in their history” (gross 2016). another aspect to note here is springsteen’s reference to chuck berry’s song school days and its iconic lyric “hail, hail rock ’n’ roll”; it is a typical recognition by springsteen of the workings of identification in popular music. elsewhere (elliott 2008) i have discussed the identification processes in berry’s song in connection to louis althusser’s (1971) account of ideology and interpellation and alain badiou’s (2005) theory of event. rock ’n’ roll, i have argued, creates subjects who are faithful to its event and who recognise themselves as addressees of its hail. springsteen’s narratives—from his early concert monologues to his recent autobiographical projects—have long been dedicated to asserting (even preaching) this recognition. having recognised himself as a subject and glimpsed his possible destiny in the event of rock ’n’ roll (springsteen 2016a, pp. 38–53), he is aware of the ways in which his audience witness something in the persona he presents to the world. there is much labour involved in the taking on of this power but, when the transformation is successful, a career is possible. berry’s school days recognises this in its promotion of rock ’n’ roll as an alternative to school and “regular” work; springsteen’s disavowal of manual labour, meanwhile, is belied by his own reputation as a hardworking bandleader who “sweats it out” in ways unmatched by many of his fellow performers. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 25 springsteen makes further use of the intimacy of autobiography by devoting much of sob to the accounts provided in btr of family and friends; we are treated to monologues about his childhood, his parents, his pre-fame friends, his bandmates, and his wife and children. in the shows recorded for the netflix special, springsteen’s wife patti scialfa joined him for two duets, allowing for a more intimate display of their domestic situation than would be typical at a springsteen show. as marshall and barbour (2015, p. 6) observe, “the contemporary moment produces new pushes towards both forms of revelation and forms of performativity that allow the social to move into the territories of the previously private and intimate”. they are thinking here of the use of social media, and it is certainly the case that for many musicians—especially those of a younger generation than springsteen—the blending of personal and public has become ever more noticeable, with twitter-using musicians writing what often amount to continuous autobiographies. even aside from social media, however, there is a sense of a new kind of intimacy being deployed by springsteen as he reflects on love and relationships with scialfa standing beside him. following their rendition of tougher than the rest, springsteen speaks about relationships in terms of letting people see our real selves, “allowing others to see behind our many masks”. this opening of the self to others through love and trust is put into question again when the couple perform brilliant disguise, a song about the uncertainty of getting behind the mask.vi we are also alerted here to the co-constitution of personas between actors in a network or other relationship and of brilliant disguises as objects emerging from the processes of identification when selves present themselves to each other. narratives towards the end of his autobiography, springsteen observes, “writing about yourself is a funny business. at the end of the day it’s just another story, the story you’ve chosen from the events of your life” (2016a, 501). this is a reminder of a point made by many theorists of narrative with regard to the retrospective selection of significant and insignificant events. hayden white (1980, p. 14), for example, writes that “every narrative, however seemingly ‘full,’ is constructed on the basis of a set of events which might have been included but were left out”. what, then, are the elements chosen for inclusion in springsteen’s late memory projects? the answer will depend, of course, on which of the projects we wish to consider. for the purposes of this article, it is best to begin with the more compact project of sob. that said, there are many narrative points that we can map from sob onto btr, as well as a range of distinct narrative strategies that we can attach to both projects and to other works produced by and about springsteen. with the mutual construction of persona in mind, we should also recognise the role of springsteen’s audience in this selection process. as philip auslander (2006, p. 115) observes, audiences try to make performers into who they need them to be, to fulfill a social function. a successful working consensus means that such a relationship has been achieved. if one thinks of audiences not just as consumers, but also as the co-creators of the musicians’ personae, and as having a substantial investment in those personae and the functions they serve, it is easy to understand why audiences often respond very conservatively (in the literal sense) to musicians’ desire to retool their personae. as fans we have to be willing to reignite our belief in the artist at each new narrative event; in the case of btr and sob, this means buying into a persona who is telling us things we probably already know (that springsteen is not the central character of many of his songs) but in newly affective ways. by this i do not mean that the mode of delivery has to be new (although here it is), but rather that affect relies on newly (re)engaged emotional responses. firstly, we can observe that sob opens with a classic storytelling scene. a man walks onto a stage and attempts to spellbind his audience, to perform a magic trick, to pull something elliott 26 out of the hat. he needs to beguile, to win over, to tempt, but this is less a siren song and more a rime of an ancient mariner, an invitation to share the negotiation of stormy seas and occasionally traumatic events from the safe distance of the storyteller’s circle. it is not the odyssey, but the telling of the odyssey. it begins, as springsteen tells his audience, with a “setup” and within a second of him telling us this, we hear the opening chords to one of his most enduring songs: growin’ up. it is an apt choice, allowing springsteen to start with an early song that recounts an even earlier experience. whether the experience related in the song is real, imagined, aesthetic or a combination of all of these and more seems unimportant; what matters is that the audience is on-board. many will have heard this song used at previous concerts and will know it as a song frequently prefaced or interrupted by monologues. so it proves to be here as well: springsteen stops singing after less than two minutes and, over the continued guitar figure from growin’ up, starts his myth-busting routine. having established “how good i am” (at creating art from experiences he has not had), he offers to tell his listeners how “this great miracle [came] to pass”. slipping briefly into a new voice for the first of many biblical allusions, he intones, “in the beginning, there was a great darkness upon the waters”, which his audience might recognise not only from the bible, but also from the opening to “the big bang”, the seventh chapter of btr, in which springsteen relates the coming of elvis as the major event of his childhood. his main narrative begins, then, with the emergence of rock ’n’ roll, delivered with the fire and certainty of a testifying preacher. this is rock ’n’ roll as personal and cultural event, with elvis cast as a revolutionary force, along similar lines to john trudell’s poem baby boom ché (trudell 1992, elliott 2008). a narrative about a narrative is like a map about a terrain: what scale do we choose? to go through the odyssey of sob (let alone btr) in a blow-by-blow fashion would be absurd and unnecessary. let us instead note different ways in which we can draw the map. one way to present the narrative would be as a stripped-down list of the main topics springsteen covers in sob: self, elvis, hometown, father, mother, the road, the land, lost friends, clarence clemons, patti scialfa, family, democracy, social justice. the narrative could also be listed as a set of the songs that these episodes introduce or interrupt: growin’ up, my hometown, my father’s house, the wish, thunder road, the promised land, born in the u.s.a., tenth avenue freeze-out, tougher than the rest, brilliant disguise, long time comin’, the ghost of tom joad, the rising, dancing in the dark, land of hope and dreams, born to run.vii this telescoping of the narrative allows us to parse quickly the flow of the broadway show and to get a sense of its arc. it also mounts a certain kind of victory over time. as white puts it, “narrative strains to produce the effect of having filled in all the gaps, to put an image of continuity, coherency, and meaning in place of the fantasies of emptiness, need, and frustrated desire that inhabit our nightmares about the destructive power of time” (white 1980, p. 15). in starting to square narrativity with persona, we might ask how the maintenance of persona serves a similar purpose and to what extent springsteen’s deconstruction of his persona can be seen as a revisionist history, a new way of telling a seemingly familiar story – because there is a lot of familiarity in the narratives of btr and sob. while springsteen may not have shared as much about himself in as sustained a fashion before, he has told some of these stories, and performed and recorded these songs before. the recurring stories that springsteen has told at concerts throughout his career can themselves be concertinaed into micronarratives, as daniel cavicchi (1998, pp. 28–9) does by conflating several versions of springsteen’s early pre-growin’ up monologues into one version. this monologue, which has long functioned for springsteen as a retrospectively attributed sense of forward planning, fate and vision in his younger self, is variable but consistent enough in its main themes and details for cavicchi to be able to caricature it effectively (see, also, rauch 1988). persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 27 from a more critical perspective, a 1985 review by biba kopf of springsteen at the height of the fame that came with born in the u.s.a., uses a similar micronarrative in its adoption of suspicion regarding the artist’s myth-making. accusing springsteen and his audience of wallowing in nostalgia while offering only melancholy in response to the problems of the present, kopf sees the purpose of the pre-song raps as ways of presenting the subsequent heroic performances as the solution to any problem or as the proof that the gamble of youth paid off: the rage … is shortlived. here comes another “i remember...” to disperse it, more nostalgia for cars, gals, guitars, waterholes, rivers, endless rock ’n’ roll summers. the further the summer of youth recedes into springsteen's memory, the more warmly he reheats it, remoulding the component parts into the shape of rock ’n’ roll eternals, asserting through [the] sheer energy of his stagecraft and his undeniably likeable nature that there is only one way forward and it shimmies like this. that is, like it always has done (kopf 1985). running alongside this nostalgia is a desire to be older, wiser and more experienced: “he wants to feel every wrinkle being etched into his forehead” (kopf 1985). from the perspective of more than three decades later, it could be argued springsteen’s closing of his broadway show with born to run is a continuation of this same old trick. even with all the insight that comes with really being older, wiser and more experienced, is he still converting all the concerns he has raised into a problem for which the only solution is a classic rock song? perhaps. but then this is theatre and theatre serves many functions and uses many strategies. kopf’s analysis of the 1985-model springsteen ultimately offers no other solutions itself, failing to explain what an alternative (but presumably still utopian?) act of “musicking” might entail (small 1998). it also presents a simplistic notion of nostalgia, one that more nuanced accounts of the “condition” have sought to challenge (see pickering & keightley 2006). my purpose in invoking kopf, however, is not to argue with his analysis (which, after all, only partakes of a version of the same myth-busting that springsteen himself would later adopt), but to use it as an example of how time, age, experience, memory and nostalgia work in autobiographical narratives to construct the multiple selves of those narrating and those witnessing the narration. such witnesses bring their own narratives to the event and kopf is therefore right to highlight the relationship between springsteen and his audience and to note that it is built on the artist’s likability. indeed, i would argue that this likability is precisely the point, that it is key to the affective (and effective) work done by the springsteen persona and that it is the tie that binds the layers that have rippled through that persona over the years. it is springsteen’s likability as much as the narratives of the everyday that he has told that has meant his fans have been able to identify with him and feel that, despite his incredible success, he is still speaking for, with and of us. as fans, our own personas are authorised and legitimised by the process of identification that takes place in the circulation of meanings between our representative artists and us. we might think of this as the affective pact between springsteen and his audience. this pact is attained and affirmed through differently mediated voices. in the book of btr, springsteen writes about wanting to find a voice with which to speak. the reader can savour the results and hear whichever voice they wish. in the audiobook version, listeners are given the author’s spoken voice and a different kind of intimacy is created. it is a storytelling voice that can accompany us while doing other things; it can be taken in shorter bursts or longer bursts and replayed to allow favourite vocal moments to be enjoyed. there is a different intimacy to the broadway show, which varies again, depending on whether one experienced it in the theatre or via audio-visual media. one of the notable aspects of springsteen’s delivery in elliott 28 sob is the way he uses the microphone, sometimes using it “naturally”, sometimes using its amplification technology to make sound effects, sometimes moving away from it to speak to the audience “directly” and making use of the intimacy of the venue. for those in the theatre, this last technique could make it seem like they were closer to the “real bruce”; for those experiencing it through the recording, there is an uncanny cutting-out of the voice that does its own kind of authenticity work, reminding us of our distance from events but simultaneously underlining the “realness” of the show. the different connections made through these different ways of accessing springsteen’s late autobiographical work underline the affective pact and provide a sense of getting to know the “real bruce”, even as he is telling us that he is performing a magic trick for us. this collaboration—his setting up of the artifice of the affective pact, our submitting to it—is one of the reasons that some critical voices accuse springsteen of fakery; but it is also the very thing upon which his personas—shape-shifting and/or layered as they are—are built. conclusion there are many ways to narrate a rock ’n’ roll life and each holds the possibility of unveiling new personas (see stein & butler 2015). there are the personas of the different selves that artists, like other humans, go through over the course of a life; then there are the personas adopted or applied by the creators of those different narratives. the author of a written memoir adopts a different persona to the writer of a song; the compiler of lyrics takes on a different role to the compiler of photographs. the interviewee, the photographic subject and the authoriser of sanctioned material take on different roles again. as thomas swiss (2005, p. 292) notes in his account of marianne faithfull’s autobiography, “[b]eing ‘imaginative’ musically is what we often admire most about our favourite rock musicians, but of course being imaginative in [written] language requires different skills and experiences”. by successfully adopting “literary” language and “poetic” techniques, faithfull can present herself as narrator and subject “as a composite of ‘personas’ rather than as a single, unified, authentic self” (swiss 2005, p. 292). so too with springsteen, who presents various incarnations of himself as the subject of his story while also offering his audience the new personas of literary prose stylist, audiobook narrator and theatrical monologist. sidonie smith (1995, p. 18) writes that autobiographical narration begins with amnesia, and once begun, the fragmentary nature of subjectivity intrudes. after all, the narrator is both the same and not the same as the autobiographer, and the narrator is both the same and not the same as the subject of narration. moreover, there are many stories to be told and many different and divergent storytelling occasions that call for and forth contextually-marked and sometimes radically divergent narratives of identity. as autobiographer, bruce springsteen offers to take his readers and listeners closer to his real self than he ever has before and he offers to do so through the intimacies afforded by different platforms: book, audiobook, broadway show, streaming video and audio, soundtrack albums on cd and vinyl. at the same time, he tells us that it is a new form of “setup” as he unveils his latest brilliant disguises: the prose stylist, the verbal storyteller, the theatrical dramatist, the stage actor (a different but related stage actor to the one he has been throughout his performing career). he offers a glimpse of his everyday self and removes himself from the scene, replacing the protagonist of the drama with the dramatist, or rather a newer kind of dramatist than we have known him as previously. he tells his audience that he is just a regular person like us (a tramp like us, perhaps), that he is a great deceiver and a master of transformation. again, we might say that the clues were always there, that he has long been authenticated as a literary figure, a writer of the great american novel in the form of songs, albums and concerts (see persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 29 colombati 2017; cologne-brookes 2018; hiatt 2019). if springsteen’s role as literary figure is made more explicit by his turn to prose in his memoir and the script for his broadway show, it is nevertheless relatively easy, from a retrospective position, to trace the many precursors of such prose exercises in the stories springsteen has practised and perfected over his performing career. likewise, as sob and the audiobook of btr make evident (and what is already latent in the written text of btr), musicians’ autobiographies are further performances, to be read or heard as extra layers of the musical works with which they achieved fame (stein & butler 2015). but if it has become easy for others to retrospectively trace springsteen’s career as an autobiographer, the artist’s own uses of hindsight are equally important to underline. in his late work, springsteen seems to want to have things at least two ways: to have been the young man with the vision—as described in growin’ up—and to be the older man who narrates the young man’s vision. the autobiographical narrative, created in the present, attempts to re-present the thinking of the younger springsteen at these various stages in his life. narratives can be successful even through the flattening and distorting media in which they are presented (cobley 2014); if the representation of the younger springsteen is made credible by the operation of the signs exchanged between the older performer and his audience, credibility is assured. springsteen aims for this credibility with the sincere craft of his prose stylings and with his use of them to address his audiences directly, whether through the page, the stage or the recording. to take an example from the end of his broadway performance: i always thought i was a typical american… i studied and i played and i worked … i wanted to know the whole american story. i wanted to know my story, your story; i felt that i needed to understand as much of it as i could in order to understand myself. who was i? … i wanted to be able to tell this story to you. that was my young promise to myself and this was my young promise to you … this is what i pursued as my service. i still believe in it as such. this is what i’ve presented to you all these years as my long and noisy prayer, as my magic trick. springsteen follows this with more in a similar vein, making a case for his service to the audience (“you”) and our importance to him, then shifting into one of his favourite registers, the testifying rock ’n’ roll preacher. then he performs dancing in the dark and we have a choice: take it as magical resolution, or dwell on the suggestion that what is first thought of as magic later comes to be explained as science, craft, labour and service. that process involves our labour too, the work we put into authenticating artists and authorising their personas. i for an account that presents the earlier springsteen as already a monologist (in his songs as much as in his concerts), see rauch (1988). for another description of “magical myth-busting” in sob, see petridis (2018). ii this process of turning the text of btr into the speech of sob was doubtless aided by springsteen’s experience of recording btr as an eighteen-hour-plus audiobook (springsteen 2016b). iii scholarly reflections on btr and sob were only starting to emerge at the time of writing this article; edgerton (2019) provides an account that connects the late narratives and places them into the broader span of springsteen’s career. iv on the narratability of the hero figure, see cavarero (2000). for the role of the hero in springsteen’s work, see gencarelli (1994). end notes elliott 30 v for another, predominantly anglophone, tradition that dealt with similar definitional and conditional aspects of autobiography in parallel with—but not 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bard of asbury park’, in r harde & i streight (eds), reading the boss: interdisciplinary approaches to the work of bruce springsteen, lexington, lanham, pp. 1–20. swiss, t 2005, ‘that’s me in the spotlight: rock autobiographies’, popular music, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 287–294. trudell, j 1992, ‘baby boom ché’, on aka grafitti man, cd, rykodisc, rcd 10223. turner, g 2014, understanding celebrity, second edition, sage, london. watson, p & railton, d 2012, ‘rebel without a pause: the continuity of controversy in madonna’s contemporary music videos’, in r jennings & a gardner (eds), ‘rock on’: women, ageing and popular music, ashgate, farnham, pp. 139–54. white, h 1980, ‘the value of narrativity in the representation of reality’, critical inquiry, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 5–27. richard elliott abstract key words introduction persona (auto)biography narratives conclusion works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 9 ‘detached desires’ resituating pornographic and celebrity persona online ga r e t h l o n g s t a f f n e w c a s t l e u n i v e r s i t y celebrity and pornography are dominant features of late-capitalist consumption, and both serve to influence and bolster the performance, curation and construction of a sexualised and/or sexually explicit persona online. more so, a range of social and networked spaces such as twitter xxx, instagram, justfor.fans and onlyfans.com have enabled ‘ordinary’ subjects to assimilate and adapt elements of celebrity and pornographic representation in ways that have permitted them to explicitly and publicly present (and profit from) their private sexual persona. individuals create and sustain their individual profiles through boundless processes of selfbranding, self-promoting, self-objectifying, and the self-management of their sexual personas as “an ideal typification of the neoliberal self, emphasising how demotic neoliberalism, with the aid of celebrity role models instructs” not only their own, but also their viewers desires (mcguigan 2014, p. 224). this enigmatic discourse of sexual self-presentation as a form of empowerment, entrepreneurialism, and an aesthetic mode of influence may well function as an apex of neoliberal and late capitalist ideology. it is here that the meticulous construction of sexual authenticity and tropes we connect to the banal and everyday are refined and embodied to tactically produce amateurish porn content that followers and fans identify with, algorithmically rate, consistently follow, prolifically share, and (of course) economically subscribe. the rise and ubiquity of micro-celebrity as both an individualised identity and a broader socio-cultural process also seems to embrace and offer up a way for this sexual persona to flourish. these sexual subjects cultivate a persona that exploits the “growing agency, enterprise and business acumen of everyday media users” (khamis et al. 2017, p. 197) by consistently curating, customising and personalising their sexual interactions with subscribers/followers. in this way the persona of the sexualised micro-celebrity relies upon a micro-public of those subscribers/followers who constantly request, require, and demand private access to their sexual persona through methods of “networked personalisation” (marshall et al. 2020, p. 19). this kind of exchange also points us towards the ways in which the terms and broader epistemologies of ‘celebrity’ and ‘pornography’ need to be reconfigured. new ways of developing and resituating the established structures of celebrity seem to be apt here, and terms such as celebrification which “comprises the changes at the individual level, or, more precisely, the process by which ordinary people or public figures are transformed into celebrities” (driessens 2012, p. 643) connect to these kinds of modifications. in addition, terms such as pornification (paasonen 2007) consider how changes in media technologies, media regulation, and the broader sexualisation of culture have accompanied the “mainstreaming of pornography” (p. 1), and help us to see how the visual and linguistic codes associated with pornography have permeated the everyday lives and personas of neo-liberal subjects. we most obviously see these pornified and celebrified codes in the mediated “attentioneconomy” (marwick 2015, p. 138), where conspicuous and attention-grabbing forms of selfimprovement, self-exposure, self-worth, and self-surveillance are upheld as alluring features of neo-liberal capitalism and its incessant stylisation of individualised success, meritocracy, longstaff 10 competition, aspiration, autonomy and agency. more specifically, this need for attention is captured in marshall’s mapping out of the “private self for public presentation”, and the ways in which a public, public private self, and a transgressive intimate self (2010, pp. 44-45) now combine and splay the established parameters of the public and private sphere. as a result, we find that the intersections between the celebrified persona and persona’s we might position as pornified can be aligned to some of the established tensions between public and private spheres of the self, the concepts of a personal and impersonal persona, as well as ideas around the construction of intimacy and distance in sexually explicit (re)presentation. if “the pedagogy of the celebrity in the twentieth century can be read as a very elaborate morality tale that mapped a private world into a public world” (marshall 2010, p. 37) it did so by creating a powerful index of eroticised fasciation, fantasy, and arousal at the private sex lives of public figures. an earlier (or pre-social media) example of how this occurs may be found in the example of the celebrity sex tape, which is reliant on the “contradictions between the ordinary/extraordinary, public/private, inauthentic/authentic dynamics of sexual activity and revelation in porn” and which offers up a visual space in which “the private sex act and the public personality of the celebrity intersect” (longstaff 2018, p. 187). the sex tape potentially captures something of how the ‘celebrity-as-pornographer’ functions because it draws attention to the ways in which the private production and public consumption of persona overlap. in this way the sex tape “reifies a situation in which the accepted codes of celebrity and sexual identity as private and/or distant overlay” (longstaff 2018, p. 184) and informs the ways in which celebrity and pornography are renegotiated in online space. more generally (or perhaps conceptually), pornography also functions in this way. it tantalisingly allows access to the personal space of the self and the sexualised body and act, but it only permits you to see things at a mediated distance. here the explicit and simulating desire for the porn performer, scenario and fantasy (longstaff 2013) are instantaneously framed by experiences of both detachment and intimacy. in her ground-breaking book hardcore power, pleasure and the ‘frenzy of the visible’, linda williams locates pornographic representations in terms of a “hard-core knowledge-pleasure” which functions “as a logical outcome of a variety of discourses of sexuality that converge in, and help further to produce, technologies of the visible” (1989, p. 36). she uses the explicit and aggressive process of male ejaculation or the “phallic money shot as pleasure's ultimate ‘frenzy of the visible’” (1989, p. 180) to demonstrate how pornography allows the viewer to voyeuristically ‘see’ more than they should, to feel both socially and sexually aroused by the visual text, and to be allowed into a sexually explicit spectacle of staged and performative persona that draws attention to itself ‘as pornography’. here the overexcited and arousing images that we understand as pornographic are allied to a form of spectacle which simultaneously demands and regulates sexual conspicuousness. just as williams also asserted that pornography was, in some way, linked to “the principle of maximum visibility” (1989, p. 48), there is also space here to suggest that a celebrified and pornified persona involves a similar politics of excessive public visibility, which operates as a “call to authenticity” (marshall et al. 2020, p. 18) and thus produces a form of self-presentation and persona that allows the subject to negotiate, sustain and visualise a self-promotional and monetising ‘pornography of the self’. more so, and in online settings such as instagram and justfor.fans where we see the micro-celebrity both as pornographic performer and ‘content creator’, these ideological (and idealised) aspects of celebrity and pornography begin to fold into one another. on this point, and if it is the case that in “any pornographic image, subjects can only express themselves through a series of representational constructions that rely upon impersonal and metonymic contiguity” (longstaff 2019, p. 171), we see that the pornographic persona and its alignment to celebrity is a potentially (and perhaps fundamentally) an persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 11 impersonal one. celebrity and pornography are reliant on desire; that is the subjective desire we have to connect to the person / personality / persona of the other. yet this desire is reliant upon the emphatic anxiety that you can’t ever attain or maintain that personal connection. in my forthcoming book celebrity and pornography: psychoanalysis and the politics of selfrepresentation (2021, bloomsbury) these potential connections are unpacked further through the lens of and lexicon of psychoanalysis and the impersonality of desire and persona. it may be that the pornographic and/or celebrity persona only ever manifests itself as a strategically mapped and commodifiable object, one which seduces, allures, speaks to and affects us, but ultimately one which we never come to grasp personally. increasingly personal and seemingly individualised means of self-expression may well open up the potential to consider how persona is impersonally constructed, regulated, instilled, and only ever rendered a persona through the platform that an individual subscribes to, and the symbolic, discursive and ideological systems that exist beyond their reach. in this way the sexually explicit and arousing persona which has so many narcissistic and voyeuristic uses, may also be a foundational instrument for depersonalising our relation to persona. just as networked spaces offer up simultaneously interactive, inter-personal and inter-passive ways to desire, we also find (and in parallel to the unconscious practices embedded in narcissism and voyeurism) that just as we are drawn to personally participate in this field of sexual desire, our detachment and anxiety are also impersonally confirmed. works cited driessens, o 2012, ‘the celebritization of society and culture: understanding the structural dynamics of celebrity culture’, the international journal of cultural studies, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 641–657. khamis, s, ang, l, & welling, r 2017, ‘self-branding, “micro-celebrity” and the rise of social media influencers’, celebrity studies, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 191–208. longstaff, g 2013, ‘from reality to fantasy: celebrity, reality tv, and pornography’, celebrity studies. special issue: sex and the celebrity, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 71-80. longstaff, g 2018, ‘celebrity sex tapes’ in c smith, f attwood and b mcnair (eds.), the routledge companion to media, sex and sexuality, oxon, uk, routledge, pp. 183-192. longstaff, g 2019, ‘“bodies that splutter”: theorizing jouissance in bareback and chemsex porn’ in r varghese (ed.), raw: prep, pedagogy, and the politics of barebacking, regina, saskatchewan, university of regina press. marshall, pd 2010, ‘the promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media’, celebrity studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 35-48. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2020, persona studies: an introduction, hoboken, nj, wiley blackwell. marwick, a 2015, ‘instafame: luxury selfies in the attention economy’, public culture, vol. 27, no. 1, p. 137-160. mcguigan, j 2014, ‘the neoliberal self’, culture unbound, vol. 6, pp. 223–240. paasonen, s 2007, ‘pornifiaction and the eduaction of desire’ in k nikunen, s paasonen and l. saarenmaa (eds.), pornification: sex and sexuality in media culture, oxford, berg, pp. 161-70. williams, l 1989, hardcore: power, pleasure and the ‘frenzy of the visible’, berkeley and los angeles, university of california press. ‘detached desires’ resituating pornographic and celebrity persona online gareth longstaff newcastle university works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 53 hannah gadsby: celebrity standup, trauma, and the metatheatrics of persona construction mary luc kh urst abstract this essay examines the work of stand-up performer hannah gadsby in relation to persona, extending the conventional reach of persona studies to the realm of live performance and comedy. the author analyses hannah gadsby’s risky decision to kill off her widely adored comic persona in her 2017 show nanette, replacing it with a persona that shot her to global celebrity and changed the power dynamics with her audiences. the essay investigates gadsby’s contention that standup is bad for her mental health and is predicated on an abusive relationship with audiences. it considers her strategies of comic unmaking and remaking in the contexts of women working in a sexist industry within misogynist societies. it also interrogates gadsby’s dramaturgies of foregrounding persona creation and the performative dialogic of ‘face’ or ‘mask.’ gadsby’s postmodern deconstruction of her own comic artistry and her exposure of the limits of stand-up as a form are examined through a new concept of meta-persona. key words mask; live performance; audience; meta-persona; gay politics; mental health comic persona in her now infamous show, nanette, first performed in 2017, hannah gadsby staged the spectacular live execution of her much loved comic persona. she announced that she was quitting stand-up because it had been catastrophic for her mental health and was a form that encouraged a mutually abusive relationship between performer and audience. the ricochets from what has proved a brilliant and controversial act are still sounding, and gadsby’s story provides an intriguing focal point for developing a new dialogue between persona studies and the disciplines of acting studies and comedy studies. persona studies has grown from media studies, film, and sociology and their intersections with star studies (see marshall 2016; marshall et al 2020). a central concept in acting and comedy studies, ‘persona’ is deployed more explicitly in the teaching and articulation of comic theory and practice, especially stand-up. acting studies incorporates live performance and is centrally concerned with the performer’s agency and working processes, the theories and practices of different performance approaches, as well as the creation of offstage and onstage personas. comedy studies articulates and theorises the practices of comic performance and is a relatively recent academic discipline. luckhurst 54 whatever the medium – stage, screen, audio or social media – persona construction is understood to be for the purposes of a public performance and is strategically staged. the vocabularies of comic acting with their emphasis on role, mask, character, embodiment, self, and subjectivity are all key to the emergent discourses of persona studies, and gadsby’s show offers an intriguing case study in the meta-theatrics of persona creation, with its inherent conceptualisations of deconstruction and reinvention. popular comedy is now accepted as an academic subject and as a constituent part of the disciplines of theatre and performance studies. joanne gilbert’s performing marginality (2004) has highlighted the more recent legitimisation of women in comedy both in the industry and in the academy. gadsby’s show, nanette, captured the zeitgeist for personal stories and reflected the fact that the relationship between offstage self, personality, and stage persona is increasingly the focus of many comedians and of scholarship in comedy and humour studies. many contemporary comedians foreground the complex negotiations between comic performer and role, and meta-theatrically expose and perform those paradoxes and precarities for audiences’ gratification (double 2017, pp. 1-29; lee 2010 and 2012). indeed, popular performance, as louise peacock has emphasised, rests on “the blurring of the distinction between the everyday personality of the performer and the persona of the role performed” (2017, p. 123). to this end, practising comedians have made notable analyses of their own constructions of stage personas in their articles and books, their performances and also in their doctoral theses on stand-up (fox 2018a). the ‘genius’ of comedy lies in the crafting of a stage persona whether constructed through words, appearance, and gesture or through costume, body, and mime as was manifest in marcel marceau’s bip the clown and charlie chaplin’s little tramp. stand-up, now a multi-million-dollar global phenomenon, with some comics attaining a rockstar status on festival and touring circuits, has fetishised the stage persona. gadsby’s show foregrounds the making and unmaking of persona as spectacle. most unusually, the global celebrity that gadsby has enjoyed through performing nanette was realised through a high-risk strategy of constructing a show that was intent on the assassination of the very persona she had painstakingly constructed over many years. the irony is that she feared she might end her career; instead she inadvertently engineered an internationally staged lift-off into the entertainment stratosphere. stand-up relies entirely on the presence of a live audience. the creation of a distinct stage persona is the vital component in all stand-up routines, a process, often shrouded in mystery, that trainee comedians are encouraged to discover and refine through a myriad of comedy schools, how-to books, comedy doctors, and professional experts (frances-white & shandur 2015). predictably, there are as many approaches to self-fashioning as there are comedians, and the creation, maintenance or adaptation of a stage persona is a constant negotiation for all comic performers. lenny bruce’s enraged, free-associative, and foul-mouthed persona in the 1960s was a result of mort sahl’s influence and of his determination to fight for freedom of speech through an act that inverted logical thinking to expose absurd social constructs (bruce 2016). for tony allen (2002), the crafting of an effective stage persona is defined by the discovery and development of a particular attitude towards the material that might be exaggerated for the purposes of forging a distinct stage presence. wanda sykes has very successfully crafted a kick-ass, know-it-all, no-nonsense persona that refuses to be browbeaten and has no toleration of prejudice or stupidity. eddie izzard, who was a street artist before becoming a stand-up and attended stand-up workshops early in his career in london, acknowledges that the real-life fluidity of his gender and transvestism indivisibly inform both his stage and offstage personas (2017, pp. 254, 288). persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 55 in stand-up comedy it is now the fashion and audience expectation for the gap between the performer’s branded public self and their stage persona to be as narrow as possible and for offstage and onstage selves to be intricately blurred into one. as stand-up robin ince has noted: “everyone wants to know the face behind the mask when it comes to comedians – far more so than of authors, architects or mountaineers” (2019, p. 138). the stand-up is nearly always in the conundrum of trying to second-guess how she can most play herself. politically this can make life complicated for female stand-ups who want to champion their feminism or advocate women’s rights because stand-up has traditionally been male-dominated, sexist, and intolerant of women critiquing masculinity, campaigning for women’s causes or expressing rage or protest or points of view which are deemed unacceptable or inappropriate for a woman to hold (long 2011, christie 2015). in the case of hannah gadsby, the protocol of narrowing the gap between self and persona appeared to be reversed: the project in nanette focused on how gadsby could, at all costs, avoid playing her accrued, accumulated persona. having become trapped into what she felt was a deceit, she was intent on exposing the intolerable burden of her mask. in performing marginality (2004) gilbert repeats the well-documented observation that many female stand-ups have traditionally performed a self-denigrating stage persona in order to ensure a position of lower power status in relation to their audiences because it is harder to be accepted in a still overwhelmingly macho professional environment. joan rivers (19332014) was perhaps the most famous example of the flamboyantly self-loathing persona, who was always clear that she was speaking to the women in the audience in an attempt to force them to confront their delusions about themselves and the men in their lives: “i never look at the men in the audience, i never deal with them. it’s the wives who get it, the stay-at-home moms and the middle-aged women whose husbands leave them anyway” (qtd in nussbaum 2015). rivers explained her act in terms of her origins: “i’m from a little town called larchmont where if you’re not married, and you’re a girl, and you’re 21, you’re better off dead” (qtd in nussbaum 2015). arguments still rage about whether rivers was a pioneer of women’s comedy or a reinforcer of prejudice and stereotype, or both. but female stand-ups today still attest to the sexism in male stand-up audiences and in the entertainment industry itself. sarah pascoe (2016), jo brand (2010), bridget christie (2015), and josie long (2011) have voiced the problem loudly although brand is also of a generation that has witnessed the greater numbers of women who are now given stage time. christie overtly confronts the difficulty of espousing feminism in a comedy routine; long says she is challenged most weeks by men claiming that women are not funny or cannot be likeable and funny; and pascoe and brand have softened their self-attacking material by way of example to women in their audiences. female audiences are, in fact, a growing market in stand-up. hannah gadsby’s audiences are overwhelmingly female with a high percentage who self-identify as gay. many female standups have become political and artistic saboteurs by subverting conventional assumptions about women on stage. one tactic is the grotesque exaggeration of stage persona to challenge misogyny and other social prejudices in order to explode audience expectations. zoe coombs marr’s persona of ‘dave’, for example, a sexist, brainless, and offensive straight white male, operated, in the words of guardian critic james norman, as “a mirror on the australian male psyche” (2014). in a similar strategy, sarah silverman adopts a politically extreme, satirical, and deadpan persona to address taboo topics about race and sex that would shock her american audiences if they were not refracted through jokes and offered as entertainment. both coombs marr’s and silverman’s stage personas are reflexive constructs that pathologise masculinity and right-wing politics and are deployed to enact trenchant social critiques of dominant cultures. in the terminology of actor michael redgrave, marr’s and silverman’s personas emphasise ‘mask’ rather than ‘face’, and although complexly interconnected, mask operates as a device for selfluckhurst 56 concealment more than self-revelation (1958, p. 27). ‘mask’ for redgrave refers to voice, appearance, technique, and mannerism; ‘face’ is the actor’s “essence of emotional experience and the residuum of a life’s philosophy” and without the “perfect discipline” of mask, the face, which signifies the unique qualities of that actor’s personality and being, would not be visible (1958, p. 27). projections of the self and of stage roles are multiple and complex, argues redgrave, and the central paradox of performing is that “in a sense it is true that the hardest thing of all is to be yourself on stage” (p. 27). redgrave argues that the ‘self’ or ‘selves’ can, paradoxically, only be filtered through the fluctuating variables of a series of different masks that function like russian matryoshka dolls or chinese boxes. intriguingly, redgrave also asserts that the indistinguishability of mask and face is a significant feature of a performer’s skillset; indeed, it is a mark of their greatness. in the higher reaches of the actor’s art, the unmistakable stamp of an actor’s personality or genius is always to be detected through whatever mask he has created for himself. is it mask or face? i had better say at once that in my opinion the two cannot be separated. (redgrave 1958, p. 27) in stand-up the idea of performed authenticity is mostly articulated by comedians talking about the quest to develop their own voice (izzard 2017, pp. 252-253; frances-white & shandur 2015, p. 208; notaro 2018, pp. 10-11). finding your voice is understood to be the same thing as finessing a persona that is intimately aligned with a comic’s offstage personality and sense of self. in the words of tom wrigglesworth, i’m trying to rely on my stage persona to be just me. but that’s always a lie. it is an act, isn’t it? … me on stage is as close to me offstage as is currently possible. (qtd in franceswhite & shandur 2015, p. 203) current trends in stand-up comedy both interrogate and problematise the relationship between self and persona in relation to the market demand for the confessional, the desire for authenticity, self-expression, and real-life. as oliver double has contended, the new school of comedy is personal comedy. your act is about you: your gut issues, your body, your marriage, your divorce, your drug habit … the idea that the comedian’s act should reflect his or her real personality is commonplace. (2014, pp. 6, 115) the comedy industry is haunted by a superstition that it takes seven years for a comedian to learn how individual beliefs and values can be configured into an effective stage persona, seven years to forge a compelling political identity, and seven years to ‘find a voice’ that is the mark of a unique and successful persona (apatow 2015, pp. xiv-xv). the masculinity of the stand-up world is still assumed by many comics and producers and the worst of the misogyny has been both documented and enacted by figures such as richard pryor (2018) and christopher hitchens in his controversial essay ‘why women aren’t funny’ (2007). google is often besieged by users asking the same question millions of times over: “why aren’t female comics funny?” (hazarika 2017). fortunately, none of this has deterred the growing legion of 21st-century female stand-ups. still, it took hannah gadsby rather longer than seven years to feel that she had lighted on a persona that was a more honest version of herself, and it was her performance of repeated self-assassination in nanette and a changing zeitgeist for women in the entertainment industry, that enabled her to discover her voice. before nanette, gadsby had located her identity in coming out as lesbian through a self-abnegating persona, recounting stories from her childhood and adult life in a genteel and light-hearted style. during nanette, gadsby ritually murdered her old persona and assumed a new high-status role that radically altered her relationship to the audience. as she said in a subsequent interview with leigh sales persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 57 on abc television: “i feel like with nanette i found my voice and i may as well use it” (sales 2019). to use redgrave’s terminology, gadsby’s performance in nanette was more ‘face’ than ‘mask’ but the face was shocking because gadsby had always concealed it; the new face had to do with shocking personal revelations. hannah gadsby’s dramaturgies of persona it is difficult to describe both the phenomenon that hannah gadsby has become since nanette and the engine of political rage that has been powered by the metoo campaign in australia and many other countries (svect et al 2019). in nanette’s premiere year, 2017, gadsby won the barry award at the melbourne international comedy festival, the helpmann award, and the awards for the best comedy show at the edinburgh and montreal comedy festivals. she was a sensation on off-broadway and on tour in america and in the uk. but it was the netflix production of nanette, filmed in the sydney opera house in 2018, that won her a peabody award, two emmy nominations, and launched her global career. gadsby reflected on the fairytale irony of it all in her subsequent ted talk: not long after i worked out why i was good at stand-up i decided to quit comedy. quitting launched my comedy career. really launched it. after quitting comedy, i became the most talked about comedian on the planet because i’m apparently even worse at making retirement plans than i am at speaking my own mind. (gadsby 2019) one of the many things i find remarkable about nanette is that i can think of no other example of a stand-up who has taken the potentially career-ending strategy of detonating a persona in a sustained and repeated performance in front of a live audience. in 2012 tig notaro caused a sensation in america when she revealed on stage, and within days of her diagnosis, that she had cancer, and that the additional burdens of her mother’s death and her relationship break-up were almost unendurable. the first line of her act became legendary: “hello. good evening. hello. i have cancer, how are you?” (notaro 2016, p. 139). but notaro insisted on pursuing what she understood as “the job of the comedian” and kept her audiences laughing by persistently “delivering a lighter joke” in order to spare them from what she called “the dark hole” (notaro 2016, p. 140). notaro did not change her persona in terms of her style of delivery or form; instead she became known as a cancer survivor and celebrated for breaking a taboo about making her condition and medical treatment the subject of her act. gadsby, on the other hand, methodically extinguished her old persona through breaking conventions related to content and form. she threw her audiences headfirst down notaro’s black hole by refusing to spare them the harrowing details of traumatic events, prejudice, and social stigma in her life. she refused them the redemption of the usual protocols of stand-up joke dramaturgy. gadsby debuted nanette at the melbourne international comedy festival in front of her home crowd and most devoted fan-base, many of whom would have known that she had launched her career through the heats for apprentice comedians (called raw comedy) in the same festival in 2006. her persona as a writer and actor had been constructed through her popularity as a stand-up and repeated appearances on festival circuits; through television, notably co-writing and co-starring in the abc television show adam hills tonight from 2011 until 2013; and through acting in josh thomas’ multiple award-winning sitcom please like me, which did much to normalise gay characters on australian television between 2013 and 2016. she had also carved a niche for herself as an alternative art historian through her comedy art tours and art lectures for the national gallery of victoria, debunking the patriarchal and neocolonial discourses underlying mainstream fine art appreciation in australia (as well as her own luckhurst 58 undergraduate degree in art history and curatorship from the university of tasmania and the australian national university). gadsby’s stand-up persona had been fashioned by stories of her childhood in smithton, a small town in tasmania of less than 4,000 people, reliant on beef and dairy farming and located near the turbulent weather systems of the bass straits. today, tasmania is packaged as a breath-taking eco-paradise of untouched flora and fauna. but gadsby’s upbringing and her personal tales reflect the neglect of tasmania by its mainland neighbour and the poverty, insularity, and religious oppression of its population until relatively recently. historically notorious for its harsh conditions for convicts, tasmania was, for a long time, perceived as a penal backwater and a feral isle which has made it ripe for gothic arts festivals (dark mofo) and dark tourism. gadsby’s personal tales were about her sense of alienation, shame, her learned homophobia, and self-disgust at her lesbianism. her lgbtq advocacy and her rise in australia need to be understood in the contexts of her birth in 1978 and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in tasmania as late as 1997. tasmania’s homophobia was particular: it was the last imperial british outpost to exercise the death penalty for sodomy in 1867 and in the following century had the highest rates of imprisonment for private consenting male sex anywhere in the world (alexander 2016). lesbian sexuality went legally unrecognised and was a complete taboo, a legacy which had a profound effect on gadsby. her struggle to accept her own sexuality and to be accepted also needs to be framed by the protracted battle for same-sex marriage in australia, which was legalised only in 2017, the year of nanette’s premiere. lastly, her stand-up has to be set against the epidemic of gender-based violence which continues to infect australian life and which was declared a ‘national crisis’ by the federal government in 2015 (piper & stevenson 2019). gadsby makes light of the homophobia and violence at the beginning of nanette but the menacing undertones and the puns about incest are unnerving. i had to leave [tasmania] as soon as i found out i was a little bit lesbian. and you do find out, don’t you? [pause] i got a letter. [big laugh] “dear sir-madam” [laughter, clapping]. it wasn’t a great letter to receive in mid 90s tasmania. because the wisdom of the day was that you chose to be gay. i say wisdom – even though homosexuality is clearly not a choice. wisdom is always relative and in a place like tasmania everything is very relative [big laugh]. the wisdom was that if you chose to be gay you should get yourself a one-way ticket to the mainland and don’t come back. gays, why don’t you just pack up your aids into the suitcase there and fuck off to mardi gras. (gadsby 2018a)i before nanette, gadsby’s contract with her audiences was that she could be relied on to supply an evening of genteel comic observation that drew upon her feelings of being a social misfit but relayed her supposed dysfunctionality in a whimsical and non-confrontational way. i discovered gadsby as an immigrant in australia and rapidly became a fan. her performances were somewhere between a lecture and sophisticated and meticulously worked storytelling exercises that enjoyed the meta-frames of joke-telling and relished in the craft of stand-up. her persona was cheerful, feel-good, and kooky. there were no shocks and no dark confessions. gadsby appealed to all generations and whilst she always had a strong feminist and lesbian fan base, she was also a comedienne people took their grandmothers and great aunts to enjoy. her persona spoke, to some degree, to gilbert’s construct of the ‘reporter’ persona, which she asserts is a recognisable invention of a number of contemporary american female stand-ups: the reporter persona is clearly opinionated but because she offers sociocultural – and occasionally political – critique through an observational lens, she does not appear threatening. the reporter directs her dissatisfaction at general targets (that is, society) persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 59 through commentary peppered with questions like “did you ever notice?” this persona also muses, often telling humorous anecdotes as a way to voice mild irritation, frustration, or incredulity. because the reporter evokes a sense of community (“we’re all in this together”), this posture is extremely popular with a variety of audiences. (gilbert 2004, p. 124) gadsby’s persona did not deliver political tirades but was gently politicised. she was comforting, affable and reassuring, and her looks, bodily appearance, and mannish, though not male, attire fitted gilbert’s construct of the reporter persona as “relatively androgynous.” gadsby’s observations of her background played on the idiosyncratic and surreal aspects of day-to-day living as a non-normative woman, who, as she would often say, “looks like a man – but only very briefly” (2018a). gadsby’s persona arguably also overlapped with gilbert’s category of the ‘whiner’ comic, a self-deprecatory persona of low self-esteem with an abject relationship to her own body (gilbert 2004, pp. 214-224). gilbert proposes that the postures of the reporter and the whiner belong to a “rhetoric of victimage” and are often deployed by female comics to explore “the potentially subversive use of self-deprecation (the power of powerlessness), and the rhetorical construction of victims and butts of jokes” (p. 138). gilbert describes both the reporter and the whiner as “safe” choices for comedians because they do not strenuously challenge audiences. safety is culturally relative, however, and gadsby felt it was neither safe nor possible to pursue a stand-up career as a lesbian in an only recently decriminalised tasmania when she started doing gigs. standing on a stage in mainland australia and declaring her lesbianism was as radical a challenge to her sense of self as gadsby could imagine, but once established, gadsby’s genteel persona and conciliatory show content imposed a self-censorship that ultimately reinforced traumas experienced as a child and young adult (wright 2017b). the very vehicle by which she made a living, gadsby’s persona also became the trigger for a worsening state of mind and functioned as a form of ghastly self-entombment. it was a paradox that she found increasingly intolerable: “i was in a dark place for the two years before i wrote nanette. my mental state was deteriorating and yet i was a success” (cbs 2019). for gilbert the politics of performing marginality directly addresses the paradox of using self-objectification as a means of obtaining power (2004, p. 140). gilbert’s defence of the humour of self-deprecation is: first, that it is often cultural critique; second, that “comics who use self-deprecatory material do not necessarily believe themselves to be the personas they project onstage”; and third, that jokes come with a carnivalesque discourse which undermines their serious analytical deconstruction (2004, p. 140). before nanette, gadsby deployed a lowstatus, self-mocking persona that was political in being ‘out’ and an advocate of gay rights. but gadsby also celebrated her lesbianism negatively, conveying that she experienced her sexual identity as abnormal, outlandish, and incongruous. she made herself the butt of the joke and her persona was constructed to accommodate and communicate self-abasement. gilbert’s categories provide some interesting provocation, but they are themselves problematic in their playing of well-worn female stereotypes, including the bitch, the bawd, and the kid – types which gilbert claims are fundamental to female comic performance. female comics use type to debunk type, argues gilbert, some using self-scapegoating “to substitute self for society” (2004, p. 162) and performing marginality to invert gender hierarchies. but gilbert proposes a limited sexual range for female comics – highly sexualised femininity or androgyny. gadsby, like many female comics, does not identify with either descriptor. in nanette she reveals she is unsure how to identify herself and specifically sends up the social obsession with categorising and defining women by sexual orientation. declaring her frustration with condemnation from all communities, including straight, lesbian, and transgender, for her supposed failure to identify herself with sufficient nuance, she posits a different solution: luckhurst 60 i don’t identify as transgender. i’m clearly gender-not-normal. i don’t even think lesbian is the right gender for me. i may as well come out now. i identify as tired [laughter]. just tired. [applause] there is too much hysteria around gender from you gender-normals. you’re the weirdos. and hysterical. you’re a bit weird. a bit uptight. seriously, gendernormals, calm down. get a grip. (gadsby 2018a) gadsby’s strategy is not to perform her gender marginality but to suggest that its performance is impossible because it will always be misread, misunderstood or co-opted for another cause. she is not interested in a persona that emphasises compartmentalised, over-simplified difference. one of her projects in nanette was to focus on shared perspectives: “did you know human men and human women have more in common than they don’t? we always just focus on the difference between men and women” (gadsby 2018a). the jettisoning of the old persona and the declaration she was retiring from stand-up provided the theatrical freedom that gadsby needed “to say what i really thought because it meant i wasn’t worrying about a career, i wasn’t worrying about my persona” (wright 2017a). her persona had got in the way of an honest relationship with herself and her audiences. the problem with gilbert’s stereotypical stage personas is that they are not suited to the increasing number of stand-ups who regard a high degree of autobiographical honesty and directness as crucial in the creation of their comic persona and the enactment of their personal politics. gadsby had arrived at a point where her persona obstructed an ethical openness with her audiences and prevented her continuing comic innovation. gadsby’s objective with nanette was to elevate her subject position and to find a way of communicating the traumatic narratives of her life that she had always edited out of her material. in redgrave’s terms, the mask was not just completely obscuring the face, it had also become a corrosive agent. ten minutes into nanette, gadsby moved into attack and without warning: i do think i need to quit comedy though. it’s probably not the forum to make such an announcement – in the middle of a comedy show. i have been questioning this whole comedy thing. i don’t feel very comfortable in it anymore. i have built a career out of selfdeprecating humour and i don’t want to do that anymore. do you understand what selfdeprecation means for someone who already exists on the margins? it’s not humility, it’s humiliation. i put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak and i simply will not do that to myself anymore or anyone who identifies with me. and if that means my comedy career is over then so be it. [catcalls, applause, whistles] (gadsby 2018a) the catcalls, applause, and whistles that greet this declaration are recorded in the netflix performance but are made by an audience who are, by this time, well versed in the background to nanette and are aware that they are participating in a celebrated phenomenon and witnessing the performative trope of an ending that in fact went on to become the launch of a new persona and a ground-breaking show. with the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to overlook that nanette was not received as a rhetorical gesture when it launched in australia. in the early stages of the run, audiences at the melbourne international comedy festival emerged shocked and stunned by gadsby’s traumatic personal revelations, and many felt personally castigated by her rebuttal of stand-up and her expression of disappointment in its audiences’ low ethical standards and unreflective pleasure. in the early melbourne runs, gadsby was running the risk of her professional career; audiences in those runs, before the show became a global hit, did not cheer or catcall or whistle. they sat in tormented silence, wondering when the real show would start and gadsby would retract her announcement that it was all over. they were already in mourning for gadsby’s passing from the stage – and i was one of them. we did not question that persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 61 gadsby meant what she said. she had taken too great a professional risk not to be serious and in the first few weeks jokes were largely denied. “it’s my responsibility to make you laugh”, gadsby stated, “but i’m not in the mood.” this is a line that receives a tremendous laugh by the time of the netflix filming of the show but which was delivered as an admonishment in early iterations. in the weeks following the premiere, fans communicated with gadsby in person and on social media, imploring her to recalibrate her material and be kinder. they had known nothing of her experiences of hate crime, violent assault and rape, nor of her rage about the masochistic limitations of the stand-up form, and felt that she was being overly harsh on them and blaming them for their ignorance. gadsby listened carefully and fine-tuned nanette into a masterclass of stand-up brilliance, explaining to audiences at every turn what dramaturgical strategy and comic trickery she was employing to control their emotions and shock them into reflecting on their expectations and assumptions. reinvention and the meta-persona in the prolonged run of nanette, gadsby became celebrated for shuffling off her behemoth persona by explicating the horrors it concealed, while at the same time exposing her fans’ complicity in the forging of it. gadsby follows through on a pact she has made with herself to exterminate the self-abasing persona that not only deepened her psychological damage but was also abusive to her fans. self-deprecation as a strategy, argues gadsby in nanette, is a form of self-harm and a self-denial of the right to freedom of expression. the persona that emerges in its place during the course of the show is one that allows gadsby liberty to vent her personal outrage at the perpetrators of violence towards her, to express the sadness that she did not report the crimes, and to admit the profound trauma that those events have caused her. but an equally powerful feature of this new persona is gadsby’s insistence on her authoritative standing as a professional technician of comedy and her superior excellence as a comic virtuoso. the wounded, traumatised, and angry voice she finds in nanette is never emotionally overcome although the rawness of the hurt is both audible and visible in her delivery. crucially, the turbulent emotion of the voice is always contained by reminders that she is an expert at the business of comedy, that she is in charge of the dynamics in the room, and can dictate and finetune the intensification, maintenance, and release of emotional tension in her audiences. her greater emotional openness about her past and present is matched with a self-reflexive metapersona that narrates and analyses the strategic operations of her act and insists on the consummate professionalism of her control of comic craft. stand-up is far from innocuous entertainment, gadsby argues, but at the same time spectators should not be under the illusion that they leave nanette having been morally improved. gadsby emphasises that she has a political agenda and that this does not make her a better person: laughter’s the best medicine, they say. i don’t. i reckon penicillin might give it the nudge [laughter]. there is truth to it. laughter is good for the human. when you laugh you release tension. when you hold tension in your human body it’s not healthy psychologically or physically. it’s even better to laugh with other people – more than when you laugh alone – mainly because when you laugh alone that’s mental illness and that’s a different kind of tension. and that kind of laughter doesn’t help. trust me. tension isolates and laughter connects us. good result! i’m basically mother teresa. but just like mother teresa my methods are not exactly charitable [uneasy laughter]. (gadsby 2018a) gadsby’s personal openness and her new comic meta-persona in nanette were directly aimed at reworking her relationship to her audiences. she is not interested in the feelgood heroics attached to much stand-up. as she states in nanette: “i’m sorry to inform you but nobody here is leaving this room a better person” (gadsby 2018a). it was a tactic that gadsby knew might luckhurst 62 prove too much for her fan base but was pursued because she decided to place her own wellbeing and a personal code of ethics above the conventions of stand-up. in her ted talk gadsby reveals the nature of her calculated risk: i fully expected that by breaking the contract of comedy and telling my story in all its truth and pain that that would push me further into the margins of both life and art. i was willing to pay that price in order to tell my truth. but that is not what happened, the world did not push me away, it pulled me in deeper. through an act of disconnection, i found connection. (gadsby 2019) gadsby’s insistence on exposing the limitations of stand-up as a form and her adoption of the persona of expert comic interrogator inverted her performer status from low to high. her analysis of the comedian’s obligation to yield to the dramaturgy of the punchline at the expense of real events and at potentially great personal cost laid bare a taboo at the heart of stand-up – that, in some instances, the performance of marginality is a kind of self-harm and that both performers and audiences can and should do better in terms of their respect for one another. it is possible, gadsby showed, to deny laughter for significant sections of a show and to resist tig notaro’s conviction that the comic must, above all else, keep the mood light. it is possible to ignite a persona that a performer has co-created with their fan base and ask those same fans to watch it burn. and it is possible to insist that the audience stare into ‘the dark hole’ of the performer’s trauma and acknowledge it appropriately – that is, without laughter. the problem with the joke structure, gadsby asserts in nanette, is that it is composed of a set-up and a punchline: “it is essentially a question with a surprise answer. in this context the joke is a question that i have artificially inseminated” (gadsby 2018a). the impelling force of the punchline, according to gadsby, requires the real story to be altered, truncated, or simply distorted, and stand-up dramaturgy at best suppresses but more generally completely erases pain and trauma. the now famous example that gadsby gives is of her teenage encounter with a man at a bus stop who berated her for ogling his girlfriend, became verbally violent, and accused her of being “a fucking faggot”. gadsby has narrated this story in previous shows and ended with the heroic choice to walk away: “i do understand that i have a responsibility to lead people out of ignorance at every opportunity but i left him there people [applause] safety first! [laughter]” (gadsby 2018a). towards the end of nanette she returns to this narrative and reveals that the actual events of the story do not make for effective comedy. having realised that she is in fact a “lady faggot”, the man came back to the bus stop to “beat the shit out of me and nobody stopped him”. gadsby reflects on the fact that she neither reported the crime nor took herself to accident and emergency. you know why i didn’t? because i thought it was all i was worth. and that is what happens when you soak a child in shame and give permission to another to hate. and that was not homophobia pure and simple. it was gendered. if i’d been feminine that would not have happened. i am incorrectly female. incorrect. and that is a punishable offence. and this tension – it’s yours. i’m not helping you anymore. you need to learn what this feels like because this tension is what not-normals carry inside of them all of the time. because it is dangerous to be different. (gadsby 2018a) in order to be able to tell her story “properly”, gadsby argues, she has to privilege content and truth over punchline dramaturgy which sacrifices both to the generation of laughter. stand-up form and comedy structures more generally circumnavigate realist endings and consequently prescribe certain kinds of stage personas. stand-up mitigates against the telling of real stories because real endings, more often than not, do not align with what i shall call the laughter principle. with the reinvention of her persona in nanette, gadsby assumes high status. she rules persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 63 by dividing her audience into normals and not-normals, assuming that most will be in the underdog category of ‘normal’ and that the not-normals will, in any case, appreciate her standpoint. the reversal of perspectives is carnivalesque and her adoption of the dominant position made both through an angry confessional mode and through appeals to rationality and good sense. she does not make apologies for her difference. throughout gadsby speaks to explicate her experiences as someone living daily with negative reactions to her difference. she has particular opprobrium for straight white males and what she sees as their pathological behavioural patterns and obsession with domination but she is mainly on a mission to create emotional discomfort in all audience members who do not empathise with her marginal position or those who want to co-opt her for their own causes. she does pre-empt the morally bankrupt attack that she has endured for the entirety of her comic career: all my life i’ve been told i’m a man-hater. i don’t hate men. i don’t even believe that women are better than men. i believe that women are just as corruptible by power as men – because you know what, men? you don’t have a monopoly on the human condition, you arrogant fucks! but the story is as you have told it, that power belongs to you and if you can’t handle criticism, take a joke or deal with your own tension without violence you have to ask if you’re up to the job of being in charge. (gadsby 2018a) while gadsby is on stage the so-called normals are very clearly not in charge, indeed they are placed firmly at the bottom of the food chain in real-life and in comic performance where, by implication, they belong. the criticism of not being able to ‘take a joke’ picks up on the verbal assaults gadsby has long suffered both personally and professionally and which she presents as a form of gender violence perpetrated by many in the entertainment industry and argues is manifest in regular consumers of stand-up. it is not new to equate joke-telling with aggression and assault and the in-vocabulary of stand-up has its homicidal edge in regard to audiences with the successful domination of spectators referred to as ‘killing it’. gadsby’s reinvented persona in nanette emphasises her lethal technical prowess as contract comedy killer but she also highlights why it was necessary for her to develop the postmodern comic analyst and metapersona. she has come to the end of the experiments that innovate and interest her and standup personas are targeted too much on others’ pleasure and too little on emotionally challenging material. the energy is all directed in giving relief and catharsis to others and none to the performer, argues gadsby. the comfort zone of self-denigration, traditionally the expected locus for women comics, had become a torture zone for gadsby. she offered herself as the butt and buffoon of her own routines and the psycho-dynamics of her persona mirrored gadsby’s constant experience of real-life diminution. her old persona simply facilitated a socially normative reflex to treat her as the monstrous oddity and it inclined gadsby to think less and less well of her audiences. i make you laugh and you release tension and you think “thanks for that!”. but i made you tense – this is an abusive relationship [laughter]. do you know why i’m such a funny fucker? it’s because i’ve been learning the art of tension defusion since i was a child. back then it wasn’t a job or a hobby, it was a survival tactic. i didn’t have to invent the tension. i was the tension. i’m tired of tension. tension is making me sick. [mood change in audience and apprehensive silence]. (gadsby 2018a) such moments allow gadsby to use the audience silence to make further points about why it is crucial that she jettisons her old persona and why it is imperative that she no longer conceals dark secrets about herself if she is to have credibility as a stand-up. at the same time, gadsby’s relentless narration about the perversity of the stand-up form permits her to lay much of the luckhurst 64 blame on the conventional performer-audience contract in stand-up which, she argues, militates against the narration of a series of events as they actually occurred. persona, trauma, and creative destruction the main butt of gadsby’s humour is stand-up itself and this is the genius of nanette. one way of viewing the show is as a performance of dramatised wrestling with a form that has suppressed and strangled the performer who beats it into submission. if, as tig notaro has written, “we’ve finally come to a time when the dark, tragic truth is not something women are expected to keep to themselves anymore” (notaro 2018, p. 13), then hannah gadsby and nanette have epitomised that time. in her ted talk gadsby speaks of the popular belief that “the way out of trauma is through a cohesive narrative” and of her realisation that i’d been telling my stories for laughs. i’d been trimming away the darkness, holding away the pain and holding on to my trauma for the comfort of the audience. i was connecting other people through laughs yet i remained profoundly disconnected. i had an idea to tell my truth – all of it. not to share laughs but the literal, visceral pain of my trauma. (gadsby 2019) gadsby has spoken of nanette as a project through which she intended to “break comedy” in order to be able to “rebuild it and reform it so that it could better hold everything i needed it to share” (gadsby 2018b). her metaphor of the holding space directly references the safe space that therapists aim to create. but her meta-persona is also the wrecker and the wreaker of chaos and has a relation to the shakespearean clown and the court jester. gadsby’s is a creative destruction that has staged a kind of comic suicide but risen again with a different mask and the purpose of self-healing. her persona insists on an individual’s right to speak and be heard, on individual worth and dignity, on courage, resilience, and a refusal to succumb to the conventions of form. her persona is more than a survivor; it is also a formidable warrior of the everyday and indistinguishable from gadsby’s offstage presentation of herself. she understands her reinvented persona as humanising and validating the not-normals: i am not a victim. i tell you this because my story has value. my story has value. i need you to know what i know – that to be rendered powerless does not destroy your humanity. your resilience is your humanity. the only people who lost their humanity are those who believe they have the right to render another human being powerless. … i did not want to make them [the audience] laugh. i wanted to take their breath away, to shock them so they could listen to my story and hold my pain as individuals and not as a mindless laughing mob. i took everything i knew about comedy – all the tricks, the tools, the know-how and with it i broke comedy. (gadsby 2018b) in her latest show, douglas, which premiered in 2019, gadsby builds on the reinvention of her persona and refuses a trauma narrative – “i’m fresh out of trauma. there is life after trauma and there is joy.”ii once again, she constructs a meta-persona, interrogating the form and content of comedy, questioning its relation to trauma and audiences’ predilection for consuming trauma and forecasting exactly when her audience will laugh and why her jokes will trigger laughter despite the audience’s best instincts. hannah gadsby’s work as a performer demonstrates, quite uniquely, the way that persona can be used not just as a complex device for interrogating the relationship between onstage and offstage roles and identities but also the way it can be reinvented and deployed to protect the comedian’s mental health, to innovate form in order to challenge stigma, and to change the paradigm of audience expectations. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 65 end notes i all citations of nanette are the author’s transcriptions from netflix. ii the author’s transcript from hannah gadsby, douglas, new theatre, oxford, 24 october 2019. works cited alexander, a. (ed.) 2016, the companion to tasmanian history, university of tasmania, hobart. allen, t. 2002, attitude: the secret of stand-up comedy, gothic image, glastonbury. apatow, j. 2015, sick in the head: conversations about life and comedy, random house, new york. brand, j. 2010, can’t stand up for sitting down, headline, london. bruce, l. 2016 [1965], how to talk dirty & influence people: an autobiography, da capo, boston. cbs sunday morning 2019, ‘hannah gadsby on comedy and tragedy’, 18 july, retrieved 14 august 2019, <cbs.com/shows/cbs-sundaymorning/video/lbouhxjsnfog3dkvivjdmq_jdezntyuu/hannah-gadsby-on-comedyand-tragedy> christie, b. 2015, a book for her, century, london. double, o. 2014, getting the joke: the inner workings of stand-up comedy, bloomsbury, london. —2017, ‘what is popular performance?’ in a. ainsworth, o. double & l. peacock (eds), popular performance, bloomsbury, london, pp. 1-29. fox, k. 2018a, stand-up and be(en)countered, ph.d thesis, university of leeds, retrieved 8 october 2019, <http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/20722> frances-white, d. & shandur, m. 2015, off the mic: the world’s best stand-up comedians get serious about comedy, bloomsbury, london. gadsby, h. 2018a, nanette, netflix. —2018b, ‘the hollywood reporter women in entertainment gala’ speech, the hollywood reporter, 5 december, retrieved 29 august 2019, <https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hannah-gadsby-blasts-good-men-athollywood-reporter-women-entertainment-event-1166569> —2019, ‘three ideas. three contradictions. or not.’, ted talk, april, retrieved 10 august 2019, <https://www.ted.com/talks/hannah_gadsby_three_ideas_three_contradictions_or_not? language=en> gilbert, j. 2004, performing marginality: humor, gender and cultural critique, wayne state university press, detroit. hazarika, a. 2017, ‘why aren’t female comedians funny? you asked google – here’s the answer’, the guardian, 1 february, retrieved 10 august 2019, <www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/01/why-arent-female-comediansfunny-google> hitchens, c. 2007, ‘why women aren’t funny’, vanity fair, 1 january, retrieved 5 december 2019, <https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701> ince, r. 2019, i’m a joke and so are you: reflections on humour and humanity. atlantic books, london. izzard, e. 2017, believe me: a memoir of love, death and jazz chickens, penguin, london. lee, s. 2010, how i escaped my certain fate: the life and deaths of a stand-up comedian, faber & faber, london. —2012, the ‘if you prefer a milder comedian, please ask for one’ ep, faber & faber, london. long, j. 2011, ‘josie long on sexism in comedy’, youtube, retrieved 2 december 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1oxizvlthw> marshall, p. d. 2016, the celebrity persona pandemic, university of minnesota press, minneapolis. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/20722 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/01/why-arent-female-comedians-funny-google http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/01/why-arent-female-comedians-funny-google luckhurst 66 marshall, p. d., moore, c. & barbour, k. 2020, persona studies: an introduction, wiley blackwell, oxford. norman, j. 2014, ‘zoe coombs marr “dave” – review’, the guardian, 14 april, retrieved 6 august 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-cultureblog/2014/apr/14/zoe-coombs-marr-melbourne-comedy-review> notaro, t. 2016, i’m just a person: my year of death, cancer and epiphany, pan macmillan, london. —2018, ‘foreword’, in r. pryor, pryor convictions and other life sentences, barnacle books, los angeles, pp. 7-14. nussbaum, e. 2015, ‘last girl in larchmont’, new yorker, 6 february, retrieved 2 december 2019, <www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/last-girl-larchmont> pascoe, s. 2016, animal: the autobiography of a female body, faber & faber, london. peacock, l. 2017, ‘grock: genius among clowns’, in a. ainsworth, o. double & l. peacock (eds), popular performance, bloomsbury, london, pp. 119-136. piper, a. & stevenson, a. 2019, gender violence in australia: historical perspectives, monash university publishing, melbourne. pryor, r. 2018, pryor convictions and other life sentences, barnacle books, los angeles. sales, l. 2019, ‘nanette success sees hannah gadsby out of retirement’, abc.net, 5 february, retrieved 5 december 2019, <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-05/nanettesuccess-sees-hannah-gadsby-out-of-retirement/10782164> svect, m., nieman, c., & scott, m. 2019, metoo, stories from the australian movement, pan macmillan, sydney. redgrave, m. 1958, mask or face: reflections in an actor’s mirror, heinemann, london. wright, t. 2017a, ‘why hannah gadsby is retiring from comedy after nanette’, sydney morning herald, 30 june, retrieved 7 august 2019, <www.smh.com.au/entertainment/comedy/why-hannah-gadsby-is-retiring-fromcomedy-after-nanette-20170628-gx0313.html> —2017b, ‘the last laugh’, the age, 1 july. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/comedy/why-hannah-gadsby-is-retiring-from-comedy-after-nanette-20170628-gx0313.html http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/comedy/why-hannah-gadsby-is-retiring-from-comedy-after-nanette-20170628-gx0313.html miles 72 intermediaries and personas: a radical rhetorical reading of marketing work chr is mil es b o u r n e m o u t h u n i v e r s i t y abstract this article examines the various ways in which marketing work (in both 'practice' and scholarship) engages with the construction of personas. it positions marketing as a rhetorical enterprise concerned with the establishment of intermediary and liminal positions within society; positions which are designed, as in jung's description of the persona, to "make a definite impression upon others [...and...] to conceal the true nature of the individual" (jung 1972, p. 192) in order to facilitate social integration. an initial close reading of jung's work on the persona provides the context for a portrayal of the extreme tensions between organisational/disciplinary/professional identity and persona in modern marketing work. the article examines the long history of anxiety that marketers have manifested regarding the reputation of their practice, the 'morality' and 'scientific' ethos of their unavoidably relativistic approach to truth and identity, and their focus on the construction of appearance/persona for commercial or political advantage. finally, if the urge to create personas comes from needing to consistently portray the roles that society expects us to adopt (whether that be parson, cobbler or poet, to use jung's examples), what happens to a discipline and profession which is so focused on the dynamic re-creation, re-assignment and re-invention of personas? the work argues that the distrust that marketing experiences at the hands of mainstream society illustrates the way in which the maintenance of a consistent persona, 'standing at one's post' (to use jung's terminology), remains one of the most uncomfortable and contested aspects of modern life. key words jung; persona; marketing; value; rhetoric; suspicion introduction the current american marketing association definition of marketing provides us with a clear understanding of what lies at the core of the profession: “marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (ama 2019). in particular, the part of marketing that we, as consumers, have the most contact with is the creation and communication of offerings that have value. marketing needs to communicate to us the value that we could have from buying the product, using the service, adopting the brand. as a result, at the core of the marketing function is the construction of the "value proposition" (lanning & michaels 1988), the promise of how your life will benefit by use of the product. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 73 predominantly, this 'value' comes down to the ability to help build a persona or to make one's current persona more effective, more accepted, to make it feel more fitting. drink coca-cola and you will become a person who fits in with their social surroundings; fly cathay pacific and you will be the sort of person who is at ease with and knowledgeable about international travel; come to newcastle university and you will be the sort of person who knows how to make a difference to the world (as its current slogan promises). the promise of marketing, precisely because it is always a promise to a consumer, is a promise about persona. an example of this would be the way in which many modern brands try to build personas around rebelliousness: “nike with the african-american ghetto, harley with outlaw bikers, volkswagen with bohemian artists, apple with cyberpunks, mountain dew with slackers” (woodside et al. 2012, p. 599). the value propositions for all of these brands promise the ability to take on, through consumption, the particular variant on the rebel persona that they have sought to specialise in. through the creation and communication of such promises the marketer constructs and directs the transformative rituals of modern society, controlling the magic of consumption, weaving it into every aspect of our lives, helping us through each and every one of life’s trials and rites of passage (belk 1991; belk et al. 1989; belk et al. 2003; otnes & scott 1996). this, of course, places the marketer in an incredibly powerful position in modern society, somewhat akin to that previously afforded by joseph campbell (2008) to the psychoanalyst, whom he dubbed the “modern master of the mythological realm, the knower of the secret ways and words of potency” (p. 6). it is the marketer, then, who provides the mythologies and paraphernalia that enable us all to build and maintain our personas on the ever-shifting, complex stages of society (williams 1980; williamson 2002; jhally 1990). yet, along with this power does not come adulation, affection, or even respect. instead, the marketer is mistrusted and blamed. advertising agents regularly inhabit the murky bottom of edelman's yearly trust barometer of professions and a myriad of social problems are laid at their door; from the increase in obesity (critser 2003; moss 2013; schlosser 2002) and the scourge of cancer (malkan, 2007), to "the destruction of long-standing cultural values and traditions" (layton, 2011), the drive to consume above all else (klein 2009; ewen 2001), and the unbearable emptiness of everyday life (williams 1980). as a result, as consumers, we find ourselves fighting back against this malevolent influence with what heath et al. (2017, p. 1281) call an “everyday resistance to marketing”. furthermore, business itself has traditionally treated marketing with an equal amount of suspicion. the marketing budget is the first thing to go when times get tough, the marketing department is often treated with disdain by the rest of the organization, and the need for a cmo (chief marketing officer) is still not widely recognised even in fortune 500 companies (nath & mahajan 2008; germann et al. 2015). marketing scholars at business schools and university departments can also be seen to manifest a discomfort with the realities of the profession they study. there have been calls since at least the late 1970s for a move away from the traditions of consumer manipulation, hyperbole, and the rampant promotion of consumption at all costs. highly influential perspectives such as the nordic school of service marketing (gronroos 1994, 2004, 2011; gummesson 1987, 2008), relationship marketing (duncan & moriarty, 1998) and the service-dominant logic (vargo and lusch 2004, 2017) have argued that marketing needs to change its fundamental nature and instead dedicate itself to building long-term relationships with consumers based upon the careful, socially-aware provisioning of co-created value. yet, these calls for change have had little effect on day-to-day marketing practices which continue to find new ways to manipulate and co-opt the consumer (beltramini 2003; blackshaw 2008; miles 2016; sasser 2008; zwick & bradshaw 2019). miles 74 there are, undoubtedly, many reasons for this general mistrust of the profession even by those who ostensibly make use of it to increase competitiveness and generate sales. however, this work will argue that underlying all these reasons is a deep unease with an occupation that seems to play so fast and loose with the idea of personas. exploring the ways in which marketing manipulates and engineers personas will allow us insights into much of what drives our reaction against it and will also enable us to locate with greater nuance some of the fundamental tensions in contemporary society. in order to construct its argument, this article starts first by reminding us of the way in which jung defines the persona in terms of the part one plays in society. this sets the scene for an examination of the earliest discussion of the role of the marketer in western thinking, namely plato’s efforts to first integrate and then quarantine the marketing function in his plan of the ideal city state. the historical turn here demonstrates that discomfort with the marketer’s role is as old as the role itself, but also provides us with an ur-critique of the marketing function that revolves around the marketer’s lack of legitimate role, a lack which is explicitly linked by plato with a worry of how the marketer can infect those with legitimate, valuable roles in the city with a form of obsession that causes them to forget and forego their proper duties and instead become consumed by the marketplace. from this position we then move on to a consideration of the remarkably similar objections raised by plato against the sophist teachers. sophists are just as dangerous for society as marketers because they do not abide by a legitimate role in society, they adopt expertise and positioning as an argument needs – both marketers and sophists are not, as we might now say, ‘authentic’, because they do not have fixed personas. the argument then develops the similarities between the sophist approach to argument and the marketing approach to the promise and introduces the jungian concept of anima/us to help bind the two perspectives together, explicating the market as a manifestation of the frightening, unpredictable, ever-changing anima. finally, it concludes by proposing that marketing seeks to keep us in an ever-collapsing dance between persona and anima, between our need for a role in society and a desire to understand and experience the other within us. while this serves to maintains us in our constant reproduction of the persona of the consumer it threatens to prevent us from knowing, and effectively integrating, our own other. persona & marketing – the historical drama the persona is, jung (1972) reminds us, "nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be". it is a "compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he". the persona "is a function for adapting the individual to the real world" and "occupies a place midway between the real world and individuality" (p. 507). it is also important to remember that jung explains how the mask of persona aids, through its structural origins in the collective unconscious, the generation of personal prestige (p. 237), an element that marketing has become increasingly concerned with over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (vigneron & johnson 1999). for jung, society demands the construction of a persona from us all – we must have our parts to play, our roles to act. as he notes, "each must stand at his post, here a cobbler, there a poet", "the average man – the only kind society knows anything about – must keep his nose to one thing in order to achieve anything worthwhile" (1972, p. 305). so, the persona is a necessity of our social lives, a means by which we may guarantee for others valuable predictability and through which we may also garner the social rewards of reputation. of course, and this is jung's real interest, the creation and maintenance of this persona "is a very fruitful source of neuroses" (p. 307). the necessity of adopting and consistently maintaining a particular role in society is also at the heart of plato’s theories of how the ideal city is to be organised. importantly, plato persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 75 connects the necessity of social roles with the concept of a person’s ‘nature’ and then uses these two ideas to discuss the role of the marketer in the city in a manner that provides us with a rich foundation on which to develop a theory of the relationship between the persona and suspicion of the market and its functionaries. plato's works are brimming with arguments about what makes a particular person inhabit a particular role or persona in society – what makes a doctor a doctor, a lawyer a lawyer, the head of a household a head of a household, or (most crucially) a philosopher a philosopher. indeed, he made two very substantial attempts at systematising social roles in the republic and the laws, middleand late-career attempts to build models of how plato's ideal city republic should function – “to create a city in theory from its beginnings” (republic, 369c)i as he has it in the republic. now, essential to the proper working of this city is that people understand their roles and give their full attention to them. plato, in the persona of socrates of course, takes a highly pragmatic approach to social roles: “we aren't all born alike”, he says, we can all recognise that “each of us differs from somewhat in nature from the others" and one of us might be "suited to one task, another to another” (370b). furthermore, we all do a better job if we practice one craft rather than many, because “the doer must pay close attention to his work rather than treating it as a secondary occupation” (370c). on this basis, plato proceeds to found a huge and complex city state where every person has their place, and must “work all his life at a single trade for which he had a natural aptitude and keep away from all the others, so as not to miss the right moment to practice his work” (374c). our role in the city, in society, is determined by our “nature” (phusis) and following that nature, making its development into the appropriate profession or calling, is what will enable each of us to “produce fine work”, or, to recall jung's words, “to achieve anything worthwhile”. in plato’s theory of psychological “nature”, we are not being true to our individual nature if we do not attend closely and consistently to the role in society that is appropriate to us. there is much to say, perhaps, about the differences between plato's conception of the soul and jung's portrait of the persona/anima relationship – but, for the purposes of this work, the above theory of social role as an expression of personal “nature” is important for how it develops into plato’s account of the introduction of the marketer to the city. continuing with his argument that it is an individual's nature which determines their role in society, plato explains that those who exploit their knowledge of a particular craft or skill, such as farmers and cobblers should not be “sitting idly in the marketplace” (371c) waiting for people to come along and buy their wares. this is a waste of their time (and their nature). so, plato notes that "there'll be people who notice this and provide the requisite service" – who will dedicate their time to staying in the market "exchanging money for the goods of those who have something to sell and then exchanging those goods for the money of those who want them" (371d). so, in "well organised cities" these people will be "those whose bodies are weakest and who aren't fit to do any other work" (371d). interestingly, this means that these people, the intermediaries of the market, fit into society not by following or expressing their inner nature (phusis) but by reacting to their accidental physical, bodily situations. there is a lot going on under the surface here, not the least of which is the influence of an educated athenian's predictable disdain for the merchant. however, plato continued to develop his thinking about those who sit and wait in the marketplace through his career. by the time of the writing of the laws, plato’s thinking about these intermediaries has evolved to focus around the poisonous allure of the market. he portrays merchants and retailers as a vector for a dreadful disease (nosos) that can threaten the well-organised city (919c) – a disease originating in the fear of poverty and the corruption of luxury and which drives those who interact with the market to lie to their customers, exaggerate the quality of their products, adulterate their wares to increase profit, etc. plato's solution is not inoculation (through education, for example) but quarantine. miles 76 only resident aliens and foreigners are to be allowed to engage in retail trading in the city (920a). this way "trade should be made over to a class of people whose corruption will not harm the state unduly" (919c). so, the role of market intermediary (or 'middle man' as marketers used to be called at the start of the twentieth-century) is one best suited to those in some way outside society – whose 'nature' doesn't really matter, or is not worth considering. the way in which plato talks about the infecting nature of the market is very similar to the way in which jung describes the disrupting disjunction of anima (the inner bridge to the unconscious) and persona. for plato, the market takes advantage of the upstanding citizen's appetites, whipping them into a froth of greed and undercutting their rational, civic function – it makes a mockery of their persona and therefore disrupts society at large. engaging in marketing is something therefore that needs to be done by those for whom a 'natural' role in society is absent or without fixity. plato, contrajung, wants a society where everyone identifies completely with their persona, their role. the market threatens this project because engaging with it draws out the anima and makes it plain that we are not our personas. jung warns that "a man cannot get rid of himself in favour of an artificial personality without punishment" (1972, p. 307). plato's distrust of the market and his ultimate exclusion of its intermediaries from the citizenry reflects a telling recognition of the constantly upswelling force of the anima that must consume all. from a psychoanalytical perspective, we might even say that plato's treatment of the market and its intermediaries is a projection of his fears of the anima – the weak, vague 'self' forever drawn to cheating and dissembling and which needs to be kept firmly away. to see how plato’s treatment of the marketing intermediary prefigures the modern suspicion of the marketer, it will help us to look at another group of people whom plato treated in a strikingly similar fashion for very similar reasons, the sophists. the sophists and the marketer the sophists were a group of orators, philosophers, and educators who flourished in ancient greece in the 5th and 4th centuries bce (o’grady 2008). while the root word, sophos, means ‘wise’ and ‘knowledgeable’, the figure of the sophist has come down to us as someone who is manipulative and untrustworthy with words, who can make both sides of an argument equally persuasive (and so equally suspicious). indeed, a central part of sophistic education was the practice of dissoi logoi, where one first argues for a particular case and then against it in order to train one’s skills of persuasion and argumentation. while a tremendously powerful learning tool, excellent for training young citizens for the rough and tumble of athenian legal and political life, it betrays an attitude to absolute truth that laid it open to charges of opportunism and immorality. the sophists’ distinctly negative reputation is now generally acknowledged to have been the result of plato’s portrayal of them in his own works. the sophists were plato's main competitors in the 5th century bce athenian knowledge market and much of the energy that he spends across his writing in making various sophist figures appear morally suspect and argumentatively flawed is the result of him trying to establish and protect his brand in a highly competitive market (cole 1991; corey 2015). however, there are a couple of lines of attack against the sophists that plato uses again and again, and which immediately connect them to both the concept of the persona and to the practices of the marketer. firstly, then, the sophist does not have a fixed persona, and this makes him deeply untrustworthy. the best instance of how upsetting plato finds this is in his dialogue, gorgias (gorgias, of course, being one of the greatest sophist philosophers). early on, plato has his fictionalised version of gorgias recount a story which is ostensibly meant to convince the persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 77 audience of the superiority of rhetoric above all other areas of knowledge but which within plato's view of the appropriate division of areas of expertise is instead meant to signal the fecklessness of the whole sophist enterprise. so, gorgias says, many a time i've gone with my brother or with other doctors to call on some sick person who refuses to take his medicine or allow the doctor to perform surgery or cauterization on him. and when the doctor failed to persuade him, i succeeded, by means of no other craft than oratory. (gorgias 456b). so, the sophist, as a master of persuasive language and eristic, is able to fool others regarding his place in society, to lead them to make the wrong judgement regarding his expertise, his appropriateness, his nature. the second problem with the sophists for plato is that they market their skills. plato and socrates did not exchange their knowledge for coin. sophists are infected by the market in the same way that retailers and merchants are. gorgias advertises his skills in public displays in order to, effectively, tout for business. allied to this is that their rhetorical power comes from an appreciation of the market, of their audiences – they must judge what will move an audience and find a way of giving them that most impactfully. they are not seekers after truth or virtue – instead, they seek only victory in discourse. the attention to the audience that the practice of rhetoric enshrines is a result of its existence not just in the metaphorical marketplace of ideas, but in the actual marketplace of tutors for hire. inevitably, this embedding in the market means that their 'truths' will change from audience to audience, from job to job. the sophist and the marketer are both infected by the necessities of the market. they have no fixed persona and are instead reacting to the deep appetites of their consumers. the sophist adopts, for rhetorical convenience, any persona that is needed to win any argument at any particular time and so subverts the very idea of persona as an expression of inner nature. similarly, the market always threatens to subvert the idea of persona because it can so easily overwhelm those who deal with it – taking them away from their real natures and the roles in society that those natures are aligned with and obsessing them with the vicissitudes of market flow. that is why plato gives the role of marketer only to those who are outside the city, because the loss of their natures is not of value. what exactly does this make of the market, itself? this source of obsessional, wrecking power that makes both sophists and marketers so dangerous to the proper functioning of the city? returning to a jungian perspective, we might suggest that the market is, in fact, some form of figuration of the anima. a liquid, flowing, unreliable, amorphous power that threatens to constantly upset, to overcome, the rigid mask-play of social roles. the market overpowers persona – most centrally, continuing the jungian dynamic, by not being what the persona is, by instantiating all that it is not and so opening the persona to the "dark incalculable power of the unconscious" (jung 1972, p. 316). anima and the marketing promise as indicated at the start of the article, the promise is the central mode of marketing and although it has been rhetorically reconfigured into the more techno-bureaucratic term, proposition, its basis in the dynamic of allure, seduction, persuasive offering, or even pleasing argument, is never fully elided. at the same time, we should remember that a promise is a point of mediation between a present and a possible future. the marketing promise/proposition can be seen to function as a liminal gateway between possible personas. and while this might seem to be an alluring, attractive prospect its existence, particularly its existence as a managerial strategy continually operating upon us (as consumers), also threatens to undercut the very idea of persona as a fixed identity. the potentialities of the market represent all the things we are not, miles 78 or not quite. they therefore are projections of the anima. raffay (2000) notes that in hillman's classic study of the anima concept the latter found "439 extracts from jung's writings on the anima – and jung made precisely that many different statements about it" – she "is eros, she is the anima mundi, she represents the inferior function, she is a fascinosum, darkness, a life-giving daemon, a witch, an intermediary affording access to the unconscious [...], a mysterious lover, a great female magician, the mystical flower of the soul, and a deceiver who entangles people in chaos and must be obeyed" (p. 545). for jung, the anima is part of us which we must seriously, carefully, work to integrate into our consciousness. our social selves must be informed by, and balanced by, an open-eyed appreciation of our anima. yet, it is all too easy to take the route of turning away from it, burying ourselves in the more immediate 'reality' of our persona. something that results, predictably, in imbalance. when presented with the promises of marketing we are both seduced and discomforted – we recognise the mysterious signs of our alluring other, fall prey to the imagery of our unconscious, and imagine the prospect of becoming what we are now not. marketing tries to show us what we could be, how we might lead our lives, it offers us emotions and experiences that are outside of our quotidian routines but which resonate with deep needs inside us, needs which are often at odds with our persona, our adopted role in society. increasingly, even, marketing has been instrumental in persuading us that we can have multiple personas, each with its wardrobe, paraphernalia, and appetites – 'treat your inner child with that playstation', 'acknowledge your inner flirt with that mesh top', 'satisfy your inner tactical operator with that 34 tool multi-knife', 'release your inner witch with this beautiful re-design of the rider-waite tarot'. yet, the more consumers are told that they can be anything they want to be, in series or in parallel, at any time of the day, to become what simmons (2008) calls the “internet chameleon” of “the postmodern consumer", the more the matter of authenticity, of being true to oneself, becomes a burning issue, just as if was for plato (in adopting a role in society that reflects one’s true “nature”) and for jung (in pursuing the “masterpiece” work of integrating anima/animus and persona). so, while marshall and barbour (2015) have assured us that “persona-making as a practice is, in short, in pandemic” (p. 9), the victims of that pandemic are increasingly seeking an authenticity behind the mask. as holt (2002) notes, “post-modern consumers perceive modern branding efforts to be inauthentic because they ooze with the commercial intent of their sponsors” (p. 83). this is echoed in banet-weiser’s (2012) argument that “the 21st century is an age that hungers for anything that feels authentic, just as we lament more and more that it is a world of inauthenticity” (p. 3). we are concerned with finding authenticity in our own selves and life choices as well as in those whom we choose to align with or support, and in the causes we espouse. yet, ironically, that search for authenticity is most often pursued through an attention to superficial “authenticity markers” (enli 2017). we look to the immediately available evidence to evaluate authenticity rather than spending the time and attention needed to get under the surface of something or someone. and marketing practitioners are aware of this. the constant generation, multiplication, and erasure of personas that marketing practice encourages and embodies are inauthenticity markers. in a judgement that takes us right back to plato’s issue with the marketing intermediary, kadirov et al. (2014) argue that most consumer “authenticity perceptions refer to a single latent assumption about the marketer’s or brand’s character: to be able to offer authentic products and services, marketers (or firms) must be an organic part of society” (p. 73-4). the signs of this organic relationship with society are being able “to perform their function of provisioning without pretence”, to “not aspire to be more than this”, and to “not manipulate citizens and systems for the sake of disproportionate growth or profit” (kadirov et al. 2014, p. 73-74). we see here such strong echoes of plato’s attitude to marketers, the implications that they are manipulators persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 79 seeking cancerous levels of growth that threaten to overwhelm society and so must be kept as tightly bounded as possible. kadirov et al. (2014) further note that as consumers have demanded more authenticity from marketers, the latter have responded inauthentically (but perhaps in the only way they know) by “staging” authenticity. this “artifice of claimed authenticity” is described in ways that clearly link it to the adoption of personas – it “includes employees posing as customers writing positive comments about products in blogs and newspapers” and is “simply a mask that conceals the thirst for more profits” (p. 77). the open signs of marketing’s fast and loose playing with persona, then, become more and more objects of suspicion and cause for revolt. plato’s judgement against the sophist is also one based upon an accusation of inauthenticity. sophists are not really interested in the truth because they teach and write speeches for hire and they perfect the skills to persuade audiences of whatever happens to be advantageous to them at the time. plato’s judgement against the marketer come from the same place – the marketing function requires dealing with the market and this will inevitably take one away from one’s nature and towards an obsession with profit which in turn will make one lose a sense of one’s place in society, so much so that one will fall to dissembling and manipulation to close any sale. as laufer and paradeise (2016) conclude, “marketing and sophism correspond across the ages” (p. 12) and “both deny the existence of a reality beyond appearances and treat the variety of beliefs – in god, tradition or reasons – as phenomena” (p. 15). they use that relativistic position to “beguile, to entice, to seduce, to entrap” (tonks 2002, p. 813). from a jungian perspective, both sophism and marketing play inauthentically with persona and anima – instead of leading to an individual integration of the two they promise opportunistic adoption of facets, slivers, or shadows, of each. conclusion while the suspicion of sophistic practices has become enshrined in language and common usage, the suspicion of marketing is increasing. a recent deloitte global survey (stewart & casey 2019) found that 80% of adults in north america "used at least one ad-blocking method". in the uk, publishers currently lose almost "£3bn in revenue annually due to adblocking" (goodfellow 2017). earlier this year, the advertising association (2019) released its latest report on uk public trust in advertising which measured public favourability towards the profession at just 25%, the lowest out of all industries measured and a figure which has been in steady decline since the 1990s. the report identifies bombardment, repetition, and particularly intrusiveness and the use of suspicious or manipulative techniques as the key elements that drive the lack of trust in advertising. but this suspicion is nothing new. as sheth and sisodia (2006) declared in the introduction to their book of collected essays on the issue of consumer trust in marketing, "the more a customer is marketed to, the more frustrated or irritated he or she becomes, and the more manipulated and helpless he or she feels" (p. 4). barksdale and darden's (1972) investigation into consumer attitudes to marketing is perhaps the first exploration of this issue within the marketing academy, but their findings simply echo the sort of suspicions and discomforts that we have already seen in plato and which the advertising association's report confirms are still very much the case: "many consumers register a high level of apprehension about certain business policies and considerable discontent about specific marketing activities [...] the most obvious example is the lack of confidence in advertising" (p. 34). this article has argued that the roots of the wide – and increasing – suspicion of marketing grow from the way in which marketing seeks to play with our relationship to persona and anima. from jung's perspective what we should be doing with our anima is developing a miles 80 healthy relationship with it, engaging in an exploratory, revealing, constructive dialogue with it in order to integrate our persona and our other. but this is not the aim of marketing, which instead encourages us to confuse persona and anima in an ever-shifting flow of identity-play through consumption. each day we are offered countless value propositions that have been mediated by marketing agents whose very professional identity is embedded in an orientation towards persona as a shifting, reactive cavalcade (diona & arnould 2016; lair et al. 2005; mackey 2016; press & arnould 2014; simmons 2008; stern 1993). that constant stream of propositions, of promises, is an endless fountainhead of un-reflected upon, un-integrated anima presented as fast-fashion, prêt-à-porter personas. in this sense, the central dynamic of marketing is the persuasive construction of each purchase and service-provision opportunity as promising a chance to wear another mask which might reflect something of our deeper, other self. this also seems to, at 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sedgman 98 the institutional persona: when theatres become personas and the case of bristol old vic kirsty se dgma n abstract this article proposes a definition and terminology for identifying and analysing a concept of institutional persona in relation to theatre. the essay posits the theatre institution as an example of a ‘composite persona’, whereby cultural value is produced through the interplay between theatre as building, theatre as organisation, and theatre as event. using the case-study of bristol old vic, i examine how executives and practitioners involved in a specific historic theatre ensured its post-war survival in the 1940s by connecting the prestigious heritage of a local landmark with the national reputation of two london-based organisations. i suggest that theatre institutions offer a particularly rich investigative ground for the application of persona study theory in their need to mobilise individual and organisational personas for the purposes of reinventing a ‘good story’ and brand over time. key words live performance; audience; cultural value; the archive; reputation; composite persona introduction in this article i examine how institutions and the individuals who work in them engage in acts of persona creation. attracting their own distinct fandoms (and antagonisms) over time, a cultural institution like a theatre building survives through the construction and maintenance of a distinct ‘strategic mask of identity’: a public face that is both personalised and cohesive (marshall & barbour 2015). produced through shifting social relations, it is these masks of identity that shape how people – in varying societal and cultural contexts – understand and make sense of theatre institutions, often in ways that conflict. here i want to interrogate three key ways in which the term ‘institutional persona’ tends to be used. first: where the term ‘institutional persona’ has been used before, this has often been in reference to buildings. for example, dehart’s research into indigenous development projects in rural totonicapán describes a visit to san pedro to see the new community hall: a “large, cement-block, two-story yellow building [which] communicated a formal institutional persona rarely seen in the rural communities at that time” (2009, p. 64). similarly, forgan’s work on the role of architecture in the formation of the scientific society examines the “demarcation of institutional territory” (1986, p. 91) enacted by impressive building projects, which are used to convey 1) public recognition and 2) prestige. studying theatre as an institutional persona, though, is to understand how the physical building is only one part of the puzzle. to talk about ‘theatre’ is sometimes to speak of a theatre building (like the uk’s infamous globe); sometimes persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 99 about a theatre company (from the royal shakespeare company to complicité); sometimes about the live performance event itself. i therefore propose the theatre institution as a ‘composite persona’: one whose cultural value comes from the interplay between these varying layers. second, the term ‘institutional persona’ has also been used to refer to the institutionalised persona of the individual within the capitalist workplace, such as teachers (nao 2011), prison guards (johnston 2008), ‘cancer information specialists’ (hopper et al. 1993), and university professors (mcmullen et al. 1996).i it is therefore essential to consider how the institutional persona as a whole is shaped by its individual personnel. using the case-study of the bristol old vic, a prominent theatre in the south-west of england, i examine how people involved in this historic theatre asserted its cultural value at key moments of crisis. bristol old vic has seen the value of its eighteenth-century building, the magnificently-preserved georgian architecture of the theatre royal, connected with the value of its organisation from the 1940s: namely the joint management of london’s old vic theatre company, and the newly-formed arts council of great britain. having recently celebrated its 250th anniversary advertising itself as “the longest continuously-running theatre in the english-speaking world” (bristol old vic 2019a), and capitalising again on its georgian auditorium and prestigious acting heritage to gain both significant media attention and funding, bristol old vic’s contemporary image is absolutely the product of its historical reimagining. this article demonstrates how institutions gain both social and economic capital in much the same way as individuals do, through the creation of a persuasive and cohesive narrative of self. in other words: through the production of persona. the 1940s campaign to save the theatre exemplifies moore et al.’s (2017) analysis of personaconstruction as essentially performative. here, persona is seen as a public performance of identity that is “neither entirely ‘real’ nor entirely ‘fictional’”, but rather connecting together and ‘meshing’ various characteristics in order to present a cohesive image (2017, p. 4). third, certain approaches to persona studies have taken a teleological approach to the institutional persona. this often suggests that it is the rise of the internet and especially social media that has given “organisations, brands, institutions and commercial entities” their “public-facing dimension”, with “teams of social management operatives conducting licensed online persona management, and a range of employees with quasi-official public selves connected to these identities” (moore et al. 2017, p. 3). such analyses tend to be embedded within wider critiques of our contemporary ‘consumer culture’, in which giant corporations (holt 2002; herskovitz & crystal 2010), individuals (peters 1997; speed et al. 2015), and everything in between are considered implicated in the omnipresent ‘branding’ exercises inherent to neoliberal capitalism. while the technological innovations of global commodification have indeed afforded institutions unprecedented levels of directness, global reach, and interactive reciprocity (bucknall and sedgman 2017), though, it is important to understand that in many ways the institutional persona is not a new phenomenon. in this article i use bristol old vic as a means to interrogate the idea of the persona of institutions. it is my contention that bristol old vic’s institutional persona echoes marshall’s acronym ‘varp’, standing for value, agency, reputation, and prestige (qtd moore et al. 2017). for marshall, the individual public persona is “created with a particular intention” and relies on the interplay between these four connected dimensions (qtd moore et al., p. 7). what happens, however, if we examine institutions via these same dimensions? this might raise a number of other questions. how do institutions assert their value by constructing a cohesive public-facing self-image? how can the prestige of a beautiful historic building be capitalised upon to give a new organisation a sense of legitimacy? how were these institutional reputations created and managed before the internet? how does the interconnected agency of individual personas shape sedgman 100 the institutional persona, and how are relations of power negotiated within the composite? i propose that theatre is a useful starting-point for understanding how the institutional persona operates in more located, historically-grounded, and complexly nuanced ways. what is an institutional persona? the question of what an institution is has a long intellectual history, and has been debated in philosophy, sociology, economics, and other fields. as john searle points out, given this intense interdisciplinary attention, it is curious that “the ontology, the mode of existence, of institutional reality” (2005, p. 1) has not been reconciled long ago: not only by “such foundational figures as max weber, emil durkheim [sic], georg simmel, and alfred schutz”, but by “the whole western tradition of discussing political and social institutions that goes back to aristotle’s politics, if not earlier” (2005, p. 2). hence, while institutional analysis is as old as “durkheim's exhortation to study ‘social facts as things’”, institutional theory was by 1991 still considered a novel emerging field, “purportedly represent[ing] a distinctive approach to the study of social, economic, and political phenomena” (powell & dimaggio 1991, p. 1), yet lacking critical consensus about what an institution actually is. for the purposes of this article, the core of these debates is the difference between an ‘organisation’ and an ‘institution’. in her recent article on corporate social responsibility, sarah bice (2017) builds on the influential work of early institutional theorists such as meyer and rowan (1977), powell and dimaggio (1991), and campbell and pedersen (2001) to define an institution as a “social order or pattern […] which is embedded in cultural and historical frameworks […] [and] is shaped by and shapes cultural norms, but which is not necessarily a product of […] conscious design” (2017, p. 17). in other words, an institution is the overarching social, political, cultural framework (e.g. a system like higher education) while the specific entities (e.g. discrete universities) that operate within that framework are organisations. in this sense, the conception of ‘institution’ is actually antithetical to the idea of ‘persona’. yet while institutions are apparently not to be understood as “epiphenomena constructed by actors—the cumulative result of individual choice” (bice 2017, p. 17), the concept of persona is so useful because it describes exactly that: namely, a cohesive, persuasive, public-facing ‘strategic mask of identity’ that has been purposely constructed by social actors (marshall & barbour 2015). however, this academic definition of institutions as overarching “sociological phenomena” (bice 2017, p. 17) rather than a series of discrete organisations poses a problem. as peter rogers points out, this problem is the schism such a distinction opens up between sociology scholars and the wider public, who are unlikely to define institutions via this same critical agenda. while academics may generally agree on the nature of institutions “as an arrangement or regulation” that is “widely known and accepted, […] common-place and assumed, [and that] underwrites social order as an established principle – e.g. a law, custom, usage, or practice” (2017, p. 129), the way people outside academia actually experience institutions tends to be via its “general meaning as an association of people coming together as a group; but more than that, a grouping created for the promotion of some common object or collective outcome” such as “a church, a school, college, reformatory, asylum or even a guild, a bank, a trade union, a corporation, a charity or non-governmental organisation” (rogers 2017, p. 129). the danger of ignoring lived reality in favour of “advancing a critical agenda”, rogers suggests, is that “scholars risk exacerbating the emergent comprehension gaps between theory and practice or risk disappearing into a disgruntled irrelevance” (2017, p. 128). by this logic, a university or, indeed, a theatre can indeed be studied as an institution. the challenge lies in persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 101 tracking the ways a specific institution as “organisational structure and form” manages its “socially ascribed identity” against the general meanings and affects acquired by “social institutions as social processes indicative of behavioural functions” (rogers 2017, p. 128): those big, overarching, disorganised concepts of education, religion, or the arts. in order to understand how audiences engage with theatre as an institution, i argue that we first need to consider the wider practices of performance-making, producing, criticism, and scholarship that collectively support the theatre industry, in the same way that the practices of journalism (eide & siøvaag 2016) or ‘entrepreneurship’ (tolbert & coles 2018) might be considered an institution. yet to adopt rogers’ analysis is also to understand that this is likely not what the majority of the theatre-going public imagine when the term ‘theatre institution’ is used. indeed, searching for recent news items with the term ‘theater institution’ or ‘theatre institution’ sees this phrase used indistinguishably to describe particular theatre buildings whether san diego’s old globe theatre in the usa (smith 2019), london’s old vic in england (thompson 2018), the theatre royal in sydney, australia (dexus property group 2019), or romania’s i.l. caragiale national theater in bucharest (romanian insider 2018) and nonbuilding-based theatre companies like new york’s shakespeare in the park (desta 2017) or canada’s why not theatre (nestruck 2018). this phrase also throws up references to people such as andrew lloyd webber (wood 2018) or billy ensley (toppman 2018) as individual theatre institutions. in all these cases, within non-academic parlance the word ‘institution’ tends to refer to a specific building, company, or person, rather than the overarching social concept. if “[p]ersona’s peculiar value as a term is its ability to help us understand the relationship between the individual and the social” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 1), then, the value of the term ‘institutional persona’ is how it articulates the role that specific organisational and architectural structures play within the individual/social relationship. how do particular institutions mediate between audiences and society? and if “persona helps us understand the construction, constitution, and production of the self through identity play and performance […] in social settings” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2), the institutional persona similarly offers a framework for conceptualising how specific organisations negotiate their own “production of the self” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2) against the “fantasies, feelings, attitudes” (lasdun 1977, p. 780) that have over time become attached to particular buildings, to specific theatre companies or practitioners, and to modes of cultural production. using this term also facilitates analysis of who is doing the work of producing an institution’s identity, and how this process is managed. in order to examine these questions i turn now to the bristol old vic. how to understand theatre as an institutional persona? the interlocking definitional conflicts between ‘institution’ as a building (a theatre), an organisation (a theatre company), and a social concept (the theatre industry) came into view when researching the case-study of bristol old vic, a renowned georgian theatre in the southwest of england. built in 1766, the building was known as the theatre royal until the mid1940s, when it began a gradual name change that has culminated in its current nomenclature: bristol old vic. to study this history is to witness how the theatre’s contemporary persona has been formed over time through the shifts and overlaps between the three categories i name above. the theatre’s historical significance within both bristol and the wider uk has been comprehensively surveyed by kathleen barker (1974) in her seminal book the theatre royal bristol 1766-1966. barker demonstrates how during the first two centuries “in virtually all respects, an evening in king street [represented] the translation of the london theatre to the sedgman 102 bristol stage” (1974, p. 19), with its illustrious history of actors and actor-managers including such grand historical figures as sarah siddons, david garrick, the kemballs, henry irving, kate and ellen terry, the keans, and william charles macready. drawing attention to theatre’s status as a ‘social institution’, barker specifically warns against historicising any specific theatre as an independent static phenomenon, parthenogenetically created. like the human beings who shape its destiny, [a theatre] is the produce both of its heredity and of its environment; it is influenced by changes in aesthetic taste, in education, in economies, in politics: in short, by every contemporary social movement. (barker 1974, p. 3) reading barker’s book alongside her 1966 pamphlet ‘the theatre royal, bristol: decline and rebirth, 1834-1943’ is to witness how this nexus of influences actively shapes and re-shapes an institution’s identity over time. barker takes us from the early-1700s, when bristol theatricals were overshadowed by the ‘enormous success’ of the bath company, to the enthusiastic response in 1764 to the 29-year-old celebrity performer william powell who then became the theatre’s first manager to the eighteenth-century decline in fortunes resulting from the napoleonic wars and lingering divisions of civic identity in which bristol was seen as a city of ‘practical tradesmen’, its nearby rival bath one of ‘ton and culture’ (barker 1974, p. 78). all this alongside the competitive growth of non-patent london theatres in the early nineteenth century meant that by the end of 1818 the theatre had closed down, its proprietors advertising “for a fresh lessee or, as ‘x.y.’ put it, ‘desperate adventurer’” (barker 1974, p. 88). that adventurer was william m’cready, who was barely able to manoeuvre the theatre through an “uncertain political atmosphere” (barker 1974, p. 104) and the decline of the city’s major tourist economies.ii according to barker, m’cready only avoided total bankruptcy by leveraging the celebrity of his famous son, william charles macready, and finally uniting the bath and bristol theatres into one circuit one in which bristol, at long last, became the dominant party. however, it was only in the victorian era that the theatre began once more to prosper, when it was taken over in the 1850s by james henry chute (son-in-law of sarah m’cready, who in turn had taken over after the death of her husband). barker attributes chute’s success to his ability to identify personally with “the most influential section of bristolians, the successful middle-class businessmen”. this enabled chute to reposition the theatre royal not just as the home of a struggling hack company which could only be made respectable by a succession of stars, but as an artistic, and a moral, force of intrinsic value; a company whose productions, while they might be inspired by the best in the metropolitan theatre, would be worth seeing for their own sake. (barker 1974, p. 136). the lesson barker draws from all this? that “bristol audiences have always needed an object on whom to focus attachment”. whether that was a “manager or actor, from powell to dimond to peter o’toole and denis carey” (1974, p. 126), the theatre’s institutional persona has always, of course, been shaped by individuals. this shaping force can be seen particularly clearly by studying a moment of significant change, when the company’s contemporary persona as bristol old vic was eventually secured. having by the 1930s fallen again into hard times, this is when the theatre royal was finally reopened under the post-war management of the newly-formed arts council of great britain (later the arts council of england; at that time called cema, the council for the encouragement of music and the arts). studying the archival records from this time is to discover a tactical process of identity reconstruction an imaginative blending of all this history with a modern reputation for (inter)national innovation. it all began in 1935, when herbert farjeon, a famous london playwright and critic, stumbled upon the theatre royal on a trip to bristol following a letter persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 103 from a friend, and found it still “in active if not very dignified service” (university of bristol theatre collection 1943). over the decade that followed, farjeon ran a national campaign which deliberately mobilised the theatre’s heritage in order to “awaken” bristol citizens to their “responsibility” as the keepers of this historically-significant theatre (uob theatre collection 1935a). it is this process that the final section in this article examines. how is a theatrical persona formed? in order to whip up support and secure the institution’s future, farjeon created a persistent mythology: claiming the bristol theatre royal to be, variously, a “rare relic”, “the only eighteenth-century theatre in the country” (uob theatre collection 1935b), a “precious and neglected heirloom without a parallel anywhere else in the british isles” (uob theatre collection 1943), and the “oldest theatre in england” (uob theatre collection 1942). such superlatives can of course be contested. for example, on their website the york theatre royal currently state that “[t]here has been a theatre on this site since 1744, making us the oldest theatre in the uk outside of london” (york theatre royal 2019). here they refer to london’s drury lane, which was originally built in 1662/3 but then burned down and was rebuilt twice, in 1671/2 and 1809, and so cannot truly claim to be the oldest theatre because the building is not itself the original. but what counts as ‘original’, given that most theatres with bristol old vic no exception have experienced extensive ongoing renovations over the years? hence the georgian theatre royal in richmond, north yorkshire, built in 1788, now sells itself as “the oldest theatre in the country still working as a theatre in its original form” (georgian theatre royal 2019), while the theatre royal in margate built one year earlier, in 1787 has called itself the “oldest unrestored theatre in the country” (kent online 2007). this has left bristol old vic today to claim the moniker of the longest-running theatre in the uk (itv 2017) or, most recently, the longest continuously-running theatre in the englishspeaking world (bristol old vic 2019a). yet over its 252-year history the theatre royal has been forced to shut temporarily several times: for renovations and fire upgrades, following owners’ deaths and funding cuts. so to what extent can a theatre like this really be said to have been operating ‘continuously’? that question rather misses the point: which is that when it comes to the institutional persona, the truth of a defining factor like superior longevity is less important than the power of a good story. in the case of bristol old vic, this is a story about the successful rebranding of a nationally-historical yet geographically-local theatre building. while there is not the space to deal with these issues in detail here, it is worth noting that bristol’s story is echoed in the national post-war emergence of arts funding, whereby ideals of aesthetic quality were imposed on many so-called ‘regional’ or ‘provincial’ theatres by the professional london theatre-sphere. that process was catalysed by farjeon’s 1940s ousting of undignified populism – “twice-nightly revues! that give one (i say it from experience) the cold shivers” (uob theatre collection 1935b) in favour of performances whose standards (of acting, staging, writing, directing) were deemed a match for the building itself. the process was later solidified at the end of that decade when the theatre was given to the management of london’s old vic, who worked in tandem with the arts council to install there a brand-new repertory company. renamed “the bristol old vic company at the theatre royal”iii, this move was the first step in transforming the theatre’s historical identity into the persona we recognise today. this is a persona that has fused the legacy of an important cultural and architectural landmark with the guarantee of forwardthinking aesthetic excellence provided by the combined reputational capital of the arts council and old vic. sedgman 104 the bristol old vic archives at the university of bristol theatre collection are full of practitioner anxiety about maintaining excellence: specifically, about the need to ensure that “the standard of the work being done is worthy of support” (uob theatre collection 1946a). as the regional extension of two conjoined london organisations, the theatre royal needed now more than ever to “carry forward the work of the old vic, and make it worthy of the golden blessing of the arts council of great britain” (uob theatre collection 1949): an institution which at that time was led by the “[u]nabashedly elitist” john maynard keynes, who used his influence to support art that best accorded with traditional ideals of ‘high’ aesthetic quality (leventhal 1990, p. 305). in this way, the emergence of bristol old vic’s contemporary persona was undeniably bound up in arnoldian understandings of cultural value as “the best which has been thought and said in the world” (arnold 2006, p. 5) both reflecting and reinforcing dominant systems of aesthetic worth. that legacy lived on in the efforts of a succession of directors hugh hunt, denis carey, peter moody, etc backed up by the weight of a joint management company featuring its chairman, sir philip morris (university of bristol), along with george chamberlain and john burrell (london’s old vic) and michael macowan and charles landstone (director and assistant director of the arts council of great britain). with the old vic “responsible for the policy of plays and the standard of production, and the arts council for managing the theatre”, the theatre’s director and resident manager were supposed to be seen as “the servants of the old vic company and the arts council” (uob theatre collection 1946b). yet archived correspondence demonstrates the extent to which its directors continued to remake the theatre in their own image. appointed in 1946, hunt particularly was fundamental in advancing bristol old vic’s identity as a home for high-quality theatre, cautioning the arts council and old vic repeatedly about the dangers of lowering “standards”, and beseeching audiences for continued support (uob theatre collection 1947a). in fact, between 1946 and 1949 hunt’s own reputation for excellence was deliberately mobilised to solidify the institution’s emergent persona: such as when a press release in theatre notes called on audiences to realise their “enormous good fortune – which is quite unequaled in the provinces – in having mr. hugh hunt as a producer for this company” (uob theatre collection 1947b). here once more, hunt’s personal reputation as an up-and-coming theatre producer who “ranks, in our opinion, with the first six in england” (uob theatre collection 1947b) was used to bolster the formation of the company’s desired institutional persona. in turn, hugh’s own reputation was augmented by this partnership to such a degree that, by 1950, he was able to segue from bristol old vic into the directorship of its london counterpart. for a working theatre, then, the preservation of an iconic building alone is not enough to sustain audience support; nor is the reputation of its organisation. the institutional persona of a theatre must be constantly maintained through the agency of individuals, working (for the most part) together toward the same aim. how do audiences experience the theatre institution as a composite persona? with the early assistance of the old vic and the ongoing support of the arts council of england, farjeon’s (and his successors’) efforts continued to build on the theatre’s growing reputation as an important historical landmark and the home for forward-thinking theatre combined. these connected factors have thus been carried forward into the organisation’s contemporary persona. today, bristol old vic’s mission statement is to produce “pioneering” and “world class” “twenty-first-century theatre […] inspired by the history and magical design of the most persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 105 beautiful playhouse in the country” (bristol old vic 2019b), culminating in the 2018 unveiling of the theatre’s new identity as a “heritage visitor attraction” (bowie-sell 2018). a £2.4million grant from the heritage lottery foundation supported the redevelopment of a brand new foyer that has exposed the original front wall of the building for the first time since 1746, fused old architecture with new, and turned this working theatre into a heritage site: one where augmented reality technology, history tours, and exhibitions are featured alongside the ongoing workings of live performance production. bringing together audience discourse from the archives with interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups conducted with audiences today, my research has tracked the ‘trajectory of value’ from past to present.iv studying audience engagement from past to present has identified the extent to which, for many local audience members, bristol old vic’s international prestige has been and still is a major source of pride. in my post-show surveys audiences have written about how “lucky” they felt “to have such a respected theatre with a reputation for innovation in our home city” [ttv 145], and praising the shows themselves for always being of “the highest quality” [tco 203]. importantly, here the quality of performances is often discursively intertwined with the qualities of the architecture with its productions seen as “relentlessly gripping and entertaining, performed in a building that is steeped in theatre” [ttv 22], and the institution itself having “retained its historical building [while bringing] modern theatrical productions to its stage” [tn 392]. this pleasure in aesthetic excellence can be traced back through the years via letters sent to the theatre’s producers, such as these from the 1950s addressed to the director denis carey: the cast rose magnificently to their chances; i can’t recall seeing such all-round excellence even at the bristol old vic a theatre i rank with stratford or waterloo. (uob theatre collection 1951) i feel i must write for myself and many others who went to the old vic, bristol, to see this work of one of our finest writers. the atmosphere of unsolvable tragedy was wonderfully conveyed the production and acting up to the best standards. […] we could do with more plays of this high calibre in bath. (uob theatre collection 1953) what does all this tell us about how the institutional persona operates for audiences? in recent years we have seen a plethora of institutional studies scholarship investigating the rise in “brand personification” exercises (levesque 2016, p. 75): a phenomenon which has afforded customers the peculiar experience of comforting a soft drink (norcia 2019), or watching an iconic american snack-food wish happy birthday to a cat (sacks 2017). so what is the difference between a theatre company and a corporate organisation like apple,v which has similarly developed a distinct institutional persona in order to make its products more appealing? first, the social institution of the arts is very different to that of, say, technology, with the cultural industries experiencing significant tensions between an austerity-accelerated need to engage in neoliberal branding activities and impact assessments, and widespread concerns about the ethical and aesthetic consequences of doing so (sedgman 2019). and second, unlike other corporate entities, the cultural value of a ‘theatre institution’ can also be connected to its role as a physical space – not a private office building but a place built for community congregation. as public buildings, then, theatres have always been public-facing; their directors and performers have always to some extent acted as public extensions of the institutional self. the institutional persona is not the product of the contemporary era alone, but has needed to undergo constant reinventions over time. these constellations are dynamic and subject to flux: firstly, because of the changing cast of individuals responsible for securing and maintaining an institution’s identity (e.g. artistic directors, producers, patrons, actors, playwrights, directors, sedgman 106 and designers); secondly, because of the need to negotiate the shifting historical and cultural frameworks in which these networks are embedded. theatre is therefore an ideal example of the composite persona: one in which institutional relationships may be shaped by audiences’ connections with theatres as organisations/brands/commercial entities, or by their engagements with landmark buildings, or by their encounters with specific personnel or, more likely, by all of the above at once. conclusion in recent years, bristol old vic, like many theatres in england, has continued to weather a series of civic crises, subjected especially to the ebb-and-flow of both centralised and city council funding. these events have continued to feed into the theatre’s narrative of survival and renewal that has been crucial for the city itself. most recently, in 2007, the arts council was “accused of forcing the bristol old vic board into its forthcoming closure of the theatre and the departure of [its] artistic director simon reade”. the shock decision was officially attributed to a building survey, which identified the need for urgent work “to keep it in line with health and safety standards”, but was also likely connected to recent financial losses: with certain productions having “failed to bring in the required box office […] [by the end of that] financial year, the venue had a deficit of around £160,000” (smith 2007). as an anonymous source at the time commented: “a theatre without an artistic director is […] just a building”, lacking “a vision” (qtd in smith 2007) or even its persona. hence, having been saved once again from the brink by a dedicated campaign this time spearheaded by the local director of bristol’s watershed media centre, dick penny the theatre’s revival was secured in 2009 by the joint intervention of artistic director tom morris (fresh from his success on the national theatre’s smash-hit war horse) and executive director, emma stenning. as i have argued, the institution’s historical persona built on its prestigious architectural heritage combined with its reputation for progressive aesthetic prowess. morris and stenning’s tenure continued that tradition, with the theatre’s marketing materials consistently emphasising the building’s history as a “symbol of the pride we have in our city” and its desire to remain “a place of joy, discovery and adventure to this day” (bristol old vic 2019a). the theatre’s reputation has been further re-solidified in recent years through its associations with key contemporary theatre-makers, most notably the cornish company kneehigh and the bristol-based director sally cookson, the latter of whose bristol old vic productions of treasure island (2011), peter pan (2012), and jane eyre (2015) have all had prominent afterlives in london. for some audiences, these external organisations and practitioners are inextricable from pleasure taken in bristol old vic itself: to my great shame i had not seen anything at bov until jane eyre in 2016. i fell in love with sally cookson’s work, the theatre, the atmosphere and the bov experience. [ttv 407] i have seen some really excellent (and at least one truly awful) productions here. i love the kneehigh productions (shame they couldn't have brought their joint production in this summer it sounded fab). [tn 367] paying attention to theatre demonstrates how the strategic production of an institutional persona over time intersects in complex ways with the changing individual personas who inhabit its building: the constant flow of artistic directors, actors, directors, writers, and performance companies, each of whom may bring with them their own distinct celebrities and associated audiences. the case of the bristol old vic demonstrates the importance of considering how these spectatorial engagements are shaped between the interwoven layers of persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 107 the institutional persona; by the physical structure of the theatre building as well as the reputation of its organisation; and also by the particular performance traditions and histories valued by the people whom it houses over time. in order to understand the institutional persona in all its rich complexity, though, we need to understand not just the machinations that have gone into producing it, but also how that performance of self has been received. for some audiences, the bristol old vic is primarily a beautiful and historic building, a local landmark with national importance of which they can justly feel proud. for others, it is predominantly a forward-facing, world-leading producer and supporter of high-quality aesthetic experience. but more often, the cultural value of bristol old vic is understood as produced via a combination of these factors as a prestigious collision of place, performance, and people. if the value of persona studies lies, in part, in the examination of how an individual moves into social spaces and presents the self via those four dimensions value, agency, reputation, and prestige then there is a value too in understanding how institutions do the same. in the case of a composite persona like bristol old vic, the institution’s prestige has been secured over time through its promulgation of a centralised, classist model of aesthetic value and its assertion of architectural reputation: as the “longest continuously-running theatre in the english-speaking world”. this process relies on the agentic involvements of individuals within the institutional persona. in order to survive, an institution like bristol old vic has had simultaneously to present itself as historic and forward-looking, as theatre building and performance event a public presentation of self that requires constant redefinitions. in order to ensure survival, theatres have needed to learn how to tell good stories not only on their stages but also about themselves. acknowledgements the author would like to acknowledge the support of staff at the university of bristol theatre collection in the writing of this essay, as well mary luckhurst and sandra mayer for their insightful and inspiring editorial advice. this article was made possible by the british academy, who funded the research through their postdoctoral fellowship scheme. end notes i in fact, vessey notes that “the classical sense of ‘profession’” itself has been built through the construction of “the quasi-institutional, persona-forming authority of famous historical exemplars” (2012, p. 240). this process of professionalization through commodification explains why it is people in poverty who over the centuries have been left to “survive as individuals with no institutional persona” (sobhan 2006, p. 325). ii by 1819 the city’s hotwells had fallen totally out of favour, followed shortly afterwards by the 1838 abolition of the bristol’s popular september fair. iii following their 1960s split from old vic the theatre retained its name, which means the building itself has gradually over the years shifted from being known by locals as the theatre royal to being specifically branded as bristol old vic, its performances marked with the qualitystamp of a ‘bristol old vic production’. sedgman 108 iv here i deploy the principle of ‘heavy disguise’ (bruckman 2002) rather than a traditional reference 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http://www.americantheatre.org/2019/01/22/a-role-for-theatre-in-criminal-justice https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/theatre/old-vic-theatre-celebrates-200th-birthday-7-fascinating-things-you-never-knew-a3835981.html https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/theatre/old-vic-theatre-celebrates-200th-birthday-7-fascinating-things-you-never-knew-a3835981.html http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article211199754.html http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/tyrone-huntley-ria-jones-lloyd-webber-unmasked_47902.html http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/tyrone-huntley-ria-jones-lloyd-webber-unmasked_47902.html https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/page/support_us.php persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 47 are personas done? evaluating the usefulness of personas in the age of online analytics jon i salmi n en, be rn ar d j. jans e n, jisu n an, hae woon kwa k a n d soon-gy o ju ng abstract in this research, we conceptually examine the use of personas in an age of large-scale online analytics data. based on the criticism and benefits outlined in prior work and by practitioners working with online data, we formulate the major arguments for and against the use of personas given real-time online analytics data about customers, analyze these arguments, and demonstrate areas for the productive employment of data-driven personas by leveraging online analytics data in their creation. our key tenet is that data-driven personas are located between aggregated and individual customer statistics. at their best, digital data-driven personas capture the coverage of the customer base attributed to aggregated data representations while retaining the interpretability of individual-level analytics; they benefit from powerful computational techniques and novel data sources. we discuss how digital data-driven personas can draw from technological advancements to remedy the notable concerns voiced by scholars and practitioners, including persona validation, inconsistency problem, and long development times. finally, we outline areas of future research of personas in the context of online analytics. we argue that to survive in the rapidly developing online customer analytics industry, personas must evolve by adopting new practices. key words data-driven personas; online analytics; customer segmentation introduction the abundance of social media data has increased the difficulty of making sense of data (järvinen 2016; saggi & jain 2018; salminen, milenković & jansen 2017), while at the same time making it possible to automatically infer customers attributes from social media that were previously accessible only by survey research. researchers have begun utilizing publicly available social media posts to infer customer attributes, including personality traits, political orientation, brand liking, and needs and wants (ardehaly & culotta 2015; del vecchio, mele, ndou, & secundo 2017; jung, an, kwak, salminen, & jansen 2017; volkova, bachrach, & durme 2016). free expression in social media provides opportunities to learn about the needs and traits of groups and individuals (owusu et al. 2016). overall, the development of computational techniques and the availability of online data has resulted in an increased interest in datadriven personas: (a) to describe the content consumption patterns of diverse online audiences salminen et al. 48 (salminen, şengün, et al. 2018), and (b) to use online data, namely online analytics and social media posts, in persona generation (an, kwak & jansen 2017; zhang, brown & shankar 2016). however, at the same time, the usefulness of personas has been questioned. there is a plethora of alternative online analytics tools (e.g., google analytics, similarweb), services (e.g., comscore, hitwise) and metrics (boghrati et al. 2017; clarke & jansen 2017; järvinen & karjaluoto 2015) that one can employ to understand customers. moreover, companies have gained access to individual-level data that performs well for many marketing purposes, including customer relationship management (zerbino et al. 2018), providing tailored experiences and recommendations (ronen, yom-tov & lavee 2016), one-to-one targeting of online ads (miralles-pechuán, ponce & martínez-villaseñor 2018), and enabling the creation of sophisticated customer segments (jansen et al. 2017; rundle-thiele, dietrich & kubacki 2017). although prevalent in many fields, the use of automated techniques is especially pertinent in the field of digital marketing which is shifting toward a higher degree of personalization, microtargeting, and one-to-one marketing (bleier & eisenbeiss 2015). thus, there are concerns about personas providing real value in such an environment. in this research, we evaluate the use and usefulness of personas given the easy availability of online individual customer data for digital marketing use cases. traditionally, personas are used in replacement of actual one-to-one data about customers (howard 2015), as mental models that help keeping customers in mind in the absence of having real customers available when making decisions about design (nielsen 2013), software development (pruitt & grudin 2003), and marketing (russell & toklu 2011). however, with the widespread availability of online analytics data and numerous programs, techniques, and platforms to process the gathered data, a research question arises: are personas still valid as a marketing tool in the era of online analytics? we address this question through a conceptual inquiry and analysis, drawing from two streams of literature: (a) persona studies (for drawing the benefits and shortcomings of personas) and (b) digital marketing research (for drawing the use of digital marketing). we aim to conceptually combine these streams to better understand the role of personas in the era of online analytics and digital marketing. therefore, this work is conceptual research discussing the value of personas in the era of online analytics. our purpose is to review the related literature for better positioning personas given the context of online analytics, which is currently lacking in the extant persona literature. with our inquiry, we aim to avoid the advocacy issue mentioned by matthews, judge & whittaker (2012, p. 1220): “[persona] literature […] generally takes a position of advocacy and lacks objectivity.” that is, we explore both the possible strengths and the shortcomings of personas in an objective manner. first, we identify the benefits to which personas are associated in the literature. second, we summarize the traditional criticisms of personas. third, we formulate new critical arguments against the use of personas given the widespread availability of online analytics data. we then address these arguments, examining their relevance to traditional and digital datadriven personas, and discuss the ability of technology to solve the major shortcomings of personas. finally, we conclude by presenting ideas for the future of personas in the era of online analytics. our key contributions are twofold. first, we present novel criticism relating to the use of personas for customer-related decision making, addressing concerns from both digital analytics practitioners and academic scholars. second, we reposition personas in the age of online analytics by conceptually distinguishing between traditional data-driven personas and digital data-driven personas, and analyzing the implications of both for solving persona challenges. we, persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 49 therefore, establish and discuss the role of personas in the context of online analytics, which has not previously been done in the persona literature. methodological approach being a conceptual and survey work, this manuscript relies on prior literature as a source of evidence. to this end, we perform a literature review to identify the key benefits and criticisms of personas in the academic literature. to find the works of this domain, we conducted searches on google scholar and science direct with the base keyword “personas” and then scanned the abstracts of the articles for cue words indicating weaknesses, downsides, or critiques of personas. in this literature query, we focused on finding critical papers, as most persona studies list the benefits but more rarely include criticism (matthews, judge & whittaker 2012). the literature on persona benefits is, therefore, easier to find. in total, we identify 32 relevant papers, many of which are conference articles in the field of computer science (sub-fields e.g. human-computer interaction, design, and software development). we read these articles in detail and use them to discover related articles discussing the strengths and weaknesses of personas (a technique referred to as snowball sampling (provan & milward 1995). why are personas useful? cooper (1999) introduced personas as a design technique for understanding and communicating the goals and needs of different user types. since then, personas have been employed by designers, software developers, and marketers, among other decision-maker groups (nielsen 2013; pruitt & adlin 2006; mulder & yaar 2006). personas crystallize a specific user type, often focusing on core users in the absence of an immediate contact to the end user (floyd, jones & twidale 2008). a user can refer to a user of a software system, such as a website or mobile application, a player of a game, customer of a product or service, audience of online content, target segment for marketing campaigns, a patient of public health services, and so on (pruitt & grudin 2003; lerouge et al. 2013; ma & lerouge 2007; scott 2007; dong, kelkar & braun 2007; nacke, drachen & göbel 2010; vahlo & koponen 2018). in the remainder of this work, we use the concept of ‘customers’ when referring to these groups. in this research, we examine personas specifically in the context of online analytics, adopting the perspective that personas are created to provide real value for their end users (cooper 1999; gudjónsdóttir 2010), such as achieving more user-friendly designs or more empathetic advertising texts. evaluating personas, therefore, has to take place in relation to their value in use (kaartemo, akaka & vargo 2017). the benefits of personas according to the literature are summarized in table 1. the communicational benefits arise from summarizing customer information into an intuitive format of representation that can be communicated with little effort (holtzblatt, wendell & wood 2005) within organizations, teams, departments, and with external stakeholders (matthews, judge & whittaker 2012). in theory, personas provide an engaging description of the end users’ needs and wants, in the form of another human being that is more memorable than numbers (goodwin 2009; hill et al. 2017). at their best, personas become shared mental models that individuals rely upon when making decisions (nielsen 2013) that concern the specific user type (cooper 1999). this enables the decision makers to discuss experiences and backgrounds different from their own and realize that the customer preferences may deviate from their own preferences (miaskiewicz & kozar 2011). salminen et al. 50 table 1: benefits associated with the use of personas category description communication personas facilitate user-oriented communication within and between teams in the organization. psychology personas enhance the immersion required for designing ‘for a person’ instead of fuzzy and complex target groups. transformation personas challenge existing assumptions about customers and orientate trade-off decisions when customers have conflicting needs. focus personas help focus design decisions on user goals and needs rather than on system attributes and features. the psychological benefits are rooted in identification with the personas (miaskiewicz, sumner & kozar 2008), whereby decision makers can obtain an empathic understanding of users, immersing themselves in real situations experienced by others. decision makers can use this ability to predict customer behavior under different circumstances (pruitt & grudin 2003). this mental modeling relies on human beings’ innate ability of empathy and immersion (krashen 1984), and is, therefore, a powerful agent for enhanced motivation and purpose. at best, personas can give a higher sense of meaning to one’s work. consider the psychological difference between creating a software product to the nameless target group of 24–35 year-old women, compared to creating a mobile application for jane, a stressed single mum who wants to better manage her time. transformational benefits relate to challenging the established perceptions about the users within the organization (miaskiewicz & kozar 2011). because the creation of personas is based on gathering real evidence of the users (pruitt & grudin 2003), the results can deviate from the existing preconceptions and truisms within the organization. when there is friction between the perceived and real goals of the users, accurate persona representations can reduce this perceptional gap by conveying factual information about users’ needs and wants (pruitt & adlin 2006). if the organization and the decision makers are open to re-aligning their perceptions, the persona exercise can prevent and rectify false conceptions of the end users (matthews, judge & whittaker 2012). finally, personas can facilitate focusing on the most important audiences (miaskiewicz & kozar 2011). this helps decision makers with strategic agenda to prioritize certain customers over others, and thus resolve conflicting needs and wants among the customer base. for example, if persona a wants feature set x, while persona b wants feature set y; by considering the overall strategy of which users the organization wants to serve (a practice known as customer portfolio management) (johnson & selnes 2004), we can define the optimal product features to focus on (cooper 1999; ma & lerouge 2007). thus, personas help to prioritize product requirements and help determine if the right problems are being solved while curbing the self-centering bias of the decision makers (matthews, judge & whittaker 2012). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 51 criticism of personas the literature includes a lot of substantial criticism ofpersonas. to better understand and dissect this criticism, we have categorized it into three sections that are roughly compatible with the typical lifecycle of a persona project: first personas are created (creation of personas), then assessed by decision makers (evaluation of personas), and finally applied in real scenarios and use cases (use of personas). various critical arguments arise in the literature at each of these stages. these arguments are summarized in table 2 and discussed afterward. table 2: established criticism of personas from prior literature. category key issues authors creation of personas a) persona creation takes a long time b) personas are expensive to create c) personas can be biased by their creators d) personas are based on nonrepresentative data pruitt and grudin (2003); vincent and blandford (2014); hill et al. (2017) evaluation of personas e) personas lack credibility f) personas are not accurate or verifiable g) the information in personas is not relevant for decision makers h) personas are inconsistent chapman and milham (2006); bødker et al. (2012); matthews et al. (2012) use of personas i) not using the created personas j) using personas for politics and power play k) using personas to justify preconceptions l) personas change in time rönkkö et al. (2004); rönkkö (2005); chapman and milham (2006) hill et al. (2017) point out that (a) creating quality personas takes considerable time and effort. according to vincent and blandford (2014), persona creation can take months. in a similar vein, pruitt and grudin (2003) advocate an in-depth research effort for persona creation, typically lasting months. it is seen that for personas to be accurate, considerable investigative work is required. this tends to result in (b) persona projects being expensive, in the range of tens of thousands of american dollars (marsden & haag 2016; miaskiewicz, sumner & kozar 2008). consequently, as rönkkö (2005) found, the amount of effort may lead to questioning the return on investment of persona projects. moreover, the high cost of persona creation tends to exclude them from the reach of small businesses and startups, as pointed out by salminen, jansen, an, kwak, and jung (2018). there are also concerns about the validity of personas, or how well the personas match the reality. a commonly mentioned validity concern is that (d) personas are based on insufficient or non-representative data (chapman & milham 2006). personas that are built based on relatively few qualitative interviews may not represent the underlying user groups in a statistically valid manner. for example, the resulting personas may suffer from bias when the interviewed subjects are chosen based on availability rather than representativeness of the entire customer base. overall, (c) personas risk inheriting organizational tensions and individual biases, including political and strategic ambitions of their creators (hill et al. 2017; massanari 2010; rönkkö 2005). vincent and blandford (2014, p. 1098) argue that “[persona creation] has salminen et al. 52 been adapted, depending on what people want to accomplish and why.” since persona representations are not easily verifiable, a deliberate selection bias can take place. this bias can also be involuntary so that the creators of the personas are projecting their own prejudices unconsciously in the persona description. additionally, since persona creation work is typically qualitative, (e) personas lack the credibility of numbers and are, to some, interpretative and subjective instead of rigorous and believable (chapman & milham 2006). even when using the best practices of qualitative inquiry, number-oriented decision makers may consider personas as ‘nice narratives’ instead of serious decision-making instruments, resulting in resistance for the use of personas (massanari 2010). for example, the participants in the study of matthews et al. (2012) found personas misleading, abstract, and unrealistic. in a similar vein, bødker et al. (2012, p. 93) report that “as soon as the project started [...] it became a concern that the 12 personas seemed distant from actual citizens, very general and difficult to activate.” there can be many reasons for such interpretations. for example, the subjective experiences and impressions of decision makers may conflict with personas (marsden & haag 2016). furthermore, other information about users, such as direct customer feedback, can conflict with persona information, because the full complexity and range of the customer base deviates from the idealized personas (chapman & milham 2006). in such cases, decision-makers need to consider the credibility of personas against other sources of data. this may result in a willingness to hold on to one’s existing beliefs (delfabbro 2004), trusting one’s own observations and insights instead of more abstract personas. moreover, there is no objectively right or wrong answer on which information to include in the persona profile (bødker et al. 2012; chapman & milham 2006). some decision-makers, for example, might prefer data relating to customer journey while others are more interested in psychographics. therefore, (g) information selection for personas is arbitrary and may not be of use in a given scenario or use case. the information should be based on the information needs of the end users of personas (sinha 2003). these needs vary across industries and use cases, even between job roles within the same organization. for example, “marketing personas” would include information such as consumptions patterns and consumer motivations, goals, and likes and dislikes (thoma & williams 2009), whereas online content producers would prefer information on content consumption patterns (nielsen et al. 2017). additionally, (h) personas are said to be inconsistent, meaning that they are created by combining information from several unrelated data sources, without ensuring that the individual pieces of information are commensurable (matthews, judge & whittaker 2012). bødker et al. (2012) refer to personas as “frankenstein’s monsters”, postulating that they can be patched up from any information available. due to the above reasons, (f) the accuracy of personas is difficult to validate. if decision makers in an organization are aware of this risk, they will not trust the persona representations and will downplay their use in real decision-making situations (chapman & milham 2006). the lack of trust is aggravated when decision makers do not personally participate in the persona creation (long 2009), and, thus, the lack the psychological ownership of the persona artifacts (bødker et al. 2012). overall, these adverse dynamics assert strain on the credibility of personas. if the attitude of the decision makers is not favorable to the use of personas, the potential benefits remain unachieved. finally, we identified five threats for the actual use of personas. first, there are situations where (i) personas are fully developed but then left without meaningful use. for example, rönkkö et al. (2004) report a case where a considerable amount of time was used to develop personas that were never implemented. in a similar vein, matthews, judge and whittaker (2012) found that personas had little impact on the actual design work. friess (2012) persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 53 conducted an ethnographic study among designers and found a serious imbalance between the creation and use of personas in real decision-making situations. chapman and milham (2006) see the lack of validation resulting in political conflicts where (j) choosing a persona is a question of opinion instead of a fact. for example, the created personas may be rejected in favor of the manager’s pre-existing beliefs about the customers (chapman & milham 2006; pruitt & grudin 2003), to frame the strategic and operational discussions in the organization (rönkkö 2005), or (k) interpreted to confirm existing beliefs rather than to seek new explanations (salminen, jung, et al. 2018). rönkkö (2005) also found that personas were used as a form of after-the-fact justification, so design choices based on other inputs were later communicated to other team members as if they were based on the personas. rönkkö et al. (2004, p. 115) describe a case where the persona evolved in time and was eventually seen differently by stakeholders of the company: “the [...] persona who originated as a middle-age businessman ended up as a less clearly definable figure, e.g. a younger careerist of both the male and the female sex, and a diversity of different professions whose common characteristics was mobility, e.g. salesman, plumber, nurse, policeman, veterinary.” this practice in effect nulls the acclaimed benefit of aligning user understandings within the organization. finally, (l) use of personas is hindered by changing customer behavior; as the customer behavior changes, personas should be updated to reflect these changes (jung et al. 2017). however, being that data collection is typically expensive, the updating may not be possible, and personas risk expiring rapidly in real use. overall, the above challenges risk creating situations where the persona benefits remain largely theoretical and do not materialize in real use cases (friess 2012; marsden & haag 2016). in addition, there are novel concerns arising from the use of personas in comparison to utilizing online analytics data to understand customers. new criticism we now move toward introducing the context of online analytics. in addition to the established criticism laid out in the previous section, there have been newly-found criticisms of personas, arising from the availability of online analytics data, metrics, and techniques for business purposes. to demonstrate the logic of this new criticism, we present the following quotations retrieved from recent online writings by practitioners dealing with online customer data: “whereas personas were once a good starting point to identify ‘buckets’ of customers, the limitations of persona-based marketing have become apparent as the consumer decision-making journey veered from its predictable linear path and increased in complexity.”i “personas tend to be exhaustive where it’s not needed (demographics, names, pictures are not necessary most of the times), while they fail to summarise the complex variety of needs and usage scenarios that real users express in real life situations.”ii “the idea of a persona or an average customer was the typical way that marketers would think about their customer base. but now with advancements in technology, with modeling, with more available skill sets, they are able to understand and predict future behavior at more granular levels, and it’s a dramatic shift that’s happening.”iii “you’re still clinging to generic user personas in the age of big data? lol."iv salminen et al. 54 the above critical statements are chosen to illustrate the anti-persona sentiment taking place among some of the data-oriented business professionals. it is not a comprehensive sample, nor do we argue that all business professionals proficient with online analytics data and tools would perceive personas as useless. however, there are several recent blog posts that dispute the usefulness of personas and therefore it is worthwhile to bring this criticism to scholarly attention and analyze it objectively in the proper frame of context. the crux of the criticism can be summed up in three categories: increased complexity (quotes 1 and 4) – personas are not able to capture the diversity and nuances of the increasingly large online audiences. typically, one would create only a few personas (less than 10) to describe the core users which may not be enough in the era of online analytics and fragmented consumer behavior. redundant information (quote 2) – personas are overly focused on superficial demographic information instead of focusing real needs and wants of the customer base. also, the information presented tends to be static and not dynamic. lack of prediction (quote 3) – personas are descriptive and not predictive; they cannot be used for prediction, unlike other analytics tools. to understand this criticism, we must bear in mind that personas are inherently connected to decision making about customers. in this sense, they are analytical tools and fall under the scope of other analytics solutions when applied in practical use cases. as such, practitioners using personas are questioning them in comparison to other analytical tools. for example, it is now commonplace to target individual users within digital marketing. online advertising platforms, such as facebook ads and google adwords, have constructed social graphs and knowledge graphs (venkataramani et al. 2012) with each user a node with descriptive properties that can be used for advertisement targeting. moreover, there have been substantial algorithmic advances that enhance targeting and optimization of advertising (graepel et al. 2010; wang & yuan 2015). techniques such as multi-armed bandits define the search space and find the best matches given an overall target group or population (chatwin 2013). given that users can be targeted and analyzed individually, what purpose is there for aggregated data representations, such as personas? to answer this question, we examine the ability of datadriven personas. evaluating data-driven personas in the light of criticism: distinguishing between traditional and digital data-driven personas cooper’s (1999) initial idea was for personas to be data-driven, i.e., based on real insights about the users. later, other scholars working with personas have confirmed this view of personas originating from comprehensive investigative data collection among real customers (chapman et al. 2008; howard 2015; pruitt & grudin 2003). however, the conceptual difference between manual and digital data-driven personas has been poorly established in the prior literature, even though this distinction is central for understanding the role of personas amidst digital data. therefore, we separate between traditional data-driven personas (tddps) and digital data-driven personas (dddps) and focus on analyzing their strengths for solving the criticism proposed by scholars and practitioners. what are dddps, then? the primary descriptor of dddps is that they bridge persona creation between quantitative data and computational techniques. several examples can be persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 55 found in the literature. for example, chapman et al. (2008) use conjoint analysis to reduce a data-set to persona-like representations. zhang, brown, and shankar (2016) use click-stream data to generate personas of website visitors. (an, kwak & jansen 2017) develop a methodology and system for completely automatic persona generation using youtube audience statistics. these novel approaches illustrate ways to combine online analytics data and personas in a way that draws from the benefits of large-scale online data and retains the core benefits of personas in showing the data as another human being. online analytics data and computational techniques for processing the data provide at least four major advantages for persona creation (salminen et al. 2017): (1) the possibility to automatically collect large volumes of data through application programming interfaces (apis), (2) the availability of behavioral data (not only survey and interview responses), providing better grounds for statistical methods (chapman et al. 2008), (3) scalability, meaning that data analysis algorithms and automatic systems can process millions of user interactions from millions of content pieces, (4) near real-time responsiveness, enabling customer insights to change as the underlying data changes. these features also make dddps different from mere “quantitative personas” suggested in the literature (mesgari, okoli & de guinea 2018). the concept of quantitative persona captures the statistical aspect of data analysis, but it does not correctly capture the aspects of automation and large-scale data analysis associated with the use of online analytics data characterized by high volume, velocity, veracity, and variety (storey & song 2017). at its best, automatic data collection and analysis is cost-efficient and behaviorally accurate across the whole user base, providing excellent foundations for the creation of datadriven personas. additionally, dddps do not necessarily need to be either quantitative or qualitative, but they can draw from both types of data, as demonstrated by salminen, şengün, et al. (2018) with their hybrid personas created using quantitative online analytics data and qualitative insights. how are dddps, then, able to solve persona challenges? and how do they compare against tddps? we perform a conceptual analysis evaluating these questions for each point of criticism laid out in the previous sections. after this, we discuss the findings and evaluate the benefits. table 3 provides a comparison of the ability of tddps and dddps to address the criticism. if we contrast dddps against the criticism of personas laid out in the previous sections, we find that they have the potential to solve many acute problems. first, automation enables rapid persona creation. whereas the creation of personas using manual methods, such as ethnography and surveys, can take several months, digital persona generation system are able to run the required calculations in the matter of a few hours (jung et al. 2017). second, the personas can be generated by inferring latent patterns of users’ behavior, e.g. video viewing or website browsing (an, kwak & jansen 2017). this technique is robust against personal biases of human creators and produces personas that are based on behavioral data instead of self-stated data that has been shown vulnerable to respondent bias (fisher 1993). third, representativeness of the sample is not an issue, when the persona generation is based on the whole user base. for example, salminen, şengün, et al. (2017) generated personas from youtube data of a major online news media company consisting of millions of viewers. using online analytics data potentially solves the trade-off of relying on either qualitatively rich but non-verifiable data or using numbers that are accurate but lose the immersion of another human being. salminen et al. 56 table 3: evaluation of tddps and dddps against persona criticism. applies to category key issues tddps dddps creation of personas a lot of effort and time needed to create quality personas yes, manual data collection and analysis no, data collection and analysis can be automated personas are expensive to create yes, because they require manual labor no, because persona generation can be automated and replicated personas can be biased by their creators yes, because information selection is made subjectively no, because algorithms decide the information shown personas are based on nonrepresentative data yes, because sampling is limited no, because one can sample the whole customer base evaluation of personas personas lack credibility potentially yes potentially yes personas are not accurate or verifiable yes, qualitative analysis is difficult to replicate systematically no, the results can be statistically evaluated the information in personas is not relevant for decision makers potentially yes potentially yes personas are inconsistent potentially yes potentially yes use of personas not using the created personas potentially yes potentially yes using the personas for politics and power play potentially yes potentially yes using personas to justify one’s preconceived notions potentially yes potentially yes personas change in time yes, because data collection and analysis would need to be repeated no, because personas can be updated to reflect changes in data personas in online analytics context increased complexity yes, because the number of personas is limited no, because the personas can capture a large number of patterns redundant information potentially yes potentially yes lack of prediction potentially yes no, because the underlying data can be used for prediction persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 57 fourth, the “file drawer effect” (rönkkö et al. 2004) becomes an aggravated issue for tddps as time goes by because of the underlying customer behavior changes over time but the manually collected data does not change to reflect these changes. dddps are responsive to those changes because the personas can be periodically updated to reflect the most recent behaviors. if the data is directly obtained from the apis of online platforms, this update process can be completely automated, as demonstrated by (an, kwak & jansen 2017). regarding the dddps in the context of online analytics, several studies support our argument that dddps can handle the increasing complexity of audiences and customer bases. for example, (liapis et al. 2015) are able to infer dozens of behavioral gaming patterns from their dataset. salminen, şengün, et al. (2018) summarize the audience of a large social media channel, consisting of viewers from more than 200 countries, to five representative personas. (kwak, an & jansen 2017) identify hundreds of unique content consumption patterns among channel users that they use to generate personas. an example of prediction is demonstrated by jung, salminen, an, kwak, and jansen (2018). they use online analytics data for persona generation, and then predict the interest of a persona to a given video using an underlying topic matching algorithm. even though some prediction tasks could be done using tddps (e.g., “would martin like our content?”), the method of doing so inevitably involves a prominent level of subjectivity, whereas using dddps the algorithm treats the prediction as a numerical problem. limitations of dddps from the evaluation in table 3, we see that dddps have the greatest potential for solving persona creation and digital context problems. some of the evaluation issues can also be addressed. in contrast, they do not seem to provide a considerable advantage for use of personas, as the application is subject to organizational and individual biases. moreover, consistency has been found an issue also in dddps (salminen, nielsen, et al. 2018) as in tddps (bødker et al. 2012). in fact, inconsistency might be even heightened in automatic persona generation, as there is a subjective safeguard for making sure that the information pieces selected by the machine are topically consistent (an, kwak & jansen 2017). moreover, even in the context of dddps, information selection remains a challenge, as salminen, jung, et al. (2018) observed in their user study. despite the progress made in developing dddps, there remain many open challenges, such as reliance on current audience data, lack of depth, and a discerning lack of basic attributes in many of the approaches (i.e., not generating persona profiles but behavioral archetypes). another major limitation of the current dddps methodologies is that none of them include deeper information and insights about the users, such as customer pain points, motivations, needs and wants that are essential for the depiction of full, rounded personas (nielsen 2013). understanding the deeper motivations of customers is an essential question for marketers (dichter 1964). furthermore, while the existing dddps may be efficient in modeling current audiences, the decision makers might be interested in potential customers (thoma & williams 2009). this interest can be explained by the expansive goals of a typical marketing organization; that is, marketers are pressured to find novel audiences and markets. however, when the dddps are generated from current audience data (jung et al. 2018), such information is not readily available. thus, we conjecture that the greater the need for reaching new audiences, the riskier it is to use dddps for decision making. moreover, the use of existing online analytics data can lead to confirmation bias. for example, a decision maker may only target women, age 25–34 with his efforts, so when dddps reveal to him that the group is indeed his core customers, he salminen et al. 58 carries on saying “i was right,” maintaining his targeting and never, in fact, trying out other target groups. in other words, dddps must be interpreted carefully. furthermore, a major limitation of dddps is the lack of participation of the team using the personas. the process of persona creation has been found valuable per se, as participation increases the decision makers’ interest in and understanding of personas (molenaar 2017). this aspect is lacking in dddps that are created by algorithms “in distance”, representing a potential threat for adoption and active use of the persona among decision makers (matthews, judge & whittaker 2012). it is, however, possible to create so-called hybrid personas (miaskiewicz, sumner & kozar 2008; salminen et al. 2017) that combine quantitative and qualitative aspects. finally, like for tddps, another major limitation for dddps is that the benefits postulated in the existing persona literature remain potential, depending on the decision makers’ actual willingness to use the personas. table 4 evaluates the applicability of persona benefits to tddps and dddps. table 4: applicability of persona benefits to tddps and dddps applies to category description tddps dddps communication personas facilitate user-oriented communication within and between teams in the organization. potentially yes potentially yes psychology personas enhance the immersion required for designing ‘for a person’ instead of fuzzy and complex target groups. potentially yes potentially yes transformation personas challenge existing assumptions about customers and orientate trade-off decisions when customers have conflicting needs. potentially yes potentially yes focus personas help focus design decisions on user goals and needs rather than on system attributes and features. potentially yes potentially yes the benefits of personas are a question of value in use (kaartemo, akaka & vargo 2017). that use varies by use case and user of personas. generally, the same challenges in transcending the theoretical value of personas to practice apply to both tddps and dddps. however, as alternatives to numerical online analytics data, personas do have some distinct advantages. for example, dealing with numbers poses cognitive challenges for individuals who often cannot recall many numbers at a time (miller 1956), whereas human attributes are more easily remembered (mulken, andré & müller 1998). therefore, dddps seem to provide an ample alternative for presenting numerical data, even though they are not perfect. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 59 discussion in this research, we examined the role of personas given the widespread availability of online analytics data, and its perceived useful for business purposes. we reviewed scholarly criticism of personas and extended it with fresh perspectives from practitioners working with online analytics data. although our inquiry is conceptual in its nature, these quotations served as a basis for understanding the challenges and disadvantages of personas in the modern customer analytics environment. to better address the question of personas’ usefulness in this environment, we dissected the concept of personas into tddps and dddps. this separation was crucial to make the analysis because the two types of personas are different in their ability to address the challenges associated with personas in the context of online analytics. the main contributions of this research include a) identifying new critical arguments against personas in the context of online analytics, previously not discussed in persona studies, and appending this criticism to the continuum of established persona criticism; and b) conceptually differentiating between traditional and digital data-driven personas and separately analyzing their ability to address the established and novel criticism of personas, with the finding that dddps possess considerable strengths in regard to both types of criticism. regarding the answer to our research question, namely can personas provide value in the age of online analytics, we answer that the real value of dddps is provided by giving faces to data, as an alternative way to present online analytics information. ultimately, however, the usefulness of personas comes down to specific use cases (cooper 1999). in general, personas are useful for tasks requiring a qualitative understanding of customers and numbers are useful for getting a general overview and, in the case of machine-based decision-making (i.e., marketing automation), making individual level optimization. to this end, we postulate that individual data is optimal for automated decision making, whereas aggregate data such as personas work best for human decision making, especially relating to decisions at the strategic level. the claimed irrelevance of personas seems to be based on the confusion of their use in an age of online analytics data. it seems that the criticism presented by online analytics practitioners is based on understanding personas as tddps, while overlooking the potential of dddps. this insight further supports the purpose of conceptually separating these two types of personas, and clearly communicating their differences to end users of online analytics data. data-driven personas are not a novel idea, as the purpose of persona creation has always been to use real customer information to generate realistic user characterizations (cooper 1999). however, using computational techniques, such as machine learning, provide tremendous opportunities toward this end (salminen, jansen, et al. 2018). at the same time, there are a plethora of open research questions to answer. moreover, the persona research related to dddps tends to be fragmented, while it would make sense for researchers to collaborate and validate the works of one another to make evolutionary progress in this field. the core benefits of using personas for design, system development, and marketing have not changed. however, for tasks such as targeting or recommendation engines, individual level analytics are likely to perform more efficiently. while these methods are likely to excel in those use cases, their application to other use cases, such as strategic decision making, is more limited. as with any analytical technique, the use of personas is relative to the problem one seeks an salminen et al. 60 answer to. in this light, the question “are personas useful?” should be rephrased as “when are personas useful?” finding the answer requires persistent conceptual and empirical research and exploring new contexts such as online analytics. conclusion in conclusion, personas remain a viable option even in the era of online analytics data. it is possible to combine automatic data collection and other computational techniques to create accurate persona profiles that can also be used for advanced purposes such as prediction. however, some of the challenges of tddps are inevitably inherited such as the end user relating to the actual use of personas and their perceived credibility. therefore, more research and development work is needed to overcome these challenges and to show the tangible value of personas in actual use. i see http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2017/1/16/why-personas-dont-work-and-whatinnovators-are-doing-differently.html#gs.zxq5e9s ii see https://www.humaneinterface.net/article/are-personas-really-useful iii see 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http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2684822.2697041 https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858523 joni salminen, bernard j. jansen, jisun an, haewoon kwak and soon-gyo jung abstract key words introduction methodological approach why are personas useful? criticism of personas new criticism evaluating data-driven personas in the light of criticism: distinguishing between traditional and digital data-driven personas limitations of dddps discussion conclusion works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 83 social media and modernist authority: the hauntology of facebook will best u n i v e r s i t y o f c a l g a r y abstract highly biographical modernist author profiles on facebook seem to adopt or encourage a purely biographical, genius cult-esque understanding of the relationship between an author and that author's work. this is initially problematic, as authorial intent is a particularly complex issue of consideration for many of the authors currently haunting facebook. this article thus establishes the paradoxical view on author-ity of three such authors – t. s. eliot, marianne moore, and james joyce – and examines how such facebook profiles undermine and simplify the arguments made by these authors both through their critical and creative works. it then suggests that, by mere nature of being present on facebook, these profiles may indeed engage in teasing out the very same paradox that these modernists proposed in the first place, using derrida's hauntology to examine facebook as a textual space both of biography and self-prosthesis. the argument ultimately seeks to propose that all facebook users are indeed just such spectres haunting digital spaces. key words modernism; authority; biography; social media; hauntology; intertextuality i began with the desire to speak with the dead. —stephen greenblatt, shakespearean negotiations there are spectres haunting facebook: the spectres of modernism. in the spring of 2017, while perusing my facebook news feed, i was struck by a haunting experience. a few stories down the feed, nestled between my brother’s vacation photographs and the typical polemic against neoliberal capitalism from one of my marxist brethren, t.s. eliot had posted a new comment on one of my friends’ timelines. this is not to say that someone had posted a line from t.s. eliot. eliot himself had posted a new comment in the 21st century. obviously, as a modernist scholar, my curiosity was immediately piqued. i was aware, of course, that anyone could create a facebook profile with any name and any characteristics she chose, and thus there were likely profiles for any number of dead individuals; but seeing eliot pop up in my news feed, as an active facebook user alongside so many colleagues and friends, was nevertheless startling. upon investigation, i found that there were many profiles for eliot, as well as for marianne moore, james joyce, and seemingly endless other authors, both best 84 modernist and otherwise. many of these are “dead profiles” – they were started and abandoned, showing no signs of having been edited for years. but regardless of why they were created or what their activity status may be, the fact remains: there is a modernist phantasmagoria haunting facebook. as of may 2017 (when i first started collecting data on these), there were 13 t.s. eliots, 10 marianne moores, and 25 james joyces – this after cutting out any profiles which are modernists-in-name-only, e.g. the profile-curator happens to be named james joyce, or she uses marianne moore as a pseudonym out of admiration but otherwise uses the profile as her own profile with no apparent attempt to make the profile particularly moorish.1 there are profiles for any number of other canonical modernist authors – e.g. ezra pound, hart crane, h. d. – but the number of publicly viewable profiles and the amount of detail therein for other authors was limited in contrast to those analysed here. presumably this is largely a case of canonicity, and thereby celebrity within literary circles – a point worthy of further analysis, but beyond the scope of my argument here. i should also note that, though virginia woolf was a part of my research – and is perhaps the most popular(-ous) modernist on facebook, with 152 profiles – she was unfortunately cut from this analysis for length concerns; and it was she who was cut because an inordinate number of the woolf profiles focus on woolf as informed by her character in the movie (or, less often, the book) the hours – e.g. dozens of woolf profiles use stills of nicole kidman playing woolf in the movie as the profile picture. though this could add a fascinating level to the argument, it required excessive analysis not directly applicable to the other authors discussed. the majority of these profiles are purely biographical details with little (or no) content or activity beyond a historical account of the authors’ lives: some admixture of the name, portraits, ‘hometown’ (by which they almost uniformly mean birthplace), almae matres, profession, relationship status, gender, sexual orientation, and the like. the profile ‘timelines’ generally outline the specific dates and life events of the authors, occasionally with quotes and additional author photographs. the profile ‘thomas stearns eliot (t.s. eliot)’, for example, merely contains the kind of biographical details one finds in his biographies by peter ackroyd or craig raine: it highlights st. louis as his hometown and london as his ‘current city’ (rather than east coker); notes his education at smith, milton, harvard, and merton; marks his ‘relationship status’ as ‘married’ to valerie and includes vivienne in his ‘family members’ as an aunt – there is no category for ‘ex-wife’ in facebook; and outlines his employment history at highgate school and the egoist; among many other biographical details. these appear around and within the timeline, which displays a long list of eliot quotes interlaced with life events and photos of him. similarly, the profile ‘marianne moore’ (a) lists her education, hometown, current city (carlisle, pa rather than gettysburg) in the ‘about’ section, along with a few moore quotes, with moore’s photo always looming in the corner. the effect of such biographical profiles is to embody the author of the quoted (and nonquoted) works, to identify the hand which penned them and head which thought them up, and to give that body a context which conditioned the writing. by including quotes and material alongside places lived, places worked, places educated, etc., it implies that the biographic material is the source for understanding the author’s works, and suggests a certain level of “authority” the author holds over those words. it argues for a relevance in the birthplace, residences, academic backgrounds, employments, etc. for understanding the works which bare that author’s name, and thus creates an indelible and largely one-directional semiotic link to the author’s works from that author’s life and intents. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 85 for a modernist critic, however, profiling authors in such a biography-heavy way is initially quite problematic. as marshall et al. (2020 p. 29) point out, analysis of artistic “personae” (the title of one of pound’s early poetry collections) was explicitly part of the early 20th century modernist movement imagism, which sought “a poetic language that produced a persona or character that was beyond the authorial identity”. this is not to say that modernism as a whole positions a strong divide between author and work, but rather, as will be established in the following section, that modernists and modernism tend to take a highly ambivalent view of the relationship between the author and the text. and though i will complicate this in the final half of this essay, highly biographical profiles of modernist authors seem to unnecessarily simplify this into univalence and encourage intentional and biographical readings of works that, whether explicitly or implicitly, dedicate ample text to questioning this very practice. modernist authority these authors, of course, do not have a uniform attitude in this regard; however, almost all of them (particularly the ones discussed here) have a paradoxical, or at least ambivalent, attitude about author-ity, both emphasizing and rejecting it simultaneously. and, fittingly, the critical methods of the new critics – the critical progeny of modernist literature – are largely invested with the theoretical approaches to text outlined in wimsatt and beardsley’s (1946) “intentional fallacy” and later roland barthes’s (1977) “death of the author,” largely rejecting biographical readings and authorial intentional primacy over interpretation. largely, that is, along with a continual anxiety about this loss of grounded, authoritative “truth” or control. eliot authority is perhaps easiest to identify in eliot, if only because he wrote such a large body of criticism and theory. eliot’s poetics, as outlined most succinctly in “tradition and the individual talent,” are much akin to mikhail bakhtin’s dialogism, in which eliot suggests that artistic production involves a “historical sense”; that is, “what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. the existing monuments form an idea order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them” (eliot 1921, p. 44). it takes little effort therefrom to extrapolate a nascent intertextual theory, in which the meaning behind any text relies on its relationship to other texts, and thereby this text is produced through an infinite collaborative authorship rather than by a single person. and because its meaning is formed through its relationship with texts that precede, coincide, and exceed it in time, interpretation of the text in a given moment (whether by the author or anyone else) does not establish authority or authenticity for that text. this idea is reiterated much later in eliot’s career, in the 1946 german radio broadcast “die einheit der europäischen kultur,” later translated into english and added as an appendix to notes towards the definition of culture (from whence i draw the subsequent references). therein he notes the influence of french poetry from baudelaire to valéry on the poetry of w. b. yeats, r. m. rilke, and himself, and subsequently (or perhaps pre-sequently) the influence of e. a. poe on this french tradition (eliot 1948, p. 112). he thereafter notes that, if we were to expand our scope from individual authors to all of european poetry, we would “find a tissue of influences woven to and fro” (eliot 1948, p. 112). much like his earlier comments from “tradition” – “no poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone” (eliot 1921, p. 44) and any one poem must be conceived “as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written” (p. 48) – this clearly demonstrates a focus shifted off of the individual artist and onto an artistic network, such that the work of any one artist is rather to be understood as the best 86 collaborative work of an innumerable plurality of artists. it is not at all coincidental, as harding (2017, p. 2) points out, that eliot “instructed his literary executrix not to facilitate the writing of any biography of him”. eliot’s poetry demonstrates this as well. any one page of eliot’s the waste land is so clearly multi-authored that it is difficult to give eliot unique authoritative credit. eliot wrote parts of the title, epigraph, and first page of “the burial of the dead,” of course, but so did chaucer, petronius, jessie weston, sir james frazer, marie larisch, richard wagner, the anglican church, and a few christian scribes. add one more page and you include more from weston and frazer and wagner, along with dante, aldous huxley, a. e. waite, shakespeare, joseph conrad, and leonardo da vinci. as such, any hermeneutic investigation which seeks explanation in the biography of “the” author of the text devolves into an infinite game of deferral along the infinite network of authors whose pens have effectively written it. eliot’s response to any attempt to investigate meaning through the author – what he calls his “impersonal theory of poetry” – is the new critical response: “honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry” (eliot 1921, p. 47). however, at the same time as eliot makes such claims and employs such stylistic resistances against biographic authoritative investigation, he also demonstrates a clear resistance to ungrounding any text from its author, and is thus far from the scriptor-esque2 postmodern view of later in the century. in the use of poetry and the use of criticism, while considering the common practice (at least in the 1920s-30s) of setting a strong division between wordsworth’s poetry and his general opinions external to it, eliot (1959, p. 87) writes, “i am not sure that this critical eclecticism cannot go too far; that we can judge and enjoy a man’s poetry while leaving wholly out of account all the things for which he cared deeply, and on behalf of which he turned his poetry to account.” the very title of “tradition and the individual talent,” where he outlines his “impersonal theory of poetry,” indicates the paradoxical irony of his view. true, it emphasizes the role of “tradition” – other works, other authors – in the construction and interpretation of any given work, and thus demonstrates an intertextual plurality of authorship. but it also emphasizes the individual, the author of a given work, and that person’s “talent” as a unique quality about that person which authoritatively shapes the text. eliot’s critical writing, despite its dialogic leanings, still maintains some focus on the role of the author in creating the work rather than the work wholly creating a barthesian scriptor. moore other modernist authors are less explicit about their textual theory, but no less paradoxical. marianne moore’s poetics, for instance, are never written explicitly in criticism about text-assuch, but rather arise from her vast body of criticism of other authors’ works while she was writing literary reviews for little magazines like the dial, contact, poetry, and broom. though she does note, in a 1921 review of stewart mitchell’s poems, that “in so far as a poem is a work of art, one does not wish to know, and must not know too definitely, the facts which underlie the expression” (moore 1986, p. 62), such disconnections of authoritative background from the author’s creative output are rare. in her 1924 review of wallace steven’s harmonium, for instance, she famously states, “the better the artist, […] the more determined he will be to set down words in such a way as to admit of no interpretation of the accent but the one intended” (moore 1986, p. 96), thus quite explicitly ensconcing her hermeneutic theory in authorial intent. her reviews of w. c. williams’s works are even more heavily invested in the genius cult of the author, suggesting “it is only one who is academically sophisticated who could write [williams’s poetry]” and later considering williams’s scientific background (as a trained physician) as persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 87 fundamental to understanding his writing (moore 1986, pp. 56, 157). harter (2013, pp. 335336) argues that both in her review work and in her early poetry, moore’s writing is deeply invested in an “i” which harter identifies as unambiguously the author herself, and thus that there is a highly subjective and personal connection between the text and its author. moore’s poetry, however, complicates this view even more than eliot’s does – even the earlier poetry (pace harter). her “a marriage” and “an octopus” in particular demonstrate an intertextual collage of numerous authors, to the extent that rather little of the poetry can be argued to be original at all; and she thereby suggests an intertextual theory in which no text is wholly original to that author – the poems are, quite literally, barthesian “tissue[s] of quotations” (barthes 1977, p. 146). indeed, as bazin (2010, p. 130) notes, moore’s heavy use of “quoted fragment displaces the speaker, disrupting her authority as the locus of meaning”3. moore, like eliot, is not wholly on one side or the other of the argument over the relationship of an author’s own biography and thoughts about her work; both are clearly conflicted over how they imagine this relationship. as such, critical examinations of moore’s biography or authorial intent which attempt to illuminate her poetry are excessively reductive of how her own work struggles with the issue of authorship. joyce joyce holds a more blatantly ambivalent attitude about the connection between author and text. budgen (1943/1972) provides a highly biographical reading of ulysses in 1943, james joyce and the making of ‘ulysses’, largely informed by budgen’s conversations with the author while joyce was writing it; and joyce was reportedly delighted at its publication (bowker 2012, p. 463), suggesting that he encouraged such biographical readings. joyce’s oft-quoted reason for not providing his explanatory schemas to whoever requested them – “if i gave it all up immediately, i’d lose my immortality. i’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what i meant” (ellmann 1982, p. 519) – clearly centers the text on authorial intent. furthermore, as jonathan goldman argues in modernism is the literature of celebrity, joyce’s stylistic experiments (for example changing from vignette style in the “wandering rocks” episode to the musical overture style in “sirens”) point decidedly toward authoritative intentionality beyond the novel itself: “the stylistic changes in ulysses, by continually asking readers to guess joyce’s extradiegetic rationale for that change, create the idea of the author” (2011, pp. 61-62). continuing soon thereafter, “in such a system the author functions as not only the origin of the novel but also the last critical word on its meaning” (goldman 2011, p. 63). however, this authorship is discursive rather than biological, a foucaultean authorfunction born of the text rather than vice-versa. the very idea of “immortality” from the richard ellmann quote above clearly suggests an authorship which is not bound by the corporeal author, suggesting that the authoritative source becomes abstracted, spectral. goldman additionally suggests that joyce plays with this desire to connect the author (author-function arising from the text) with the corporeal person (“historical” joyce, in goldman) via stephen’s ready-made association as a diegetic joyce stand-in. goldman is here drawing on a well-founded assumption taken largely for granted in joyce scholarship: stephen is an ersatz joyce, an autobiographical character giving joyce himself a voice within portrait of the artist as a young man and ulysses. the heavy use of verbs in the imperative mood throughout the “scylla and charybdis” episode, goldman argues, becomes an overdetermination of joyce-as-author commanding stephen’s actions and stephen-as-kunstlerromanner commanding joyce-asauthor’s memory. e.g. the narration-cum-stream-of-consciousness line, “local colour. work in all you know. make them accomplices” (joyce 1990, p. 188) could be read either as the author best 88 (joyce) instructing himself as a character (stephen) how to proceed with his argument or the character instructing himself as an author how to write the remainder of the scene. in either case (or in both simultaneously, for goldman), one can no longer understand the author as embodied, but rather a constructed figure born from the text, born of its writing. thus, goldman (2011, p. 64) argues, joyce’s manipulation of the trope of the autobiographical figure makes it impossible to locate the author of ulysses within a character, within a diegetic body. stephen dedalus makes it impossible, then, for readers to embody the author, to locate the author as subject within a physiological object. the “scylla and charybdis” episode of ulysses, from which goldman’s analysis above draws, is a paradoxical examination of authorship broadly – and the episode title is apt, referencing a sort of catch-22 in navigating a patch of mediterranean water in greek mythology. the episode is structured around stephen’s argument for a highly biographical reading of william shakespeare’s life into hamlet against a group of dissenters. as stephen makes his connections between shakespeare’s son hamnet and the character hamlet and muses on his second best bed,a russel notably dismisses his biographical readings: “all the rest [everything which is not the artwork itself] is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys” (joyce 1990, p. 185); and he suggests that such authorial details are “interesting only to the parish clerk. i mean, we have the plays. i mean when we read the poetry of king lear, what is it to us how the poet lived?” (joyce 1990, p. 189). and later, when eglington asks stephen, “do you believe your own theory?” stephen responds, quite simply, “no” (joyce 1990, pp. 213-214). but russel’s very repeated insistence on intention – “i mean” – draws attention back to the author of a text (written or spoken) as the primary source of meaning behind that text, such that the author of his statements is reasserting his own need to clarify his authoritative meaning in an argument that the author is not the source of meaning. and soon after dismissing his own theory, in a stream-of-consciousness section, stephen furthers this equivocation: “i believe, o lord, help my unbelief. that is, help me to believe or help me to unbelieve?” (joyce 1990, p. 214). stephen’s expression of doubt is just that: not dismissal, but dilemma, a superimposition of two seemingly irreconcilable attitudes about such authorial readings. hence, yet again, the problem with highly biographically-structured facebook profiles: they put an emphasis on authorial biography, on understanding the author through the details of that author’s life; and by connecting the author with the author’s works (nearly all of the profiles list or quote from the authors’ works), such profiles suggest that this understanding of the author through the biographical details is a source of meaning for those works, without recognizing that the authors being profiled therein criticize this very practice, both critically and creatively.4 these profiles encourage an understanding of textual interpretation based on stephen’s initial stance and are unnecessarily dismissive of the alternative, resolving the paradox by ignoring one of the paradoxical stances rather than engaging with the paradox which fundamentally structures the text itself. a purely biographical reading of authorship essentially erases charybdis from the titular metaphor and renders this chapter, this challenge in the journey, pointless. it becomes merely a patch of calm water through which ulysses sails by scylla effortlessly. the argument is not that joyce, eliot, or moore was staunchly for or against biographical readings of authorship into the work, but that they struggled with the dilemma, and that this struggle is fundamentally part of their work, whether explicitly or implicitly. the point, as a in his will, shakespeare left his “second best bed” (and nothing else) to his wife anne hathaway. his first best bed is never mentioned. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 89 chekhov is famous for having said (but never did),b is not that it has an “answer” but that it “raises questions” about reading an interpretation; and the creation of such facebook profiles encourage purely biographical readings of texts which explicitly draw into question such readings. de-authorizing biography modernist biographies broadly thus risk a similar problem, as they can easily reduce this paradoxical superimposition – of both adhering to authoritative hermeneutics and eschewing it – purely to the former;5 and as such, they can and often do diminish the complexity of the author-text relationship which these texts and their authors introduced during the modernist era. eliot biographies often reduce the “tradition” (the intertextual structuration) and overemphasize the “individual talent” (the genius) of the poet; moore biographies often focus purely on the moderator of her poetic conversations rather than the conversants; joyce biographies often uncritically and dismissively resolve the very dilemma of biographic authority his works analyze. however, we also must be vigilant against the assumption that biographical details, or profiles such as these, are in fact purely indicative of the corporeal organisms which they purportedly depict. importantly, a biography is not the person biographed. it is a record, an archive; and as an archive, biography functions through the same principles and mechanisms of archive theory. while relying on a grounding in some physis (here the corporeal author), biography simultaneously does what derrida (1995, p. 7) calls “archival violence” to the material it archives by removing it from the physis and encoding it into the nomos and techne of the text – which is to say, of text. there must be a relational connection between the signifier archival biography and a signified physis-based organic person, such that a reading of the biography is understood to be a reading of the biographed person; and the biography simultaneously must – as biography, as non-organic text – be wholly separate and different from that organic person. thus, as derrida (1995) suggests, the biography comes to supplant the person, such that the signified-person is defined and hermeneutically understood via the signifier-text; and, thereby, the biography simulacrally comes to take primacy and originality in the semiotic relationship between the two.6 any attempt to “know” marianne moore does not investigate the bones and decayed organic materials buried in the gettysburg soil; it investigates the archival records which are associated with them, which bear the same name, and then come to define those remains, such that the remains themselves become signifiers reliant on the archival moore for meaning. but without a grounding in the corporeal author, the archival text also loses its grounding or perceived validity, as it needs to be an archive of something or someone in order to be biographical or archival at all. a corporeal hand, when composing these modernist works, necessarily had to be holding the pen. this inherently complicated relationship between biological author and biographical author, between author and scriptor, is precisely the point of the overdetermined attitude of these modernist authors about biographically and authoritatively based hermeneutics. the shakespearean debate in ulysses, in particular, examines just this paradox: russell’s insistence b the quote, which is as ubiquitous as any quote available online, is generally thus: “the role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.” chekhov is quoted as having said this everywhere from facebook to goodreads to ubc’s department of theatre and film website. nowhere in chekhov’s letters, fiction, or drama does this line appear in any text or translation i have been able to locate. it is, at best, a very loose paraphrase of two 1888 letters he wrote to a. s. suvorin (see chekhov 1920, pp. 88-89, 99-100). this being said, the idea that a contemporary discursive chekhov is saying things which the corporeal author appears never to have said is apt for my argument. best 90 on focusing on “the plays” and ignoring “how the author lived” is ultimately based on a rejection of biological authority, such that the “author” he is referring to is the decayed remains now buried in holy trinity church in stratford. he is understanding shakespeare’s final will and testament (whence the “second best bed” reference comes) to have a concrete semiotic relationship with the once-living person – as it must if it is to be understood as a “will” at all. but the will is as much a text as the plays are; and thus, by his own logic, because we “have the [will],” it too must be interpreted as text. by pluralizing the word “plays,” russell is implicitly recognizing a relationship between multiple works which are linked through their authorial imprimatur; and thus, logically, the last will and testament of “william shakespeare” necessarily holds just such a relationship with other texts bearing that imprint. the will, logically, must be read into the plays as an intertext. russell’s rejection of a “will” in order to argue against author-based hermeneutics is thus doubly ironic. a will is a textual representation of just that – authorial will, desire, intention – and one which is precisely an extension of that desire and intention beyond the author’s presence. his dismissal of reading the will into the plays therefore represents a rejection of reading the corporeal author’s life and intentions in favor of a new critical reading of a synchronic textual present. but in order to do so he must understand the will through a wholly different textual condition: the will must accurately represent the corporeal person, must be a textual signifier absolutely referencing the signified intentions of its author diachronically (through time). but as william shakespeare does not corporeally exist in the present moment, what the will ends up referencing is actually itself, as it is the only present object through which william shakespeare’s intentions are declared and can be interpreted in the synchronic moment. russell’s grounds for rejecting the will’s relevance are founded on its ability to deliver intended meaning and accurately represent the corporeal author diachronically, at the same time as he is arguing that texts should only be read synchronically. on both accounts, of course, russell is correct. text cannot be understood in a perfect signifier-signified relationship with its corporeal author and her intentions, as the author, immediately after the moment of writing, ceases to be living in that state or expressing those intentions; and thus, as barthes (1977) argues, the text becomes its own scriptor, an archival record of a thing which has ceased to exist outside of the archive of itself. but as the text logically must have been written by a corporeal author who had some intention of a meaning behind what she was recording, and as the social situation of an author (e.g. employment, education, and places she has lived) undoubtedly shapes that person’s thoughts and expressions, the text must naturally carry with it an implicit sense of the author’s life and intentions as influential on her writings, even if this life and these intentions are only spectrally present through text. an author’s name, indeed, is nothing more than a signifier; and as such, it builds meaning through synchronic intertextual relationship as much as any word does. shakespeare’s plays only gain historicity through the application of his name and the intertextual relationship between his name on those plays and accounts of when he lived which are presently available. the author simultaneously must have been a person in the past, but must be a specter in the present in order for there to be an author at all. facebook spectrality and it is here that these facebook profiles in fact engage in the very debate which they seem to problematically resolve, in that they demonstrate this spectral presence with a bizarre clarity. they demonstrate the traditional biographical understanding of the person represented and they demonstrate a synchronic aktualisierung (“updating,” “reactivation”), 7 both establishing the rootedness in corporeal personhood and demonstrating how representations of that persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 91 personhood necessarily belong to a synchronic present. i will take a few eliot and moore examples (from among many) to demonstrate. biographical profiles “t.s. eliot” is strictly biographical. for pictures, it holds only an image of eliot’s classic middleaged bespectacled face alongside a bookshelf. for ‘work’, it lists the criterion. for ‘education’, it indicates harvard and merton. ‘current city’ lists london. the ‘details about t.s.’ section holds a relatively long paragraph, written in the first-person, listing biographical details and influences: my name is t.s. eliot, short for thomas stearns. i was born on september 26, 1888 in st. louis, missouri. i attended harvard and then went to graduate school at the sorbonne, harvard, and merton college, oxford graduating with a degree in philosophy. i then traveled to england and became a schoolmaster, bank clerk and eventually literary editor for the publishing house faber & faber. i later became a director. i created and edited the exclusive and influential literary journal criterion. in 1927, i decided to become a british citizen and also entered the anglican church. i take pride in my stubbornness and will never compromise with the public. i believe poetry should represent the complexities of modern civilization in language. i am also well know [sic] for my influence in modern poetic diction. my poetry is inspired by the development of a christian writer. my poem, the waste land, is a negative look at the horror encountered when searching for a higher world. along with poems i also write plays. some of my plays are murder in the cathedral, the family reunion, the cocktail party, the confidential clerk and the elder statesman. in my spare time when i am not working i like to relax and take a break from my busy life. i also need time off to help deal with my anxiety due to a rough childhood. writing is my true passion and i would be nowhere without it. his ‘favorite quotes’ is merely a line from twl. ‘life events’, fittingly, mentions only that he got married, eschewing any details about eliot’s life deemed superfluous to the author-function (as it were). “marianne moore” (a) similarly creates a biographical sketch. the single iconic image (an older moore in her large-brimmed round hat), ‘education’ (bryn mawr and metzger), ‘current city’ (carlisle) and ‘hometown’ (kirkwood), with few other details and no life events except for similar ‘favorite quotes’ from moore herself and a similar (albeit more laconic) blurb for ‘about marianne’: “i see no reason for calling my work poetry, except that there is no other category in which to put it.” i was raised in my grandfather's house with my mother. my mom is my best friend. i am single, always have been. i was a school teacher from 1911-1915. i have always wanted to be an artist, but [i] guess i'm stuck as a poet. these profiles, notably, are author-specific, not person-specific, highlighting only basic biographical details and elements of their lives deemed relevant to their works; though they speak in a first-person present, there is a sense of insulation from the present world as dead authors, with little or no engagement with other people or events on facebook or beyond in the time post-mortem. aktualisierten profiles by contrast, there are also a number of profiles which explicitly demonstrate their spectral presence. “thomas stearns eliot (t.s. eliot),” for instance, shares a picture and a link to the imdb page for the 1994 film tom & viv with the caption, “a hollywood movie about the old best 92 lady and i”; has a timeline post commenting “i philosophy and sanskrit!”; comments (among the many quotes drawn from eliot’s interviews and critical writings) “i don’t know if i’m being paranoid, but it seems like bertrand russell has a crush on my wife…….” with a link to a bertrand russell profile;c and contains a bevvy of images of eliot throughout his life doing things both literary and not. along with the general biographical details from the more traditional pages, it also lists post-mortem events (still spoken in first-person present) such as his star on the st. louis walk of fame and the tony awards for cats. he also has 32 friends, both contemporary (e.g. valerie) and present, spanning from ukrainian artists to indian film workers to texan car enthusiasts. and in another profile, “thomas stearns eliot (t.s. eliot)” comments on the timeline in present facebook style, adding an emotion tag (“feeling hopeful”) to a december 1913 comment, “just resigned from my teaching job. hopefully i can earn a living lecturing and obtaining more review work! ”, doing location check-ins (e.g. margate and the albemarle hotel), using slang (“omg time magazine just wrote a review on my poem, ‘the wasteland [sic]’!!!!”), and including a picture of groucho marx, noting that he is “feeling accomplished” at receiving it and marx’s letter. there are equally aktualisierten moores. “marianne moore” (b) tags that she is “feeling proud” with a picture of jim thorpe, posts that she “got a cat named buffy” – “the most adorable kitten ever!! i am in love!!! ”, alerts her readers of the shut-down of the dial (“i regret to inform you, my dear readers, that ‘the dial’ has shut down because of financial reasons”), heavily hashtags her posts (“just finished writing my 50th letter today! #addictedtowriting #justcuz #writerscramp”), and laments that her editor wouldn’t let her wear her hat in her profile picture before updating her profile picture the next day to a picture of herself in a hat for a “#selfiesaturday”. she also posts likes for contemporary digital cultural products like wgt baseball and 101 little riddles (both smart phone games), and has backand-forth conversations on her timeline with everyone from her brother to t.s. eliot using facebook writing style (albeit always grammatically correct), resplendent with emojis, excessive capitalizations, and long strings of exclamation points. yet “marianne moore” (c), on the other hand, complains about the grammatical poverty of facebook – “everyone insists on forgetting the most basic grammar and punctuation on this site” – to which elizabeth bishop (her friend) replies, “indeed they do.” hauntology the effect of these aktualisierten profiles is blatantly spectral. the specter, as derrida (1994) lays out in specters of marx, is an essentially semiotic condition to all ontological presence which has a perceived historicity, focusing primarily (due to the nature of the talk from which it developed) on authorship via the theory of karl marx, but also using the literary example of hamlet’s father’s ghost. the ghost, derrida (1994, p. 8) notes, is not seen; it embodies a suit of armor which is identified with the deceased danish king. to some extent, the suit of armor functions as what donna haraway (1987, pp. 33-34) calls “prosthesis” in her “manifesto for cyborgs”: “[m]achines can be prosthetic devices, intimate components, friendly selves”, which is to say that the mechanical or digital accoutrements which one uses to function as one uses teeth to chew or feet to walk, or which one uses to identify oneself as one uses clothing or speechpatterns or even one’s face, become equally appendages, not to the self but of the self, constituting the self as a sort of deleuzean collective which includes elements traditionally identified as the self and the not-self – note the plural: “friendly selves”. derrida’s theory, however, differs from haraway in that the appendages are the whole of what can be seen or c the profile is joking about a well-known affair vivienne eliot had with russell, about which t. s. was either ignorant or tacitly permissive. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 93 understood as the identifiable object, such that even when the corporeal self is removed (dies), the self continues unimpeded through its prosthesis, though necessarily “haunted” by a deceased corporeal self – or, rather, the abstracted identity of the corporeal self – which only continues to exist through its spectral presence within the prostheses. the author-self of these facebook profiles, like the danish king, is purely an absence, an invisible abstraction which haunts its present representations (like the ghost in the suit of armor) and thereby gives them an identity or meaning through deferral to that absence, to that non-present-presence, to that spectre. furthermore, as derrida (1994, pp. 7, 11) notes, the spectre is always realized as a “revenant”, as a returning of something dead; but as such, as a wholly new thing: an aktualisierung, both a diachronic “re-” and a wholly present “new”. it is perceived as a thing of the past, a dead thing from a dead discourse and a dead context, which paradoxically manifests in the present, speaks in the present, situated in a present discourse and, thereby, a present intertextual semiotic field, such that the meaning of its speech is constructed through present language and in reference to present existence. eliot commenting on films and world events after his death, moore metatextually critiquing the writing style of the medium in which she speaks: it is not that these exist spectrally only in facebook – it is also a spectral move to postulate “what would eliot think of cats? what would moore think of facebook grammar?”; rather, what facebook does is manifests the spectral commentary through the mouth of a revenant, and thereby reveals the spectrality of such postulations by drawing attention to the fact that any such postulations are inherently the speaking of a spectral author. each utterance of “moore”, again, is not referring to the corporeal material mouldering in gettysburg, but rather the spectral moore, the discursive moore; they are as much moore, the same (and yet a different) moore as the author of her poetry and criticism. each interpretation of moore (whether profilic or poetic) is, in derrida’s terms, both a different moore and the same moore – one among many, one spectral moore amongst the phantasmagoria of spectral moores haunting facebook, which function singularly as a unified moore through their intertextuality within that ghostly cacophony. all of them (plural) are a dead person (singular) whose spectre (both) now – every now, always now – speaks. but it is important to note that the strictly biographical profiles, too, are contributing to that spectral intertextual unity. in the most simplistic terms, they are, like all the words and attitudes and character traits of moore, the discursive presence of a past author, who must be understood both as the static “that to which they refer” and as a dynamic signifier who is intertextually defined through all the present discourses about her. but even if they are moore speaking words which are recognized as being written by moore in the more traditional sense, they are speaking them through a uniquely un-traditional medium, and that medium is inherently hauntological. firstly, to speak on facebook, to have a profile on facebook, is fundamentally to speak and to be an active social agent in a present moment. and secondly, particularly for facebook (as well as certain other social media platforms), that present moment is declaratively ever-present. facebook’s algorithms and functionality are designed such that it is quite literally never the same text moment-to-moment, in a constant state of aktualisierung. matthew kirschenbaum (2013, p. 60) notes that all digital texts are new texts every time a page or file is loaded from the bytes in storage: “[e]ach individual access creates the object anew.” for facebook, however, this is compounded by the fact that each page is modifiable in any given moment by a series of different users, not only the creator of the persona. any number of different users can post to a given profile timeline, tag that profile in images or posts on another profile, or alter the myriad “friend” profiles or affiliation pages (e.g. the page for merton college) which are linked to that profile, and thus these other profiles and organization pages intertextually inform and are informed by it. to speak of a facebook profile as a text is either to best 94 speak of one infinitesimally immediate moment of its existence, or to speak of a constantly protean space of textuality, such that “marianne moore” the profile is only and always that profile at the very moment of its utterance. every profile is born anew, aktualisierte, every moment it is loaded or refreshed. thus even when a profile is not actively being updated by its user, the profiles are still in a constant state of alteration, such that the subject represented on those pages continues, constantly, to speak. even for a more traditionally biographical profile, it is still intensely hauntological to say that t. s. eliot posted on a facebook timeline in 2017, to say that marianne moore is someone’s facebook friend in 2019. ultimately, even the strictly biographical profiles, as facebook profiles, are thus engaging in a deeply modernist, paradoxical discussion of authorship. speaking with the dead in closing, i would like to propose further extensions beyond modernism and suggest an implication behind this research for facebook profiles in which the profiled user has died. there have been various analyses in recent years of the user/profile relationship in terms of deceased users. hogan & quan-haase (2010 p. 311) argue that profiles are curated “exhibitions,” recordings of past expressions of the individual, not “living performance,” since (they argue) the death of the profile’s author leaves the profile to persist after them without newly-added material. that is, profiles do not give new performances; they are recordings of the past – albeit hogan & quan-haase (2010, p. 312) do note that the pages serve thereafter as spaces of mourning, and thereby may go through a process of “reframing”. ebert (2014) similarly posits that, though the page of a deceased user is written upon by mourners – specifically the timeline – the representation of that user doesn’t change. stokes (2015 pp. 243), while agreeing with ebert, takes issue with hogan & quan-haase’s strong division between user and profile – between an “‘exhibition’ about the user” and “the user themselves.” specifically, stokes (ibid.) identifies ways in which “intersubjective person-identities” of deceased users continue to function, via the profiles, for other facebook users. in one telling instance, stokes (ibid.) notes that other users continue to post to deceased users’ walls and address them as other subjects in the second person; and drawing on a number of studies, he notes that “what they write is not simply rhetorical apostrophe: many users report that they do take themselves to be communicating with the dead.” based on my analysis, however, i would suggest that the representation of the user does change; and in response to stokes, i would further note that not only do users communicate with the dead, the dead talk back. in intertextual terms, hogan and quan-haase’s argument that “dead” profiles do not exhibit “living performance” is an oversimplification. first, as noted above by ebert and stokes, the pages accumulate comments, tags, and posts from other users (often in “memorial” terms). given, this does not add new data for certain aspects of the profile that cannot change after the sole possessor of the username and password is no longer able to alter this data – e.g. “hometown” or “work.” however, it does still add new data based on the social interaction of other users with that profile – e.g. timeline posts or tags in photos, places, and events; and as noted above, the identity of such a social persona8 is in no small part defined through others’ discursive interactions with it, particularly evident on facebook where those discursive interactions are encoded textually within the profile timeline. furthermore, as argued via derrida (1994) above, a text is only ever read, and thus is only ever spoken, in the present moment; its meaning is ever (re)established through the text’s intertextual relationship with other texts at the moment of its (re)iteration. if we therefore accept, as eliot (1921) touches upon above and jorge luis borges (1964, original spanish 1939) more directly argues in his “pierre menard, author of the quixote,” that a text changes, even says something different, persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 95 depending on the historical context of a given reading of it and the collected history of social engagement with it, then we must equally accept that the textually-born persona of such a facebook profile gives a new, different performance of identity as its moment and social engagements change as well. even after the death of the corporeal user, the persona, like derrida’s spectral suit of armour, very well may continue to speak. second, the profilic persona is not self-contained within the profilic data. all the data points in the profile are not inert; they point outward to establish the meaning of those data points, and what they point out to does not remain static. the hometown, given, does not stop saying “st. louis” (for both moore and eliot), but without a semiotic deferral to other iterations of “st. louis,” the text is nothing more than electronically-rendered squiggles and lines on a screen. st. louis only has meaning to the extent that it defers to other st. louises, other iterations of that signifier and the ever-changing context of those other iterations – as points on a map, as news stories, as archival histories, as others who were also born there, as the hometown of eliot (for moore) and also the hometown of moore (for eliot). these deferrals come to inform what st. louis means on moore’s page and, thereby, shape a reader’s understanding of who moore is. as st. louis changes – as the intertextual meaning of “st. louis” changes with new iterations and contexts of that signifier, as news stories move from its jazz scene in one year to racial protests in the ferguson suburb in another – so do those profiles that use it as a data point in constructing their personae. facebook profiles, again, make this process and its mutability overt, in that many of the data points hold hyperlinks to other pages (like the city page for st. louis) that change over time. clicking the hyperlinked “st. louis” on many of the eliot and moore profiles one day brings up the same url, but the page at that url is not the same as it is on another day, with its own new data points that equally and necessarily point out as signifiers to other pages equally in flux. for friends, this is even more evident, as the friends list on a profile also holds thumbnails of each friend’s profile picture, which (like all other data points) is infinitely changeable by those users. changing one’s profile picture makes an alteration, however slight, to the profile of every person one identifies as a friend. a profile whereon many of the friends images have rainbow flags one day says something different, performs a different image of the person, than the same profile on a different day when the friends images all depict maga hats, even if the user of that profile makes no alterations. the persona undergoes changes whether the user is living or dead; it is a “living performance”. conclusion in this sense, all facebook profiles are haunted, whether the user is living or dead. as should be clear from the modernists’ analyses of authorship and authority in vivo, as well as from barthes’ (1977) arguments, the paradoxical relationship of author and text are not limited to the corporeal death of the author. even the profiles of the living are, in a sense, a depiction of a past self, a “dead” self that continually performs the user’s selfhood even when her back is turned and in ways she does not control; a text over which she both does and does not hold author-ity. those of us with facebook profiles are all such authors in a sense; but rather than a singular author, i would suggest that it is a plurality of spectral author-selves speaking together through an archive which bears our name – a plurality of places, comments, actions, likes, friends and conversations with them; each of which is itself defined and determined through links with others who share that data in the semiotic field of that moment on social media; and each of which, as archival data, happened in the past, but is necessarily accessed in the present, such that each is rendered spectrally as one haunting among many in an always-aktualisierte depiction of selfhood. to borrow from hayles (2005, p. 9), i would suggest that we, as social agents via our digital personae, are “texts as clustered in assemblages whose dynamics emerge best 96 from all the texts participating in the cluster, without privileging one text as more ‘original’ than any other.”9 on facebook, we are written – by ourselves, by others commenting on and tagging ourselves, by the multiplicitous past selves who have inscribed upon our facebook profile – all functioning intertextually in a network of selves; and this intertextual cluster comes to write itself upon our corporeal self, much as the discursive moore writes upon her bones. the legacy of modernism’s preoccupation with the question of textual authority, when manifested through social media profiles, is to reveal that the author, the written my-self, is a spectral figure even before death, arising out of the intertextual network of my-selves which share a given synchronic moment, all conjuring my authorial persona through their conversation. 1 a note on methodology: 1) i performed a people search for the author names (james joyce, marianne moore, t.s. eliot and thomas stearns eliot, for those authors analysed here). 2) i collected a list of every profile url for each author and eliminated any url repeats (which happened twice). 3) i eliminated pages which were not clearly representative of the author according to the following criteria: 3a) the profile had to use some iteration of the author’s full name (e.g. tseliot, thomas s. eliot). 3b) the profile had to have a portrait or photograph of the author as the profile picture; or, if the profile picture was abstract (e.g. a vorticist painting), the profile images had to have at least one photograph of the author and more than one piece of information biographically relevant to that author (e.g. residence as “monk’s house” and occupation as “writer” for woolf). 4) the profile had to be publicly viewable (i.e. not limited to “friends-viewing only”). 2 cf. barthes (1977), particularly “the death of the author” where he establishes this term. the “scriptor,” in short, is the “author” as determinate by the text alone or by its reading, “born simultaneously with the text” (p. 145); at the moment when “writing begins,” the author as traditionally understood “enters into his own death” (p. 142), such that the text itself holds its own author-ity: the scriptor. 3 intertextuality has been a relatively popular focus in moore criticism (even moreso than for other modernists) for at least the past few decades. see, among others mentioned in the text, keller (1991), sielke (1997), and costello (2012). though not referring to intertextuality, gilbert (2018) and finch (2018) address the relationship between her style and a complicated sense of authorial identity. gilbert (2018) argues that her collage-style poetry is effectively the construction of a blazon of herself (or rather a narrative persona) through correlated fragments, and that her conception of identity broadly was similarly as a fragmentation. finch (2018 p. 229) argues that moore’s poem “tell me, tell me” argues for “a definition of personhood as a surface interwoven […which] ‘perplexes’ any notions of straightforward autobiography” lying behind moore’s work. 4 at the time of collecting and analyzing the profiles for this study, none of them referenced the authors’ attitude about biographical readings or authorial intent. however, as active and “living” profiles, it is possible that some may now or in the future have recognized this, or that new profiles may have been created that recognize this. 5 as is discussed toward the end of this article, i do not mean to suggest that biography has no place in modernist scholarship. many modernist biographies, importantly, construct their biographies while simultaneously recognizing the author’s complex attitude about that very practice. see, for instance, the ultimate chapter of raine (2006) and introduction of leavell (2013). however, most other modernist biographers are silent on the issue of biographically analyzing the work of authors whose works criticize biographical readings, and thereby run into similar issues as biographical facebook profiles discussed herein. cf. connor (2012), bowker (2012), ellmann (1982), and ackroyd (1984), the last of whom received a rather critical review in the nyt which opens by noting this very dilemma: “eliot himself left instructions that there should be no official biography” (gross, 1984 p. 24). 6 derrida never states this explicitly in archive fever, but as kamuf (2005) argues, the process of deconstruction in all of derrida’s writing inherently presumes this process of preservation-as-destruction: to preserve a person is, indeed, both to archive him and to set his archive on fire (see in particular p. 40). archive fever is, after all, a speech given at a conference of the freud museum that contemplates the archival violence of archiving freud. end notes persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 97 7 i use the german term aktualisierung because the various english translations it permits fold together nicely to describe these profiles. aktualisieren is generally translated as “to update” in the sense of “taking something from the past and making it accurate for the present” (like a financial ledger), but it can also mean “to reactivate,” as harry zohn translates it in his english version of walter benjamin’s “the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (benjamin 1968 & 1974, §ii). benjamin’s argument here is that the reproduction “reactivates/aktualisiert” the object it reproduces in different contexts. thus while “update” has the sense of “altering the past to make it present,” “reactivate” has the sense of “making a thing work in the present as it did in the past.” the overdetermination here is apt, as it suggests both an integrity and a difference, both a sameness to the different iterations of an object and an alteration based on temporal context. not at all coincidentally, “aktualisieren” is also the german verb used for “refreshing” web pages – a “re-loading” of the same, which needs alteration to accurately or (in an ironic way) “authentically” represent itself. 8 it should be understood, also in intertextual terms, that a person’s online persona is not limited to a single profile on a single social media platform, but similarly arises from the interrelation of all profiles, comments, activities, publications, accounts, etc. associated with it in hyperspace (cf. marshall, moore, and barbour, 2020, p. 20). i am limiting my focus to facebook for the sake of this article’s discussion, and implicitly arguing that the same kind of intertextual persona-formation at that macro-level is also at play at this micro-level. 9 cf., among others, turkle (1999), barbour and marshall (2012), bollmer (2013), and graham, gibbs, and aceti (2013), all of whom largely rely on this concept of the self or social persona as an assemblage or correlational plurality but do not position it explicitly in textual terms and focus more on macro-level assemblages from various platforms and mediations. works cited ackroyd, p. 1984, t. s. eliot, hamish hamilton, london. barbour, k., and marshall, d. 2012, “the academic online: constructing persona through the world wide web,” first monday, vol. 17, no. 9, doi: 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f. 1972, james joyce and the making of ulysses, and other writings, oxford up, oxford. chekhov, a. 1920, letters of anton chekhov to his family and friends, (tr.) c. garnett, macmillan, new york. connor, s. 2012, james joyce, 2nd ed., northcote, tavistock, uk. costello, b. 2012, “marianne moore and the old masters.” genre, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 57-86, doi: 10.1215/001669281507038 derrida, j. 1995, archive fever: a freudian impression, (tr.) e. prenowitz, u chicago p, chicago. derrida, j. 1994, specters of marx: the state of debt, the work of mourning, and the new international, (tr.) p. kamuf, routledge, new york. ebert, h. 2014, “profiles of the dead: mourning and memorial on facebook,” in c. m. moreman and a. d. lewis (eds.), digital death: mortality and beyond in an online age, praeger, santa barbara, ca, pp. 23-42. eliot, t. s. 1921, the sacred wood: essays on poetry and criticism, knopf, new york, pp. 87-94. best 98 eliot, t. s. 1948, notes towards the definition of culture, faber, london. eliot, t. s. 1959, the use of poetry and the use of criticism, faber, london. eliot, t. s. 1969, “the waste land: 1922,” in the complete poems & plays, faber, london, pp. 5980. ellmann, r. 1982, james joyce, oxford up, oxford. finch, z. 2018, “‘passion for the particular’: marianne moore, henry james, beatrix potter, and the refuge of close reading,” in e. gregory and s. c. hubbard (eds.), twenty-first century marianne moore, palgrave macmillan, london, 2018, 221-235. gilbert, r. 2018, “‘these things’: moore’s habits of adduction,” in e. gregory and s. c. hubbard (eds.), twenty-first century marianne moore, palgrave macmillan, london, pp. 33-48. goldman, j. 2011, modernism is the literature of celebrity, u texas p, austen. graham, c., gibbs, m., and aceti, l. 2013, “introduction to the special issue on the death, afterlife, and immortality of bodies and data,” the information society, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 133-141. gross, j. 1984, nov. 7, “books of the times,” new york times, p. c24, http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/97/04/06/reviews/ackroyd-eliot.html haraway, d. 1987, “a manifesto for cyborgs: science, technology, and socialist feminism in the 1980s,” australian feminist studies, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 1-42. harding, j. 2017, “unravelling eliot,” in j. harding (ed.), the new cambridge companion to t. s. eliot, cambridge up, cambridge, pp. 1-25. hayles, n. k. 2005, my mother was a computer: digital subjects and literary texts, u chicago p, chicago. hogan, b. & quan-haase, a. 2010, “persistence and change in social media,” bulletin of science, technology & society, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 309-315, doi: 10.1177/0270467610380012. joyce, j. 1990, ulysses, vintage, new york. kamuf, p. 2005, “deconstruction and love,” in book of addresses, stanford up, stanford, pp. 2543. keller, l. 1991, “‘for inferior who is free?’” liberating the woman writer in marianne moore’s ‘marriage,’” in j. clayton and e. rothstein (eds.), influence and intertextuality in literary history, u wisconsin p, madison, wi, pp. 219-244. kirschenbaum, m. 2013, “the .txtual condition.” in k. hayles and j. pressman (eds.), comparative textual media: transforming the humanities in the postprint era, u minnesota p, minneapolis, pp. 53-70. “marianne moore” (a), facebook, retrieved 13 october 2018, https://www.facebook.com/marianne.moore.370 “marianne moore” (b), facebook, retrieved 13 october 2018, https://www.facebook.com/marianne.moore.756 “marianne moore” (c), facebook, retrieved 13 october 2018, https://www.facebook.com/marianne.moore.52 moore, m. 1986, the complete prose of marianne moore, (ed.) p. c. willis, viking, new york. moore, m. 2016, “a marriage,” in observations: poems, (ed.) l. leavell, farrar, strauss and giroux, new york, pp. 75-83. moore, m. 2016, “an octopus,” in observations: poems, (ed.) l. leavell, farrar, strauss and giroux, new york, pp. 85-91. sielke, s. 1997, fashioning the female subject: the intertextual networking of dickenson, moore, and rich, u michigan p, ann arbor, mi. stokes, p. 2015, “deletion as second death: the moral status of digital remains,” ethics and information technology, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 237-248. “t.s. eliot,” facebook, retrieved 13 october 2018, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005161201288 “thomas stearns eliot (t.s. eliot),” facebook, retrieved 13 october 2018, https://www.facebook.com/thomas.s.eliot.9 persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 99 “thomas stearns eliot (t.s. eliot),” facebook, retrieved 13 october 2018, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100016707608409 turkle, s. 1999, “looking toward cyberspace: beyond grounded sociology,” contemporary sociology, vol. 28, no. 6, pp. 643-648, doi: 10.2307/2655534. ubc department of theatre and film 2019, the seagull, university of british columbia, retrieved 10 may 2019, http://archive.theatre.ubc.ca/seagull/subject.html wimsatt, w. k., and beardsley, m. c. 1946, “the intentional fallacy,” sewanee review, vol. 54, no. 3, 468-488. will best university of calgary abstract key words modernist authority eliot moore joyce de-authorizing biography facebook spectrality biographical profiles aktualisierten profiles hauntology speaking with the dead conclusion works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 43 the blackstar: persona, narrative, and late style in the mourning of david bowie on reddit sami ra n cul be rt n e w c a s t l e u n i v e r s i t y abstract this article considers how david bowie’s last persona, the blackstar, framed his death through the narratives of mourning it provoked on the social media site reddit. the official media narratives of death and the unofficial fan narratives of death can contradict each other, with fans usually bringing their own lived experiences to the mourning process. david bowie is a performer of personas. while bowie died in 2016, his personas have continued to live on, informing his legacy, his work, and his death reception. through the concepts of persona, narrative, authenticity, late style, and mourning, this article finds that bowie’s blackstar persona actively constructs fan’s interaction with bowie’s death. instead of separate and contradicting narratives, this article finds that users on reddit underpin and extend the media narrative of his death, using bowie’s persona as a way to construct and establish their own mourning. as such, bowie’s last persona is further entrenched as one of authentic mourning, of a genius constructing his own passing. with these narratives, fans construct their own personas, informing how they too would like to die: artistically and with grace. key words persona; mourning; david bowie; late style; narrative; reddit introduction the blackstar persona presented by bowie in his last album and singles helped structure his fans’ mourning process. these last acts of artistry offered fans something to attach their mourning onto, allowing for them to work through their own mourning via bowie’s presentation of his own death. korina giaxoglou’s defines mourning as “public and socially sanctioned displays of grief” (2014, p. 12), which are embedded in our cultural displays and practices. this article explores how these displays of mourning were considered through bowie’s blackstar1 and how this was used by fans for their own mourning identity. this will be done by considering two threads on the social networking service (sns) reddit posted in the aftermath of bowie’s death. for this study, two different comment threads were chosen in two separate subreddits (themed reddit boards) – r/music (2016) and r/indieheads (2016) – each focusing on the announcement of bowie’s death. by looking at these posts, this article will 1 here i am using blackstar to mean the persona bowie created. throughout the text it will be written as blackstar when it is the persona, ‘blackstar’ for the song, and blackstar for album. culbert 44 consider how the persona of the blackstar is created in the users’ initial expressions of loss and mourning. firstly, this article will examine how bowie has been considered as a persona throughout his career, focusing primarily on his post-1990s shedding of characters and the assumptions of authenticity which were embedded in this move. secondly, bowie’s death will be discussed through the concepts of narrative and mourning. this will primarily be achieved by considering how the late style narrative has been attached to bowie posthumously. finally, this will be looked at through the lens of social interactions on reddit, looking at how these posters used bowie’s blackstar in their mourning. the blackstar album was released on january 8th just two days before bowie’s death (2016). in the aftermath of this release and bowie’s death, a posthumous persona was created with blackstar at its centre. throughout bowie’s life, a series of narratives allied to authenticity were constructed and maintained in our negotiations with him and his music. the concept of persona allows us to see how these are manifested and understood through both the presentation of the artist and how the fan constructs their own identities. in the narrative of bowie’s death, he is the empty vessel, where authenticities can be inscribed by different participants. it is in bowie’s death that the blackstar persona encompasses and frames the narrative of his passing. it becomes the means through which we engage with bowie’s death and life in the present, bringing his past authenticities and personas into focus in the posthumous moment. mourning on social media has been discussed at length in recent scholarship, with focus primarily on the social worlds of facebook, twitter, and other sites (gil-egui, kern-stone & forman 2017; gibson 2007; jones 2004). the specific affordances of reddit for mourning are addressed later in this article; for now, it is worth noting that digital technologies “challenge and reshape our existing understandings of the boundaries drawn between life and death” (meese et al. 2015, p. 409). in turn, this has translated into work on celebrities and mourning with an emphasis on facebook and twitter (garde-hansen 2010; klastrup 2018; courbet & fourquetcourbet 2014). work has also already been completed on david bowie and digital mourning through twitter (bulck & larsson 2017). however, each social media site represents a unique area of research, described as the “platform vernacular” (gibbs et al. 2015, p. 255) of a social media site, encompassing the specific affordances and ways in which users can engage on these sites. this allows us to consider how the platform itself is structured for specific types of engagement: instagram for photographs, twitter for short form text, and so on. by focusing on reddit, this article aims to find a different manifestation of mourning by the users on this site, examining how persona is an integral part of the online mourning process. authenticating bowie as a persona david bowie as an artist was and is constructed through his personas. when david bowie died on 11th january 2016 his physical body may have perished but his personas lived on. musicians personas are narrative discourses consisting of multiple layers of image, text, and music (barthes 1977), formed by various subjectivities and perspectives including fans, the press, and the artists themselves (auslander 2006). simon frith states that a “star personality” (1996, p. 186) is built into the music we consume, informing all of our engagement with music objects, the musician, and fandom. this engagement happens on multiple levels, from the press (black 2017), to fans (cinque & remond 2016), and historical analysis of bowie as a cultural object (critchley 2016). in this way, bowie exists as a balancing act of competing narratives, selves, and characters, providing a foundation for all of our engagement with him. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 45 the overarching narrative of bowie’s past is constructed around the changing personas he has performed (bennett 2017; mcleod 2003; perrot 2017; reed, 2017). these changing personas allowed bowie to “see the world and talk/sing about it through a different point of view” (leorne 2015, p. 121), whilst seemingly expressing originality to his fans, the press, and other artists (perrot 2017; reed 2017; stevenson 2015). the narrative of his changing selves is now ingrained into the histories and experiences connected to bowie and our relationship to him on both a cultural and personal level. when we think of bowie, we instantly think of ziggy stardust (1972), aladdin sane (1973), the thin white duke (1975), and the goblin king (1986). these are a complex mix of myths, characters, and competing influences of the fans, the press, and the complex notion of bowie the man. a musician’s persona is just this: a concept tied up in a balancing act between competing narratives of commercialisation, audience, and artistic intentions (auslander 2006) played out through artistic works, mediated objects, and performance. simon frith states that persona functions as a “site of narrative” (1996, p. 205), which underpins how we see and judge the musician’s work and public self. rather than presenting a chronology of bowie’s life and career, we must consider that the narratives of bowie’s life are constructed through different personas. these different personas can be seen through the authenticities he is constructing and performing. in allan moore’s deconstruction of authenticity in popular music (2002, p. 209), he outlines three ways in which authenticities are manifested in and around the popular music artist: first person, third person, and second person authenticity. the first-person authenticity is seen when a performer “succeeds in conveying the impression that his/her utterance is one of integrity, that it represents an attempt to communicate in an unmediated form” (moore 2002, p. 214) to the audience. as such, it can be seen to be the persona of authenticity of the self, of seeing something ‘real’ and ‘true’ in the performer. third person authenticity “arises when a performer succeeds in conveying the impression of accurately representing the ideas of another, embedded within a tradition of performance” (moore 2002, p.218). it is the authenticity we see embedded in folk traditions and the discourses which surround genres associated with national or cultural identities. second person authenticity sees the artist giving “the impression to a listener that that listener’s experience of life is being validated, that the music is telling it like it is for them” (moore 2002, p. 220). the performer here is the conduit for the audience’s thoughts, feelings, and authenticities. as such, it does not matter if the performer is not true to themselves, as they are representing truth to the audience. for the purpose of this article, focus will be placed on the firstand second-person authenticity. philip auslander states that a musician’s persona is constructed by the tensions between “the press, the fan, and the artist themselves” (2006, pp. 115). therefore, it stands to reason that the persona is also formed by the tensions between these authenticities, as they manifest themselves through different elements of the performer’s career and life. the narratives of bowie’s life can be seen to be underpinned by moore’s first and second person authenticities (usher & fremaux 2015; critchley 2016). we can see these authenticities manifested in two distinction periods of bowie’s life. the first was pre-1990s, where bowie was still seen as a multitude of characters (ziggy stardust and so forth). this is established as second person authenticity, whereupon the character bowie is playing is seen as fake (critchley 2016), but is welcomed by the audience as a reflection of their own identities (reed 2017; perrot 2017). this second person authenticity was manifested through the bowie which “inhabited his albums’ lyrics but also developed mainly through the performance of his songs on tour and the related video performances” (marshall 2017, p.570). bowie was this “stage persona” (marshall 2017, p. 570) which constructed and permeated the multimedia manifestation of bowie. culbert 46 this began to change from the 1990s onwards, as bowie strategically moved away from obvious displays of persona to embrace a first-person authenticity, a ‘true’ reflection of his self. he was followed up to this point in his career with the narrative of second person authenticity, one which existed on the premise that he was playing a persona but exhibiting some sort of true feeling or true reflection of what the audience needed to hear or see (critchley 2016). usher and fremaux (2015) suggest the narrative of bowie’s work and persona of this period tipped towards a perceived authenticity of his true self. through their analysis of press articles of this period, usher and fremaux highlight how the narratives being constructed around bowie’s personas were predicated on “a cathartic cleansing of performance of characters” (2015, p. 57). this cleanse allowed for the manifestation of a perceived authentic bowie, free from pretence, where he “shed layers of artifice which his previous persona had required” (usher & fremaux 2015, p. 57). from the 1990s onwards, this narrative was attached to a bowie who was seen to be shedding his personas and uncovering the real man underneath. the concept of persona helps us understand how this is enacted. celebrities offer their audiences the chance to create and maintain their own personas by mirroring them (marshall 2017). as people engage with the narrative of bowie’s otherness, they see a chance to enact their own identities in the mirror of bowie’s (critchley 2016; leorne 2015; perrot, 2017; reed 2017). first person authenticity can show us how bowie and his music was considered not just in this period, but also the period up to his death. the 1990s shedding of personas reinforces the idea that, throughout his career, bowie was showing a piece of his true self within all of his performances. this narrative allows the audience to engage with a perceived true bowie, reinforcing their own identities in the process, as bowie is seen to be reflective of a true self, an authentic identity underneath the façade. this can be understood by considering erving goffman’s the presentation of the self in everyday life (1990). he states that “when an individual or performer plays the same part to the same audience on different occasions, a social relationship is likely to arise” (1990, p. 27) as the performance is developed over time by the interaction between performer and audience. in the 1990s bowie renegotiated his approach to performance and identity, but this too was a musical persona, a performance of authenticity constructed through fans, bowie, and the press (usher and fremaux 2015). this continued with the release of bowie’s final albums the next day and blackstar. blackstar (2016) was released on january 8th, just two days before bowie’s death. prior to this, the next day (2013) signalled bowie’s return from a long break from music, seeing bowie in a perceived self-reflective mood (stevenson 2015). the next day was seen as marking a further turn towards authenticity and self-reflection for bowie, a first-person authenticity, but this was not mirrored in the reception for blackstar. the cleanse seen in the post 1990s work was side-lined in the videos for the songs ‘lazarus’ (2016) and ‘blackstar’ (2015), which established complex imagery whilst simultaneously shifting and playing with genres. however, this album was seen as a continuation of bowie’s artistic endeavours and reinstated bowie’s persona as one which reflected the outsider, an artist who takes risks and who is not stuck in one genre or way of expression. he was seen to have separated from his previous work, as one guardian review of the blackstar album put it prior to his death: “it’s a rich, deep and strange album that feels like bowie moving restlessly forward, his eyes fixed ahead” (petridis 2016). as such, the blackstar period was not seen as a reflection of persona prior to his death, but as a reinstatement of bowie as a consummate and ever forward-facing artist. it can now seem obvious, with hindsight, where the blackstar persona came from. however, on its release the visual elements of the singles, videos, and album were hard to decode. the word blackstar was first heard being screamed by bowie at the end of the title track, with bowie claiming, “i’m a blackstar” (blackstar, 2016). we can see now that this was persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 47 bowie bringing a new persona to life, one which would frame his death. this was reinstated on the album cover, which was the first of bowie’s albums not to feature a picture of the artist himself but rather just one image, a black star. this, coupled with the videos for ‘lazarus’ and ‘blackstar’, reinforced the idea that bowie developed a new persona substituting himself, the artist, for the iconography of the blackstar, the image. there is speculation about the origins for this, with a lost elvis record about death stalking a man being one of the most prominent, reinforced in the official documentary of this period the last five years (2017). however, it is important to note that all of this is retrospective, informed and only now understood in the aftermath of bowie’s death. prior to this, this persona is barely formed by bowie’s own standards; it only becomes clear in death, becoming a posthumous persona, reinforced by first person authenticity. although these two different authenticities represent different periods in bowie’s persona development, they both exist simultaneously in our cultural understanding of bowie in the present. the concept of persona allows us to see how these are manifested and understood through both the presentation of the artist and how the fan constructs their own identities by mirroring them. all of our engagement with bowie is through persona, whether through the lens of secondor first-person authenticity; there is always a character of bowie to consume. in these narratives bowie is the empty vessel where authenticities can be inscribed by different stakeholders. it is almost impossible to construct a full history of bowie’s personas as they adapt, change, and grow with each fan interaction and each new story told. therefore, by considering bowie through the two authenticities discussed, we can begin to see how some fan cultures understand and relate to the different narratives offered by bowie’s personas. however, death changes everything. the next section will consider how narratives are constructed posthumously and how this made bowie the blackstar. the blackstar, narrative, and late style narratives are integral to our understanding of death. they “contextualise events in terms of narrative structures with which people are already familiar” (bosticco & thompson 2005, p. 4). this is especially true in the post-death moment. by contextualising death in the act of narrative, mourners are ordering traumatic events into a familiar format. these narratives therefore allow for an “account that condenses a complicated set of events and perceptions into a single comprehensive unit” (bosticco & thompson 2005, p. 10). any ambiguity is ironed out through the establishing of a cohesive narrative as the media, the artist’s representatives, and the fans look towards a central meaning in an artist’s death. anything which does not fit the narrative is filtered out with the “details adapted, ignored or changed so that the story being told has the desired effect” (bosticco & thompson 2005, p. 9). the narratives of mourning are therefore an exercise in narrative limitation, which seek to find a dominant and satisfying narrative that adds continuity to the deceased’s life. the stories we construct and privilege in the aftermath of death shape our mourning and the legacy of the lost. when a celebrity dies, there is a scramble to piece together official media narratives and unofficial fan narratives of death. these two distinctions represent the different levels in which narratives of the dead are constructed posthumously. official media narratives are established through press releases, statements and stories from family members, and the press, while unofficial fan narratives are constructed through conversations between fans, in person or on social media sites. neither hold more or less sway in the realm of social media, and as we have seen in the discourses around elvis presley since his death, there is always a blurring of these two elements in the artist’s legacy in our collective consciousness (rodman 1996). these mourning narratives are constructed from multiple aspects of the culbert 48 deceased’s life and their death event. these include cause of death, legacy, personal affect, and myths (rodman 1996; courbet & fourquet-courbet 2014). this is all filtered through the narratives the person, or persona, has been associated with in life (van der hoeven 2018; gardehansen 2010). but through these narratives we make sense of the artist’s death, the audience’s own mourning, and the co-construction of the posthumous persona. the narrative of bowie’s death was a continuation of the ideas being established in the decades prior, the first-person authenticity, the reflection backwards, and the turn towards a ‘real’ bowie. nick stevenson, in his deconstruction of bowie’s the next day album, states that bowie’s later career began to “exhibit some of the features of late style” (stevenson 2015, p.288). this has been further reinforced by bowie’s death, as a retrospective understanding of bowie’s career can trace a line from the first-person authenticity of the 1990s to his last two albums. late style is attached to a period of an artist’s life, near death usually, where “there is a marked shift in style and mode that is typically characterised as at the same time a form of ‘life review’” (mcmullan 2019, p. 61). the art produced “is not generically-bound; it is personal, essential, autobiographical; it is a supplement to the main body of the artist’s work which is also a fulfilment of that work” (mcmullan 2019, p. 61), coming to represent late style as an “authenticator of genius” (mcmullan 2019, p. 62). in this way it mirrors the first-person authenticity discussed by moore, as the artist pivots towards a more personally reflective creative output. gordon mcmullan claims that we can understand the reaction and the narrative of bowie’s death through the concept of late style. the narrative both underscores bowie as a genius and also reframes his late works as ones of intention, reinforcing the first-person authenticity and late style narrative that this work is “profoundly personal and redemptive” (mcmullan 2019, p. 62). the blackstar persona is seen in the shadow of late style as being “an authentic personal negotiation of age and death by a consummate artist” (mcmullan 2019, p. 67). thus, by viewing bowie retrospectively through the lens of late style, we can see that the blackstar persona propagated bowie’s death as authentic. as such, the blackstar comes to symbolise the late style narrative constructed around bowie and the reflecting of a first-person authenticity, namely the outward representation of the self. it reinforces bowie’s genius, reflection, and even redemption in the eyes of the fans, as bowie did not just represent his own death but the mourning his fans will subsequently go through (stevenson 2015). the first-person authenticity reflection of bowie in this narrative is seen almost exclusively through the persona of the blackstar. the timing of the album release and bowie’s death offers narratives of mourning which construct a connection to late style. this has become the overriding story of bowie’s last years and is continually reinforced through discourses which surround his death in the press, as well as documentaries with his collaborators (black 2017; the last five years 2017). it is also important to note here that in the documentary about this period of bowie’s life, the last five years, there were counteracting narratives from the director of the ‘blackstar’ and ‘lazarus’ music videos who didn’t know bowie was unwell and claim credit for visual representations of death and sickness in the music videos, particularly a hospital bed in the video for ‘lazarus’ (2017). these visual clues have since been used as a way to reinstate bowie as constructing and performing his own death. a glance at the comments underneath the youtube videos of these songs reinforces this, with emphasis on how the visual elements heralded bowie’s forthcoming demise (‘blackstar’ 2015; ‘lazarus’ 2016). we see the continuity of both late style and mourning narratives at work in this, as the provenance of these ideas take a backseat in favour of the idea that bowie constructed this world himself. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 49 the narratives surrounding bowie positioned him as an authentic genius confronting death, continuing the legacy of bowie’s first-person authenticity from the 1990s onwards. bowie’s last albums and his blackstar persona allowed fans and the press to side-line any narrative other than one which positioned bowie as a self-reflective, authentic genius, who confronted his death with art. thus, bowie joins a long list of artists who have been seen to curate their own death through their work, and as such the press and the fans can make sense of bowie’s death. if the blackstar persona underscores a first-person authenticity of death, then late style allows us to see how this was structured into the narrative of his death. but how did this persona affect the ways in which fans mourned his passing and, in turn, contribute further to his persona? reddit and the mourning of bowie the concept of late style allows us to see how bowie’s persona was incorporated into the narrative of his death. late style shows that bowie was perceived to have positioned his death persona in relationship to an existing narrative trope, allowing fans to quickly frame their mourning. this narrative can be considered to be the official narrative of bowie’s death, produced by the press and bowie’s representatives and reinforced by first person authenticity. but the construction of a persona, as auslander and marshall have stated, is a product of not just official narratives but ones formed by peer-to-peer interactions, especially on social media sites. as such, it is important to consider fans’ response to this persona and how their interactions in social media spaces underpin, construct, and inform how this persona is understood in the posthumous moment. this section will consider how the blackstar persona was received posthumously on the sns reddit and how fans used this persona in their expressions of mourning. this will be achieved by considering a sample of posts which have been collected and anonymised from two reddit threads, r/music and r/indieheads, on 11th january 2016, breaking the news that david bowie had died (r/music 2016; r/indieheads 2016). but first we must understand the reddit platform itself and the unique affordances created by it. reddit offers an interesting space in which to study fan interactions in the post-death moment. scholarship on reddit has primarily centred on the darker side of the platform, focusing on events such as the gamergate internet scandal and reddit’s role in the political events of 2016 (maloney, roberts, & graham 2019). these discourses have shaped the perception of reddit in wider culture, where it is seen as a wild west corner of the internet, ungoverned and a breeding ground for problematic views (marantz 2018). the truth is murkier than this. the site boasts 100 million more active monthly users than twitter (clement 2020) and is in the top ten most visited sites in the world. with this in mind, it is a complex representation of everything that exists on the internet, from dedicated fan sites to activism, while also housing the darker elements present on all social media platforms. it is considered a relic from the forum-based social networks of the early web 2.0 era, set up as a collection of thematic pages, or subreddits, which are prefixed by the letter r/, such as r/politics. reddit is a “participatory culture platform” (massanari 2013, p. 1), meaning it offers a space in which users both create and engage with content. the “platform vernacular” (gibbs et al. 2015, p. 255), the site’s specific construction and affordances, sees reddit as a site situated around the “sharing of original and reposted content” (massanari 2013, p. 2), where posts are made by members in boards or subreddits, known as threads. users then earn ‘karma’ points, badges, and awards when their comments are upvoted; these awards “signal to the community that a particular comment or post is substantive and adds to the larger conversation” (massanari 2013, p. 2). conversely, when a comment is downvoted the poster’s account loses karma points. as such, the ‘game’ of reddit is to try and collect as many points as possible, as culbert 50 value resides in the poster’s ability to engage with different threads in interesting ways. the gamification of reddit (massanari 2013) creates a space where valued comments are rewarded by the poster’s peers. posters receive instant validation on their interactions and can edit and adapt each post with corrections and updates when desired. if a post is continually downvoted it can disappear from the thread, be hidden, or even deleted by the admin. this platform vernacular privileges posts and narratives which uphold the themes of the subreddit, with posts that radically differ hidden from view. a culture of mutual dependency permeates these spaces as a result, as users are rewarded for upholding the overriding narratives established in the thread, subreddit, or community. reddit’s construction offers a unique space to observe the interactions between fans in the immediate aftermath of a musician’s death. the longer form comments, the allure of anonymity, and the archiving of posts after a short period of time, allows us to see how the news of bowie’s death was considered through his personas as the narratives were being formed. snss offer unique challenges to our ideas of narrative, especially in the fragmented nature of the platform’s constructions. story-making is embedded into the fabric of social media sites as users weave narratives around their own and others’ lives. stories in these spaces are “often ephemeral, small, located on the margins of other kinds of talk, and fall outside the canon of digital narrative” (page 2012, p. 3). however, the longer form posts of reddit show us how fuller narratives can be made on snss that privilege more developed interactions in specific themed spaces. social media has also provided the space in which narratives of the deaths of musicians can be constructed, used, and reinforced by fans. “the collaborative nature of social media makes our usual ideas about single narrative and tellership redundant” (page 2012, p. 13). as such, narratives of death on social media sites mirror that of persona construction in the musician, as fans, artists, and the media all construct and inform these narratives. if we then turn to the two posts announcing bowie’s death on the subreddits r/music and r/indieheads, we see how these narratives structure mourning in the space of the sns. the comments on these subreddit threads cannot be easily placed into clear and distinctive categories. rather, they blur between tenses, narratives, timeframes, and personas. bulk and larsson (2017) found that bowie was primarily discussed in terms of his previous personas on twitter. although this is present on reddit, the immediate period of posthumous narratives shows an overwhelming proportion of the posts concentrated on the blackstar and how bowie used this in his death. past and present bowies one of the most prominent themes in these threads is the poster’s uses of tense in regard to bowie. bowie exists in both the present and the past, with his personas acting as a means through which the posters engage with the man himself and his death. the posts ranged from short “rip starman,” referencing bowie’s ziggy stardust, to more complex and evolving narratives (r/music 2016). for instance, one user posted: “it’s apparent now his final album was 100% centred on his coming death and the duality of his human mortality and legendary stardom immortality” (r/music 2016). this poster concludes with “david’s a blackstar, a dead star… and bowie is an immortal lazarus” (r/music 2016). bowie is considered as both the artist who lives on and the physical body who is no more. we must now consider how this is underscored through the blackstar. the posters on these threads demonstrated an in-depth understanding of bowie’s construction and use of personas through his various characters and his authenticities. one user while positing their disbelief of bowie’s death, muses on this subject: “bowie has put many of persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 51 his selves to rest over the last half-century only to rise again with a different guise” (r/music 2016). this post is then bookended with the statement that the blackstar self must end with a “resurrection”, an artistic statement that would be “hard to follow” (r/music 2016). we can see that there is a high level of persona literacy in this online space through posters’ engagements with the multi-layered persona of bowie. they are engaging with both firstand second-person authenticity, showcasing how bowie’s personas have changed over time. this becomes an integral part of the posters’ approach to mourning bowie. at the heart of this literacy is the idea that bowie’s death has been shaped and underscored by the blackstar. as discussed previously, it was never a fully realised persona in bowie’s canon, however it provides the central understanding of bowie’s death in this space. the separation between the body and the persona highlights the understanding these mourners have of complex issues surrounding mourning and the celebrity. the narratives offered by the users both allows us to mourn the loss of the body but also establish the role of the persona as a separate and semi-autonomous entity. here, bowie is the empty vessel through which posters can ascribe their own ideas and authenticities while engaging with bowie’s past personas and his presentation of a first-person authenticity and late style. the intention narrative as discussed previously, the late style aesthetic and first-person authenticity that the blackstar represents in this space is formed retrospectively through narratives. this retrospective narrativization is manifested through the posts on these threads as users seek the continuity that mourning narratives produce. this is underscored by one user stating that “only now do we realise that blackstar was intended as his final incarnation: david bowie as a dead man” (r/music 2016). throughout the posts on this thread there is an emphasis on retrospective realisations of what bowie’s last work meant to these mourners. they welcome the realisation that bowie had used his last work to embrace death, acting as a cathartic release not just for himself, but for his fanbase. attached to this retrospective understanding of bowie’s blackstar as a narrative object is the idea of intention. the intention narrative manifests itself through the authenticity of bowie’s late style, a continuation of the first-person authenticity seen in his post90s era and his later works. this narrative of intent allows for the continuity and the meaning which is integral to the mourning process. bowie’s intention is underscored by one user stating, “lazarus sounds like he wrote his own eulogy now” (r/indieheads 2016). this is mirrored throughout a majority of the other posts on these threads. there is a retrospective understanding that the blackstar was the means through which bowie was communicating his impending death, his final authentic presentation. this characterisation allows mourners to engage with bowie as a powerful persona. rather than a sick man who died in a hospital, he is the consummate artist reinforcing a first-person authenticity of personal introspection. we can see this in posts which highlight his immortality and their disbelief, even refusal, to entertain the thought that bowie was mortal. the late style narrative of reflection, introspection, genius, and authenticity is all present in these posts. this first-person authenticity is manifested in this appropriation of the blackstar, where bowie was seen to be presenting his own death, reflecting his own thoughts, feelings, and a posthumous persona to the audience. via reddit’s platform vernacular, the intention narrative dominates these two threads. this is reinforced through the mutual understanding that this is the only narrative of bowie’s death and anything else will not be heard. the personas inhabited by the posters follow this thread, with diverting voices punished with silence. a continuity of mourning is constructed in this act, as users increasingly enable one another to believe that the blackstar was bowie’s way culbert 52 of telling them of his death. believing that he constructed this himself allows users to think of his death, as one user points out as a “great way to bow out” (r/indieheads 2016). the narrative gives bowie’s death meaning for these users to pin their mourning onto. this is where the narratives of social media and the narratives of mourning intersect. in these threads the narrative of mourning wins out, with the cohesive story of bowie’s intention coming to dominate the posts. the structure of reddit does not allow for what moore, barbour, and lee term “the performance of the self”, as age, gender, race is all hidden through the semianonymised structure (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p.4). however, these posts highlighting intention underline how interaction between personas on snss “can quickly become a pattern of action which then becomes routine, creating and then normalising a narrative of expected behaviour” (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p.4). p. david marshall states that celebrities offer the users on social media sites ways in which they themselves can approach their persona construction (2010). this may explain why the intent narrative was so enthusiastically undertaken by the users in this space. it reflected something within the mourners themselves, how they believe they would act given the circumstances, facing death with dignity and artistic flare, going out on their own terms. we can see this in the way in which one comment was downvoted to the point of being hidden in the thread in r/music (2016). in it a user stated how bowie must have suffered greatly from cancer, insinuating that he must have died like their family member did, in a great deal of pain and indignity. as this did not continue the narrative being established in this space, this post was hidden from the thread. users did not just want to believe this for bowie’s sake, but also their own. the persona of the users was under attack by the opposing narrative, therefore it had to be cut away from the thread, reinstating the intention narrative for all. when people mourn celebrities, it is rarely the celebrity themselves they are mourning; rather, it is an aspect of their own experiences and emotions. conclusion mourning is a time for reflection. it stands to reason that the death of a much-loved artist allows the audience to turn the introspection onto themselves. this is seen throughout posts on reddit in micro narratives on illness, identity, and autobiography. instead of multiple micronarratives which differed from the official media narrative surrounding bowie’s death (stevenson 2015; mcmullan 2019), this article found that the mourners in these threads maintained and reinstated bowie as a curator of his own demise (black 2017; bulk & larsson 2017). they did this through the persona of the blackstar which allowed them to meditate thoughtfully on bowie’s life, whilst reinstating the late style idea that bowie’s last act was one of intention (mcmullan 2019), of first-person authentic reflection. the blackstar is interwoven with this intention narrative. the analysis of reddit shows how it becomes the means through which mourners can consider bowie as a genius, as not a man coming to the end of his life, but rather an artist who foresaw and curated his own death in an authentic artistic act. mourning is an exercise in persona construction. the users on reddit underscored the official media narratives of bowie’s passing while also adding further to the collective idea of bowie through the intention narrative. anything that did not underline the blackstar as one of intention, artistry, and genius for curating his own death was buried in reddit’s platform vernacular. instead of a pluralistic set of narratives you would expect to see on social media sites (page 2012), there is a heavy consensus of narrative in this space, mutually understood, and collectively policed. the narrative comes into conflict with reddit’s own understanding of itself; instead of being a place that is open to discussions, in these mourning posts there is an emphasis on a collectively authorised narrative. in this approach reddit does not differ from persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 53 other snss, as differing opinions and differing narratives are rejected by the collective. this is a narrative of not just bowie’s persona, but the one of the fans who are mourning. thinking of bowie as this persona, which is separated from the body, offers a release. the posters do not have to face the reality 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stevenson, n 2015, ‘david bowie now and then: questions of fandom and late style’, in m power, a dillane and e devereux (eds.), david bowie: critical perspectives, new haven, routledge, pp. 280–294. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-jqh1m4ya8 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/07/david-bowie-blackstar-review-a-spellbinding-break-with-his-past https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/07/david-bowie-blackstar-review-a-spellbinding-break-with-his-past https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/40fktn/david_bowies_official_site_david_bowie_died/ https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/40fktn/david_bowies_official_site_david_bowie_died/ https://www.reddit.com/r/music/comments/40fkbu/david_bowie_dies_age_69/ persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 55 the next day 2013 [cd-rom], david bowie, columbia. usher, b & fremaux, s 2015, ‘turn myself to face me: david bowie in the 1990s and discovery of authentic self’, in m power, a dillane, and e devereux (eds.), david bowie: critical perspectives, new york, routledge, pp. 56–81. samiran culbert newcastle university abstract key words introduction the blackstar album was released on january 8th just two days before bowie’s death (2016). in the aftermath of this release and bowie’s death, a posthumous persona was created with blackstar at its centre. throughout bowie’s life, a series of narrativ... mourning on social media has been discussed at length in recent scholarship, with focus primarily on the social worlds of facebook, twitter, and other sites (gil-egui, kern-stone & forman 2017; gibson 2007; jones 2004). the specific affordances of red... authenticating bowie as a persona the blackstar, narrative, and late style reddit and the mourning of bowie past and present bowies the intention narrative conclusion works cited bomfim 46 “she must be a pure vessel”: an examination of a spirit medium persona éri c o bomf im abstract rosemary brown (1916–2001) is certainly a highly unusual case in music history. in the 1960s, she started to notate hundreds of musical pieces that she attributed to the spirits of several great concert music composers with whom she claimed to be in touch as a spirit medium. brown also furnishes a promising persona case study. in order to convince the public that her music had a spiritual origin, she described herself (and was described) as a simple housewife and mother with no profound musical knowledge, therefore hardly capable of writing original musical pieces in the styles of acclaimed composers. the purpose of this paper is first, to provide an examination of rosemary brown’s public persona; second, to relate it to the spiritualist tradition, in order to demonstrate that the constituent elements of rosemary brown’s persona were available in the spiritualist cultural repertoire; and third, to relate this same persona to the implications of gender in the understanding of mediumship among spiritualists. key words rosemary brown; spiritualism; gender; feminism introduction in the 1960s, an apparently untutored british composer or spirit medium1 called rosemary brown started to write down hundreds of musical pieces in the styles of dozens of great masters of concert music, with whose spirits she claimed to be in touch. the list of composers was quite impressive, as it included bach, mozart, beethoven, schubert, schumann, brahms, chopin, liszt, debussy, rachmaninov and many other historical musical personalities. brown managed to impress some notable scholars with her compositions, some of which seemed to be quite sophisticated and accurate style reproductions. her most celebrated piece was arguably grübelei, which she began to compose in front of the cameras of the british broadcasting corporation (bbc)2 and resembled liszt’s late style. composing grübelei was quite an impressive achievement (even more so before the cameras), since liszt’s late style was not much known at the time and featured advanced harmonic idioms close to twentieth-century music. by establishing a dialogue with that very particular idiom, grübelei managed to impress humphrey searle, one of the most notable liszt experts of the time.3 as impressive as her musical achievements can seem, this paper is not concerned with the intrinsic qualities and merits of rosemary brown’s music – something that to some extent i have explored elsewhere –4, even less with authenticating (or falsifying, for that matter) her spiritual claims. the issue of mediumistic authenticity shall not be addressed here. instead, this paper will provide an account of rosemary brown’s explicit spiritual beliefs and goals, in order to examine the strategies that the british medium used to accomplish those same goals. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 47 as will become clear throughout this article, rosemary brown’s construction of her own public persona had an essential role in the spiritualist discourse. although rosemary brown’s case can seem startling and uncanny, i also aim to demonstrate that the features that constituted her persona as a spirit medium were all available not only in american and european nineteenth-century spiritualist culture, but also in contemporary brazilian spiritism. finally, this paper also provides a brief investigation of the relations between mediumship and gender, as spiritualists believed that traditional feminine attributes rendered women particularly suitable to mediumship, and many aspects of the female spiritualist medium persona are echoed in rosemary brown’s persona. as previously mentioned, this paper will not address the issue of mediumistic authenticity. but if i do not accept in this paper that rosemary brown’s claims are “true”, i also do not wish for the spirit medium persona to be taken as (necessarily) fraudulent or deceptive. it is true that the concept of persona is related to that of theatrical mask, theatrical performance and roleplaying, but this performance is not to be understood as deceitful or dishonest.5 my purpose in this article is to examine the function of a spirit medium persona in the spiritualist discourse and among spiritualist believers. if it is not my purpose to validate rosemary brown’s spiritual claims, it is also not my purpose to make a case for scepticism and address the issue with contempt. i believe spiritualism is a culturally relevant phenomenon that inspired (and inspires)6 sincerely devoted communities, regardless of authenticity obstacles, alternative explanations and many known cases of fraud and charlatanism. it is my view that the proper understanding of spiritualism as a social, historical and religious phenomenon should not be obstructed by the problem of the (un)reality of spirit communication or the (un)truth behind it – as much as it would not be with any other religion, for that matter. even if deception does play a major role both in spiritualism and in the construction of public personas, that should not obstruct the proper understanding of spiritualism as a culturally relevant phenomenon and from a socio-cultural perspective. indeed, natale (2016, n.p) has recently suggested that “faith in spiritualism did not contrast but rather was embedded with the spectacular and entertaining character of séances”, even though that character is commonly associated (correctly at many times) with deception and fraud. according to this approach, the traditional dichotomy that opposes piety and commerce is limiting. in fact, “spiritualists could employ strategies from show business and at the same time believe in what they were doing“, (natale 2016). by the same token, lehman (2014) acknowledges that: [f]raud has doubtless played a role in many performances of shamans, oracles and trance mediums throughout history. but the interpretation of all such phenomena as mere trickery is reductive, and a dead end to attempts to understand and derive meaning from them. the public persona of rosemary brown even though rosemary brown’s music was able to impress musicologists for some of its intrinsic qualities, it was not composed as an end in itself, but rather as a means to a spiritual end. indeed, the british medium described the music as part of an ambitious project planned in the spiritual realm that aimed to provide humanity with evidence of the immortality of the soul. this transcendent project had first been revealed to rosemary brown (1971, p. 14) when she was only seven years old, and liszt (as she would later recognize) appeared to her, saying that he would come back and give her music when she grew up. the idea of the spiritual music as part of a transcendental project would be later confirmed by the spirit of twentieth-century british musicologist donald tovey. according to bomfim 48 rosemary brown (1971, pp. 17–18), tovey’s spirit claimed that “an organised group of musicians who have departed from your world, are attempting to establish a precept for humanity, i.e, that physical death is a transition from one state of consciousness to another wherein one retains one’s individuality”. tovey’s spirit wanted to make it clear that those spirits were not “transmitting music to rosemary brown simply for the sake of offering possible pleasure in listening thereto”, but it was rather “the implications relevant to this phenomenon” that they hoped would “stimulate sensible and sensitive interest and stir many who are intelligent and impartial to consider and explore the unknown regions of man’s mind and psyche”. therefore, brown believed to be just one piece in a transcendent project organized in the spiritual world. her (and the spirits’) main goal was to draw humanity’s attention to a spiritual reality. but in order to achieve this goal, she and her spirits had to convince the public that the music had indeed a spiritual origin, and, to do that, she had to weaken the sceptics’ case. this meant to convince the public not only that she did not compose the musical pieces by herself, but especially that she could not have done so, because she would not be capable of it. one of rosemary brown’s (and the spiritualists’) main strategies to achieve this was to build her image as a sincere, simple and poor housewife widow and mother with very little musical training and a deficient cultural background altogether. the function of rosemary brown’s spirit medium persona was to oppose her image as a competent and self-reliant composer. rosemary brown’s books provide remarkable case study opportunities for an examination of the construction of a spirit medium persona. that is especially the case of her first book, unfinished symphonies, in which brown (1971, pp. 46–57) describes her life and her background in close detail, carefully building her image as a simple housewife from a poor family with very little musical tuition and very limited musical experience whatsoever. the british medium was born in clapham, “which was then beginning to lose its original middleclass respectability and was becoming poorer as the residents with a little money gradually moved farther out of london”.7 her family counted on an income from renting out a hall at the back of their house for events, but “the amount this brought was very meagre and fluctuating”. her mother catered for those events in order to make “a little extra money” and her father was an electrical engineer, “[b]ut that work was not particularly well-paid in those days either”. indeed, her life was “no bed of roses”. brown’s was a rather unmusical home, where any inclination “to go to concerts or listen to classical music” was missing. to be sure, there was only one and a very discreet musical feature in rosemary brown’s family, as her mother “quite liked to play the piano and sing a little”, but even so “she had very little time for anything so relaxing”, since she would have to take care of the house, her three children and manage the assembly hall that they rented. moreover, rosemary brown’s mother got arthritis in her hands at some point, which stopped her from playing the piano. brown’s father “was quite unmusical”, although “he had a pleasant tenor voice”, but “untrained”. he “sang to himself occasionally, but that was about it”. brown also mentions there was a radio in the house, but it was not meant for the children to use. besides, the radio had to be charged, something that cost money and made rosemary brown’s father “a bit frugal about using the radio”. moreover, the radio never transmitted classical music and if rosemary brown’s mother noticed the radio was broadcasting any music “she called ‘heavy’, she would promptly switch off”. when it comes to “semi-classical music”, rosemary brown (1971, pp. 48–9) states that all contact she had with it was at ballet classes that were held in their assembly hall. even so, it would be misleading to think of it as any musical experience that could explain rosemary persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 49 brown’s apparent ability to reproduce classical styles, as the ballet music “wasn’t very representative of anything that one might hear at covent garden”. they danced to music “used for ballet exercises” that never seemed “to have much of a tune; only a definite beat”. only at specific occasions once a year, “excerpts from the classics were used”. but even then, those were mostly “lighter type of pieces” rather than what she “would call real classics”. brown also “had no friends who came from musical homes” and her school did not have any piano lessons available for students, except for private tuition, that “was available to those able to pay the fees”, which of course would not be her case. in sum, the british medium’s childhood would not have been “the sort of privileged childhood that goes with visits to concerts, and a general background of culture”. rosemary brown (1971, p. 50) had, however, had piano lessons. at first, her parents hired “the man who played for the ballroom dance classes” to teach her, but she was not under the impression that he “knew a great deal about music”, even though he taught her “a few chords and how to vamp a bit”. besides, the piano in their house had many missing notes, “which was limiting for both” teacher and student. for all those reasons, rosemary brown’s parents decided to hire another “obviously more qualified teacher”, who gave lessons at his house, which at least meant she “was learning on a piano that actually worked”. however, there was still an important obstacle keeping rosemary brown from dedicating as much time to her musical training as she wanted to. after all, the piano in her home was located in a room kept for rare occasions when they had visitors and the house had no electricity or heating “except by coal fire”, while the room with the piano “was lit only by two gas brackets”. since her mother “would never light a fire unless it was a very special occasion”, she had “to practise in this big, draughty, totally unheated room”, which resulted in a quite bitter practice, according to her memories: “i can remember actually crying because i wanted so much to practice, but my fingers were so cold and stiff that i could hardly move them, let alone play scales”. therefore, even though she “really wanted to learn” and “never minded practicing”, she still had to face an almost unbearable barrier, so “didn’t practise all that much”. finally, there was always the financial obstacle. since her family faced great economic adversities, the piano lessons were often cut off, being “the first economy in any emergency” and that is why the piano lessons just lasted for “a year or so”. this was not her only musical training, though. in her teens, brown (1971, p. 51) “had two terms with a teacher who was an lram [licentiate of the royal academy of music]” and who seemed to be “a good teacher”. this teacher would have given rosemary brown “a much better idea of music”, teaching her “some music theory” and key and time signatures – “though not the more complicated ones”. finally, the second world war imposed another interruption to the piano lessons, which of course “had to be dropped”, only to be retaken “after the war, from 1951 to 1952”, lasting “just over one year”. that would have been rosemary brown’s “entire musical education” up to the point where she started composing (or “channelling”) music, and she “certainly wasn’t being fed music from any other sources”. the first contact she had with actual classical music was through a friend who loved opera and wanted company to watch mozart’s cosi fan tutti. rosemary brown (1971, pp. 51– 52) agreed because her friend “was a nice person” and did not “want to go alone”. however, brown “didn’t think much” of the opera and could not “understand why the other girl was so very enthusiastic”. only after the spiritual music started to be known, she received “a few recordings” of classical music and “a small, cheap record player” as gifts. but she seemed to have trouble concentrating, being “far too active to sit and listen” unless some “very short and interesting piece of music” was being played on the radio, she would tend to get “bored and restless”. bomfim 50 having a deficient musical background, she was not even capable of distinguishing great composers’ styles and “tell whose music is whose”. sometimes she would switch the radio on and try to guess with her daughter: “that’s schubert. no, it’s not. it’s mozart. or could it be beethoven?” but she was “generally wrong every time”. it seems fair to assume that rosemary brown mentioned her trouble distinguishing the composers’ styles to indicate that if she was not even able to tell their styles apart, she certainly wouldn’t be able to reproduce them in the form of original musical pieces. indeed, brown’s detailed and thorough account of her musical background provides the same function: allowing rosemary brown to build her spirit medium persona and make a case for the spiritualists’ discourse. lack of musical training was not the only attribute of rosemary brown’s public persona. if the function of the spirit medium persona was to strengthen the spiritualist discourse and weaken the sceptics’, it would also make sense to picture rosemary brown as someone not interested in fame or money, as sceptics would often point to spurious motivations for mediumship. contrary to sceptics’ suspicions, rosemary brown (1974, p. 39) was not seeking fame, as she loved “quietness and peaceful surroundings”, preferring “to live un-noticed, a modest, simple life”. moreover, brown (1971, p. 42) believed fame could prove to be more a curse than a blessing: another foolish idea is that i hankered after fame. anyone who knows me will realise the truth of the fact – that i much prefer to live quietly, and out of the public eye. so much so that i wonder why people ever covet fame, as it can be a great burden and a nuisance. i have discovered that one loses all privacy and is constantly having demands of all kinds made upon one, also having to endure the misery of hostile criticism and denigration. if it would not be fair to think that brown was seeking fame, neither would it be fair to believe she was driven by pecuniary interests – and brown (1971, 126) would take pains to make this clear. she would not use her “mediumship for money”, neither she would ever “set up as a ‘professional’ medium”, since she believed her mediumship was “a gift from god”. however, she did not renounce the copyrights to the spiritual music and neither did she believe she should. after all, she worked “hard at it, and hard work does entitle one to some remuneration”. besides, the spiritual composers themselves would have “urged” her “to accept the royalties”, as she had her “children to bring up”. for a few years, the spiritual music gave brown autonomy. in 1968, her closest supporters founded the scott fund, whose goal was to finance brown so that she would not have to work in anything else besides the music. although providing her with financial autonomy – so that she could dedicate herself exclusively to the music – the initiative did not work. according to brown (1971, pp. 79–80), the fund made her feel pressured to give results, and she withdrew from it in 1970. even when it came to copyright royalties, the singularity of rosemary brown’s case is quite perceptible. it would be hard to think of any other composer that would feel compelled to justify morally his or her acceptance of the royalties related to the music he or she produced. but in the case of rosemary brown, this was the consequence of the argument that, if the music was not created by her (but rather by spirits), then she should not be entitled to the royalties that would result from it. moreover, brown probably felt compelled to distance herself from the sceptical image of the charlatan spirit medium driven by pecuniary spurious interests. therefore, if she, as any other composer, kept the royalties of the music she produced, she had, differently from anyone else, to justify this choice on moral grounds, at the same time making it clear that money was not her motivation. if she did not want to be the suspicious medium with questionable interests, she had to be the devoted mother that had to provide for her children. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 51 indeed, motherhood, as well as marriage, also played a role in the building of rosemary brown’s (1971, pp. 32–37) spirit medium persona. she began composing (or “channelling”) the spiritual music after her husband died and she “was left penniless” to take care of their “two children aged eight and four-and-a-half to bring up alone”, it was “essential to get a job”. but since she had to manage the school schedule of her children, the “only answer seemed to be some kind of school work which would fit in with the children’s hours”. so, she ended up working in the school kitchen’s service, providing meals for children. the work with the composers’ spirits properly began after she had an accident in the school, possibly breaking two ribs, and had to be “off for weeks with instructions not to do too much”. on one of those days off, brown describes that liszt “appeared very vividly” beside her and guided her hands at the piano: “what was happening seemed natural and normal, and i thought to myself: ‘that’s rather lovely music’, enjoying the pleasurable sensation of listening to the creation of something which i knew was not of my own creating”. the devoted mother also believed she was (and was believed to be) a healer. rosemary brown (1971, 167) believed she was in touch with the spirit of british soldier and surgeon sir george scott robertson, who had been a distant relative and, as a spirit, would assist her healing people in need. the most interesting account of rosemary brown’s alleged healing abilities, however, does not come from her, but rather from the prestigious cellist julian lloyd weber. in his autobiography travels with my cello, lloyd weber (1984, pp. 66–68) writes that he was close to retirement because of terrible pains in one finger that doctors could not resolve. according to him, the british medium healed his finger as well as cured him of kidney stones on a separate occasion. as someone who believed she had (and was believed to have) gifts related to spirituality, rosemary brown also believed she could be a source of spiritual revelation for humanity, something that is demonstrated in all her three books. in all of them, brown (1971, pp. 108–127; 1974, pp. 182–189; 1986, pp. 26–41) dedicates at least one chapter to the description of the spiritual world, what it would be like and how would it work. in these chapters, the british medium addresses issues such as god, christian beliefs, reincarnation and future happiness in the afterlife. sexism and gender equality were also broached. according to brown (1974, p. 106) and regarding the afterlife, the spirit of donald tovey stated that: those who have incarnated in feminine guise are usually happily surprised to […] find themselves in a world or sphere where they will no longer be discriminated against or deprived of various rights and opportunities on account of their sex. in the hereafter one is estimated according to one’s innate qualities and cultivated merits, and the question of sex does not enter into account. those who incarnated in a male guise are sometimes disconcerted to find their traditional male superiority, if they so regarded it, without any continuance in the after-life. rosemary brown and spiritualism a dedicated mother, a sorrowful widow, an honest, sincere and humble housewife with no pecuniary interests nor wishes for fame, a healer capable of revealing aspects of the afterlife and an untutored amateur musician incapable even of recognizing and distinguishing classical composers’ styles: all those elements worked together to form the spirit medium persona of rosemary brown. an accurate description of the public persona of rosemary brown, together with the role it plays in the spiritualist discourse is provided by mervyn stockwood (1971), bishop of southwark, who writes the foreword for unfinished symphonies: bomfim 52 now if rosemary brown had devoted her life to music and was a brilliant pianist it might be possible to find a straightforward explanation. but that is not the case. rosemary brown grew up in comparatively humble circumstances which did not provide money or leisure for the pursuit of musical studies. in more recent years she has been a busy housewife and mother in her home in balham. as sir george trevelyan says, she had no musical background or initial talent, almost no training, and very little experience in listening to records or concerts whether live or on the radio. her main job, as a widow, was to make ends meet, and this she did by working five hours a day in the school meals service. in my opinion the most likely explanation of this phenomenon is a psychic one. it is to be found in rosemary brown’s mediumship. another model illustration of the spiritualist discourse, and the function of the spirit medium persona within it, is provided by the composer ian parrott, probably the most devoted champion of the rosemary brown in the musical field. indeed, his book the music of rosemary brown (parrott, 1978) is dedicated to making a case for the spiritualists’ side, on which he publicly admitted to being. besides praising the spiritual music’s qualities, parrott (1978, p. 9) also accepts and emphasizes rosemary brown’s persona; she is described by him as a “quiet, unpretentious and musically untalented south london housewife”. regarding rosemary brown’s background, “[t]he only musical influences on a mundane plane seem to have come from some quite ordinary ballet classes and from some fairly unsatisfactory and sporadic piano lessons”. therefore, he writes, by the time she started writing down the spiritual music, she had had only “very little musical tuition”. parrott (1978, p. 11) also emphasised that the musical training rosemary brown had was “only the minimum of musical rudiments necessary for writing down what came to her”. he could also attest to rosemary brown’s (lack of) musical skills first hand. “[w]hen trying to help her with score-reading, instrumentation, form, history, etc.”, he learned that her skills were below those of a music student and that she remained “as far as possible a clean vessel”. therefore, parrott (1978, p. 12) was “able to confirm the impression of mary firth, who, when she gave rosemary ear tests, found a complete lack of basic music ability such as she had come to expect in any student – certainly in a student doing composition”. consequently, rosemary brown’s musical achievements were obtained “with no training and very little harmonic knowledge of any kind”. in making his point, parrott (1978, p. 64) also asks himself why would the composers’ spirits not choose a “more qualified musician” that would presumably be able to transcribe the spiritual music easier and more accurately. according to parrot, “[t]his would defeat the object”, as “she must be a pure vessel”. parrott (1978, pp. 68–9) also quotes robin stone, professor at the london college of music, regarding this matter, for who “[t]he other side, wishing to prove survival after death, used a non musician to take down music dictated by some of the world’s great composers”, and it “would have been a mistake to have taken a musician for obvious reasons”. many features in rosemary brown’s persona resonate with the history of spiritualism. to begin with, biographies were published on many nineteenth-century mediums. according to natale (2016, n.p), “biographical accounts of spiritualist mediums […] reached a high level of standardization during the second half of the nineteenth century”, to a point that “[b]iographies of mediums can be regarded as a kind of literary subgenre with recurring conventions and patterns”. indeed, some of the patterns of this subgenre described by natale can be easily recognized in rosemary brown’s books. precisely as in brown’s narrative of when she first saw liszt’s spirit aged seven years, in those nineteenth-century biographies “the powers of the persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 53 medium were revealed in early childhood”, even if they were not “recognized as such”. and if for rosemary brown the loss of her husband was an important turning point in her trajectory of medium, in the biographies of nineteenth-century mediums “[t]he death of a close relative, such as the medium’s father, was often the subject of particular attention, leading to his reappearance as a spirit guide after the discovery of mediumistic gifts”. in brown’s case, the loss of the husband was a turning point, but it was liszt’s spirit that reappeared as a spirit guide. also like in rosemary brown’s case, some of those biographies of mediums were autobiographies, as some of the “mediums authored their own personal narratives” (natale 2016). those autobiographies played a very similar role to that of brown’s books. after all, “[t]he publication of these memoirs was intended to demonstrate their devotion to the goal of spreading the spiritualist faith, along with their understanding of mediumship as a public role”. therefore, “autobiographies of mediums shed light on the strategies they used to represent their own identity as well as their role within the spiritualist enterprise”. as we can see, the autobiographies of nineteenth-century mediums and of rosemary brown indicate similar perceptions of mediumship as part of a transcendental project related to the propagation of a “spiritual truth”. moreover, they also seem to provide model illustrations of the construction of a spirit medium persona and its function within spiritualist discourse. central to the persona template analysed in this paper is the construction of the spirit medium as someone from a culturally poor background, lacking knowledge or formal instruction. that is indeed a leitmotif in spiritualism, which is also noted by natale (2016, n.p), according to whom “mediums often stressed their lack of education and knowledge”. but that picture was not made only by the mediums themselves. in order to investigate this side of the spirit medium persona in the spiritualist discourse, i will take the history of spiritualism, by british writer and spiritualist, arthur conan doyle (2001a; 2001b), which provide numerous characterizations of mediums that accurately illustrate how the spirit medium persona operates within spiritualist discourse and how it participates in spiritualists’ system of beliefs. the inauguration of spiritualism is usually associated with the well-known case of the fox sisters starting in 1848, although the origin of modern spiritualism can be traced back to emanuel swedenborg and the new church foundation in the eighteenth-century. conan doyle’s (2001a, pp. 90–91) image of the fox sisters provides a close relation to the spirit medium persona examined here; he describes them as “little more than children, poorly educated, and quite ignorant of” spiritualism’s philosophy. similarly, doyle quotes an alleged non-spiritualist who “was clearly intimately acquainted with” the fox family and for whom margaret fox was a simple, ingenuous and shy girl, who “could not, had she been so inclined, have practised the slightest deception with any chance of success”. indeed, the young, naïve, shy, pure and uninstructed female medium was one of the main spirit medium personas in nineteenth-century spiritualism. a model example is florence cook, who was believed to materialize a spirit called katie king, which was closely investigated by scientist and scholar william crookes. similar to the fox sisters, florence cook was described by crookes (in doyle 2001a, p. 240) as an “innocent schoolgirl of fifteen” who would be incapable of carrying out a successful deception, for this would be “foreign to her nature”. moreover, florence cook was willing to fulfil spiritualists’ expectation of transparency and investigation, as she would “submit to any test which might be imposed upon her”, including “to be searched at any time”.8 youth played a role in the persona of many other mediums,9 including male ones, such as the davenport brothers, who were described by doyle (2001a, pp. 213–214) as “mere boys, too young to have learned any elaborate means of deception”. they were tested by harvard bomfim 54 professors who, according to doyle, would have failed to acknowledge the brothers’ authentic mediumship, even though the brothers were willing to submit to all kinds of test conditions. integrity and honesty were also seen to be present. according to their biographer, dr nichols, quoted by doyle (2001a, p. 215), the davenport brothers seemed “entirely honest, singularly disinterested and unmercenary – far more anxious to have people satisfied of their integrity and the reality of their manifestations than to make money”. moreover, dr nichols said they had been selected “as the instruments of what they believe will be some great good to mankind”. in a similar fashion, conan doyle (2001b, p. 34) believed british medium madame d’esperance to be “a young girl of average middle-class education” when her mediumship began to be noticed. “[i]n semitrance, however, she displayed to a marked degree that gift of wisdom and knowledge which st. paul places at the head of his spiritual category”, being capable of writing down very quickly – and not only in english, but also in german and latin – answers to questions covering “every branch of science”. in her turn, medium elizabeth blake was described by doyle (2001b, p. 161) as “a poor, illiterate woman” who “was strongly religious”. like many other spiritualist mediums, she “was said to have been repeatedly tested by ‘scientists, physicians and others,’ and to have submitted willingly to all their tests”. lack of formal instruction was also linked to the eddy brothers, who were described by doyle (2001a, 253) as “primitive folk” that, according to another observer quoted by him, looked “more like hard-working rough farmers than prophets or priests of a new dispensation”. this description is not much different to the one of italian medium eusapia palladino, depicted by doyle (2001b, 12) as a “humble, illiterate neapolitan woman”. doyle was certainly much more polite than professor ércole chiaia (in doyle 2001b, p, 14), who described eusapia palladino as “an invalid woman” who belonged “to the humblest class of society” and was “nearly thirty years old and very ignorant”. to be sure, that harsh description was meant to contrast with eusapia’s alleged powers, for, according to chiaia, she was capable of lifting furniture without touching it and could keep it “suspended in the air like mahomet’s coffin”, making them to “come down again with undulatory movements, as if they were obeying to her will”, even though she was either “bound to a seat or firmly held by the hands of the curious”. indeed, palladino herself would rise “in the air, no matter what bands” would tie her down, seeming to “lie upon the empty air, as on a couch, contrary to all the laws of gravity”. the idea that the medium could achieve through mediumship results that otherwise were beyond his or her capabilities was no particularity of british and american spiritualism. french spiritualist allan kardec (1984, 164), who named his spiritualist system “spiritism”, also believed and emphasized that spirit mediums could produce results beyond his or her personal knowledge and not matched to his or her background: a phenomenon which is very common in mediumship is the aptitude of certain mediums to write in a language which is unknown to them, – to speak or write upon subjects outside their knowledge. it is not rare to see those who write rapidly without having learned to write; others still who become poets, without ever having before composed a line of poetry; others sketch, paint, sculpt, compose music, play on an instrument, without having previously known anything of either accomplishment. very frequently the writing-medium reproduces the writing and signature of the spirits communicating by him, although he had never known them in earth-life. finally, the spirit medium persona examined here is not confined to american and european spiritualism. the public persona of the brazilian spiritist medium chico xavier demonstrated the same essential characteristics that were seen in the case of rosemary brown. indeed, for the preface of the brazilian edition of unfinished symphonies, elsie dubugras (1971) called persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 55 rosemary brown “the chico xavier of music”. quite like rosemary brown, chico xavier was also believed to be capable of writing literary (instead of musical) pieces apparently beyond his literary knowledge. in a dissertation on an anthology of poems attributed to the spirits of famous poets by xavier, called parnaso de além-túmulo, alexandre caroli rocha (2001, p. 187), besides providing a stylistic discussion of the mediumistic poems, also notes that “in order for the [mediumistic] work to become more convincing”, chico xavier did not have a scholar profile at all. [i]nstead, in 1931 (when the poems of the 1st edition of parnaso were written) chico xavier was a young man of 21 years who worked as a clerk in a warehouse from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. in pedro leopoldo, a small mining town where there was not even a public library and where he had studied until the fourth year of primary school. that is not the only parallel to be drawn between chico xavier and rosemary brown, for xavier also believed he was (and was believed to be) a source of revelation of the afterlife, as some of his books – notably nosso lar – attempt to explain and describe the spiritual world, its laws and spiritual communities. moreover, he publicly renounced all copyright royalties related to his mediumistic works, helping to shape his public image as a selfless and charitable religious leader. being perceived by the brazilian spiritualist community as a sincere, devoted and uninstructed religious leader who was undertaking a spiritual mission, chico xavier, like rosemary brown, illustrates the spirit medium persona of the twentieth-century. a feminine and pure vessel in a series of lectures from the 1970s turned into a book, edward cone (1974) introduces the concept of the “implicit persona” or the “complete musical persona” behind a musical composition. although for cone (1974, p. 57) “the persona is by no means identical with the composer”, it is nevertheless “a projection of his musical intelligence, constituting the mind, so to speak, of the composition in question”. if we were to link cone's concept to rosemary brown's and the spiritualists’ perspective, the composers’ persona behind spiritual compositions does not reside in the medium, but rather in the communicating spirit. furthermore, the medium must, in the spiritualists’ perception, relinquish his or her own persona in order to become a clean, neutral and pure vessel for the spirits’ interference. in other words, rosemary brown could not be the active mind who created the composition, but rather the neutral passive channel for the spirits’ will. the spirit medium persona was, in some sense, a non-persona and a clean vessel. according to rosemary brown, this idea is corroborated by liszt's spirit himself. when asked by brown (1971, p. 54) why did the spiritual composers choose an almost untutored amateur to receive their new musical pieces instead of a trained composer, liszt’s spirit answered not only that “a full musical education would have made it much harder” for brown to prove that she could not be composing his (and the other the spirits’) music by herself, but also that “a musical background” would cause her “to acquire too many ideas and theories” of her own, something that would be “an impediment” to the spirits. the words attributed to liszt fit well the opinion previously stated by ian parrott, who made it clear that rosemary brown must have remained a pure vessel. it is also supported by mervyn stockwood’s (1971) preface, where he notes that the word medium, “in its strict sense, means nothing more than an intermediary, somebody who acts as a go-between”. if rosemary brown had to remain a clean vessel for the spirits’ active mind and musical intelligence, then any influences of her own on the spiritual music would be perceived as bomfim 56 contamination. indeed, that is the view of brown (1971, p. 41) herself, who acknowledged that “not all of the music” she had written down was “superb”, the justification being: “the composers are limited by my limitations at present – and the difficulties of transmission”. ian parrott (1978, p. 29) also acknowledged that it “is true that much of her music is symmetrically measured both as regards numbers of bars and also individual notes and phrases”. but the explanation would reside between both worlds. after all, “rhythmical peculiarities, syncopations and formal irregularities must be very much more difficult to transmit than just a succession of notes”. and he goes further. when dealing with a section from a piece attributed to debussy that he believed to be musically unsatisfactory, parrott (1978, 35) judged that “we may here have a glimpse of rosemary the vessel with debussy, as it were, breaking through. it cannot, in fact, be pure debussy”. according to him, brown had at least once “been left unaided to write the accompaniment” of a musical piece, as the spirit would have let her complete it by herself. consequently, “[h]er amateurish harmonies, of course, showed through” and the result could “scarcely be other than valueless”. if some of rosemary brown’s pieces showed “a conventional repeated final chord added – an almost vulgar touch in light music of the twenties”, this “may have entered her mind” as a cliché inherited from her poor (light and ballet-music) cultural background. ian parrott’s implication is clear: when it comes to spiritual music, nothing good can result from the interference of the medium. if the merits are spiritual, the flaws are mundane. it is certainly no coincidence that not only rosemary brown, but so many other mediums mentioned here, were female. when it comes to american nineteenth-century spiritualism, mediumship was perceived as a passive attribute “closely identified with femininity”, as acknowledges ann braude (2001, p. 23). spiritualists also used electricity analogies, according to which men were positive, whilst women (and mediumship) were negative. when men were mediums, they were understood to bear feminine features where their mediumship was concerned – that is to say, mediumship was a feminine attribute even when bore by men. not so different from rosemary brown, nineteenth-century trance speakers had to relinquish their own personas in some sense to allow spirit agency. the greater the contrast between their (naïve, innocent, untutored, pure) medium persona and their (eloquent, confident, self-assured) spiritual persona, the greater the impact they would have on their audience. after all, as braude (2001, p. 82–86) puts it, “the cult of true womanhood asserted that women’s nature was characterized by purity, piety, passivity, and domesticity” and, by the same token, trance speakers “qualified by innocence, ignorance, and youth”. therefore, when a trance speaker “stood up in public and gave a lecture […] few believed a woman could do such a thing unaided”, making it easy for the audience to accept spirit agency. in other words, “nineteenth-century stereotypes of femininity were used to bolster the case for female mediumship”. quite like rosemary brown, some of those mediums were also believed to have healing abilities, that, according to braude (2001, p. 148), were also thought to be connected to women’s “inherent nurturing qualities”. more recently, cristopher scheitle (2005) associated women’s traditional relationship to spiritualism to women’s socialization, which rendered them “more receptive to the possibility of spirit contact”. according to scheitle, there are three reasons for this: first, women are socialized as caretakers for the family, allowing personal and intimate bonds to continue after death. second, “[w]omen are also socialized to be more open to dwelling on and expressing emotions, especially when it comes to sadness and mourning”. third, “women have been socialized to be persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 57 more willing to accept emotion and intuition as legitimate forms of knowledge. this prevents them from explaining away what they feel are communications from the dead as irrational, unscientific, or simply as a coincidence”. the association between femininity and mediumship could also have particularly negative connotations, as amy lehman (2014, n.p) observes, “[i]t was a common assumption that women were prone to uncontrollable emotional, spiritual or erotic fits, which might be linked to occult powers or phenomena”. but if it is true that spiritualism made use of traditional and problematic feminine attributes to build its mediums’ images, it is also true that those same attributes opened new avenues for female transgression. by having direct contact with spirits, women did not need formal instruction to become acceptable sources of spiritual revelation. this way, according to braude (2001, pp. 82–91), women were capable of bypassing “the need for education, ordination, or organizational recognition, which secured the monopoly of male religious leaders”, and trance speakers became historically relevant “in the emergence of women as public speakers during the 1850s”. from the point when women became recognized mediums, they also incorporated the role of spiritual guides. as mediums, “women became sources of religious truth, and, as such, assumed the authority of religious leaders”. in fact, in spiritualism “women’s religious leadership became normative for the first time in american history”. the picture was no different in victorian society, where, according to alex owen (1989, n.p), “the nineteenth-century idea of femininity was crucial to the entire enterprise of victorian mediumship”, which made women “prominent within the spiritualist movement during a period of its popularity and expansion”. precisely as in the united states, the same traditional gender stereotypes that were a constraint to women were also used to bolster their mediumship, and, from this point on, to develop their leadership and autonomy within society. in other words, “spiritualism validated the female authoritative voice and permitted women an active professional and spiritual role largely denied them elsewhere” (owen 1989, p. 6). spiritualism also interacted with the cultural environment of the time. according to lehman (2014), “the trance state, allied to the transformative possibilities of theatre, provided significant opportunities for victorian women to speak, act, and create outside the boundaries of their normally restricted social and psychological roles”. a similar point of view is provided by danielle jean drew (2017, p. 8), who wrote, “the occult revival, specifically the modern spiritualist movement, provided women with physical, emotional, and spiritual autonomy in a variety of ways”. one of those was professional mediumship, which suited especially middle-class women. spiritualists had conflicting ways of dealing with this sensitive issue. according to owen (1989, p. 56), “some spiritualists considered it almost immoral to place a price upon a blessed gift” such as mediumship. moreover, renouncing fees was a simple, straightforward and anticipated way to respond to the accusations of charlatanism and pecuniary interest that haunted spiritualism since its beginnings. allan kardec (1987, pp. 247–250) was among the spiritualists who supported gratuitous mediumship. he argued precisely that this faculty was freely given by god and that the words said by a medium were not the product of her or his research and wisdom; thus mediums should not charge for communicating with the dead. moreover, he believed pecuniary interests could not attract elevated spirits, but rather inferior ones. for other spiritualists, however, a medium should be entitled to her or his gains. after all, she or he had spent so much time communicating with the dead and even if the resulting messages were not the product of the medium’s mind, why could she or he not charge for all the amount of time dedicated to the spiritual activity? among the apologists of professional mediumship, emma hardinge brittain (in owen 1989, p. 56) stands out. she argued: “if my bomfim 58 mediumistic gift is the one most in requisition, it is no less worthy of being exchanged for bread than any other”. like it or not, professional mediumship had its advantages for nineteenthcentury women. according to drew (2017, 37), “this un-professionalized profession provided women in the spiritualist movement with the means of gaining not just spiritual, but financial autonomy”. the emergence of mediumship as a profession in the nineteenth-century was also acknowledged by moore (1975), for whom mediumship was “one of the few career opportunities open to women in the nineteenth century”. my account of rosemary brown’s relationship with her mediumship shows correlations with both views. on the one hand, like kardec and parts of spiritualism, she did not understand mediumship as a profession, her argument being that it was a gift from god and something sacred to her. on the other hand, like emma hardinge britten, she believed she was entitled to the royalties of the music, since she spent much of her time on it and had two children to provide for. as we can see, she had to justify her acceptance of the royalties on moral grounds, so that she could have the best of both worlds; that is, receiving royalties without at the same time ruining her persona of a devoted medium. once spiritualism had offered spiritual leadership and financial autonomy to nineteenthcentury women, it did not take much time for spiritualists (female trance speakers in particular) to engage in the women’s rights struggle. indeed, the intersection between spiritualism and women’s rights can hardly be overemphasized. according to braude (2001, pp. 57, 27), as “the two movements shared many leaders and activists” and “[e]very notable progressive family of the nineteenth century had its advocate of spiritualism”. in fact, spiritualists “spread the message of women’s emancipation to large audiences, lecturing tirelessly across the country” (p. 81) and spiritualism would have been “the only religious sect” to recognize the equality of women at that period (p. 2). by this means, spiritualism “became a major – if not the major – vehicle for the spread of woman’s rights ideas in mid-century america” (p. 81). after all, spiritualists believed that the liberation of women would mean “the world’s redemption”, as one spiritualist once put it (p. 57). but spiritualism was no utopia. a contrasting perspective on the limitations of spiritualism is provided by kathrin trattner (2016, p. 116). trattner believed “it is difficult to support the claim of some authors that victorian spiritualism was actually a liberating movement for women”, especially because mediumship was underpinned by (and would not challenge) traditional gender stereotypes, that, besides rendering women less active in society, also associated them with specific pathologies. it should also be noted that the progressive agenda linked to trance speakers cannot be attributed to all female mediumship. as braude (2001, pp. 173–178) described, materialization mediums did not have the same leadership role as trance speakers, and were much less engaged in women’s rights struggles. moreover, materialization mediums were subjected to many humiliations that were justified as a means to prevent fraud. this was also observed by featherstone (2011, pp. 142, 147) in connection to the case of helen duncan, the “last person in england to be prosecuted under the witchcraft act, her trial resulting in a nine-month prison sentence”. besides being sent to jail, she endured many “intrusive indignities […] including vaginal and rectal searches, strapping and binding, and the threatened application of x-rays”, all of them made by “medical men” and pretentiously justified by research purposes. despite admirable progressive tendencies, spiritualism could also show a dark misogynistic side. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 59 conclusion it is not this article’s goal to address the never-ending and perhaps insuperable problems around spiritualists’ claims, but rather to investigate what role and function the spirit medium persona played in the case of rosemary brown and how it relates to spiritualism and gender. i have demonstrated that all constituent elements of rosemary brown’s public persona were part of spiritualism’s cultural and historical repertoire and fulfilled equivalent roles and similar expectations of the spirit medium in spiritualist discourse. like many other spiritualist mediums, brown described herself (and was described) as a sincere devoted believer incapable of achieving her results only by her own merits and without spiritual interference, due to her lack of knowledge. instead of a self-reliant brilliant composer, rosemary brown was perceived as a sincere and devoted mother with a deficient cultural and musical background. as many nineteenth-century female mediums, brown also obtained financial autonomy from her mediumship, even if denying pecuniary gains as a goal in itself. precisely like some other spiritualist mediums, she also believed herself to be a source of spiritual revelation, aiming to provide humanity with spiritual enlightenment and religious guidance. as many spiritualist mediums, she was a woman who was believed to be a mere passive channel for the spirits’ interference, borrowing many traditionally feminine attributes to build her capacity for mediumship. although possibly in a much less radical way than trance speakers, rosemary brown also made use of her religious leadership to dispute sexist ideas. despite the lack of consensus regarding her claims, it would be fair to say that, at least among spiritualist believers, she was surely successful. acknowledgement this study was financed in part by the coordenação de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nível superior (capes) finance code 001. end notes 1 of course, the free use of the word “medium” here does not imply an acceptance of the authenticity of any spirit communications, but since the word can hardly be avoided in this paper (given its subject), i took the liberty not only of using it but also of not keeping it in quotes. 2 in fact, this was not the only occasion that the media showed its interest in rosemary brown, as she appeared on many talk shows, radio interviews and so on. the media interest in brown was certainly not an isolated fact, given the close relation between the emergence of entertainment media and the rise of spiritualism (natale 2016) and the contemporary media interest in the paranormal in general (hill 2010). in a related fashion, natale (2016, n.p) also proposed that celebrity was a “mechanism that contributed to spreading spiritualist claims”. 3 a detailed account of rosemary brown’s career is provided in her book unfinished symphonies (brown 1971). 4 for a detailed musical and analytical investigation of a sonata attributed to schubert by rosemary brown, see bomfim 2015. 5 indeed, the notion of persona applies to many categories, including scholars (paul 2014), and yet addressing the issue of the scholarly persona would not mean of course to call scholars deceitful performers who just pretend to believe what they say or write. 6 spiritualist echoes nowadays can hardly be overestimated. polls described by hill (2010, n.p) find that almost half the british population believes in ghosts, while in the united states one in three had the same believe. when it comes to all the world population, more than 50% hold at least one paranormal belief. 7 here we could already anticipate a discreet relation between brown and spiritualist history. as drew (2017) thoroughly describes, london played a central role in the occult revival of the nineteenth-century. as we shall see, there are many other (and much deeper) relations between rosemary brown and spiritualist history. 8 as will be mentioned later, this willingness to be searched can relate to misogynistic practices that affected specially materialization mediumship. bomfim 60 9 natale (2016, n.p) also notes that “spiritualists frequently recognized mediumistic powers in children”, as possibly a means to refute the trickery and fraud hypothesis. “this link between childish innocence and mediumship can be found frequently in the history of spiritualism during the nineteenth century and beyond”. works cited bomfim, e� 2015, ‘"compondo invisivelmente para além do túmulo": investigação de uma sonata atribuı́da ao espı́rito de schubert pela médium rosemary brown’, master's dissertation, federal university of rio de janeiro. braude, a 2011, radical spirits: spiritualism and women’s rights in nineteenth-century america, indiana university press, bloomington and indianapolis. brown, r 1971, unfinished symphonies: voices from the beyond, souvenir press, london. — 1974, immortals at my elbow, bachman & turner, london. — 1986, look beyond today, bantam press, london. doyle, ac 2003a, the history of spiritualism. volume i, fredonia books, amsterdam. — 2003b, the history of spiritualism. volume ii, fredonia books, amsterdam. drew, dj 2017, ‘fragile spectres: how women of victorian britain used the occult and spiritualist movement to create autonomy’, phd dissertation, florida gulf coast university. dubugras, e 1971, ‘prefácio’, in r brown, sinfonias inacabadas: os grandes mestres compõem do além, edigraf, são paulo. featherstone, s 2011, ‘spiritualism as popular performance in the 1930s: the dark theatre of helen duncan’, new theatre quarterly vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 141–152. hill, a 2010, paranormal media: audiences, spirits and magic in popular culture, routledge, new york. kardec, a 1984, genesis, retrieved 10 july 2019, <http://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/ingles/genesis.pdf> — the gospel according to spiritism, retrieved 10 july 2019, <http://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/ingles/gospel.pdf> lehman, a 2014, victorian women and the theatre of trance: mediums, spiritualists and mesmerists in performance, mcfarland, jefferson and london. lennox, s 2018, ‘“she was a brave and a busy woman”: rediscovering florence marryat, victorian novelist, spiritualist, and performer’, literature compass vol. 15, no. 3, p. e12439. moore, rl 1975, ‘the spiritualist medium: a study of female professionalism in victorian america’, american quarterly vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 200–221. natale, s 2016, supernatural entertainments: victorian spiritualism and the rise of modern media culture, penn state press, state college. parrott, i 1978, the music of rosemary brown, regency press, london. paul, h 2016, ‘sources of the self. scholarly personae as repertoires of scholarly selfhood’, bmgn – low countries historical review, vol. 131, no. 4, pp. 135–154. rocha, ac 2001, a poesia transcendente de parnaso de além-túmulo, unicamp, campinas. scheitle, cp 2005, ‘bringing out the dead: gender and historical cycles of spiritualism’, omegajournal of death and dying vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 237–253. stockwood, m 1971, ‘foreword’, in r. brown, unfinished symphonies: voices from the beyond, souvenir press, london. trattner, k 2016, ‘beyond sanity. women in 19th century spiritualism between pathologization and liberation’, disputatio philosophica vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 105–118. weber, jl 1984, travels with my cello, pavilion books, london. http://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/ingles/genesis.pdf http://www.oconsolador.com.br/linkfixo/bibliotecavirtual/ingles/gospel.pdf érico bomfim abstract key words introduction the public persona of rosemary brown rosemary brown and spiritualism a feminine and pure vessel conclusion acknowledgement works cited marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 66 “un geste suffit”? unpacking the inconvenient truths about al gore’s celebrity activism p. dav id mars hall, gle nn d’cr u z, a n d shary n mcdon a ld abstract the present work interrogates al gore’s persona as a climate change activist with reference to a process we describe with the neologism “personafication”: the act of constructing/presenting a public persona in order to cultivate impressions that enable public figures to consolidate authoritative reputations. the formation of such a commanding persona requires the circulation of three forms of symbolic capital: cultural, celebrity, and reputational capital as well as the performance of overtly theatrical strategies calculated to establish an empathetic relationship between performer and audience. in 2006, former vice president al gore released the award-winning documentary, an inconvenient truth. this film subsequently functioned as a catalyst for various forms of climate change activism. this paper unpacks the contradictory ideological and cultural work performed by the film with reference to what we describe as un geste suffit; that is, those gestures that merely perform individual agency in order to connect the formulation of personal ethical identity to communal forms of political activism like environmentalism. through a close reading of the presentation of gore’s persona in the film itself, and research which tracks the reception and political efficacy of the film, the paper contributes to the growing body of scholarship on the politics of environmental/scientific communication. finally, we locate our reading of gore’s film within a contemporary context by making reference to the way an inconvenient truth is both resistant to and complicit with the environmental policies of the trump administration. key words celebrity activism; persona; al gore; climate change; an inconvenient truth (film) introduction this paper unpacks the ideological work performed by al gore’s environmental activism by tracking and analysing the development of his profoundly complex public persona with a focus on his award-winning film, an inconvenient truth (2006), a formative vehicle for what we call gore’s personafication. that is, a process that involves three dimensions: the ‘facticity’ of persona, the acquisition and display of symbolic capital, and the affective performance of persona. we do this to better articulate the political dimension of persona studies (marshall and henderson 2016), and contribute to the growing body of scholarship on celebrity activism in the fields of cultural studies (see for example pezzullo 2013), celebrity studies (see for example littler & goodman 2013; marshall 2013; turner 2016) and, more specifically, environmental persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 67 communication. in doing this we acknowledge, in the words of cox and pezzullo, that “the way we communicate with one another about the environment powerfully affects how we define both it and ourselves and, therefore, how we define our relationships with the natural world” (2016, p. 2). however, we also believe that it is important to pay attention to the complex mechanisms that confer and undermine the authority of public figures such as gore. put differently, we argue that the performative dimension of celebrity persona constitutes a hitherto neglected “node” of the “circuit of culture” developed as an analytical methodology by stuart hall and his colleagues in the late 1990s (du gay et al. 1997, pp. xxx-xxxi). we will frame our analysis of gore’s environmental activism with a discussion of the connections between the performance of individual agency in everyday life and the performance of activism in celebrity culture. vice-president ‘bore’ from 1993-2001, al gore was the 45th vice-president of the united states. had he not become a prominent environmentalist activist his fame might have faded from collective public memory. in policy terms, he might be remembered as an advocate for universal access to the internet, various environmental causes, and as a staunch defender of bill clinton during the monica lewinsky scandal. as vp, commentators perceived gore as an earnest, hardworking, pedantic bore. for example, writing in 2000, the year of gore’s unsuccessful presidential campaign, david maraniss and ellen nakashima of the washington post noted that gore “is often contrasted with the personality of his political patron and white house boss, bill clinton, who is considered more extemporaneous” (2000). the post journalists sought to make public gore’s mediocre academic record, and question gore’s credentials as a tech-savvy candidate. their article ends with a quote from gore’s then press secretary, chris lehane, who states, "this just proves that many of the preconceived notions of al gore have been stiff and boring . . . he in fact has a very rich and well-rounded background--artist, athlete and academic" (in maraniss & nakashima 2000). the article ignores the fact that gore wrote a senior year thesis at harvard university titled ‘the impact of television on the conduct of the presidency, 1947-1969’ (gore, 1969). the thesis itself concerns the way televised presidential press conferences transformed the way that the white house disseminated information under the administrations of eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, and nixon. the salient point here is that as a former student of television, gore was aware of the role media play in political life. however, it would be imprudent to claim that the authorship of this thesis alone accounts for gore’s eventual transformation from pedantic bore to dynamic climate change warrior. nonetheless, it is important to bear in mind that gore has had a long-standing interest in the relationship between media and political communication, and, as we shall see, this background forms one significant context for understanding the way the performative node of the circuit of culture impacts on the construction of gore’s persona. we will return the facticity of gore’s persona later; for the moment we need to acknowledge that we live in the era of celebrity politics. this is a complex relationship that scholars such as wheeler (2013) have outlined permeates our fields of popular and political culture, and works to reform the way that issues migrate through our mediated world. we need to recognise that it is a time when the relationship between popular culture and politics generates celebrity politicians and political celebrities. moreover, it is important to acknowledge further that in our relatively new era of social media, we have a different circulation of newsfeeds that challenge the power and conventions of legacy media. as lance bennett’s work has explored, this increasing personalisation of politics shifts from legacy marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 68 media’s constitution of a public “daily us” (drawing from negroponte 1995) to new media’s “daily me” (bennett 2016, p. 1; bennett & segerberg 2012, pp. 739-768). this personalization of politics is potentially pushing us into further blending of celebrity and politics, albeit perhaps with a different configuration around issues and personalities. john street (2004) makes a distinction between two types of celebrity politicians. the first is an elected representative who has a background in an entertainment industry (ronald reagan and arnold schwarzenegger, for example). the second is an elected official who seeks celebrity status through association (tony blair consorting with pop stars). of course, people who hold prestigious political office also accrue the trappings of celebrity (obama is a paradigmatic instance of this kind of celebrity politician). gore is yet another type of celebrity politician since he draws on his former life as a politician to bolster his credibility while promoting an activist agenda through making films and associating with activist celebrities. this paper argues that gore’s particular brand of celebrity activism draws heavily on his cultivation of a new persona, one that is distinctive from his vp persona. more importantly, gore’s public presentation of self is enmeshed with a form of political activism, which both connects and distinguishes him from the activities of celebrity activists such as leonardo dicaprio, for example. it is therefore necessary to examine this form of celebrity activism as a prelude to our account of gore’s personafication. it is also important to stress that we are not making value judgements about the efficacy of celebrity activism per se. in what follows, we contrast the similarities and differences between gore’s activist strategies and those of celebrity activists involved in what puzzello (2011) calls ‘buycott’ strategies. that is, a form of consumer activism that involves the purchase of products deemed to be good for the environment. while we are agnostic about the pragmatic value of such actions, we acknowledge that mass consumption of certain kinds of environmentally-friendly products might produce beneficial consequences that are independent of the consumer’s ethical commitment to environmental politics. with these caveats aside, the focus of this paper is on the personafication of gore as a significant moment in the history of climate change communication. un geste suffit let there be light, or not. sometime during the 1990s, a concise imperative appeared under an inordinate number of light switches in the public institutions of ottawa and montreal: un geste suffit. this exhortation, a sufficient gesture, conveyed the idea that by simply turning off a light, people could make a small contribution to saving electricity. such a gesture would also contribute, presumably, to both economic efficiency and environmental responsibility. it was also a caring sentiment that at the institutional level attached the institution to the metanarrative of environmentalism and at least pushed individual employees to feel a shared obligation. meta-narratives have often been linked to capitalism, religion, socialism and the sense of progress attached to modernity (lyotard 1984); but despite lyotard’s belief that the postmodern condition was marked by an incredulity towards meta-narratives (lyotard 1984, p. xxiv), it is important to acknowledge that they can continue to function as mechanisms that describe how complex cultural representations flow through narratives that organise the self and society. in this sense, environmentalism is a meta-narrative that provides people with an intelligible structure for everyday life by promoting a set of stories that ‘makes sense’ of the order of things. on one level, then, environmentalism is a complex scientific discourse that substantiates the reality of global warming, but it is also a gestural narrative that enables individuals to express solidarity with an ethical belief system that confers on them an identity that is indivisibly connected to the meta-narrative of climate crisis. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 69 the salient point here is not that people are deluded or misguided about the real impact of small performative gestures. rather, the imperative described above has an ideological function; it addresses people as individuals and communicates the idea that a small individual gesture, like turning off the lights, can meaningfully contribute to averting a climatic cataclysm that is a consequence of complex forces generated by industrialisation, public policy, and capitalism. the act of turning off a light becomes a performative act of individualized agency. put differently, it is a form of political engagement that possesses an ethical posture and moves through the individual into a collective experience. but perhaps there is the unsettling feeling amongst those of us who perform such gestures that they merely produce affective sentiments as opposed to concrete political interventions. as we shall see in what follows, we underestimate the political valence of affective sentiments at our peril. we should at least consider whether such acts are merely selfsufficient gestures that do little more than communicate an ethical identity. celebrity environmentalism celebrities often use their fame and elevated social status to bring attention to a variety of political issues. chris rojek coined the term “celanthropy” to refer “to the voluntary participation of celebrities in humanitarian fundraising, publicity awareness and charity building” (2012, p. 67). ethical gestures performed by celebrities are different from those performed by “ordinary” people because of their public visibility and reach. this is why most social justice campaigners, especially those concerned with environmental activism, value celebrity activism. indeed, celebrity environmentalism, an important subset of celebrity activism, has become an increasingly common way for celebrities to engage with the world. for example, in 2003 a public relations firm ordered five toyota priuses to chauffeur interested stars to the oscars. harrison ford, callista flockhart, leonardo dicaprio, jeff goldblum, and cameron diaz used these vehicles to transport themselves to the 75th oscars. this gesture may appear ridiculous in some ways. after all, the prius is a hybrid car, which still uses fossil fuel. however, the mere hint that the electricity that partially powers the car may come from renewable energy resources is enough to convey the stars’ concern about conservation. this gesture, which attracted significant media attention, is structurally very similar to un geste suffit. in both cases, a performative gesture communicates concern, and functions as a mechanism to connect an individual to a collective social cause. however, the ethical look of someone like leonardo dicaprio is striking in the way it conveys a sense of position and fortitude that has an almost religious dimension to it. more importantly, the spectacle of celebrities aligning themselves with the prius demonstrates the extent to which celebrity culture and environmental activism are enmeshed in a complex web of relations that cannot be understood without reference to corporate capitalism. dan brockington argues that the flourishing of celebrity conservation is part of an ever-closer intertwining of conservation and corporate capitalism. companies are greening, with varying degrees of sincerity and effectiveness, because being green enhances sales. conservation is becoming more commercial because selling commodities provides funds. (brockington 2009, p. 2) in other words, brockington points to a growing symbiotic relationship between corporations and ethical consumers, those people who engage in what phaedra c. pezzullo calls “buycotting” (2011). that is, “a concerted effort to make a point of spending money—as well as to convince others to make a point of spending money—on a product or service in the hopes of affirming specific condition(s) or practice(s) of an institution” (pezzullo 2011, p. 125). thus, the celebrity endorsement of the prius is an example of the “buycott”, which is obviously a performative marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 70 gesture, writ large. this is not to say that celebrity activism is somehow insincere or ineffective. rather, it is to accept that activism takes place within a specific ideological context, as we shall see when we examine al gore’s environmental activism. moreover, it is important to understand that our consumption of commodities also reflects an ethical posture towards the environment. to reiterate brockington’s point, environmental activism is imbricated within the economic and cultural flows of consumer capitalism, which means that activism is mediated through our consumption of commodities. in a sense, the consumption of commodities—clean energy, hybrid automobiles, organic groceries and so on—help us understand our relationship to other parts of the world. they also help us recognize that even if these items do not originally belong to our domestic world, they become part and parcel of our everyday lives, and give expression to our ideological proclivities. in other words, we make ethical choices in the very act of consumption. the celebrity endorsement of the prius discussed earlier is a good example of commodity activism. even though the prius happens to be a reasonably expensive car, the decision to drive the vehicle performs an ideological function in affirming an ethical position with respect to the environment. the act is structurally identical to the way in which we might choose fair trade coffee. in both cases the consumer makes an apparently ethical calculation to determine whether a particular product is harmful to the environment. for example, the production of palm oil decimates wildlife habitats in countries like indonesia. the salient point in this discussion for our purposes is that such consumer activism, whether performed by celebrities or everyday people, reinforces the belief that activism is primarily a matter of individual action and choice. the major question posed by activists such as gore concerns individual agency: what can you, as a consumer, do to save the environment? buy fresh food? recycle waste? gore’s film, an inconvenient truth (2006), , makes a series of such pragmatic consumer oriented suggestions as the credits roll at the end of the movie. celebrity activism, we contend, with brockington and others, is a hyper-individual expression. we can detect, in that hyper-expression of individuality, the ideological suppositions that naturalize capitalist consumption to media consumption. so, in a sense, celebrity with its reinforcement of hyperindividuality, is an articulation of a kind of individualized capitalism. of course, there are different conceptualisations of agency with respect to global warming. bruno latour, for example, argues that non-human agents play a profound role in the climate crisis (2014; 2017, p. 41). this position is quite foreign to traditional anthropomorphic accounts of agency. in brief, latour claims that gaia, the earth itself, functions as an agent that affects all sorts of things (2017, p. 41). not just humans, but every dimension of plant and animal life. suffice it say that we are living in the anthropocene, which is, by definition, the result of collective human agency in the form of toxic industrialisation, collapsing the distinction between geological time and human time through its impact of the environment (latour 2014; 2017). the question of agency, human or otherwise, is fraught with complications and conundrums. in short, we have argued thus far that while we may be able to make rational choices as consumers, we cannot fully understand how individual human agency connects with the complex set of institutions, discourses, and material forces that operate at global levels, national levels, and even regional levels. so where does all this leave us with respect to celebrity activism? is such activism un geste suffit? are celebrity activists industrial agents? in other words, are they comfortable with consumer capitalism, and committed to a form of commodity activism that expresses individuality entirely in terms of industrial models of agency? what follows in this paper is a critical interrogation of al gore’s performance of individualized human agency and his commitment to a form of consumer activism that is consistent with capitalist ideology. we will pay particular attention to gore’s affective embodiment of industrial agency and focus on the ways his activism depends on the construction of an authentic public persona. while gore may persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 71 or may not be fully conscious of what he is doing, and may or may not be able to even substantiate his position with respect to his public presentation of self, he nevertheless adopts an ethical posture that makes sense in terms of a common-sense notion of individual agency. the question, then, is to determine whether gore’s environmental activism is similar to the un geste suffit that each of us performs when we turn off the lights in the name of conservation. in order to formulate an answer, we need to take a close look at gore’s public persona. the personafication of al gore let us state here that any conscious attempt to construct an authoritative and authentic public persona cannot succeed without public consent. put simply, the construction and presentation of a public self means little if it is not endorsed and accepted by a significant portion of the public. as current research regarding the political in persona studies has reiterated, persona is neither an individual nor collective identity, but instead the negotiation of the individual–and the collective–for the use of an identity in a public and collective world (see marshall & barbour 2015; marshall & henderson 2016). in this sense, all public figures are inherently ambivalent with regard to questions of authority and authenticity, for the celebrity is, among many other things, a polysemic text that can be read in various ways. for example, al gore’s political credentials probably hold little value for a rabid trump supporter. indeed, gore’s political background is more than likely to undermine his authority in the eyes of those with antithetical political sympathies. graeme turner echoes this observation in a special issue of the journal environmental communication focused on popular culture, when he argues that celebrities are just as effective at attracting derision as desire, and so it is not surprising that the same ambivalence we find in relation to celebrities in general might affect the public’s response to specific celebrities’ engagement in projects of celanthropy. high-profile celebrities engaged in major global humanitarian causes, such as bono, sting, or angelina jolie, have certainly earnt admiration and respect for their activities, but they have also attracted criticism and in some cases even ridicule. (turner 2016, p 811) this is not to say that there is nothing to be gained from examining the way gore mobilizes certain discourses and performative strategies to construct an engaging and authoritative public persona. rather, it is to recognize that qualities like authority and authenticity depend on public recognition. having said that, let us look more closely at the visible components of gore’s persona with reference to what we call the facticity of persona. that is, those publicly visible qualities and external conditions that define a human being. our analysis might begin with an enumeration of those qualities and conditions that function as a backdrop to gore’s public persona. with respect to the facticity of his persona, we can say that al gore is a white, heterosexual man who served as vice president of the united states under president bill clinton, and ran for the presidency himself in the year 2000. he was born into a political family, his father was senator albert gore snr, and he spent his early years living in washington d.c. and on the family farm in tennessee. (the gore family grew tobacco amongst other crops.) gore refers to all of these ‘facts’ in an inconvenient truth (2006), for he builds his persona on the back of these self-evident truths about his life :the first section of the film contains a montage of gore’s political career in order to immediately establish his authority as a man engaged in public life for the betterment of his country. however, if we are to more fully understand what we might call the personafication of al gore, we need to look at how gore expands on these biographical facts to create a compelling narrative about the ethical posture he adopts with respect to the environment, for an inconvenient truth (2006) is as much about gore as it is about climate change. marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 72 the neologism, personafication, describes three interconnected processes involved in the creation of an authoritative public persona: (1) the facticity of persona (2) the acquisition and display of symbolic capital (3) the affective performance of persona we have already dealt with the facticity of persona, so let us turn our attention to the role various forms of symbolic capital play in the construction of an authoritative public persona. gore’s public persona draws on his accumulation of three forms of symbolic capital: cultural capital, celebrity capital, and reputational capitali. born into a wealthy family, gore’s stocks of cultural capital have always been high. as a graduate of harvard university, he effortlessly conveys the cultural authority associated with an ivy league education. further, gore’s early literary ambitions reveal themselves in his speech patterns: he is extremely articulate, and effortlessly refers to a wide range of scientific and literary texts during his speeches and presentations, and the folksy, southern lilt of his accent stresses rather than diminishes his authority by conveying a friendly informality to his otherwise serious declarations. in his article, ‘celebrity capital: redefining celebrity using field theory’ olivier driessens (2013) argues that media visibility is a form of capital that celebrities accrue and convert into other forms of economic or political capital. driessens (2013) argues that visibility is the key to accumulating celebrity capital, and gore’s high-profile political career coupled with his environmental activism has certainly made him visible to the public. this proactive form of global civic leadership can also be linked to reputational capital. petrick et al. (1999, p. 60) consider reputational capital as intangible value based on stakeholders’ perceptions of organisations as responsible corporate citizens solidifying trust, credibility, and reliability. they associate superior leadership with the creation and sustainability of reputational capital (petrick et al. 1999). as such, we assert that such capital can be bolstered through a public figure’s leadership and association with institutions. it is possible to argue that the american government’s stocks of reputational capital have always been questionable (a point we will return to at the end of this paper). nevertheless, gore himself overtly draws on his experience as a politician to lend credibility and an air of authenticity to his activism. shingler and wieringa (1998, p. 11) argue that radio hosts are closely aligned with the public reputation of the stations they work for, and often overtly personify their station’s image. while gore’s primary affiliation is with a political party and the public offices he held in the clinton administration, there is little doubt that a significant part of his persona relies on what we might call reputational capital. as previously stated, his film consistently makes reference to gore’s political career in order to consolidate his reputation as a trustworthy source of knowledge. early in the film gore declares “i was in politics for a long time. i’m proud of my services” (an inconvenient truth 2006). a littler later in the film he states: when i went to the congress in the middle 1970s i helped organize the first hearings on global warming, i asked my professor to be the lead-off witness. i thought that would have such a big impact we’d be on the way to solving this problem, but it didn’t work out that way. i kept having hearings. in 1984, i went to the senate and really dug deeply into this issue with science roundtables and the like. i wrote a book about it. i ran for president in 1988 partly to try to gain some visibility for this issue. in 1992 i went to the white house. we passed a version of a carbon tax and some other measures to try to address this. i went to kyoto in 1997 to help get a treaty that is so controversial, in the us, at least. in 2000 my opponent pledged to regulate the co2. that was not a pledge that persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 73 was kept. the point of this is all this time you can see what i have seen all these years. it just keeps going up. it is relentless. (an inconvenient truth 2006) this speech consolidates gore as the quintessential “good guy” politician and a man of action, someone who gets things done through public service. it is also important to underscore that the effectiveness of how a message is received depends on the credibility of the messenger. there are several dimensions of credibility summarized by roobina ohanian (1990) as a combination of factors that can include the communicator being trustworthy, demonstrating expertise and being physically attractive. ohanian developed a source-credibility scale, where attributes are classified under the three dimensions; each can be measured along a scale of extreme opposites, for example “trustworthy – untrustworthy” (1990, p. 50). there are several positive personal attributes demonstrated by gore that help explain why he may persuade people to alter their opinions and ultimately change their behaviour. an audience who perceives a communicator to be trustworthy has confidence in the speaker (ohanian 1990, p. 41). positive attributes that demonstrate someone is trustworthy include being dependable, honest, reliable, and sincere (ohanian 1990, p. 50). although gore was not successful in winning the 2000 u.s. presidential election, he won the popular vote with 500,000+ more votes than george w. bush received (factcheck.org 2016, para. 2). as such, it can be surmised that gore was considered an authoritative candidate with suitable expertise to be placed in this position of trust and power by 50,999,897 u.s. voters (federal election commission 2001). although gore was awarded the nobel peace prize after the release of an inconvenient truth (borick & rabe 2010), the prize provides further validation of his sincerity regarding the climate change issue. gore’s popularity among voters also demonstrates his status as an expert. a former military serviceman, journalist, and politician, gore can demonstrate that he encompasses several qualities as per ohanian’s scale of expertise including experience, knowledge, and skills (1990, p. 50). lastly, the attribute of “attractiveness” is characterized by ohanian as classy, beautiful, elegant, and sexy (1990, p. 50). while attractiveness can be considered subjective, arguably gore delivered his message with consummate style. the documentary reinforced gore’s strength of appeal by framing him as “a man of good private moral character, a dutiful son, loving father, and loyal sibling…(with) no political aspirations to be served…only shared concerns with the audience” (olson 2007, p. 99). gore’s source credibility provided appeal for multiple audiences globally, triggering a series of positive outcomes. this brings us to the last feature of the process we are calling personafication in affective performance: those overtly theatrical strategies calculated to establish an empathetic relationship between performer and audience. there is always a performative dimension to consolidating the authority and authenticity of a public persona, and on the evidence of an inconvenient truth alone, gore is a consummate performer. unlike the current potus, whose authority derives from an archaic model of masculine strength, gore exudes an aura of authority that is tempered by the cultivation of an extremely accessible and likeable public persona (gore’s concession speech to bush is an exemplar of graciousness and modesty). gore also does a great line in selfdeprecation. he has great comic timing and turns his greatest professional and personal disappointment (his loss of the 2000 election) into a running gag. he opens the ‘slide show’ portion of his film by saying “i’m al gore. i used to be the next president of the united states. [laughter and applause from audience] i don’t find that particularly funny” (an inconvenient truth 2006). he regularly riffs on this particular gag in other presentations such as his ted talks. gore’s ability to reflect on the past saw a deliberate shift in the way he presented himself. historically, some of the adjectives describing gore’s attributes, speaking style, and marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 74 presence include pedantic, stiff, boring, pompous, patronising, and condescending (fallows 2000; olson 2007, p. 92). gore’s need to be precise or seek perfection had come across as “wooden”; this was also acknowledged by gore himself in the late 90s (fallows 2000, para 1). james fallows concluded that some of the criticism directed at gore’s speaking style was when his political opponents sought to send him off script (2000, para 14). while he was more comfortable speaking in a structured way, over time he repositioned himself as “an aggressive, combative campaigner” adopting an “assertive demeanour” (fallows 2000, para 22) james olson and graeme haynes sought to understand how gore had been so effective “given his prior reputation as a wooden speaker” (2008, p. 200). they ascertain that gore presents a case using a “powerful speech style” (olson & haynes 2008, p. 205) supported by compelling imagery, statistics, and authoritative scientists, but audiences are further persuaded by gore’s source characteristics. they summarise gore as credible, attractive, and powerful linking these to his personal attributes: intelligent, articulate, humorous, trustworthy, authoritative, honest, charismatic and likeable (olson & haynes 2008, p. 204). this depiction is reinforced by shaun o’connell (2015, pp. 11-12) who declares that “gone was the gore of stilted, senatorial rhetoric; instead the gore persona who narrates this film is a relaxed, often witty sincere, straight-talking man” and he “draws on the authority of his standing as a political celebrity, his political experience and awareness, as well as his family history in a foregrounding of personality that humanizes the topic”. the presentation of gore in 2006 shifts gears, rhetorically speaking. drawing on his early interest in literature (he originally had ambitions to become a novelist), gore voices the lyrical commentary that accompanies the pastoral montage that opens the film. his rhetorical intent is clear: this is what we are destroying, folks! the actual slide show commences with commentary on images of the earth taken by astronauts. once again, the rhetorical intent invokes a sublime conception of the earth, which foregrounds the planet’s fragility. the salient point here is that gore is a nimble performer capable of mobilising a wide range of performative strategies—comedy, lyricism, and an almost religious form of sublime mysticism—to pave the way for his presentation of the science of climate change, a notoriously complex topic that resists simplification (a fact ruthlessly exploited by climate sceptics). having established his credentials and personality, gore moves on to the business of explaining global warming to his presumably lay audience. we do not have the luxury of analysing the film in minute detail, but we do need to address the question of gore’s attempts to engage his audience on both a cerebral and an emotional level. difrancesco and young argue that the film’s visual imagery is essential for making climate change ‘consumable’ for a sizable fraction of the population. while images are often said to embody complexity (being worth the proverbial thousand words), media theory tells us that they also reduce complexity by providing interpretive frames or narratives that selectively blend fact and emotion. (difrancesco & young 2011, p. 518) while awash with a welter of facts about climate science that are cleverly presented through graphic and dramatic illustrations, gore and the creative team responsible for the film realize that they need to not just perform caring for the environment, but they need to inspire their audience to become activists. this is why the film interrupts the slide show with a series of reflective monologues that gore delivers about his personal struggles and emotional traumas, including the 2000 election: “well, that was a hard blow. but what do you do? you make the best of it. it brought into clear focus, the mission that i had been pursuing for all these years. i started giving the slide show again” (an inconvenient truth 2006). persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 75 the monologue concerning the near death of one of his sons provides personal revelations about gore’s realization that life is fragile and precious; another is about the death of his sister from lung cancer. this tragic event caused the gore family to stop farming tobacco. delivered in suitably mournful, hushed tones, gore is essentially talking about making a difficult ethical choice in the face of another inconvenient truth about the connection between smoking and lung cancer. gore’s sister was a life-long smoker, and the family’s realization that they were complicit in her suffering due to their cultivation of tobacco resulted in their abandoning tobacco farming at some financial expense. each anecdote conveys a highly personal trauma, which invites an empathetic response from the audience. rhetorically, the film uses personal trauma to elicit an emotional connection to its subject matter. the audience needs to feel a personal connection to the consequences of global warming if they are to respond to the film by making their own set of ethical choices, by choosing personal behaviours that reduce energy consumption for example. conventional drama is primarily about eliciting some kind of affective audience response, which is why we ignore the performative dimension of gore’s presentation of self at our peril. the affects of al gore’s climate change warrior persona having established the centrality of gore’s persona to the film, we must now look at its reception. on one level, it is difficult to dispute the film’s success as both a film and as an inspiration for those people convinced by its message. an inconvenient truth received thirtytwo awards and ten additional award nominations, including the academy award for best documentary in 2007 (imbd c. 2016). moreover, the documentary earned us$25 million at the box office (borick & rabe 2010, p. 785). the documentary’s reach extended even further as it was shown for free in schools in several countries (bbc news 2007; olson 2007). additionally, we can measure the success of the documentary with reference to the activism it has directly inspired. by encouraging individual political agency as well as changes in personal behaviour, gore’s film suggests that grassroots activism can change public policy (olson 2007, p. 100). it is clear that an inconvenient truth became the catalyst for a movement that saw thousands of volunteers step up to replicate gore’s message within their own communities. in may 2016, the climate reality project sought to mark the 10-year anniversary of the release of an inconvenient truth. they set up a hashtag on facebook to encourage people, regardless of age, to share how the film changed them. we can summarize their responses with reference to four broad themes: (1) we woke up, (2) we grew up understanding the facts–and taking action, (3) we changed it up, and (4) we spoke up and taught others (the climate reality project 2016). some representative statements include: wow! #ait10 was instrumental in what has become my passion. a part of @climatereality since 2007. thanks @algore. (contributor a) #ait10 its been 10 years already! i first watched it when i was in class 10, 6 years ago! and now i am a #climateleader for our environment. (contributor b) ten years ago changed my career to engineer batteries for hybrid and electric cars. bought a chevy volt. ev enthusiast. #ait10. (contributor c) i went to the climate reality training in toronto ... i have written letters to our local paper, to the prime minister. i have taken part in twitter chats with [climate reality] and the un, where some of the things i have said have reached over 7,000 people! [and] i have appeared on a local radio station with another lady who was trained in toronto … and just when i'm feeling like i should marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 76 maybe slow down a little, someone will thank me or come up and talk to me about something i have said. this gives me hope that maybe, just maybe i am helping in this battle in a small way. (contributor d) (the climate reality project 2016) extending olson’s (2007, p. 90) view that an inconvenient truth was a form of “social advocacy that successfully galvanized ordinary people” is the resultant initiative, climate change reality leadership corps. to date, 12,322 volunteers across 137 countries have been trained to deliver the climate change message, representing a growth of over 1,500 volunteers since the ten-year anniversary (the climate reality project c.2018). these environmental ambassadors leverage credibility from gore’s film to create their own representations as experts in this climate space. the diversity of ages, occupations, and locations of subsequent ‘climate leaders’ allows the unified message to reach a variety of audiences, large and small, through a variety of media. the function of these climate leaders provides a contemporary focus to past literature on the role of significant influencers or “champions” (reynolds 2008, p. 9) who are a fundamental component in the resolution of social and environmental issues. champions are considered agents of change that seek to resolve issues (reynolds 2008, p. 9). within an organisation, champions are pivotal in identifying and highlighting issues they feel passionate about, which can encourage decision makers to prioritize issues (madden, scaife & crissman 2006, p. 53). the climate reality project has become an organisation that helps individuals harness their passion and provide them with expertise to help deliver key messages to a variety of audiences. we can find a range of profiles representing the diversity and motivations of climate reality leaders on the climate reality project web pages. is it possible to classify gore as a pioneering climate change warrior? he has been able to keep the climate change conversation alive by establishing the climate reality project. studies examining social alliance phenomena attribute several characteristics found among key influencers or leaders championing a cause: credibility, entrepreneurial initiative, energy, resourcefulness, and being well-connected (berger, cunningham & drumwright 2006; hartman, hofman & stafford 1999). united by a common purpose, several celebrities have become spokespersons for the environment, which helps the climate reality project leverage off their individual personas. some notable celebrity advocates include mark ruffalo, emma thompson, arnold schwarzenegger, don cheadle, jessica alba, robert redford, ian somerhalder, pharrell williams, and leonardo dicaprio (the climate reality project 2015). strength and expansion can be drawn from the collaborative efforts when actors unite. not only do these celebrity activists harbour their own source credibility and subsequent influence, but when united as a single voice, they help to sustain momentum of an issue of this magnitude. this form of collaboration around an issue supports the notion of social responsibility clusters, whereby organisations and individuals “form around a social issue and act as catalysts in soliciting further support and generating positive change” (mcdonald 2014, p. 344). tangible outputs resulting from an inconvenient truth includes this unity of celebrity activists, leadership/volunteer training, and geographic reach. collectively, this demonstrates an innovative approach and mechanism to expand and maintain visibility of the issue. through advocacy, these additional celebrity and climate leader voices extend the time that audiences and advocates remain enthusiastic about solving the issue. while the need to reduce environmental impacts had been in the public’s consciousness long before the release of an inconvenient truth (2006), the film enthused new audiences about the possibility of finding solutions to global warming. enthusiasm to demonstrate individual advocacy and assert grassroots pressure on policy makers provides a strong demonstration of the influence the film and gore have helped advance (olson 2007, p. 105). with the knowledge that people can persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 77 become complacent, and other issues take prominence, the evolutionary tactics deployed by the climate reality project have helped sustain climate change as a significant issue. this is all well and good, but how do we account for the fact that now donald trump is the president of the united states, many of the practical policy initiatives implemented by the obama administration have already been dismantled? and what is the status of the ethical gestures advocated by gore’s film in a communications context that must contend with social media trolls, fake news, and “alternative facts”? it has never been more crucial to be mindful of the complexities involved in communicating climate change. indeed, a large number of scholars from a variety of different disciplines are attempting to unpack the rhetoric or politics of climate change communication. the situation, according to much of this research, is dire and trump’s election is a symptom of our collective failure to communicate climate science effectively. pearce et al. observe that around 2009, there still was hope that ‘better’ climate change communication would increasingly and relatively straightforwardly lead to better global and local climate change policies with popular uptake of such policies. such hopes have been dented in the intervening years and public interest in climate change has dwindled, at least as measured through trends for search terms on google. (pearce et al. 2015, p. 613) moreover, they point out that the climate change debate is being conducted in new media, which facilitate immediate two-way exchanges that require a different approach to analysing public opinion. it also requires us to admit that the debate is now primarily political, as opposed to being scientific—pearce et al. argue that “a content analysis of articles published in the new york times found “a gradual decline in the volume of material within the ‘science’ topic and an expansion of themes classified under the ‘politics’ topic’ between 1995 and 2010” (2015, p. 615). it is important to underscore that while gore may see his political career as an asset in the fight against indifference towards the impending climate change apocalypse, not everyone shares this view. smith and leiserowitz (2012), in their paper on the rise of global warming scepticism, actually identify gore’s political career as a significant liability: americans associate global warming with former vice president al gore, whom some of them intensely dislike. their negative affect for gore thus becomes associated with “global warming” despite the fact they may know little to nothing about the risks. finally, at a neurological level affective responses typically occur prior to conscious awareness or cognitive processing, and subsequent cognitive processing draws substantially upon these prior feelings to decide whether to pay attention, how to interpret the stimulus, and especially to prime the body for action before the threat has been analytically identified and labelled. (smith & leiserowitz 2012, p. 1029) this study provides a sober corrective to those who may view an inconvenient truth (2006) as a wholly persuasive piece of environmental activism. the point we need to absorb is that rational argumentation, and the presentation of scientific facts, no matter how well articulated or aesthetically pleasing, do relatively little to convince people to change their minds about the real threat of a climatic cataclysm. finally, there is also the fact that gore’s brand of activism, especially in its ‘practical’ consumerist guise, fails to contest the one major inconvenient truth that lies at the heart of the climate change debate: ethical consumerism alone will not provide a solution to the warming of the planet. raising this issue, which in bold terms is tantamount to saying that capitalism is the root cause of our present malaise, does not automatically dismiss gore’s sincerity. it does, however, marshall, d’cruz & mcdonald 78 demand that we consider zizek’s proposition that “the state political elites serve capital” (2010, p. 334). moreover, any market-based solution to climate change, for zizek, is delusional. naomi klein makes a similar argument, in a different register, in her book this changes everything, when she writes that looking for “new ways to privatize the commons and profit from disaster is what our current system is built to do; left to its own devices, it is capable of nothing else” (2014, p. 9). yet this is essentially gore’s major solution to the problem. it is worth noting that jason w. moore (2017) among others argues that the term ‘captialocene’ captures a more accurate causal narrative concerning the present ecological crisis. towards the end of the film, emboldened by a state of patriotic fervor, gore declares: we have everything we need, save perhaps political will. in america, political will is a renewable resource. we have the ability to do this. each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, with the electricity we use, the cars we drive. we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. the solutions are in our hands. we just have to have the determination to make them happen. (an inconvenient truth 2006) again, with ethical consumption, un geste suffit. it also seems that “political will” is a scarce resource in today’s world. zizek, in his book, living in the end times, repeats fredric jameson’s observation that “it is easier to imagine a total catastrophe which ends all life on earth than it is to imagine a real change in capitalist relations—as if, after a global cataclysm, capitalism will somehow continue” (2010, p. 334). as president trump wreaks havoc on the environment we need to seriously consider whether market solutions are capable of solving the crisis of climate change, or whether the various exhortations to publicly perform our ethical affiliations is akin to rearranging deckchairs on the titanic. coda: an inconvenient sequel (2017) directed by jon shenk and bonni cohen, an inconvenient sequel: truth to power (2017) premiered at the 2017 sundance film festival on january 19th, where it reportedly received two standing ovations. (the film was released in cinemas in july of 2017). shenk, in a pre-release publicity video, points out that a lot has changed in the decade since the original film was made (in siegel 2017). on the one hand, the climate change crisis has deepened, and many of gore’s speculations about its impact on the environment have come to pass. for example, his claim that the site of the new world trade center in new york could be submerged by rising water levels occurred as a consequence of hurricane sandy in 2012. on a brighter note, renewable energy technologies (solar, wind, and battery storage) have become more sophisticated and now, arguably, present hitherto unimagined solutions to the crisis. they also represent new economic opportunities for astute investors. according to its directors, the film eschews the high-tech slide show format of the first film for a cinéma vérité aesthetic. cameras follow gore as he plays the role of an impassioned 24/7 climate change warrior. he also reprises his role as the slightly goofy, regular guy who tells ‘dad jokes’ to bolster his self-deprecating persona. this time around, gore is even more explicitly theatrical, especially in his closing monologue, which quotes martin luther king extensively and establishes his work as equal with the major social causes of the last two centuries as well as exhorting us not to despair since despair can be paralysing. indeed, the filmmakers use the discourse of drama to talk about the film’s strengths, which can be found in gore’s lone-crusader activities as well as in the dramatic tension between the escalating climate crisis and the antipathy expressed towards this imminent disaster by the film’s primary villain, president donald trump. the film consolidates gore’s activist persona by documenting his behind-the-scenes negotiations at the 2015 paris climate conference, and persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 79 leading communication workshops for climate leadership advocates. these sequences confirm that gore addresses the environmental crisis by operating at two levels. his celebrity persona opens doors to the highest levels of global politics, where he uses his celebrity capital to argue his case. and he also mobilises his celebrity persona at a grass roots level. on the 5th december 2016, gore met with then president-elect trump. details of the meeting are scant. “i had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect,” gore told reporters after the meetings. “it was a sincere search for areas of common ground. i had a meeting beforehand with ivanka trump. the bulk of the time was with the president-elect, donald trump. i found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and i’m just going to leave it at that,” he added. (halper & rosner 2016). unfortunately, gore did not have to wait too long to see where trump actually stood on the issue of global warming. it would be remiss to dismiss gore’s activism as a form of celebrity vanity, yet we need to be attentive to the contradictions that mark the personafication of gore within the context of ‘trump’s america’. it is too early to tell how the former vice president’s persona will function in the era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’. and we will have to wait and see whether an inconvenient sequel can connect with enough of its audience to make a difference to their everyday actions with respect to performing or exceeding un geste suffit. i the concept of different forms of capital emerges from pierre bourdieu’s work in distinction (2010). we have elaborated the distinctions among cultural, reputational, and celebrity capital, drawing our reading of reputation from petrick et al. (1999) and doorley and garcia (2015), cultural capital specifically determined by modes of distinction and differentiation of class fractions as bourdieu developed, and celebrity capital derived from driessens’ development of this formation of power and drawing on the related work of hunter, burgers, and davidsson (2009). end notes works cited an inconvenient sequel: truth to power 2017, film, dir. bonni cohen and john shenk, paramount. an inconvenient truth: a global warning 2006, film, dir. davis guggenheim, paramount. bbc news 2007, ‘gore climate film’s nine ‘errors’’, bbc news, 11 october, retrieved 20 november 2016, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7037671.stm> bennett, wl 2016, news: the politics of illusion, university of chicago press. bennett, wl & segerberg, a 2012, 'the logic of connective action: digital media and the personalization of contentious politics', information, communication & society, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 739-68. berger, i. e, cunningham, p. h & drumwright, m.e 2006, 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turner, g 2016, ‘celebrities and the environment: the limits to their power’, environmental communication, vol. 10, no. 6 pp, 811–814, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2016.1209327 wheeler, m 2013, celebrity politics, wiley, hoboken nj. zizek, s 2010, living in the end times, verso, london. https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/nine-celebrities-changing-conversation-climate-action?_ga=1.21698239.547116828.1448423088 https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/nine-celebrities-changing-conversation-climate-action?_ga=1.21698239.547116828.1448423088 https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/four-ways-inconvenient-truth-changed-lives https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/four-ways-inconvenient-truth-changed-lives https://www.climaterealityproject.org/leadership-corps https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2016.1209327 p. david marshall, glenn d’cruz, and sharyn mcdonald abstract key words introduction vice-president ‘bore’ un geste suffit celebrity environmentalism the personafication of al gore the affects of al gore’s climate change warrior persona coda: an inconvenient sequel (2017) works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 61 let us now praise famous guitars: persona and the material displays of popular music museums cha rles fai rch il d abstract the study of popular music museums has expanded greatly in the past decade or so. the numerous studies produced so far have largely focused on issues to do with tourism, heritage, and curatorship. most analysis has attempted to gauge the effectiveness and degree of success of the various methods of constructing and displaying collections of sounds, objects, and ideas. one area that can be of interest in moving beyond these analyses of museum practice is to examine how larger ideologies of artistry and artists that pervade the celebrity personas so assiduously built around famous musicians are an important foundation for these museums’ displays. there are two reasons for the value of this approach. first, it should be clear that most exhibits in popular music museums are built to enhance, not contest already-existing images, historical narratives, and genre-defining attributes that surround well-known musicians. therefore, it is not possible to understand these institutions without some sense of how they work with musician personas that necessarily precede any presentation in museum exhibitions. second, we can see this dynamic in extraordinarily concise forms when we examine some of the ‘famous objects’ these museums display. we can often see an entire complex of received ideas about an artist encapsulated in just a few wellknown objects they once possessed. from this i will suggest that the personas of famous musicians that appear in most popular music museums do so through varied amalgams of symbolic and material forms meant to stabilise or enhance already-existing ideas about canonically-validated ‘great’ artists. key words popular music museums; musical celebrity; popular music heritage introduction like most social history museums, popular music museums hang their reputations on both the quality and breadth of spectator experience and on the quality and breadth of their exhibitions and collections. museums such as the experience music project (emp) in seattle (now called the museum of popular culture) or the stax museum in memphis use high-profile objects in multiple ways at once to do this. these objects are legitimating presences for these institutions that demonstrate the quality and historical relevance of their collections, they act as marketing hooks to attract spectators, and they act as material, literal, and physical connections with the vanished past the exhibitions recount. items such as the guitar on which jimi hendrix played the star-spangled banner at woodstock or some of the original instruments of booker t and the mgs are important pieces that accomplish these goals. however, there is one thing these objects do that has a more resounding importance. through their immediate presence, they act to confirm wider, farther-reaching historical narratives and ideologies of artistic value and fairchild 62 aesthetic transcendence that are encapsulated by the personas of famous artists. by definition, these personas precede any museum exhibition about the artist and supersede any display of their possessions. my analysis shows that the personas of famous musicians that appear in most popular music museums do so through varied amalgams of symbolic and material forms meant to stabilise or enhance already-existing ideas about canonically validated “great” artists. from this, it should be clear that most exhibits in popular music museums are built to enhance, not contest, already-existing images, historical narratives, and genre-defining attributes that surround well-known musicians (see fairchild 2018). i will use the exhibition of guitars in several popular music museums to explore these points and make the link between museum exhibits and expanded discourses of musical celebrity. my interpretations of these exhibits will proceed from a few key ideas as to how their meanings are produced and shaped. first, each display is part of a much larger range of images and ideas about the artists in question. these images and ideas have long since been formed into coherent discourses of artistry and celebrity. marshall’s claims of what he calls “persona studies” are particularly relevant here. as he argues, new forms of celebrity are being produced through new forms of media and the distinct social relationships they foster. as such, he calls for “an investigation of this new constitution of the public and the private via a study of the formations of persona and the new forms in which the self is publicized” (marshall 2014, p. 165). while marshall’s focus is on the emergent dynamics between traditional media forms and social media, we can also extend this investigation to include the ways in which the personas of musical celebrities are constructed historically. importantly, this does not imply any kind of nostalgic separation of popular music museums from contemporary media forms that have proven capable of radically changing basic assumptions about the nature of the public and private experiences of celebrity. in fact, popular music museums play precisely on what marshall identifies as the “the leaky nature of identity in celebrity culture” that is such a pronounced presence in contemporary popular culture. as he argues, this leakiness, in the form of “the gossip, the stories, the behind-the-scenes” revelations, produces complex versions of celebrity identity that move easily through both public and private arenas of social experience. as i have argued elsewhere, popular music museums are very much a part of the culture of the so-called “new museum”, which place a strong if not defining emphasis on capitalising on exactly the kinds of “leakiness” marshall describes (fairchild 2017). music museum exhibits clearly use a wide range of often very personal stories and possessions to construct the kinds of “affective clusters” that “coalesce around stars” through an often careful blend of the intimate and the broadly historical. the displays of guitars examined here are precisely the sort of museum exhibits that seek to produce such affects. these displays are then used “by various industries for various commercial ends: the formation of audiences and selling of those audiences was the principal model of the commercial media and stars and celebrities were part of that construction of audiences” (marshall 2014, p. 165–6). most popular music museums are little different from other parts of the music industry in this regard. their common goal is to produce musical subjects that are part of larger enfolding discourses of artistry and greatness. importantly, we need to understand how these museums do this by examining how they construct stardom as a relational process produced between artists and their audiences. as many scholars of celebrity have argued, it is difficult to understand celebrity without understanding the dynamic and evolving relationships between stars and fans (see duffett 2014; hills 2017; stevenson 2009; york 2013). this relational model of celebrity is held together within these museums precisely by those familiar narratives of connection and intimacy most commonly present outside of them. in other words, in the exhibits examined here, audiences are present in these museums most often through continual appeals to the sorts persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 63 of consensus versions of popular music history we find elsewhere in films, television shows, artist biographies and autobiographies. in the jimi hendrix and johnny cash examples in particular what i call their “consensus personas” provide a kind of baseline understanding of each of these musical celebrities on which the exhibits about them are based. “great artists” and their “great art” are not presented in these exhibits to be contested or examined so much as confirmed and celebrated. these exhibits usually elide the role of these museums in reproducing and sustaining these consensus histories. a second major area of concern we have to consider is the kinds of material display that are characteristic of music museums and how the specific materiality of their exhibits participate in the production of meaning about famous musicians. as webb keane has suggested, it is not sufficient to simply “read” objects symbolically as variously coded messages for museum-goers to simply decode. instead, he argues we need to take account of the “unending process of signification”, which is not defined by static, endlessly repeated meanings, but instead by the “sociability, struggle, historicity, and contingency” of the trajectory of such meanings (keane 2005, p. 186). in other words, such meanings persist not simply through repetition, but through very particular modes of meaning-making that exceed the capacity of the literal or immediate qualities an object may possess. this understanding can allow us to attend to the dynamic ongoing relationships between the qualities of the objects on display and their relationship to the musician personas they evoke and recall. webb argues that an object’s most obvious qualities are always bound up with other qualities, some less obvious, some not visible or material at all. he calls this “bundling.” no one quality can, keane suggests, become apparent “without some embodiment that inescapably binds it to some other qualities as well, which can become contingent but real factors in its social life” (188). while we can use keane’s ideas to link the identity of disparate objects that all possess similar, bundled qualities, we can also use them to understand how very similar objects can embody very disparate qualities depending on how they are attached to those who once owned or used them. from this we will be able to recognise how “[a]bstracting qualities from objects offers a way to bring discrete moments of experience into an overarching value system on the basis of habits and intuitions rather than rules and cognition” (188). i will do this here by analysing the display of a range of guitars at the emp in seattle and the country music hall of fame and museum and the johnny cash museum, both in nashville. the overarching value system into which these now muted musical objects are enlisted are exactly those larger discourses of musical celebrity that both establish and sustain socially constructed and maintained ideas of artistic greatness. this article is part of a larger project about music museums and their role in a symbolic representation system of music history and artistic celebrity made manifest through their displays. i have undertaken observational work at nineteen music museums in the us and the uk, collecting several thousand images of the museums, their settings and their exhibits, as well as an extensive collection of tourism documents (maps, brochures, guidebooks, etc.) all of which form the primary texts for my analysis. the overarching goal of this project is to track various ideologies of artistry, renown, and celebrity in these museums. my primary interests are in the museums themselves, the political economies that produced them, the characteristic attributes of their exhibits and historical narratives, and how all of these have been definitively shaped by ideologies that stretch well beyond these fairly immediate concerns. this project departs from general focus of the recent burst of work on popular music heritage in that i am not focused on the extent to which these museums are specific types of curatorial enterprises. most scholarly work on them has been aimed at measuring the extent to which these institutions are successful in establishing popular music heritage as a legitimate endeavour (baker et al. 2016; brandellero fairchild 64 & janssen 2014; leonard 2014). instead, i am trying to explore how the myths and stories of greatness and stardom pervasively present in these museums are produced, sustained, and made continually meaningful in a larger cultural economy. here, i am examining how the symbolic resonances of guitars, posited as both tangible objects and intangible links to specific artists, are used to do this. the qualities of guitars in popular music museums, guitars are used in a wide variety of ways. first, they are potent symbols used to commemorate the passing of eras and artists. at the beatles’ story museum in liverpool, for example, the main exhibit both begins and ends with guitars once used by john lennon. the first is ambiguously posited as the very one he (may have) used at the famous woolton school fete, the last sitting somewhat forlornly in a large empty space next to the white piano he used to perform “imagine.” there are many similar guitars spread across many comparable museums, including those that once belonged to figures such as ike turner, hank williams, maybelle carter and elvis presley. these instruments are unique and most often used to tell a singular story. second, other guitars, owned and played by less luminous stars and unique in similar ways, are instead used to narrate the wider social history of popular music. figures such as wanda jackson and j. mascis, for example, simply do not loom quite as large in the wider perception of the history of popular music. as such, their guitars do not provide quite the same material presence as many of the guitars of more famous artists. instead, these less famous instruments are enlisted to fill out a few telling details of what are mostly familiar stories. they are presented to us as important and valued objects in glass cases, worthy of preservation for what they are presumed to be able to tell us about the past. third, the image of the guitar is no less important to the experiences these institutions provide to spectators, and images of guitars abound. they appear in old publicity photos of the artists whose life and work these places chronicle. they appear in candid shots of everyday life from the distant past. we are initiated into the main exhibit of the country music museum and hall of fame, for example, by an image of an old man sitting on a dilapidated front porch strumming an acoustic guitar. similarly, as we pass by images of the homes of both black and white sharecroppers in the memphis rock and soul museum, we see instruments set in places of esteem in their respective homes. and, of course, guitars appear in the advertisements and tourism guides these museums use to attract spectators. like the personas of their often-famous users, a few key ideologies about the guitar as an instrument necessarily precede any of the museum exhibits about them and definitively shape the tenor and limits of those exhibits. the central qualities attributed to famous guitars are present in the texts and images surrounding these instruments, which more or less explicitly play on what spectators might already be expected to know about them. from these exhibits, it seems clear that we are expected to place the electric guitar in a larger discourse that posits the instrument as a symbol of power and rebellion that has long acted as a witness to, if not venue for, social change (see ostburg & hartmann 2015). more broadly, guitars, especially electric ones, are often spoken about by their advocates as “real” instruments possessed of a certain innate weight of authenticity. unlike those mysterious black boxes that produce beats and faux strings or horns, there is a certain apparent or perceived transparency about how guitars and guitarists make sound (carfoot 2006, p. 35–6). as carfoot explains, such perceptions are a part of a “range of actively produced…culturally constructed ideologies around the instrument” (36). this article demonstrates how several displays of a few particularly famous guitars evoke wider perceptions and assumptions of those many indispensable ingredients of rock persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 65 authenticity. these instruments are redolent of a certain brand of directness and immediacy that characterise the artistic achievements of their owners. notably, very few of these exhibits talk about the actual sounds these instruments once made as sounds. instead, they are used as vibrant props in a larger story of artistic achievement. a few examples can show us very clearly the kinds of implicit frames these museums employ when displaying such instruments. from these we can distil a typical way of displaying guitars. we will start with the emp’s guitar gallery, a rotating exhibit of guitars from the museum’s collection that can help us avoid a good deal of the rhetoric about greatness and timelessness that often accompanies exhibits in popular music museums. instead, we can focus as closely as possible on how these guitars are presented as guitars. indeed, many of the more famous objects in the emp’s collection are guitars owned by the museum’s founder, the late paul allen, who was a passionate collector of the instrument. the frames these displays produce very often implicitly construct the guitar as a stereotypically “male” instrument defined by its seemingly inherent qualities of power and loudness, qualities in keeping with a long history of extolling such virtues in rock (see weinstein 2013; fast 1999; waksman 1999). as reitsamer (2018) argues, this is of a piece with the broader “gendered narratives” of popular music, and especially rock, in that “the formulation of a history of rock and specific criteria for attributing historical importance to performers which reinforced a definition of rock as a male art” (p. 26). indeed, as adelt (2017) shows, these institutions are very broadly reflective of existing gender and racial hierarchies in their collections and exhibits. further, these instruments are presented as representative of retrospective validation of the music produced on them. instead of presenting a malleable, or even labile, tool of endlessly variable musical expression, many of the emp’s most famous guitars are presented in a context that seems to suggest that what was once played on them was in some ways historically inevitable. as i note elsewhere, this sense of retrospective inevitability is present in popular music museums more broadly (fairchild 2017, 2018). as i have also noted elsewhere, the emp’s guitar gallery sets a wide range of individual instruments within a larger narrative of triumphal american exceptionalism. the gallery hails the innovative inventors and artists who were said to have permanently changed popular music (fairchild 2017, p. 93–4). many of the guitars are presented as “signature guitars,” each linked to their equally unique owners. for example, the collection boasts one of four gretsch custom rectangular-bodied electric guitars made for bo diddley in the early 1960s. the accompanying text notes that the instrument was based on a design diddley came up with in 1945 as a teenager while attending the foster vocational school in chicago. nearby, we find a light blue fender mustang that once belonged to kurt cobain and used on the 1993–4 in utero tour. it, too, was altered for use, in this case by nirvana’s guitar technician, at cobain’s instruction. both guitars are framed through the qualities instilled in them by their users. the guitar gallery has also displayed many other visually iconic guitars such as gene simmons’ starburst design and eddie van halen’s black-, red-, and white-striped guitar, one that van halen famously made himself. despite the assertions of curators and scholars suggesting that the guitar gallery really is about the instrument itself, it remains very difficult to detach these famous instruments from their owners (see adelt 2017; baker, istvandity & nowak 2016). this is especially true of those guitars specifically contextualised through their owners’ biographies and those that still bear the marks of wear and use that indelibly stain them. what the guitar gallery shows us, beyond the instruments themselves, is a kind of generic or default way of exhibiting guitars by implicitly and explicitly linking their material qualities to the more widely known and available persona of their famous musician owners. each instrument is displayed in a way that highlights its visual fairchild 66 distinctiveness. the lighting is low throughout the gallery and each instrument sits silently in its own warm pool of light. each is contextualised to contribute to the wider narrative of innovation and exceptional artistic success. the museum owns more than three hundred such guitars and rotates them through this gallery, displaying about 50 at a time to act, in sum, as a kind of proxy hall of fame. each instrument is materially expressive of the history of its user, as most reveal the marks and stains made on them by their famous owners and are redolent of the many famous and important performances in which both guitarist and guitar were central actors. each display supports the larger narrative conceits of the gallery as a whole, showing spectators the iconic tools used by musicians, who are themselves similarly iconic. this is characteristic of these kinds of exhibits, as the musicians and their instrument subtly become part of the same larger idea. the surrounding images and texts, some displaying the instruments in action, others indicating their sometimes unique design features, still others denoting the instruments’ value and importance, all contribute to placing each in a sanctified space of remembrance. importantly, any survey of exhibition types at most popular music museums will reveal very similar types of display. we can expand on the forms of display presented by the guitar gallery to see how guitars fit into the broader narrative of particular traditions of popular music through similar forms of exhibition. as such, we need to understand how they are presented in conjunction with other objects, images and sounds, all of which combine to place these instruments in the context of whatever larger story a museum is telling. a good example is the main exhibit at the country music hall of fame and museum. this exhibit is a massive sprawling display that occupies two full floors of a massive building and purports to tell the entire history of american country music. it proceeds mostly chronologically, but sets aside space for slight departures, such as a display case with a range of odd and unusual guitars, a display on the 1970s television show hee haw (the main attribute of which is a sizeable plot of fake corn stalks), and a massive wall of gold records. the bulk of the exhibit is dominated by a series of glass cases, most of which are about ten feet high and fifteen feet across, dedicated to a specific moment in history. within each case is a collection of objects, images, and panels of text that highlight a distinct period in the history of american country music through the presentation of three or four members of the hall of fame. the hall resides in a special room at the end of the exhibit. these artists are by definition “exemplary”, as the life history of country music itself is folded seamlessly into the life histories of individual artists whose possessions make up most of the displays. these are the artists chosen by their peers and colleagues, and the museum itself, for admission into the hall. two examples can show us a few distinctions in how guitars are used to tell the story the museum wants to tell. the first is a collection typical of the many large glass cases that dominate this exhibit. it is entitled “settin’ the woods on fire: new sounds of the jukebox” and is meant to sum up concisely a few developments in american country music in the 1930s. the main text tells us how “tough roadside nightspots forged an amplified steel-and-fiddle style known as honky tonk.” this music was geared towards a younger rural population and “dealt with loss and spiritual dislocation, but also celebrated steppin’ out on a saturday night.” this collection also incorporates the birth of bluegrass, music that often dealt with similar themes. the case displays instruments used by the stanley brothers in their bluegrass ensemble, a guitar once used by kitty wells, whose song it wasn’t god who made honky tonk angels was the first ever number one for a female country artist, and lefty frizell’s “nudie suit.” a nudie suit is a personalised jacket and pants/skirt combination generously laced with sequins and rhinestones made by nuta koltlyarenko, professionally known as nudie cohn. the suits were a kind of sparkly rite of passage for emerging artists from the 1930s through to the 1980s. most of the large cases in this exhibit, present both musical instruments and items of clothing to mark the importance of each member of the hall of fame. in each case, museum visitors are persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 67 presented with highly personalised items, custom clothes and guitars, each of which marks the uniqueness of the artist and bears some direct trace of their passing through the world. these are strung together across the lengthy expanses of the exhibit to encompass what the museum frames as the entire social history of american country music. the second example is a series of individual guitars played by such figures as jimmy rodgers, maybelle carter and hank williams donated to the museum. the first is rodgers’ martin 00-18 acoustic. this was the guitar the artist used to record at the legendary bristol sessions in 1927, which, the accompanying panel tells us, “marked a turning point in the history of country music.” we can see clearly that “this plain-looking, but elegantly designed mahogany and spruce” instrument is worn away just below the sound hole, the direct result of rodgers’ strumming and picking. maybelle carter’s gibson l-5 is similarly worn. we are told that this model of guitar was designed to be louder than any other model then available and carter used it to “revolutionize the role of the guitar, transforming the rhythm instrument into a distinctive lead voice.” also included is hank williams’ martin d-28, on which he created his “unsurpassed legacy as a country singer and songwriter.” the panel points out how williams’ son, hank williams jr, left the guitar as it was when it was given to him after his father’s death, the scratches reflecting “the wear and tear of countless personal appearances made by the charismatic williams, everywhere from nightclubs and outdoor concerts to national television.” in these cases, there is a perfect and seamless unification of the social history of country music with the artists and the carefully preserved instruments they used to create pieces of that history. the presence and material specificity of these guitars speaks to the lived experiences of those who were there. beyond the social history of popular music these guitars are enlisted to help recount, prominent artists are placed within these streams of history and their guitars help draw very personal accounts of them. of guitars and guitarists the links between famous guitars and the personas of their owners appear in far more detail in exhibits dedicated to individual musicians. in two separate exhibits, dedicated to jimi hendrix and johnny cash, what we might call the “consensus persona” of each artist form the foundations of each display. each exhibit proceeds without any apparent self-awareness of the constructed nature of these personas, both of which are clearly built on the extraordinary amount of mostly retrospective commentary dedicated to the artists’ lives and work. hendrix and cash have both been the subject of numerous books, feature films, television programs, and documentaries, very few of which have departed from the established historical patterns described below. interestingly, cash himself was a central participant in the construction of his persona through his autobiographical writings and reflections. these strongly shape the tone and tenor of the collection and exhibits at the johnny cash museum, which opened in nashville in 2013. each exhibit reflects the existing themes and priorities of the almost exclusively retrospective works that have constructed each artists’ persona. there are a few central attributes of hendrix’s consensus persona that should be noted before seeing how this persona is reflected in the emp’s exhibit. first and foremost, hendrix is predominantly spoken of as a guitarist. indeed, he is uniformly regarded as popular music’s greatest guitarist, if the many “best of” lists that regularly appear in major music publications are any guide. although he sang, wrote songs, and played bass routinely during his career, there is little question that his persona is indelibly linked to his instrument and the guitar is by far the instrument that defines him and his legacy. the story that has been told about hendrix over and over is of how it was his use of the guitar that redeemed his early struggles in various backing bands and touring outfits and answered the questions that surrounded his ultimate status. it fairchild 68 was the guitar and hendrix’s use of it that elevated him into the highest strata of the rock canon. to note just one turning point in the narrative of hendrix’s artistry, in a 1969 article from rolling stone, sheila weller describes noticing an old photo of hendrix in “a fifties coasters-type r&b group; processed hair, metallic-threaded silk-lapel suits, shiny shoes.” hendrix responded to her obvious mirth by saying, “that’s okay…i don’t try to cover up the past; i’m not ashamed of it.” he follows this by saying “i don’t want to be a clown anymore. i don’t want to be a rock and roll star.” instead, the balance of the piece describes an artist struggling to escape into his artistry and realise what was then, what was still, to be accomplished (quoted in potash 1996, p. 24–5). this trajectory, from gigging musician to transcendent presence, is a consensus that reaches into the academic literature as well, with one of the most prominent scholars of the electric guitar carefully noting nearly precisely the same “truths” as those presented in the numerous popular biographies and evocations of his life and times that have continued for decades (waksman 1999, p. 77; see also roby & schreiber 2010; potash 1996). this consensus appears with particular clarity in the emp’s extensive rotating exhibition of jimi hendrix memorabilia that has been housed at the museum since its opening. paul allen’s unparalleled collection of hendrix memorabilia has been often said to be the catalyst for establishing the museum itself and there has always been a gallery dedicated to exhibiting it in various forms. the forms this exhibit has taken are varied, ranging from an initial “life story” iteration to later versions focusing on specific periods in the artist’s life to those focusing on particular aspects of his specifically musical influence. here we see in a very tangible way the historicity and contingency of the meanings of hendrix’s fame as expressed, in part, through the items he left behind. the exhibit i examined in 2011, called “jimi hendrix: an evolution of sound”, fit retrospectively into this consensus persona. the exhibit was set in a gallery dominated by a so-called “hendrix life map”, which stretched across the lengthy back wall of the exhibition space. this wall consisted of text, images, objects, and video and audio stations visitors could trigger to watch or listen to studio recordings and live performances. the wall was divided into five periods that cut across hendrix’s life under the titles “hendrix in seattle,” “chitlin circuit,” “the village,” “swinging london,” and “the world stage”. to the right of this was a wall displaying several extremely large images of lyric sheets and several photos of hendrix taken while he was writing the displayed lyrics. the front of the gallery consisted mostly of large double-sided glass cases with various famous objects in them, such as a drum kit used by mitch mitchell when he played with hendrix, a psychedelic jumpsuit hendrix wore on stage, and a blue velour suit in which hendrix was famously photographed. as you walk in to the main room, there were several glass cases on the left that housed a series of hendrix’s guitars. the central area of the exhibition included several large padded seats with built-in listening stations. the exhibition’s larger narrative was supported through displays that highlighted the material qualities of all of its objects – including the guitars – through the use of lighting, text, groupings of other related objects, and extensive imagery. the presence and particular qualities of the guitars on display were central to the exhibit’s story. again, the life histories of the guitars and the guitarist are folded seamlessly into one another and into the bigger story the exhibit is designed to tell. as the emp’s chief curator noted, this particular iteration of the periodically changing hendrix gallery was meant “to celebrate the creative power of jimi hendrix and how he has affected the fabric of popular music.” it was also intended to enhance what the curator called the “undying aura [that] now surrounds hendrix, placing him on the throne of a blazing pantheon of rock ’n’ roll” (mcmurray 2008, p. 6). the exhibit did this by using the five major periods it had divided hendrix’s life into and creating a materially rich historical arc that bent ineluctably towards the moment at woodstock when hendrix played the star-spangled banner persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 69 on the white fender stratocaster, the very one sitting in the last case in the row. it is worth exploring how the guitars contribute to this narrative. there were five guitars in this exhibit, each one displayed to match a period in hendrix’s life as defined by the exhibit. the first, “seattle scene,” presented a humble sears silvertone guitar that was owned by hendrix’s childhood friend, joe gray. the guitar was set in a case with photos from a performance of one of hendrix’s early bands, the rockin’ kings, and photos from the washington junior high school yearbook with gray and hendrix’s smiling faces highlighted. the text explains how gray let hendrix use the guitar as hendrix did not have one of his own. hendrix used the instrument to play with several different bands at clubs in seattle’s central district. the guitar has a simple, unadorned, light brown body and a single pick up. it speaks to the humble origins of the figure who would eventually ascend to the “throne.” the second is a black 1955 les paul custom that hendrix and band mate larry lee bought together in 1963 when both were playing with bob fisher and the bonnevilles. the text explains that the instrument was used when hendrix was playing the “chitlin’ circuit,” the nickname for the string of theatres, nightclubs, and other performance venues that employed african american artists in the era of jim crow segregation. it stretched across the american east, south and midwest and for many became synonymous with long gruelling tours and low pay. the guitar speaks to these circumstances in material form while the text tells us how it witnessed hendrix’s move from the backing bands of the deep south to the clubs of new york city’s greenwich village, a moment of important and influential transition. the third instrument is a bass guitar, a hagström eight-string that hendrix played while performing and recording with curtis knight and the squires. we are told that this period of immersion in this “nexus of jazz, folk, blues revival, and rock ‘n’ roll” proved to be a “formative influence on the evolution of hendrix’s sound.” the fourth guitar display is actually two guitars presented in the same case. they can only be presented to us in fragments as hendrix destroyed each during shows at the saville theatre and the royal albert hall in london in 1967. he was said to have done so to commemorate his final shows in the uk before heading off to perform at the monterey pop festival. strikingly, he had written the lyrics to love or confusion on the back of one of the instruments, explaining that he regarded smashing the guitar as a sacrifice of something he loved for the greater good. the final guitar is perhaps the most famous of all, the white fender stratocaster on which he played his symbolically raucous version of the star-spangled banner at woodstock. this is an object that speaks to both the triumphs of monterey, woodstock, and the isle of wight, but also the fact of his death at a young age that has stalked those final performances ever since. the guitar hangs, through a trick of the light, as if suspended in midair in its display case. when read against the accompanying text, which speaks of new collaborators and new musical directions, the gleaming white of the body and blonde wood of the neck is suggestive of the unknown, unfinished music that would never make its way into the world. as with the guitars in the emp’s guitar gallery, these have each been marked by their own specific material histories. however, unlike those guitars, these guitars are grounded firmly and organically in hendrix’s formal designation as a “great” artist. indeed, the meaning and presence of each guitar grows from hendrix’s historical, and by definition, retrospective status. each guitar is described almost as if it too witnessed the events and circumstances that linked it to the musician and now sits before us as mute witnesses to hendrix’s paths through the world. while these objects sit in fairly close proximity to many others, such as family photographs, clothes, and other personal effects, the guitars are different. they are more symbolically resonant. while the guitars are used to denote familiar points in the recounting of the life of a great artist, their humble origins, greatness forged in the cauldron of struggle and hard work, and the final realisation of the changes they wrought on the world, these guitars feel as if they fairchild 70 speak to a part of the artist’s familiar persona in a different way. they seem to speak as a proxy for hendrix’s actual presence in a way that is both publicly familiar and privately intimate. in this exhibits, it is impossible to imagine hendrix without these instruments and we are never asked to do so. we can find similar forms of display at the johnny cash museum in nashville, another biographical exhibit that bears many similarities to the hendrix exhibit in seattle. we should also briefly summarise cash’s consensus persona in order to frame this exhibit. cash was unusually expressive in his life and his music about who he thought he was. his efforts at selffashioning were rich and numerous (see edwards 2009). from his earliest hits, the narrative of cash’s life and career reflected struggles with a certain darkness, in the form of very public struggles with faith and addiction for example, but his narrative also included stories of redemption and transcending those manifestations of darkness. as richard goldstein wrote in vogue in 1969, when johnny cash sings a hymn, you get this very solitary search for grace…that’s a kind of aloneness the beatles never touch. it’s something bob dylan is reaching for now, in the guise of simplicity. to johnny cash it’s right out there, like a goddamn scar” (in streissguth 2002, p. 89). this “scar” has proved a persistent theme in cash’s biography. from recent academic work to popular essays to retrospective collections of historical writings about cash, the themes of injury, healing, and redemption through faith, in his god and in his work, predominate (edwards 2009; hayes 2018; streissguth 2002). in the cash museum, we find that the life histories of the guitars on display are nestled quite closely with that of the artist. however, this museum is even more personal and, given the fact that it is a standalone institution, it creates a far more comprehensive and personal narrative for visitors to follow. the museum opened nearly a decade after cash’s death and benefited from the availability of a huge range of personal and professional items, including the expected array of musical instruments and stage clothes, but also non-musical items such as a sideboard and a dinner service from cash’s lake house in hendersonville, tennessee, which was his home from 1968 until his death. the exhibit is also framed at the start and the end by guitars. at the start is a mock-up of a stage set for johnny cash and the tennessee two, his first group. it is backed by a floor-to-ceiling image taken from the cover of the album “his top hits” from 1958. in front of the image is an approximation of the band’s original set up. on the left is guitarist luther perkins’ small amp with a guitar case behind it and a fender esquire electric to the right. in the centre of the slightly raised stage area is a larger fender amp and johnny cash’s martin acoustic, to the right stands an acoustic upright bass. two aspects of this scene suggest its underlying purpose. first, there are two signs on the stage that were handwritten by cash himself, both noting the provenance of the guitar and the small guitar amp. in the case of the amp, the note tells us: “on this amp was recorded hey porter, folsom prison blues, i walk the line and others.” the other reads: “my first ‘professional’ guitar. 1955–56.” second, the curators have threaded a dollar bill through the strings on the acoustic guitar, a trick cash used to help get the famed, percussive ‘boom-chicka-boom’ sound the band often produced. here the museum uses the handwritten notes and the dollar bill to provide traces of the artist for the visitor, signalling this is a very personal exhibit. there are several guitars set in larger panels that chronicle cash’s life. the first is part of a larger panel called “life in dyess,” the arkansas town where cash spent most of his childhood. the panel contains a battery-powered radio ordered from the sears and roebuck catalogue, an acoustic guitar, also from the sears catalogue, both of which are described as the same type and persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 71 model as those owned by the cash family, though not the actual ones they owned. these are placed in their own cases, which are surrounded by several images taken from family photos that form a kind of collage around other smaller items such as cash’s birth certificate, marbles cash played with as a boy, and his high school yearbook from his junior year where he is described as “j.r. cash, droll.” similarly structured panels are repeated in this part of the museum, with one devoted to cash’s time in the air force, another describing the shows he performed at various prisons, and two that give broad overviews of the various episodes in the early part of his career. the two guitars that appear in these displays are notable for their personalisation. the first is also set in its own lit-up case. it is a gibson j-200 acoustic model with a warm red body with a wide black playing area. the instrument was designed especially for cash in 1959 and he used it in performances and recording sessions, but just as importantly in publicity photos, one of which forms the back panel of the case. the curvy script spelling out the artist’s name on the front face of the neck acts as confirmation of the singer’s increased status. the museum highlights this by including a handwritten lyric sheet for cash’s first number one hit, i walk the line , written long after the fact, that was given to the museum’s founder and placed in the case with the instrument. several subsequent cases include similar guitars, each symbolizing a different era in cash’s long career. the famous cash-designed grammer guitar, played routinely on the short-lived “the johnny cash show” sits in one, and a custom martin with complex mother of pearl inlay on the neck and body (also designed by cash) sits in another. another guitar is signed by all four members of the highwaymen. this so-called country “supergroup” was formed in 1985 and was comprised by cash, willie nelson, kris kristofferson, and waylon jennings. while each guitar adds a certain material heft to the chronicle presented to visitors, the last item in the museum is perhaps the most poignant. it is another custom martin acoustic, also in its own lit-up case. it is a jet black johnny cash signature model, d42 from 1997. cash also designed this instrument, of which fewer than 150 were produced. this guitar was used to record many of cash’s final recordings on the american recordings series, a series of six studio albums recorded between 1994 and 2010, the final two released posthumously. the series brought cash more high-profile praise and success than he had had in over a decade. his recording of songs such as hurt by nine inch nails, personal jesus by depeche mode, and the mercy seat by nick cave surprised and engaged a much younger audience than he had been used to in many years. these albums, recorded in a starkly minimal fashion, mostly with only limited accompaniment, became very publicly associated with a rapid decline in his health from 1997 and his eventual death in 2003. this particular guitar appears in his much-lauded video for hurt. the museum explicitly links these recordings to cash’s long-standing, but often conflicted religious beliefs. the final panel of the museum explains at some length how cash was raised “in a god-fearing family as a southern baptist” and while he “struggled with the temptations throughout his life…he never turned his back on his faith of god.” cash recorded gospel songs throughout his life and “earn[ed] an associate’s degree in theology from the christian international university.” the text in this display ends with the following melancholy notation: the last song cash wrote was titled “my lord has gone.” he had taken the manuscript to the recording studio intending to come up with a melody to accompany his lyrics, but the session ended before he could accomplish his goal. he never returned to the studio, passing away on september 12, 2003. the guitars displayed at the johnny cash museum materially punctuate the chronicle of the artist’s life in a manner similar to those in the jimi hendrix exhibit noted above. they support the overall narrative the museum’s curators seek to establish, provide a very specific material fairchild 72 focus for each panel of which they are a part, and have certain of their qualities highlighted through their own life history as well as the objects to which they are linked by proximity and by their contextualization in cash’s own life trajectory. in this case, the displays move from fairly generic guitars, bought by others for cash to use, to carefully designed, custom instruments that become iconic objects in their own right. the displays repeatedly call the visitor’s attention to the uniqueness of each through the accompanying text, imagery, and other objects that help fill out the story being told. this museum’s story is one of the extraordinary longevity of cash’s career. the museum notes that cash was one of the few recording artists to have recorded on formats that included “78, 45 and 33 1/3 rpm records, reel-to-reel audio tapes, 4-track and 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, cds and mp3 digital downloads”. notations such as these help to suggest, and later confirm, a story that tells us how cash’s life history took him from being a traditional commercial country singer playing on borrowed guitars to a globally recognised and respected recording artist whose life work continued right up until his final days. within this story, we are also told of the many continuities despite the passage of time and the depredations of age, made visible through five carefully chosen images, one per decade of his career, that dominate the initial gallery. the latter galleries build on this theme with panels entitled “writer”, “humanitarian”, and “artist”, which describe cash’s activities beyond writing and performing music. in one sense, within the broad range of claims, stories, objects, images, video clips, and sound recordings, the guitars generally hold an equal status with other objects, such as the family radio, radio receiver and frequency meter of the type he would have used during his time in the military. they are narrative props of a sort, illustrative and demonstrative of the world as cash knew and experienced it. but as with the hendrix guitars, these instruments are special and especially intimate. the artist’s hands were routinely placed on them and marked each of these instruments in visible ways. his use of them is confirmed not only through the marks on the guitars themselves, but through associated moving and still imagery. they stand in for the performances made with them and speak to those evanescent sounds that can no longer exist and they do so in ways few other objects in this museum can. conclusion it might seem somewhat odd to focus so closely on the material and specifically non-soundproducing qualities of these instruments. but despite the fact that these museums produce a good deal of sound to surround visitors and shape their experiences of the objects and images displayed, offering much more on interactive kiosks and audio guides, none of these guitars are presented as sound-producing instruments. there are no audio recordings of them solely as guitars, but only as part of long-completed sound recordings or archival videos. there are only a few whose sound qualities are described in any detail at all. such descriptions are almost always presented because the instrument is so unusual as to be an oddity or outlier. instead, we are continually told that these are the instruments through which important things happened in the past, but we are rarely asked to focus only on the quality and character of the sounds they made. instead, those sounds are almost always placed within the stories of the exemplary lives of the artists who made them. we are not asked to listen to specific sounds in quite the way we are asked to consider the specific moments when these instruments were brought to full musical life. this makes the physical presence and material qualities of these guitars that much more important, carrying far more weight in these exhibits than any distinct qualities their sounds may possess. this places these objects permanently in the past as, simply put, they will never make any sounds ever again. instead of simply being passive musical instruments, the guitars described above are central pieces of markedly personal narratives told through text, images, and objects persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 73 constructing the “affective clusters” that “coalesce around stars” (marshall 2014) in order to create the complex amalgam of the intimate and the historical on which the expressive dynamics of these exhibits turn. also, while these instruments are central to the retelling of the artists’ lives they represent, they are also part of larger sensory arrays of aural, visual and textual materials, without which these muted objects would be far less meaningful and symbolically resonant. in museums all over the world, spectators are asked to observe or engage with the material qualities of the personal belongings of famous people. they are often used as concise markers of larger stories, such as virginia woolf’s eyeglasses or beethoven’s ear trumpets (hancock 2010; eckhardt 2008). the presence of these guitars stands in for familiar historical narratives and implicit ideologies of artistic value that are already embedded in the famous artist’s persona. they are displayed in order to link visitors to what feels like a more immediate way to the artists who once owned and played them. these objects are marked, not just conceptually or symbolically through the accompanying stories, images and recordings, but also materially and tangibly through signs of wear or use. they are located in history and geography through accompanying text and imagery. and as such, they represent, indeed stand in for, an overarching value system defined by the consensus personas of the artists in question and by what are presumed to be already held beliefs about the value and meaning of their artistry. we can more readily imagine the artist’s presence when we are in close proximity to the instruments through which they made their music and it is this presence these institutions so assiduously try to produce for their visitors. works cited adelt, u 2017, ‘displaying the guitar: the rock and roll hall of fame and the museum of pop culture’, rock music studies, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 207–220. baker, s, istvandity l, & nowak r 2016, ‘curating popular music heritage: storytelling and narrative engagement in popular music museums and exhibitions’, museum management and curatorship, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 369–385. brandellero, a & janssen s 2014, ‘popular music as cultural heritage: scoping out the field of practice’, international journal of heritage studies, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 224–240. carfoot, g 2006 ‘acoustic, electric and virtual noise: the cultural identity of the guitar’ leonardo music journal, vol. 16, pp. 35–39. duffett, m 2014 ‘celebrity: the return of the repressed in fan studies?’ in l duits et al. (eds) the ashgate research companion to fan cultures, ashgate, farnham, pp. 163–80. eckhardt, a 2008, the beethoven-haus bonn, verlag beethoven-haus bonn, bonn. edwards, l 2009 johnny cash and the paradox of american identity. indiana university press, bloomington. fairchild, c 2018, ‘transcendent myths, mundane objects: setting the material scene in rock, soul, and country museums’, international journal of heritage studies, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 477–490. fairchild, c 2017, ‘understanding the exhibitionary characteristics of popular music museums’, museum & society, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 87–99. fast, s 1999, ‘rethinking issues of gender and sexuality in led zeppelin: a woman’s view of pleasure and power in hard rock’, american music, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 245–99. hancock, n 2010 ‘virginia’s woolf’s glasses: material encounters in the literary/artistic house museum’, in s dudley (ed.) museum materialities: objects, engagements, interpretations, routledge, london, pp. 114–27. hayes, j 2018 ‘he saw our darkness.’ bitter southerner, retrieved 21 may 2019. https://bittersoutherner.com/ he-saw-our-darkness-johnny-cash-15th-deathanniversary hills, m 2017 ‘from fan culture/community to the fan world: possible pathways and ways of having done fandom’, palabra clave, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 856–83. fairchild 74 keane, w 2005 ‘signs are not the garb of meaning: on the social analysis of material things’, in d. miller (ed.) materiality, duke university press, durham, pp. 182–205. leonard, m 2014 ‘staging the beatles: ephemerality, materiality and the production of authenticity in the museum’, international journal of heritage studies, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 357–375. marshall, pd 2014 ‘persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self’, journalism, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 153–170. mcmurray, j 2008 ‘exhibition: jimi hendrix–an evolution of sound.’ imprint, spring 2008, pp. 6– 7. ostburg, j & hartmann b 2015, ‘the electric guitar – marketplace icon’, consumption, markets and culture, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 402–410. potash, c 1996, the jimi hendrix companion: three decades of commentary, schirmer books, new york. reitsamer, r 2018, ‘gendered narratives of popular music history and heritage’, in s baker, c strong, l istvandity & z cantillon (eds), the routledge companion of popular music history and heritage, routledge, london, pp. 26–35. roby, s & schreiber b 2010, becoming jimi hendrix: from southern crossroads to psychedelic london, the untold story of a musical genius, da capo press, new york. stevenson, n 2009, ‘talking to bowie fans: masculinity, ambivalence and cultural citizenship’, european journal of cultural studies, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 79–98. streissguth, m 2002, ring of fire: the johnny cash reader, da capo press, cambridge. waksman, s 1999, ‘black sound, black body: jimi hendrix, the electric guitar, and the meanings of blackness’, popular music & society, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 75–113. weinstein, d 2013, ‘rock's guitar gods — avatars of the sixties’, archiv für musikwissenschaft, vol.70, pp. 139–154. york, l 2013, ‘star turn: the challenges of theorizing celebrity agency’, the journal of popular culture, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. 1330–47. charles fairchild abstract key words introduction the qualities of guitars of guitars and guitarists conclusion works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 1 music and persona: an introduction cha rles fai rch il d an d p. dav i d ma rshall abstract persona is a very mutable concept. perhaps its mutability is no more prominently displayed that in its intersection and integration into music and musical culture. in this opening essay for our special issue on music and persona, we chart the meaning and the value of persona analyses to the study of music. essentially, our objective here is two-fold. first, we want to provide a map of how persona has been employed in research in music. what this will generate is a critical investigation of these traditions, but also what we hope will be a valuable reference for future music and persona scholarship. second, and of equal importance, is how these uses of musical persona can be further informed and assisted by the more recent scholarship in persona studies most openly articulated by this journal over the last five years, but also the widening array of related books, articles and book chapters that are percolating in connected fields. we attempt to pull together our review of the current field of music and persona with the urgent need to identify with greater thought and clarity the industrial structures that shape our relationship to music performance and its relation to audiences and its constitution of celebrated individuals and recognizable and market-sensitive personas. our essay concludes with the introduction of our series of articles in this issue and how they intersect with these various traditions that have explored persona’s imbrication into music. key words music; persona; musical persona; character; identity; popular music; celebrity introduction persona is a very mutable concept. perhaps its mutability is no more prominently displayed than in its intersection and integration into music and musical culture. in this opening essay for our special issue on music and persona, we chart the meaning and the value of persona analyses to the study of music. essentially, our objective here is two-fold. first, we want to provide a map of how persona has been employed in research in music. what this will generate is a critical investigation of these traditions, but also a valuable reference for future music and persona scholarship. i and second, and of equal importance, is how these uses of musical persona can be further informed and assisted by the more recent scholarship in persona studies most openly articulated by this journal over the last five years, but also the widening array of related books, articles and book chapters that are percolating in connected fields. we attempt to pull together our review of the current field of music and persona with the urgent need to identify with greater thought and clarity the industrial structures that shape our relationship to music performance and its relation to audiences and its constitution of celebrated individuals and recognizable and market-sensitive personas. our essay concludes with the introduction of our fairchild and marshall 2 series of articles in this issue and how they intersect with these various traditions that have explored persona’s imbrication into music. music’s personality system(s) because of persona’s relationship to personality, it is understandable that there is a high expectation that musical persona is generally attributed to the visible figures who have performed and composed music. indeed, the study of the most visible – what could be described as the celebrity structure of music and popular music – has been investigated effectively from a variety of perspectives. this tradition, with its clear emergence from original studies of stardom by scholars such as richard dyer, edgar morin (1972) and even roland barthes (1973; 1977), was somewhat skewed to film scholarship from the mid to late 20th century. nonetheless, because of music’s prominence in the performance of stardom by key film stars such as judy garland and marilyn monroe, in the work of dyer (1998) it seamlessly translates across to performance and persona (dyer 1998). augmenting this, marshall’s work on popular music in celebrity and power, in which he linked popular music celebrity discourse in the 20th century to claims of authenticity and connection, particularly through an analysis of the boy band new kids on the block (marshall 2014, pp. 150–184), defines a certain approach to popular music and public identity. more recently – particularly in the study of popular music celebrity – there have been major efforts to decipher the meaning of key popular icons. this current research, which has had a focus on recent pop stars’ post-death, includes a special issue on david bowie (see continuum special issue, cinque and redmond 2017) in particular. this trajectory of exploring the meaning and intent of a popular music icon identifies approaches that have emerged from the tradition of biography studies. the early investigations of madonna paralleled the persona construction and chameleon-like behaviour and performance of bowie and led to studies of her play with identity (see for example, guilbert 2002). in the past 10 years, these approaches to public identity and transformation have focused on lady gaga’s persona in particular and have percolated through both biographical studies and those concerned with popular music and popular culture (gray 2014; bennett 2014). what this particular vein of research has advanced is the way that fans construct and co-create the public identity – essentially the persona – of the popular music star. persona and the implication of music’s perceived meaning through performance: voice, gesture and authority and authenticity although some of this biographical literature around popular music stars has integrated the notion of the strategic construction of persona, most work has not investigated the multiple versions of public selves that are generated by musical performance and performers. it has also generally overlooked some of the work in both musicology and classical musical criticism that are essential for deciphering the value and position of persona in and through music. four major exceptions to this are two icons of popular music and performance studies, simon frith and philip auslander, and two influential thinkers that have shaped the use and positing of persona in musicology, edward t. cone and allan moore. simon frith, in his study of the value of popular music, places the performance in a categorical array of musical meaning, authority and authenticity. on one level, he identifies the efforts of pop performers to be “personally expressive” in a manner not privileged in classical and operatic genres (frith 1996, 186-187). from this vantage point, frith establishes perhaps the most interesting division of how to understand persona (though he does not employ the persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 3 idea of persona) through the voice and further integrates barthes’ notion of the “grain of the voice” (barthes 1977) in his analysis. barthes points to the voice as something closer to the body and beyond language in its expression of music’s meaning and pleasure. for frith there is a division and tension of power in how music communicates meaning, in its divide between words and music and that between composer/writer and performer, he thus identifies the “voice” of music and who communicates to be an interplay of it being “a musical instrument,.. a body,... a person and... a character”(frith 1996, p. 187, pp. 191–192). the voice as instrument for frith establishes the clearly musical nature of the voice’s integration into performance and its interplay with other instruments. the voice does identify something, usually – but not always – different from other instruments. in popular music, it leads and in that leadership, it establishes the meaning and significance of the music for the audience. further – as frith identifies – in its inflexions, it structures a relation to gender that further defines the experiential and as frith categorises the “body” and ultimately the gestural transformations of music that moves it forward into levels of signification. from classical music, the predominant persona of “soprano”, “baritone” and “tenor” are for frith somewhat fixed and generally gendered identities for performers and strategically deployed for performance (frith 1996, p. 187) – they are more what we would call instrumental or technical in their formation. frith’s analysis of classical/operatic singing overlooks rather bluntly the nuances of personal expression in these categorizations of roles: individual classical performers do produce individualized personas that have become recognizable stars throughout its long history. nonetheless, frith correctly identifies that in popular music there is a more obvious flowing interplay and role-playing that can define the use of timbre and style that can lead to what frith links to the musical voice as “personally expressive” (pp. 191–197). through that notion of selfexpression in the voice, the extension of the music persona through voice can be taken to identify perhaps the character formation of the music itself or the person who fulfils these performance roles and how they articulate their individuality through performance. somewhere into this mix are other persons as musical personas that frith lists as composers or writers who play a shifted role in comparison to literature, but nonetheless are implied particularly with perceived meaning of the music text. and, frith makes the claim that the audience actually shapes the significance of these quite different personas of authenticity, deception, transformation and meaning as they make sense of music in their own contexts within collective and industrial attempts to configure these collective pleasures of music listening. augmenting the analysis of frith’s work is philip auslander’s valuable research on the production of music persona through performance. indeed, auslander is one of the first to fully appropriate the idea of persona into music via performance studies. his early work that deals with the relationship between brechtian levels of strategic performance and narrative and derrida’s textually derived notion of “differance” and how meaning is produced through relations of identity (auslander 1986, 53-60) identify how auslander has conceptualized persona in music as constructing a chain of signification to and from music/composition to performer/performance. auslander’s use of persona is built from and beyond what he describes as the “personage” (auslander 2006, 102) that david graver conceived (2003) as well as the concept of “personalism” (auslander 2006) that stan godlivitch developed to understand the play of personality in musical performance (godlovitch 1998). both of these scholars that auslander investigates emphasize that performance can shape and personalize any form of music; but auslander layers into this an analysis of the multiple social functions of persona that goffman developed in two of his key works (goffman 1959; 1974) and calls his approach a move “toward a performer-centred theory of musical performance” (auslander 2006, p. 103). through fairchild and marshall 4 employing a series of valuable goffman concepts – including framing, lamination and impression management – and integrating the idea of “musicking” (auslander 2006, cited from small 1998) as a process rather than an object, auslander develops a sophisticated re-reading of the various formations of musical personas and how prevalent their variations can be between genres and actual formal and informal styles of performance (auslander 2006, pp. 105–117). he coins a related term for when a performer is well-aware of their particular posturing and deploys it for defined ends as a “meta-persona” (pp. 116–117). auslander’s direction is very much connected to the negotiated construction of meaning that defines music with the involvement of the performer and audience along with the other contextual frames constructing perhaps several types of negotiated personas that music and performance can generate. persona helps articulate stability of performance with audience expectations matching in some way the performers’ musical presentation. bodily and facial gestures, posture, dress, and genre play into what auslander defines in the plural as musical personae (auslander 2006). edward t. cone, whose critical work comes from both a composer and classic performance of music tradition, provides one of the most useful divisions of music and its personifications and like auslander, uses persona with a certain centrality for understanding the complex origins of music. cone presents three versions of identity construction in music (cone 1974, pp. 20–40). he uses persona to convey the way music is a version of the composer who has created the music. persona captures both its connection to the composer and its fiction-like reconstruction; but his analysis takes this further in its identification of what he calls “a protagonist”, which is embodied by the instruments and the production of the music itself. he appropriates the idea that there is a “subconscious” movement of identity through these levels as the instruments reflect the constitution of a particular identity for the music itself. cone’s use of subconscious is to imply the way that a persona migrates across from the composer into the music and vocal performance in some way that is unseen but present. to express the play of identity further in musical composition, cone also employs the almost literary term of character to identify primarily the role of singers and the way in which they convey a sense of the person in and through the composed music and words. for cone, the composer’s persona “is to be posited as an intelligence embracing and controlling all the elements of musical that comprise a work” (cone 1974, p. 109, derived from maus 2004, p. 23) although many musicologists have been influenced by cone’s work on the persona– composer relationship (see for example, gelbart 2003; maus, 2004) his deployment of persona is perhaps best adapted and interpreted by the musicologist allan moore (2017). moore, via many examples from rock and popular music of the 1960s and 1970s, develops an even more sophisticated reading of the layers of music and the relation that instrumentation can actually set the persona-like tone for how a singer articulates and expresses the meaning of a song. conceptually, moore explains accompaniment and the relational structures it entails as an environment that produces what he thinks is best called a persona for the music. he furthers his integration of persona to say that this play within an environment and accompaniment can produce multiple personas and even further variance depending on the audience or listener’s knowledge and cultural connection to the music itself (moore 2017, 276). downbeats, percussion, particular structure of notes can also work to separate the perceived persona that a singer is conveying to a point where it is sometimes clear that the listener by this accompanying environment and tonal sound, does not believe the persona that is embodied in the performance. out of this, in a manner similar to cone’s notion of the composer persona, but also a challenge to it, music can generate meanings beyond the singer and into the realm of the intention of the composer and the sensibilities of the listener. he concludes his essay with the provocative statement: “even without consideration of production manipulation, concentration on that very rich amalgam which constitutes the track’s personic environment is absolutely persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 5 crucial if we are to fully experience the expressive richness of popular song” (moore 2017, p. 294). emotion and persona in music much of what we have developed in this analysis of performance and its production of a musical persona intersects with other forms and types of analyses. drawing from our review of these four theorists’ approach to persona, it is clear that the performative facial and tonal expressions of singers in popular, classical and operatic music are evidence of the construction of a form of dual persona. on one level, the singer is producing a persona with these signifiers of emotion and, on another level, the actual tone, pitch, tenor, and duration of the music produces something of a persona for the music itself with at least some intention of emotive evocation. stephen davies, whose position is that we do not need the idea of persona to understand emotion in music, critiques the approach developed by scholars such as jenefer robinson (1997) as “hypothetical emotionalism”. “hypothetical emotionalism invites the listener to regard the various emotions expressed within a single musical span as unified with respect to the emotional life and experiences of the imagined persona” (davies 1997, p. 98). the idea of a unified emotional expression of a feeling – a persona – and that music can provide a clear narrative that an auditor/listener can read depends on a massive amount of other shared meanings and contexts. nonetheless, there is no question that music pushes people to discern an emotional meaning related to a character-like persona as they interpret music and its affective formations into sentiments. research into understanding this emotive persona of music has progressed in some interesting and valuable directions specifically because music itself often moves through our world as an indirect form of communication, a form that plays in the world of feeling and affect as it is interpreted by audiences singularly and collectively. tom cochrane attempted to summarize this reading of the relation of music, emotion and persona first through explaining that our reading of music’s emotion has implied a persona-like relationship to the music itself (cochrane 2010, pp. 264–267). in other words, music’s form of expression personifies because it is believed to be a communicative form to exhibit emotion – a human characteristic. he acknowledges that music’s emotive persona is probably developed through context and social knowledge about the music that has been shared, and thus different personas emerge from how an individual listener knows or interprets the music contextually (p. 266). nonetheless, cochrane attempts to interpret the musical style and invocation of two pieces of music that try to express a quite complex human emotion – jealousy – from within the frame of the experience of the music itself. his conclusion from this work is that the formal production of the music – the instrumental interplay in effect – can produce a direction towards an emotion if it is building an identifiable “persona”: “by situating an appropriate mix of basic emotional content within a suitable context of interacting personae, the music should be capable of being directly expressive (and not merely symbolic) of a complex social emotion” (cochrane 2010, p. 272). making sense of music as form of emotional persona can perhaps be better comprehended through a closer study of musical origins. gary tomlinson’s speculative research on how early hominids began developing music hundreds of thousands of years ago helps better identify the relation music has to formations of communication (tomlinson 2015). tomlinson’s reliance on linguistic and archaeological reading of early instruments explains how hominids developed music from an original relation with others. sounds were linked to gestures as a way to work together in what he and others call “co-presence”: the musical rhythms and related sounds that may have emerged from cooperative hunting build to a sense of mutual understanding. even though music may have developed from instruments of communication or fairchild and marshall 6 sounds of repetitive forms of hitting for cooking and making things, it eventually moved to what he calls “offline”: the moment where early hominids were able to imagine events and translate those events into “stories” reconstructed through sounds that captured the emotion of those original events. music as formalistic embodiments of humans/activity/emotions then emerges from these elaborate signifying chains and could be characterized as “protolinguistic” in these early moments. through music’s embodiment of these states of human “being” and “feeling”, music can be seen as a formation of abstract notions of the feelings of self: as essentially personas working through in a communitarian way with a tribe/gathering. this offline and fictional notion of persona captures much of the allure of music in its infinitesimal reconstruction of emotional connections and disconnections of humans with each other. persona in and through musical technique and technology this long arc of tracing the origins of music provides some clear links to its reformation of individual activity into some collective experience that is through music enacted and made into a formation of the public self. music produces a quite different persona constellation than the art form of literature as individuals reconstruct musical meaning into personalized, collectivized and environmental memories. to take this form of persona reconstruction in and through music further, it is useful to see music as a technique and related, sometimes quite closely, to technology. the musical instrument as some authors will avow expresses a personality through its sonic structuration. performance and composer as author are the most obvious connection to persona in music; however, the complexity of music, with its various elements involved its production and formation, points to other types of persona analysis. the bibliographic work of twentieth century song identification by cooper et al. (2003) points to the way that we think of instruments as defining identity. hundreds of songs are identified and linked to a state of being for the song through their use of an instrument in a title: from accordion, fiddle and guitar to the zither, the authors listed 250 popular songs from 1910 to the 1990s that gave prominence to the narrative and emotional meaning of a musical instrument in songs (cooper et al. 2003, 38997). in other words, instruments serve as an intermediary of emotional persona when they are caricatured for strategic purposes through lyrics and musical style. as some of the research in this special issue identify, instruments then serve as a way to express some of the core meanings and narrative of an individual performer: their very public identity is crafted and shaped by their relationship and mediation through their own instruments (fairchild 2019). technology also transforms music in other ways that can also be aligned to some aspects of persona. dave laing’s (1991) study of the introduction of the phonograph perhaps points to the way that imagined performance became part of popular music at the end of the nineteenth century. recorded music produced a sense of what we describe above as “copresence”, but the co-presence is imagined by the listener and thus a reconstructed notion of the performer is built from available images, attempts to see a performer live, and renditions of music by other performers who have shared recorded music in public as a way to define their own public personas relation to the recorded versions of songs. this complex relation of persona and technology becomes even more interesting when we integrate frith’s original analysis of the play of the microphone (frith 1996, pp. 187–9) in transforming performance and how performance can be further configured through recording. the microphone allows the performer to play with meaning and expression; it provides a new “affordance” (see norman 1988) for the performer to convey to a live audience (and a recorded one) very personal and intimate intonations of singing that would have been impossible in an persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 7 era of concert performance that had to focus on acoustic projection to a large physically present audience without the technology of electric speaker enhancement. serge lacasse’s work on the technology of recorded music further augments this understanding of technology, performance and the production of persona-like meaning of popular music. through his analysis of the sonic manipulations that peter gabriel integrates into two of his songs from different decades for emotional expression, lacasse is able to articulate how a contemporary vocal performer with instrumental accompaniment can produce a musically identifiable and nuanced character/personage/persona specifically related to the particular song (lacasse 2005). equally significant in the meaning of musical personas and technology is what auslander describes as the process of “mediatization” of musical performance. the transformation of music performance into the televisual, auslander explains is at least partly a process of remediation (auslander 2008, p. 6; from bolter and grusin 1996), where performers and stagecraft from past technologies are integrated into the form of the current version. variations of this persona remediation can be seen in early television and performers’ efforts to construct the sensation of live performance on major american programs such as the ed sullivan show in 1960s america along with the british top of the pops, which began in 1964. however, these mediatized structures are never completely stable: new musical personas emerged with the rise of video music in the 1980s. narrative reconstructions permeated the meaning of the music as persona and, with even greater intensity, the public personas of musicians through filmic as well as advertising/promotional codes: music was transformed into a newly mediatized and remediated frame (aufderheide 1986; frith, goodwin & grossberg 1993). recent persona studies research and its implication for music and persona through these various lenses, we have reviewed the way that music and persona intersect. it is readily apparent that music as a cultural form, practice, technology and performance has generated some distinct directions in how persona can be conceived. the collection of essays in this special issue will provide an even greater focus on other ways that music leads to a reconceptualization of persona as a research direction. it is also apparent that new directions in persona studies have not yet found their way into the study of music and musical culture. before we provide an introduction to the works in this special issue, it is worth exploring whether persona studies can inform the future development of music and persona research. the range of material that has been generated in the last 10 years in this emerging field cannot be summarized adequately here; what we will attempt to identify are some key concepts in persona studies and provide the outline of how they may help understand musical persona further. historical origins: musical persona music has a long history of what has been called “personafication” (marshall, cruz & mcdonald, 2018), where persons and personalities are imbricated into a continuing and strategic process of constructing persona. persona and prosopon, its greek predecessor, were techniques to “mask” the performers’ identity. in the structure of greek theatrical performance, the “chorus” represented a narrative mask in its mapping of activity, but also embodied singing (see, for example, menander 1991). music then is part of the communicative structure of persona that needs further exploration and integration into our current investigation of musical persona. fairchild and marshall 8 moreover, there is a mountain of historical literature that charts and maps music and identities that is too vast to summarize here. what is needed in the future is a re-engagement with that research from musicology and cultural history to see how it can be utilized to understand musical persona even further. brand and musical persona genre and music clearly inform our conceptualization of what a musical performance means. it provides context and socially built signifying structures that identify what might be called a persona range; but genre indexically points to the way that music is also a commodity form in its capacity to identify why an audience would be drawn to a performance or purchase, download or stream a recording. it further points to how the individual performer in this commodity structure is a brand and their formation of performance and identity through their music maintains and sustains the brand. as with many other domains of contemporary life, music fits into the corporate models of how difference and differentiation is represented. music persona, when considered in branding terms, is a strategic reformation of music for economic exchange as cultural and emotional engagement are translated and retranslated into commercial value. one vital direction for research in musical persona then is to integrate the extensive work that has explored branding and music (see lieb 2013; carah 2013; meier 2017) social media transformation of musical persona a central impetus behind the emergence of persona studies was the online transformation of the public self. there are a myriad ways in which this would also transform our conceptualization of musical persona. joy white’s recent study of how music performers can connect to their audiences online points to a fundamentally different form of participation, engagement and, for the performer, public identity. white describes how a particular music genre, grime, that was made an outlier in the british music scene for over a decade, has connected to groups transnationally to form clear fan bases for the performers, specifically via online culture (white 2015). nancy baym’s extensive work investigating the online transformation of music makes the valuable analysis through the concept of “gig workers” that contemporary music describes a changed structure of intimacy and, for the performer, “relational labor” (baym 2018, 16-21). through her interviews with performers, baym revealed the way musicians now have to construct an often self-driven entrepreneurial continuous connection with their followers in order to maintain their music persona identities. baym also makes the important point that music as an industry was fundamentally shifted with the breakdown of record sales as early as the late 1990s. augmenting this change, baym further explains, was the emergence of myspace – the social media precursor to facebook, but also a form of connection that was from 2002 one of the new flows of connection for musical performers with their audiences in the twenty-first century (baym 2018, pp. 10–11). this research into music’s changed status in regards to public identity, performance, and connection, has been peripherally connected to parallel research in persona studies. along with this special issue, what could be further developed is an integration of the related terminology that research into persona could help in analysing music and its transformation in the era of social media. for instance, it is useful to identify further the registers of persona that have developed in recent work. integrating the personal, the public, the intimate and the professional as registers that attempt to describe the constructed online music persona might be useful. extending nancy baym’s work on the private and the public and its intersection with the commercial, it may be valuable to play with the term “privlic”, which has been developed in related work on contemporary publics (marshall 2016) and in marshall, moore and barbour’s book on persona studies (2019, pp. 207–9). although there may be a number of other useful persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 9 terms that could assist in the nuancing and development of the study of musical persona and its online reconfiguration, linking baym’s work with the concept of intercommunication (marshall et al. 2019, 47–53) – the blending of the interpersonal with the highly mediated as a structural form in online culture – might capture the particular way that music and its formation of performing personas moves in and through mediatized technology to communicate emotionally and relationally with its audience. collective identity and its relation to musical persona the study of music has allowed for a particularly fruitful investigation of the formation of audiences: these have been characterized into persona-like identities through understanding the relationship produced with a concert crowd and how it structures a kind of co-presence and sharing among fans engaged with the music. one of the most significant conceptual developments in understanding persona – that it is a strategic formation of identity designed to move into collective worlds – more or less describes how music moves through our culture. music produces collectives; musical personas can be thought of as strategic formations through musical performance to produce relations to this collective and shared culture. the formation of collectives is dependent on the related ways in which collectives connect. in contemporary culture, these connections are enhanced and transformed through online cultural exchanges and sharing. what emerges from both the strategic nature of music personas integrating into collectives and from the collective formations related to musical culture is understanding collectives as a type of persona perhaps not fully investigated in current research. music thus presents a challenge to extend the analysis of what we might now call collective persona to capture the communicative and emotional connections of what has usually been described as audiences. however, the concept of audience perhaps no longer embodies the nuanced nature and activity of the current collective that has been connected to these persona networks. where else might we take “persona”? as noted above, there are many areas of inquiry in the study of musical persona that have not been as thoroughly explored as they might have been. remarkably, these unexplored areas elide some of the most powerful forces we experience in our everyday lives. the primary suite of such forces is, of course, capitalism. but the inclusion of capitalism in studies of musical persona when it has been defined as celebrity more often than not tends towards a kind of generic capitalism, simply called “the market,” or more broadly identified as part of just one more “perspective” in ongoing debates over the nature of “the culture industry”. capitalism as market is most often included not as an analytical object, but as a foil, an opportunity to yet again explain why the culture industry perspective generally, and adorno in particular, have got it perpetually wrong about fans, celebrity, and fandom, a trope that has persisted for an extraordinarily long time. indeed, there are few better examples of the presumption of a generic “market” or model of capitalism than the continuing decades-long rebuttal of adorno’s various claims about popular music. (for a demonstrative list see fairchild 2008, p. 7; see also meisel 2010; cinque 2016, p. 443; duffett 2014, pp. 167–9). it is almost as if this perversely ahistorical disciplinary ritual is innocent of the transformations that capitalism and the market in music have experienced since adorno last wrote about popular music. this is especially problematic given that contemporary capitalism, most often called “neoliberal capitalism,” has historical capacities its antecedents did not. of particular importance is the intersection of social media and the subjectivities produced under the conditions of neoliberalism, potentially linking us to emergence of persona as a defining operative concept in this area of research. fairchild and marshall 10 while the comparatively recent concepts of neoliberalism and the “entrepreneurial self” have made mostly tentative appearances in the literature on musical celebrity, broader work on each points us to a potentially substantial reimagining of musical celebrity and persona (chapman, 2018; taylor, 2016; flisfeder, 2015; marwick, 2015). both concepts offer an opportunity to trace particularly contemporary modes of public being across genres and traditions as well as the ability to work backwards historically through familiar cases with the benefit of these new lenses. we may find far more common ground in the ways in which, say, late nineteenth century opera stars or crooners in the 1930s or rock stars in the 1970s were socially constructed as famous musicians, than previously thought. familiar historical narratives might be pried back open through an examination of the circumstances these figures have always shared. in other words, first we need to accept that capitalism, in its many varied historical formations, has long acted as a broadly encompassing, transcendent category shaping both human agency and its myriad material manifestations in the development of forms of selfhood and their expression in music. then, we might be able to work to link musical traditions with few immediately apparent aesthetic commonalities, but many more readily apparent social and economic connections. such work might serve to highlight the subtle couplings of tradition and selfhood, authority and voice that have defined music in public across musical traditions in the production of musical persona that might otherwise resist analysis. thus the answers to our familiar questions (who bestows authority? who perceives authenticity? how are these produced?) might find intriguing parallels or divergences across musical traditions and historical epochs. as straw has suggested, while subjectivity “will remain, as one of the congealed (or distributed) forces which travels with a work,” it is not “the key and determining terrain on which the decisive processes in cultural life are played out.” (straw 2010, p. 215). from this, we may be able to draw a more complex and finely tuned understanding of the long-cited “negotiated” encounters between audiences and artists. for instance, the concept of celebrity being a kind of “negotiation” between fans and artists is usually taken as a given in studies of musical celebrity and often implies a kind of common, if not level, playing field between the various parties involved. however, given that several defining aspects of contemporary capitalism have received only glancing attention in studies of popular music celebrity, there is much to be gained from closely examining the nature of these encounters between fans and perhaps a wider conceptual analysis of musical persona and its construction as a celebrity commodity. specifically, the market is far too often talked about as if it is some kind of adversarial entity to fandom, when in fact, it is its animating force. more specifically, neoliberal capitalism is both provider to and co-conspirator with contemporary fan cultures, helping to constitute the public selves of artists and fans simultaneously, often through markedly similar communicative means. to put it bluntly, everyone wants more or less the same things from these encounters: extensive communicative and emotional connection through a continuing riot of sensory excitement. it is just that the different parties have different ways to facilitate and benefit from them. the main difference is the power and consequences of the respective forms of communicative agency used by fans, musical celebrities, and those who facilitate their encounters and connections. the power and consequences of each do not simply rest on the expansiveness of the networks within which each participant operates, but also on the legitimating tools that structure and shape these networks. the most consequential of these tools rest within the music industry. they include the infrastructure to produce useful and unique knowledge about the market in music (i.e. data, demographics, etc.), the ability to translate these forms of knowing into useful forms of understanding across the full range of “stakeholders” (attracting investors, sponsorships, conducting public relations campaigns, etc.), persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 11 the power to enforce the recognition of these factors within the market for music (defining and dominating the market), and then the capability to develop the strategies and calculations needed to make these tools operational in order to economically exploit specific conditions and circumstances. these are the fundamental forces that create, shape, and direct the musical personas that crowd the landscape of popular culture and we have yet to grapple with them substantively enough. audiences, by contrast, do not have any of these capabilities, but instead can only participate by having their agency elicited, managed, and used to sustain existing markets and the social relationships they produce. positing the social relationships between artists and audiences produced with these tools simply as a “negotiation” between artist and audience really does miss the point. again, we might find that our oft-asked questions (what are the terms on which these negotiations take place? what are the sites of agency? how do we distribute or apportion agency and its consequences?) have new ground on which to work and actually reshape our reading of the persona in music as constituted by complex patterns and forms of communication strategies derived industrial-like relations. finally, we need to take into serious consideration the systemic processes that produce musical personas specifically by understanding them as systemic, that is reflective of a coherent logic and structure larger than any iteration that any one entity may produce. musical celebrity and the larger category of “persona” both act as a kind of pivot point at which the extraordinary and often invisible labours of a sprawling entertainment industry meet the always developing and momentary “tastes” or “preferences” of the audience, the latter being an entity almost too diverse in its constitution and forms of agency to cohere as a recognisable “thing.” again we can ask familiar questions (where do the attributes of a persona come from? who put them there? who decides what they mean?) but our answers might lead us somewhere new. this demands that we take into account the many forms of cultural intermediation that substantiate musical persona, following paths through what straw (2010) calls the “unauthored, collective processes of dispersion and condensation by which sense-making assumes its material forms”. we will need an expansion of the kinds of sources from which we might draw our understandings of the existing discursive formations, material forms of mediation, and symbolic content of contemporary musical persona. these might include: websites, magazines, fanzines, social media feeds, trade publications, specialist blogs, museum displays, brand associations, product sponsorships, curated playlists, awards shows, and the many forms of popular narrative non-fiction written by journalists, historians, artists, industry executives, managers, and producers reflecting on the entities, events, and social relationships we call the “music industry.” all of this is directed towards a common goal: the production of musical subjects (fairchild 2014). but the goal is not, and has never been, a generic musical subject. instead, the ideal musical subject is a paradoxical and contradictory one. the ideal musical subject must be both compliant and active, predictable and generative. this is because neoliberal consumer capitalism can only sustain itself by exciting as many expressions of agency as possible. but the consequences of this incitement to action are by definition unpredictable and risky. so these expressions of agency must increasingly and necessarily be subjected managerial discipline as measurable as forms of economic productivity. as scholars such as jodi dean have argued, the communicative relationships that define neoliberal capitalism produce relationships that have few clear boundaries between production and consumption. instead, a central demand of contemporary capitalism is to incorporate as many forms of agency into economically productive relationships as possible, if necessary, by manufacturing entirely new kinds of relationships (dean 2009). the kinds of relationships that produce the lifeblood of the tech industry, user data, are a central and unavoidable example of this. fairchild and marshall 12 these processes produce musical subjects by using a continually evolving range of tools for assessing and understanding what particular forms of music might “afford” consumers. that is, the music industry must continually trace the many ways that music acts as a kind of socially organizing medium that helps people structure, share and make sense of their social experiences, and then produce some kind of measurable economic consequence from them. when something as simple as a tweet, like or post produces exactly this kind of consequence, how we understand musical celebrity and persona within this complex strategic milieu seems to be one of the major steps we need to take to situate where these music identities serve as valuable intermediaries in this new flow of capital. this special issue: the papers we have attempted to cover a great many issues, concepts and approaches in this introductory essay on musical persona. while much of what we have identified above intersects with the work of those contributing to this special issue, there are still many other areas that too few researchers have addressed in substantial ways. we would like to conclude this opening essay with a description of what our contributors are developing and arguing in their presented research that pushes both our interest in music and persona further and also identify ways to challenge the structures we have presented above in new and valuable ways. importantly, there are a series of characteristic lacunae in cultural studies, popular music studies, and celebrity studies in music that call for further exploration. these most especially cluster around the often taken-for-granted distinctions and oppositions between the presentation of performative selves in different genres and traditions, and especially in the presumed contrasts between classical music and popular music. somehow, popular music, despite its communicative, experiential, and economic dominance is still posited as a kind of subaltern, aesthetic “other” to a european classical tradition that itself is often thought to be somehow more free of the “compromises” that define the popular. it seems well past time to explore the common wells from which many contemporary and historical iterations of musical personas have sprung. similarly, the concept of a “negotiated” encounter between audiences and performers made tangible by identifiable personas is an area of work too often left to existing presumptions about the arenas in which these relationships are enacted. this has often resulted in a somewhat atrophied understanding of some of the most fundamental forces that shape these encounters. finally, it would seem crucial to develop a better understanding of the material and experiential traces etched into the multitude of contemporary musical personas by the systemic processes of mediation that produced them. elliott starts off this special issue by examining that seemingly most straightforward of personas, the aging rock star. he examines bruce springsteen’s lengthy chain of personas as they have been reiterated and reconstructed through to his most recent work. the author reflects on the musician’s practice of engaging his audience through the carefully wrought fictions in his songs and his equally crafted fictional personas in his performance of them. elliott examines the subtle “dialectical tension between shape-shifting and layering” in springsteen’s various personas. he focuses on what he has called the artist’s “late voice” and how it affords the opportunity to reflect on and reconstruct a fully autobiographical persona. he proceeds on the assumption that audiences are both invested in and conscious of the artist’s persona as an articulated historical entity. he explores various expressions of this entity through springsteen’s recent performances, such as springsteen on broadway from 2018 and his autobiographical writings, which contain rich and extensive examples of self-fashioning. from here, we move towards two very different examples of how artist personas are constructed. deflem and bomfim both focus on the processes through which very particular persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 13 personas have been constructed, those of lady gaga and the twentieth century spiritualist rosemary brown, respectively. these articles examine how each figure reflected and challenged prevailing cultural and gender dynamics in their respective spheres of influence. each article, while dealing with subjects separated by time and the form of their fame, nevertheless point to underlying continuities in the historical trajectory of musical celebrity that can be something of a surprise. deflem pursues the processes through which stefani joanne angelina germanotta worked to construct her performative persona, which she calls lady gaga. deflem presents a sociological account of the process of germanotta renaming herself, relying on goffman’s ideas about naming and identity in the management of one’s public life. taking a somewhat marginal observation on fame from goffman’s 1963 book stigma, along with more familiar ideas from goffman’s 1956 work the presentation of self in everyday life, deflem asserts that gaga’s naming of herself is particularly relevant to understanding the various forms of privileged social status she has accrued from this act and the subsequent social relationships produced by it and the socially produced meanings upon which they were founded. he notes that this phenomenon of renaming has not only persisted, but flourished in recent years. bomfim examines the case of rosemary brown, a twentieth-century performer and spiritualist who claimed that her connections with the spirits of dead composers allowed her to more or less transcribe the heretofore unknown works of composers such as bach, mozart, chopin, liszt and others. describing herself in the most mundane terms, bomfim reports that brown did so as part of a larger effort to shape her public persona in such a way as to lend her claims towards her specific brand of spiritualism more legitimacy. further, her repeated claims to a personal modesty and humility had a distinctly gendered quality, as brown insisted she was merely a humble housewife and vessel through which the accomplishments of great men might be facilitated. despite the obvious and extensive differences between brown and lady gaga, we can see several continuities in the ways each constructed their selves in public. the two articles that close out this issue, those by johinke and fairchild, both focus on cultural intermediation. each traces distinct forms of influence through multi-sensory, multimedia forms of communication about music. each suggests or explores a broader historical sensibility found through these forms of communication and examines the distinct forms of power they exert. fairchild focuses on the role of museum displays as an extension and confirmation of the consensus histories of popular music and its most celebrated musicians. the use of objects, in this case guitars, is posited as a way to make the symbolism of artistic “greatness” tangible and material without subverting or dissipating its symbolic affect. further, fairchild argues that merely “reading” these displays for their symbolism is insufficient in understanding their meaning and impact. instead, it is the immediate and demonstrable materials qualities these instrument possess, and specifically not their forever-stilled soundproducing qualities, that lend a literal weight to the narratives popular music museums produce about their subjects. johinke takes two editors of the high-profile music magazine rolling stone as her subject, examining persona through the reflections of two women who edited the australian iteration of the magazine. she examines the role of the popular music magazine editor, not simply as mediator, but as self-fashioned personas in their own right. she examines how the editor imposes order on materials to such an extent that their work can be considered a significant influence on cultural norms and values. further, editors do so while also striving to sustain a publication through the management of complex webs of interdependent entities such as sponsors, advertisers, readers, and owners, while also trying to maintain ethical relationships with their publics. the complexities and difficulties faced specifically by women working in a traditionally male-dominated position offer some perspective on how music media have fairchild and marshall 14 changed in recent years. johinke’s broad case studies offer rich insights into this form of work and suggest a vibrant social history of the values and ideals pursued and embraced by media workers and their publics. i as much as we have worked to include the various strands of music, partly because of our own expertise, we do acknowledge that this issue and our introduction have perhaps privileged popular music over classical and operatic music. we do hope that this mapping of music and persona will lead to scholars closer to other traditions in musicology, ethnomusicology and music history to extend this important work further. end notes works cited aufderheide, p 1986, ‘music videos: the look of the sound’, journal of communication, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 57–78. auslander, p 2008, liveness: performance in a mediatized world. 2nd edition. routledge, new york. — 2006, ‘musical personae,’ tdr: the journal of performance studies, 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the intimate nexus between fan and star’, in p. david marshall and sean redmond (eds) a companion to celebrity, wiley, malden, ma, pp. 440–55. cochrane, tom 2010, ‘using the persona to express complex emotions in music’, music analysis vol. 29, no. 1–3, pp. 264–275. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2249.2011.00321.x. cone, et 1974, ’persona, protagonist and characters’, in et cone (ed), the composer’s voice (no. 3), university of california press, berkeley, pp. 20–40, davies, s 1997, ‘contra the hypothetical persona in music’, in m hjort and s laver (eds), emotion and the arts, oxford university press, new york, pp. 95–109. dean, j 2009, democracy and other neoliberal fantasies communicative capitalism and left politics, duke university press, durham. duffett, m 2014, ‘celebrity: the return of the repressed in fan studies?’ in l duits, et al. (eds) the ashgate research companion to fan cultures, ashgate, farnham, pp. 163–80. dyer, r 1998, stars, bfi publishing, london. fairchild, c 2008, pop idols and pirates: mechanisms of consumption and the global circulation of popular music, ashgate, aldershot. — 2014, ‘popular music.’ in j maguire and j matthews, the cultural intermediaries reader, sage, london, 125–33. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 15 flisfeder, m 2015, ‘the entrepreneurial subject and the objectivization of the self in social media’ south atlantic quarterly vol. 114, no. 3, pp. 553–70. frith, s 1996, performing rites: on the value of popular music. harvard university press, cambridge, ma. frith, s, goodwin, a & grossberg, l (eds) 1993, sound and vision: the music video reader, routledge, new york. graver, d 2003 [1997], ‘the actor’s bodies.’ in p auslander (ed), critical concepts: performance, pp. 157–74. routledge, london. godlovitch, s 1998, musical performance: a philosophical study. routledge, london and new york. goffman, e 1959, the presentation of self in everyday life, doubleday anchor books, garden city. — e 1974, frame analysis : an essay on the organization of experience, harper colophon books, new york. gray ii, rj (ed.) 2014, the performance identities of lady gaga: critical essays, mcfarland, jefferson. guilbert, g-c 2002, madonna as postmodern myth: how one star’s self-construction rewrites sex, gender, hollywood and the american dream, mcfarland, jefferson. lacasse, s 2005, ‘persona, emotions and technology: the phonographic staging of the popular music voice’, charm symposium, vol. 2, pp. 1–12. laing, d 1991, ‘a voice without a face: popular music and the phonograph in the 1890s’, popular music, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 1–9. gelbart, m 2003, ‘persona and voice in the kinks’ songs of the late 1960s’, journal of the royal musical association, vol. 128, no. 2, pp. 200–241. marshall, pd, moore, c & barbour, k 2019, persona studies: an introduction, wiley blackwell, hoboken, nj. — 2016, ‘when the private becomes public: commodity activism, endorsement and making meaning in a privatized world’, in pd marshall, g d’cruz, s mcdonald & k lee (eds), contemporary publics: shifting boundaries in new media, technology and culture, palgrave macmillan, new york, pp. 229–45. — 2014, celebrity and power: fame in contemporary culture, 2nd edition, university of minnesota press, minneapolis. — 2017, ‘productive consumption: agency, appropriation and value in the creative consuming of david bowie’, continuum vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 564–573. doi: 10.1080/10304312.2017.1334379 marwick, a 2016, ‘instafame: luxury selfies in the attention economy’, public culture, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 137–60. maus, fe 2004, ‘the disciplined subject of musical analysis’, in a dell’antonio (ed.), beyond structural listening? postmodern modes of hearing, university of california press, berkley, pp. 13–43. meier, lm 2017, popular music as promotion: music and branding in the digital age, john wiley & sons, hoboken. meisel, p 2010, the myth of popular culture: from dante to dylan. wiley-blackwell, malden. moore, af 2017, ‘the persona-environment relation in recorded song’, in m spicer (ed.), rock music, routledge, london, pp. 275–294. morin, e 1972, ‘les stars’, paris, éditions du seuil. norman, da 1988, the psychology of everyday things. vol. 5: basic books, new york. small, c 1998, musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. wesleyan university press, middletown. robinson, j 1994, ‘the expression and arousal of emotion in music’, the journal of aesthetics and art criticism vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 13–22. straw, w 2010, ‘cultural production and the generative matrix: a response to georgina born.’ cultural sociology, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 209–16. taylor, t 2016, music and capitalism: a history to the present. university of chicago press, chicago. fairchild and marshall 16 tomlinson, g 2015, a million years of music: the emergence of human modernity, mit press, cambridge. white, j 2015, ‘“just type my name in google and see what comes up”: creating an online persona in the urban music industry’ https://ssrn.com/abstract=2569347 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2569347 wiles, d 1991, the masks of menander: sign and meaning in greek and roman performance. cambridge university press, cambridge. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2569347 https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2569347 charles fairchild and p. david marshall abstract key words introduction music’s personality system(s) persona and the implication of music’s perceived meaning through performance: voice, gesture and authority and authenticity emotion and persona in music persona in and through musical technique and technology recent persona studies research and its implication for music and persona historical origins: musical persona brand and musical persona social media transformation of musical persona collective identity and its relation to musical persona where else might we take “persona”? this special issue: the papers works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 9 mask and persona: creating the bard for bardcom peter holla nd abstract this article explores a number of perspectives on the creation of very different shakespeares as personas by first examining the celebration of the 400th anniversary of his death in stratford-upon-avon in april 2016 and shake, mr shakespeare, a remarkable roy mack 1936 warner brothers short. from there it moves on to consider the brief appearance of shakespeare in the time-travel comedy blackadder: back and forth, in ‘the shakespeare code’ episode of doctor who and in the off-broadway musical something rotten!, before examining the work of ben elton in his screenplay for all is true and in the seemingly unlikely success of upstart crow, the bbc sitcom with shakespeare as the lead character, which has so far completed three six-episode series and three christmas specials. the article is concerned with the multiple masks of the sequence of personas that create these shakespeares, from shakespeare as perhaps the epitome of the celebrity author to shakespeare as a sitcom dad. key words shakespeare, mask, celebrity, comedy, sitcom, afterlife where iss shakespeare? in act 2 of emlyn williams’ the corn is green (1938), a semi-autobiographical narrative of how education saved a bright welsh boy from the mines and sent him to oxford university, the end of a class in miss moffat’s new school leaves behind on stage old tom, “an elderly, distinguishedlooking, grey-bearded peasant” (williams 1995, p. 34), and miss ronberry, now one of miss moffat’s teachers. she turns to him ‘nervously’: miss ronberry. is there anything you would like to know, mr. tom? old tom. where iss shakespeare? miss ronberry. where? shakespeare, mr. tom, was a very great writer. old tom. writer? like the beibl? miss ronberry. like the bible. old tom. (looking at her doubtfully). dear me, and me thinkin’ the man was a place. when he exits, “(muttering sadly) if i iss been born fifty years later, i iss been top of the class”, miss ronberry, as she closes the front door after him, can only say “oh dear…” (pp. 36-7). holland 10 the awkward representation of welsh-inflected english apart (as in “iss” and “beibl”), the patronising response to what is perceived as ignorance of elementary cultural knowledge marks a historical distance. it seems reasonable now to ask “where is shakespeare?” and, by the same standards, improbable that even a “grey-bearded peasant” would not know his name. williams may be remembering such a figure but shakespeare’s global pervasiveness (as well as his place in compulsory education in the united kingdom) makes old tom a historicised curiosity, a sign of a vision of spaces where shakespeare’s name was as yet unknown –even not too far from stratford-upon-avon. it was already the case, at the date at which williams was writing the corn is green, that the celebrations of shakespeare’s birthday in stratford-upon-avon had taken on more or less their present form. the easy availability now of british pathé newsreel shows that there is little to choose between the events of 1920, 1930, and 1950 and that all three are, to all intents and purposes, the same as those in, say, 2019 (british pathé 1920, 1930, and 1950). the consistency of the procession through the streets is a marker of the civic, national, and international communities intersecting on the iconic status of the individual ranked in 2002 as the fifth ‘greatest briton’ (see ‘100 greatest britons’). the exception to the template for celebrating this celebrity of celebrities was in 2016.i on saturday, 23 april 2016, shakespeare's birthday was, as usual, celebrated with that procession of civic dignitaries, academics, and assorted worthies through stratford-upon-avon, past the birthplace, ending at holy trinity church, where shakespeare is buried, to lay bunches of spring flowers at the altar, making the cradle-to-grave journey through the town that mimics life and the conventional patterns of biography. two moments in the morning's sequence were different that year. since it was also the 400th anniversary of shakespeare's death, the procession included a jazz band playing a new orleans funeral carnival number. but, before that, people handed out 10,000 shakespeare masks to the big crowd lining the town's streets and, at a given signal at 11 a.m., all of us put on our masks and, everywhere our eyes turned, there was shakespeare. but this was a shakespeare masked, literally as a persona, as a character represented by a theatricalised mask, so that he became the multiple dramatis personae of his own ‘deathversary’, as it was dubbed. where was shakespeare at that moment? everywhere one looked, reborn – one might almost say ‘resurrected’, given the quasi-religious tone of the proceedings – in, or rather on, every one of us. what kind of person lies behind the mask, what person is concealed by the persona will be my concern throughout, taking me through a wide array of images of shakespeare in action, of shakespeare as character and performer, eventually landing on a sitcom starring shakespeare, a new genre of tv drama, which has been dubbed ‘bardcom’. since the word persona was itself latin for the mask, i am exploring something that stretches the oed’s definition of it as “an assumed character or role, esp. one adopted by an author in his or her writing” (persona, n., 1.a). but as these various shakespeare selves are created not by the author but by an other who re-creates the author as a mask, so the persona becomes “the aspect of a person’s character that is displayed to or perceived by others” (2.a), but only as an aspect that hides as much as it reveals or, rather, reveals itself purely as construction, making the shakespeare we would wish to see. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 11 fig. 1 & 2: “a gift from stratford-on-avon district council and stratford-upon-avon town council” for the “mask moment[.] put this mask on and give 'three cheers' to the bard!” (front and back), 2016 celebration of “william shakespeare's legacy”. photo: chloe leach. shaking up shakespeare of the hundreds of works (poems, novels, and plays) in which shakespeare figures as a character, he has appeared remarkably rarely as the butt of a comedy or indeed as a comic character, until recently. even in a brief play of amorous misadventures like alexandre duval’s shakespeare amoureux (1804), in which shakespeare is in love with an actress confusingly called clarence – duval seems not to have known that there were no actresses on the early modern stage – shakespeare is love-struck but not therefore funny.ii duval’s play was first translated by richard penn smith in the 1820s or 1830s as shakespeare in love, and there is a fairly short line from clarence to viola de lesseps in john madden’s 1998 film. but the shakespeare created for madden by marc norman and tom stoppard’s screenplay, nervously insecure as writer and lover, lacks the consciousness of celebrity that underpins subsequent comic shakespeares. one significant earlier version, a small step along the road with which i will be primarily concerned, is in roy mack’s shake, mr shakespeare (1936), one of vitaphone’s long series of ‘broadway brevities’, for which mack was the most frequent director. indeed, of the 26 short films made and released in the series in 1936, mack directed 14 of them. this astonishing example of the genre, clearly made in anticipation of the imagined success of the reinhardt and dieterle 1935 film of a midsummer night’s dream, made by warner brothers, of which vitaphone was a part, is perfectly described by deborah cartmell as “extraordinarily eccentric” (cartmell 2015, p. 43). as a junior executive, tasked by his boss to “read all shakespeare’s plays tonight and [to] let me know tomorrow morning what they are all about”,iii falls asleep at his desk, a range of shakespeare characters, summoned by puck, emerge from the volumes of shakespeare arranged in front of him, becoming part of his dreamscape. the characters are holland 12 mostly predictable: hamlet, othello, macbeth, mark antony, romeo and juliet. but there are also surprises like henry viii, seen dancing with all six of his wives, all of whom, incorrectly, he says he has had beheaded. the film had opened with announcements of shakespeare films supposedly ‘coming’ and so the characters expect to be hollywood-bound, displacing the likes of jimmy durante, wallace beery, and bill ‘bojangles’ robinson. romeo and juliet have quarrelled because, as romeo puts it, “she’s sore because i signed with warners and she’s going with mgm”. cue the first of a series of vaudeville acts, juliet on her balcony singing a torch-song: “romeo, where the heck are you? / art thou giving the runaround to me?”, ending with the lyrics “you ain’t treating shakespeare right. / oh romeo, you’re doing history wrong.” as peter quince changes the label on the romeo and juliet volume to juliet and romeo, he explains that “her contract calls for feature billing”, to which hamlet replies “ah, i see, she gets the billing and he gets the cooing” (mack 1936). subsequent acts include a completely bizarre novelty dance routine for hamlet in the graveyard, offering convincing proof that michael jackson did not invent the moon-walk, accompanied by a chorus of tap-dancing female hamlets (cartmell calls them “hamletettes”, 2015, p. 43), each dancing on a tombstone. there is mark antony in the forum scene singing “friends, romans and countrymen, lend me your feet / to the tune we love, the rhythm of 42nd street” and, speaking of caesar, encourages the spectators: “let us celebrate / his tragic fate / with a tempus fugit and a hi-de-ho.” only at the end, as the characters are at “a hollywood party”, does shakespeare make his entrance: “cease, desist, forbear – and all other words meaning ‘stop’. is it for this i spilled such magic ink?” romeo. oh, bill, times have changed… hamlet. these days the screenplay’s the thing. shakespeare. fie to thee, fellow, fie. the characters that i wrote were solid, solid. look at you now. jellyfish all of you. you shake like jellyfish. falstaff. oddsbodkins, will, that’s what you have to do today: you got to shake, mr shakespeare. (mack 1936) it is difficult to give the full flavour of this unusual concoction, even in a time when mash-ups are so familiar. but the overall effect of shakespeare’s arrival is to define as sharply as possible the extent to which he embodies a high cultural tradition against which the popular art-forms of hollywood and vaudeville are being stacked. the characters seek their freedom, ariel-like, from the bondage of the language and plots of shakespeare’s drama, wanting their own celebrity, like those of hollywood stars, rather than the ones shakespeare created and imposed. if his characters were indeed ‘solid’, then that is exactly what they no longer wish to be, finding a new mobility in their two-dimensionality for the studio system of film. from being characters they become actors and song-and-dance performers, in a historical mélange that they positively relish. it is no surprise here that the gravediggers from the hamlet dance number are summoned by two roman soldiers to the forum because they are needed after the murder of julius caesar. discarding their shakespearean attributes, these figures are not merely content but positively excited to take up new genres, with richard iii looking to work in westerns, where his call for a horse would make good sense. their celebrity as shakespeare characters equips them with a set of what we might now call transferable skills, malleable enough to take on new identities and, potentially, a new form of celebrity if they make it in hollywood. against their persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 13 energy comes a shakespeare more like malvolio than any other of his creations, a party-pooper in this fun-loving ‘new world’. nothing about the performance of shakespeare’s drama seems half as enjoyable as the world of these vaudeville acts and the future movies they want to be in. grumpy, prolix, concerned, a little smugly, to protect his own achievement, assured of the magnitude of what he did and its right to triumph over the decline of western culture in the face of the new popular forms, this shakespeare is not exactly endearing, not least when set against a high-kicking hamlet. he is also not particularly comic. this concept of shakespeare as someone hugely famous and yet one whose art gives pleasure to no-one anymore, if indeed it ever did, is carried further in the encounter between shakespeare (colin firth) and lord blackadder (rowan atkinson) in blackadder: back and forth (1999), a time-travel adventure written by richard curtis, ben elton, and rowan atkinson and shown at the skyscape cinema near the millennium dome, the site of the uk’s millennial celebrations. at one moment, by chance blackadder bumps into someone and sends his papers flying. realising it is shakespeare, blackadder secures a signature: blackadder. thank you. oh, and just one more thing. shakespeare. yeah blackadder. [punches him in the face] that is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next four hundred years. have you any idea how much suffering you’re going to cause? hours at school-desks trying to find one joke in a midsummer night’s dream, years wearing stupid tights in school plays and saying things like ‘what ho, my lord’ and ‘oh look here comes othello, talking total crap as usual’. o and [kicking him on the foot]… shakespeare. ow. blackadder. that is for ken branagh’s endless uncut four-hour version of hamlet. shakespeare. who’s ken branagh? blackadder. i’ll tell him you said that and i think he’ll be very hurt. (‘blackadder vs. shakespeare’)iv that firth’s shakespeare looks both in pain and confused seems only right: the blame game leaves shakespeare responsible for everything done not by him but in his name. the sufferings of schoolchildren are the result, one might pompously say, not of the plays’ failings but of the failure in the ways they have been taught to desk-bound pupils or in painfully traditional school plays. and, while branagh’s hamlet (1996) is indeed interminable, that says more about branagh’s overweening aspirations than about shakespeare’s original, which certainly could not have run for four hours at the globe. but punching and kicking shakespeare is a neatly school-playground kind of response, childish as blackadder so often is, but also as we do not like to admit to ourselves we would wish him to be. here shakespeare the individual becomes less a who than a what, the aggregation of the history of his cultural celebrity, a self that is becoming lost in the persona we have made from him and for him. firth and, indeed, whoever wrote this sequence are creating a new shakespeare mask, a shakespeare who doesn’t understand us and what we have made him to be. the self is no longer capable of recognising others’ persona for him, the masks they have placed over him, even as he is represented in yet another mask through this new self. none of the masks is remotely supposed to be something one might once have termed a real shakespeare, only a growing set of cultural and dramatic performances. holland 14 shakespeare as celeb when blackadder gathers shakespeare’s papers, he finds himself holding ‘the tragedie of macbeth’: blackadder. wait a minute. you’re not… shakespeare. will shakespeare. yes. don’t say it. i know. you hated two gentlemen of verona. this one’s much better. (‘blackadder vs shakespeare’) later in the sequence of shakespeares i am tracing, shakespeare will be much less apologetic, indeed, positively irritated by the adulation he receives. in all is true, branagh’s 2018 film of shakespeare in retirement, scripted by ben elton, shakespeare is digging in his garden when “an earnest young student appears at the gate”: henry. mr. shakespeare? i don’t want to pester you. will. good. excellent news. cheerio then. henry. it’s just that i wanted to ask... will. the best way to get started as a writer is to start writing. cheerio. henry. no really could i... will. i don’t have a favourite play. i admire all my fellow dramatists equally. and yes i do think women should be allowed to perform the female roles as is the practice on the continent. now please. if you’ll excuse me. will returns to his digging. defeated, henry almost leaves but doesn’t. (elton 2019, pp. 22-3) the celebrity weary of being asked the same questions by legions of fans is a conventional trope of our fictions of fame. what links this passage most immediately to the moment in blackadder: back and forth is a different question of authorship, not here who might have written the plays of shakespeare but instead whether ben elton wrote both, for the distribution of authorship in the screenplay for this blackadder is unclear. in between the two, elton had started writing upstart crow for bbc2 (2016-18), the first ever bardcom, a sitcom improbably enough built around shakespeare and successful enough to have so far run for three series, each of six episodes with three christmas specials. but the shakespeare as weary celebrity in the film is only an extension of the shakespeare as rock-star model that seems to me implicitly to underpin his appearance in ‘the shakespeare code’, an episode of doctor who broadcast in 2007 (series 3, episode 2), and explicitly to define his identity in something rotten!, a 2015 musical, which won one of the ten tony awards for which it had been nominated, appropriately enough going to christian borle for best featured actor in a musical for his performance as shakespeare. it was somehow inevitable that, sooner or later, dr. who would meet shakespeare. taking martha, his new sidekick, on a time-travel journey to london in 1599, he shows her the exterior of the globe theatre: doctor. …oh, yes, the globe theatre! brand new. just opened. through, strictly speaking, it’s not a globe; it’s a tetradecagon — 14 sides — containing the man himself. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 15 martha. whoa, you don’t mean... is shakespeare in there?v it is the first night of love’s labour’s lost and, when martha gets the crowd shouting “author, author” (martha. “do people shout that? do they shout ‘author’?” shakespeare. “well... they do now.”), shakespeare comes out and takes an exaggerated bow and blows kisses. audience goes wild and cheers even louder… doctor. genius. he’s a genius the genius. the most human human that’s ever been. now we’re gonna hear him speak. always, he chooses the best words. new, beautiful, brilliant words. shakespeare. shut your big fat mouths! doctor. (disappointed) oh, well. martha. you should never meet your heroes. shakespeare. you have excellent taste! i’ll give you that. (points to man in audience) oh, that’s a wig! this smug, self-satisfied image of shakespeare loving his fame and playing off the audience’s adoration of him as celebrity, turns rather wearily, though still smugly, on the doctor and martha when they arrive to find him at the room in the tavern after the performance: doctor. excuse me! i’m not interrupting, am i? mr. shakespeare, isn’t it? shakespeare. oh no, no, no, no. who let you in? no autographs. no, you can’t have yourself sketched with me. and please don’t ask where i get my ideas from. thanks for the interest. now be a good boy and shove – (sees martha standing behind the doctor) hey, nonny nonny. sit right down here next to me. (‘the shakespeare code’ 2007) more than a little boorish, loud-mouthed, and leeringly lecherous, this shakespeare is closer to bored rock-star than dramatist. only as the episode develops does his sharp intelligence begin to become apparent, a nicely shifting characterisation that energises the journey of the narrative, ending with him more like our ideal (sensitive, thoughtful, perceptive) than anything in his first scenes might suggest. but the tedium of celebrity, of always being asked the same questions, of everyone wanting an early modern selfie with him, is as apparent here in a midcareer shakespeare as in the world-weary, depressed, retired shakespeare of all is true. in something rotten!, shakespeare’s big number in act 1, ‘will power’, is set up as a performance, a solo show by a star, someone who is anything but bored by his fame, anything but unwilling to enjoy his fans’ homage. as the announcer’s intro puts it, ladies and gentlemen, all the way from stratford upon avon, the king of couplets, the sultan of sonnets, the man who put the ‘i am’ in iambic pentameter, please put your hands together for the one, the only – william shakespeare! (kirkpatrick, kirkpatrick & o’farrell 2015) working with the crowd as chorus, this shakespeare’s show is all about himself and he loves it: “i adore the adoration / though others may appal [sic] it / it’s quite the new sensation / what shall we call it?!”, to which the chorus shouts back “will power!”, a phrase shakespeare picks up on, “i am the will of the people now”. by the end, his self-adoration redefines him not only as the perfect piece of marketing – “i am the will / i am the name you want to see up on that bill” – but also as divinely appointed: “the chosen one that god in heaven smiled upon”. wondrously holland 16 hyperbolic, this star is, of course, loathed by lesser mortals like nick bottom, would-be dramatist, whose opening number is “god, i hate shakespeare” (kirkpatrick, kirkpatrick & o’farrell 2015). these versions of shakespeare converge as a trope of celebrity but they have, of course, no basis in any historical reality. what gives the anti-stratfordians their own version of proof that shakespeare did not write shakespeare is precisely the absence of the kind of contemporary adulation that they are sure this corpus of drama would immediately have generated. but literary celebrity was hard enough to attain in a culture dominated by print. dramatic celebrity was effectively unknown. ben jonson’s aspirations, apparent on the titlepage of the collection of his plays as works in 1616, was a wish for the status of a classic and he was mocked for it. shakespeare may have left small bequests to his fellow-actors john heminges and henry condell precisely because he had begun discussing with them the creation of the volume we know as the first folio, mr william shakespeare’s comedies, histories and tragedies (1623), but he died seven years before it was published. the title-page, with its unprecedentedly massive image of author in the centre of it, screams to us of a celebrity identity, the fascination with the portrait as celebrity brand image offset by ben jonson’ poem ‘to the reader’, which is placed opposite and encourages us to “looke / not on his picture, but his booke” (jonson 1623). and the image itself could be seen as a kind of mask, as if shakespeare himself is wearing a shakespeare mask. shakespeare and bardcom writing on celebrity cultures usually manages simply to ignore shakespeare, with his name hardly ever even appearing in the index.vi a shakespeare who is not famous, not treated as a celebrity, not a cultural icon in his own time is simply not very interesting to current cultural expectations, with rare exceptions like the young up-and-coming playwright of shakespeare in love. there is also the exception, though i shall do no more than mention it, of the failed lutenist turned successful playwright bill shakespeare in bill (2015), a not very successful featurelength film made by the otherwise brilliant horrible histories team. unsurprisingly, the comic image of shakespeare for our times depends on his likeness to our own cultural systems. in that likeness he is effectively unhistoricised and, instead, embedded in a deliberate world of inauthenticity. this shakespeare is comic precisely through a kind of self-awareness that screams its own impossibility. that that makes him different, consequent on an awareness of historical shift, is simply irrelevant and, in the favoured word of students everywhere, no longer ‘relatable’. shakespeare himself argues for an awareness of history and context in his message to those awaiting a-level exam results in 2018: obviously my stuff is boring – it was written four hundred years ago. i know hamlet goes on a bit but we had less distractions. if i was writing it today, i’d probably knock it off in a short rap. yes, my jokes aren’t funny. but do you really think your hilarious memes will still raise a giggle in the 25th century. they’re not even funny now, if you ask me. and what sort of arsingmongle is setting these questions? did you ever read such bolingbrokes? “is my work sexist?” derr! i lived in an age where women were literally male property! apply some context! zounds, it maketh me weep. oh and by the way, if you’re doing the sonnets, yes, i did fancy the earl of southampton. happy now? if we were alive today we’d probably be married with three adopted kids. but the point is: i’m not. i’m dead. and it’s about time the people setting the a-level syllabus worked that out. now futtock off and let me rest in peace. (‘shakespeare’s a-level results day message’ 2018) persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 17 this is david mitchell speaking as the shakespeare he had been playing in upstart crow, whose third series was about to air. it has all the characteristics of the language ben elton created for this version of shakespeare: occasional early modern words like ‘zounds’ and equally occasional –eth endings for verbs; the creation of new swear words which, used often enough in the series, have taken on their own life, like ‘futtock’ or ‘bolingbrokes’. by the time elton published the scripts for the first two series in 2018 he included a two-page glossary of these coinings (elton 2018, pp. 356-7), none of which are early modern but all of which sound as if they should have been. this playfulness with fake-historicised language extends in the scripts to fake elizabethan stage directions, such as “marlowe doth place his boots upon the table most arrogantly” (p. 188), “kate be buried in a book” (p. 185) or “bottom speaketh in the manner of an aside, which by strict convention none can overhear” (p. 254). but there is also in this the way elton usually represents shakespeare as angry or perhaps displaying merely an annoyed exasperation at the stupidity of the world, especially what the world expects of shakespeare. as mitchell explained in a radio interview: it’s taking william shakespeare who previously we’ve seen dramatized as a romantic figure in shakespeare in love or has also been represented as a genius. but we see him as a classic sitcom dad, as someone struggling to make good in a world that’s rejecting him, and struggling to keep his family together and struggling with an absolute nightmare commute. (‘david mitchell chats to craig charles about upstart crow on radio 2’ 2018) but mitchell also identifies in shakespeare a more substantial aspiration: “the whole show is about his struggle for what he feels he deserves which is eternal fame” (‘david mitchell talks “upstart crow” series 3 & learns about “catfishing”’ 2018). part of this shakespeare’s route to such fame is through claiming as his own many phrases which, as kate, shakespeare’s landlady’s daughter and would-be actress, repeatedly and carefully points out, he has no claim on at all. it reaches its apogee in the following exchange in series 3, episode 2: marlowe. ….you know how it is: ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’. shakespeare. well, obviously i know, kit: ’twas i that coined the phrase in my richard, i think, or possibly a random henry – lot of swords in those – but definitely one of mine. kate. why then, mr shakespeare, call the watch, appeal to the privy council, cry foul and naughty tricks, for i fear you have been plagiarized. shakespeare. plagiarized? by whom? who’s stealing my biggies? name this thieving barnstaple. kate. the apostle matthew. shakespeare. the swine – and him a man of god! kate. mr. shakespeare, ‘he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword’ is in the bible. shakespeare. really? you’re sure? kate. yes. matthew, chapter 26 verse 52, although interestingly, he didn’t come up with it either. a form of the phrase first appears in the ancient greek play agamemnon by the immortal dramatist aeschylus. shakespeare. well, if the apostle matthew can pinch it, then so can i. yes, kit, definitely one of mine. (blackadder, series 3, episode 2) holland 18 it is the ‘aside’, straight to camera, that follows that points to his ‘cunning plan’ (as baldrick, elton’s creation in blackadder, frequently announces): and so do i continue my private task of sowing confusion about what i actually wrote and what people merely think i did, till the day dawns when people, in their ignorance and vanity, will attribute any archaic-sounding truism to me in the certitude that it might easily have been me and, if it wasn’t, nobody will know the diff. thus will i eventually get credit for inventing the entire english language. so shove that up your canterbury tales, geoffrey chaucer (series 3, episode 2).vii this endearing species of villainy, harmless in its vanity, even as it accuses us – or at least some of us – of the same sin, is a shakespeare who already knows who or what he will become, a persona conscious of his own afterlife and already inhabiting it in a world that exists then and now simultaneously. the multiple histories of upstart crow’s presentation of celebrity persona are often attributed to a different interconnection of celebrities: on the one hand ben elton as successful comic sitcom author with blackadder under his belt and, on the other, sir geoffrey elton, ben’s uncle and the most brilliant tudor historian of his generation. while i am far from sure that the nephew was in fact learning from the uncle, upstart crow becomes, in this tracing of family lineage, a little academic where its brilliance depends on its being willing to play as fast and loose with history as shakespeare did and to be recognized for doing so. upstart crow uses some historical detail and enjoys obfuscating other references. at no point, for instance, does the series explicate its title. yet the title underpins some of the framework that runs through the series, for, as with all sitcoms, there is a template that becomes, over time, increasingly constricting, as the audience expects the repetitious forms, with mild variations, that each episode will largely offer, like some belated version of a proppian morphology of folk-tales. in series 1, episode 4, robert greene, the villain of the london narrative, a magnificently over-the-top performance by mark heap, is given a soliloquy or, as the published script describes it, “the odious greene doth sit before his desk”: “hmm, this upstart crow is ever more advanced in the world, beautifying himself in the feathers of a gentleman”, to which elton attaches a footnote that “here greene quotes a passage from his own description of shakespeare in his groatsworth of wit, a book that would have been completely forgotten had it not contained a short passage slagging off shakespeare” (elton 2018, p. 90). greene’s groatsworth of wit bought with a million of repentance was published in 1592 and is the earliest extant reference to shakespeare as a playwright. it purports to have been written “before his death and published at his dyeing request”, as the title-page puts it. directed to three other playwrights, probably thomas nashe, george peele, and christopher marlowe, the pamphlet at one point attacks an unnamed upstart: an vp=start crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tygers hart wrapt in a players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute iohannes fac totum is in his owne conceit the onely shake-scene in a countrey. (greene’s groatsworth of wit 1592, sig. f1v)viii greene is complaining about this upstart who takes over the blank verse style of universityeducated dramatists. the tiger’s heart is a reference to a line in shakespeare’s henry vi part 3 where the duke of york describes queen margaret: “o, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide” (1.4.138). add that to the pun on shakespeare’s name in “shake-scene” and it is clear that greene is attacking shakespeare – except that the pamphlet is not by greene but, almost certainly, by the playwright and printer henry chettle (jowett 1993). greene’s celebrity, more persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 19 substantial at the moment of his death than either before or since, makes him a useful stalkinghorse for chettle to use and to improve the sales of the pamphlet chettle printed. false attributions were an effective marketing ploy. in 1605 a play called the london prodigal was published announcing itself as “by william shakespeare”, as thomas middleton’s a yorkshire tragedy was supposedly by “w. shakespeare” in 1608, as was sir john oldcastle part 1 in 1619. various other plays were printed as “by w.s.”, perhaps hinting at a shakespeare connection. as upstart crow’s shakespeare claims phrases that were not his, so publishers used shakespeare’s name to sell others’ plays. at the heart of most episodes in the series is a combination of the sitcom dad – with his stroppy daughter, irritating foul-mouthed father, and struggles with the early modern equivalent of strikes and everything else that ensures his coach journey to stratford is always delayedix – and his attempts to write his next play, something he usually conspicuously fails to see emerging, even as we easily anticipate its arrival. shakespeare is comically imperceptive about what materials in the events of the episode might form the stuff from which a play might be created. at the end of each episode, in a rather moving expression of domestic companionship, shakespeare and his wife sit side by side by the fire, both smoking pipes, and chatting about what has been happening. after a story-line involving a stratford farmer called duncan macbuff in which at, one point, shakespeare has a vision of a milk jug (“is this a milk jug which i see before me?...the handle toward my hand? come, let me clutch thee”, [elton 2018, p. 126]), anne suggests to will: “you know, husband, all these doings’d make a really good play”: will. yes, you’re right. of course! a light and breezy comedy about a laughable misunderstanding over some milk. anne. well, actually, i was thinking more of the weird sisters, the ghost at the feast, the conscience-stricken wife endlessly washing her hands in the night. you know, a proper blood-and-guts thriller. will. no, no, i think comedy’s the way to go. ‘two milky jugs’ by william shakespeare. (elton 2018, p. 148)x anne’s perceptiveness, her sense of future possibilities, as when she suggests the plot of othello with a black actor in the lead (shakespeare. “…a black actor in a leading role? i think that’s a few centuries off”, p. 209), makes shakespeare, whose plays are derided throughout the series as painfully slow and incomprehensible, the comic butt of the narrative. shakespeare’s style is mocked for its distortions of syntax: will. … ‘must not a queen this murder do.’ anne. shouldn’t that be, ‘a queen must not do this murder’? will. well, yes, it should, but i always think a sentence sounds better if you mix up the words a bit. it’s one of my best tricks. (elton 2018, p. 35) and his predilection for inordinately over-elaborated circumlocutions results in equally overelaborate explanations: “i’ve sent word to the theatre that the two tunnels which lie beneath the bridge be blocked…two tunnels? beneath a bridge? anyone? [all do stare at will most blankly.] nose, my loves! nose! i’ve told burbage that my nose be snotted” (elton 2018, p. 6). this shakespeare is comic because, well, he is shakespeare, the icon of high culture whose work, it is popularly assumed, nobody understands and nobody enjoys. inept, hungry for fame, big-headed, worried about his increasing baldness, pompous, irritating and likeable in holland 20 equal measure, this shakespeare is the little man who wishes he were a celebrity. and his yearning is set against the other forms of modern celebrity that the scripts touch on, from big brother to the rock-star – here thomas morley with whom susannah, shakespeare’s daughter, is besotted: “thomas morley is the best madrigal writer of the renaissance. he is god. i would die for him. i’m a thomatic” (p. 278), though, when shakespeare brings her “an undershirt signed by tommy morley”, he finds he is too late: “don’t like him any more. he sold out…he did a musical” (elton 2018, p. 299). i have been suggesting ways in which a range of recent representations of shakespeare converge, often knowingly and often through the interconnections of individuals working on these projects. but there are also longer threads of similarities of which, i suspect, no-one engaged in these recent works is aware. take, for instance, elton’s presentation of his scripts for upstart crow series 1 and 2 – or “the crow folios” as he dubs them (elton 2018, p. vii) – with their inclusion of a version of a scholarly apparatus, “fulsomely annotated by the author”, as the cover announces, not exactly a common feature of the publication of scripts for a tv sitcom. in 1810 john poole published his hamlet travestie, complete with what the second edition of 1811 called “burlesque annotations after the manner of dr. johnson and geo. steevens, esq. and the various commentators”. as one of the title-page epigraphs puts it, borrowed from edward young’s love of fame: the universal passion (1741), “commentators each dark passage shun, / and hold their farthing candle to the sun”. for anyone who reads the commentary notes in shakespeare editions and even more for anyone who writes them, poole’s notes are alarmingly accurate and very funny. here, for instance, is poole ventriloquising dr. johnson, ostensibly in answer to pope’s suggestion that the phrase in the play “rope of onions” should be emended to “robe of onions”: rope is, undoubtedly, the true reading. a rope of onions is a certain number of onions, which, for the convenience of portability, are, by the market-women, suspended from a rope: not, as the oxford editor ingeniously but improperly supposes, in a bunch at the end, but by a perpendicular arrangement. for the hints afforded me in the formation of this note, …i am indebted to a lady celebrated at once for her literary acquirements and her culinary accomplishments. (poole 1811, p. 99) poole mocks the literati of his time as elton does those of ours. shakespeare is a means to satirise the pretensions of those who create such annotation. capacious in its range of targets, upstart crow finds in shakespeare the mask through which we look at ourselves even as we look at the place we have accorded that impenetrable self that shakespeare constitutes. as the mask reveals behind itself only another mask, a mise en abyme of personas, so shakespeare is formed as a locus for the invisibility of the individual. more than anyone else, it seems, shakespeare offers us the chance to invoke the absence of self through creating a sequence of replaceable masks. barely human, always obscured, shakespeare is the endlessly metamorphing chameleon that keats identified: the poetical character is not itself – it has no self – it is everything and nothing – it has no character – it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated – it has as much delight in an as an imogen. what shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the camelion poet. (keats 1958, 1, pp. 386-7) in the absence of that self all that can ever be seen is the mask of the persona, the what that ‘iss’ shakespeare. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 21 end notes i on the history of celebrating shakespeare, see calvo & kahn 2017. ii on this and other early explorations of shakespeare as character, see holland 2005. iii my transcription of the ‘inter-office communication’ shown in the film. the film is available on the current dvd release of a midsummer night’s dream as a special feature. iv see ‘blackadder vs. shakespeare’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-y1ch4b5c, my transcription. v transcriptions from http://who-transcripts.atspace.com/, checked by me against the dvd, accessed 24 may 2019. vi shakespeare manages two index points in the 519 pages of marshall and redmond’s 2016 companion to celebrity, one of which occurs when fred inglis points out that elizabeth i was famous “but very few knew of the hardworking drudge and playwright, will shakespeare” (inglis 2016, p. 31). vii my transcription; the scripts from series 3 of upstart crow have not been published. viii see the helpful description on the folger shakespeare library’s shakespeare documented website: https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/exhibition/document/greenes-groatsworth-witte-first-printed-allusion-shakespeare-playwright (retrieved 28 august 2019). ix i take it also to be part of this persona that, like most sitcom dads, shakespeare sometimes uses slang in supremely awkward ways, as in episode 4 of series 1, when he has finished his sonnet cycle: “finished! by jupiter’s hairy armpits, bloody finished!...the cycle be complete. result! oh, yeah! who the bard? me the bard! iambic pentameter is my bitch!” (elton 2018, p. 91). compare the last line with the intro to shakespeare in something rotten!. x elton adds a footnote here: “if shakespeare did write this play it is lost in the mists of time. which is a great shame” (2018, p. 148). works cited ‘100 greatest britons’, wikipedia, retrieved 25 august 2019, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_greatest_britons.> ‘blackadder vs. shakespeare’, 1999, youtube, retrieved 26 august 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-y1ch4b5c> british pathé, 1920, ‘shakespeare’s birthday 1920’, retrieved 25 august 2019, <https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-1> —1930, ‘shakespeare’s birthday on sleeve as shakespears birthday 1930’ [sic], retrieved 25 august 2019, <https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-on-sleeveas-shakespears-bir> —1950, ‘shakespeare’s birthday a royal occasion 1950’, retrieved 25 august 2019, <https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-a-royal-occasion> calvo, c.& kahn, c., eds., 2017, celebrating shakespeare, cambridge university press, cambridge. cartmell, d. 2015, adaptations in the sound era: 1927-37, bloomsbury academic, london. ‘david mitchell chats to craig charles about upstart crow on radio 2’, 2018, a dose of david mitchell on youtube, retrieved 26 august 2019 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jir07e6njzc> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-y1ch4b5c http://who-transcripts.atspace.com/ https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/exhibition/document/greenes-groats-worth-witte-first-printed-allusion-shakespeare-playwright https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/exhibition/document/greenes-groats-worth-witte-first-printed-allusion-shakespeare-playwright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_greatest_britons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-y1ch4b5c https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-1 https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-on-sleeve-as-shakespears-bir https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-on-sleeve-as-shakespears-bir https://www.britishpathe.com/video/shakespeares-birthday-a-royal-occasion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jir07e6njzc holland 22 ‘david mitchell talks 'upstart crow' series 3 & learns about "catfishing"’, 2018, a dose of david mitchell on youtube, retrieved 27 august 2019 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwe3pcuf1wy> elton, b. 2018, upstart crow: the scripts, penguin, london. —2019, all is true. shooting script, sony pictures classics, retrieved 26 august 2019, <http://sonyclassics.com/awards-information/201819/screenplays/allistrue_screenplay.pdf> greene’s groatsworth of wit bought with a million of repentance, 1592, william wright, london. holland, p. 2005, ‘dramatizing the dramatist’, shakespeare survey, vol. 58, pp. 137-47. inglis, f. 2016, ‘the moral concept of celebrity’, in p. d. marshall, s. redmond (eds.), a companion to celebrity, john wiley and sons, chichester, pp. 21-38. jonson, b. 1623, ‘to the reader’, the cambridge edition of the works of ben jonson online, cambridge university press, retrieved 26 august 2019, <http://ezproxyprd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2204/cambridge/benjonson/k/works/shakesreader/facing/#> jowett, j. 1993, ‘johannes factotum: henry chettle and greene’s groatsworth of wit’, the papers of the bibliographical society of america, vol. 87, no. 4, pp. 453-86. keats, j. 1958, the letters of john keats, h e rollins (ed.), 2 vols., cambridge university press, cambridge. kirkpatrick, k., kirkpatrick, w. & o’farrell, j. 2015, ‘liner notes’, something rotten!. original broadway cast recording, ghostlight records. mack, r. 1936 / 2007, shake, mr shakespeare. on william shakespeare, a midsummer night’s dream, dir. reinhardt and dieterle, dvd, turner entertainment. marshall, p. d. & redmond, s. (eds.), 2016. a companion to celebrity, john wiley and sons, chichester. poole, j. 1811, hamlet travestie, 2nd ed., j.m.richardson, london. shakespeare, w. 1997, the true tragedy of richard duke of york and the good king henry the sixth (henry vi part three), in s. greenblatt et al. (eds.), the norton shakespeare, w. w. norton, new york & london. ‘shakespeare’s a-level results day message’, 2018, a dose of david mitchell on youtube, retrieved 26 august 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etvynefqs-0> ‘the shakespeare code’, 2007, doctor who series 3, episode 2, dr who transcripts, retrieved 24 may 2019, <http://who-transcripts.atspace.com/> williams, e. 1995, the corn is green, samuel french, london. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwe3pcuf1wy http://sonyclassics.com/awards-information/2018-19/screenplays/allistrue_screenplay.pdf http://sonyclassics.com/awards-information/2018-19/screenplays/allistrue_screenplay.pdf http://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2204/cambridge/benjonson/k/works/shakesreader/facing/ http://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2204/cambridge/benjonson/k/works/shakesreader/facing/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etvynefqs-0 http://who-transcripts.atspace.com/ persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 83 theatre costume, celebrity persona, and the archive emily collett abstract this essay considers the archived costume in relation to the concept of the celebrity performer’s persona. it takes as its case study the shakespearean costume of indigenous actress deborah mailman, housed in the australian performing arts collection. it considers what the materiality of the theatre costume might reveal and conceal about a performer’s personas. it asks to what extent artefacts in an archive might both create a new persona or freezeframe a particular construct of a performer. central to the essay are questions of agency in relation to the memorialisation of a still living actress and the problematisation of persona in terms of the archived object. can a costume generate its own persona in relation to the actress? and what are the power dynamics involved in persona construction when an archived costume presents a charged narrative which is very different to the actress’s current construction of her persona? key words costume; archive; deborah mailman; indigenous; memory; shakespeare costume in the archive: a charged object in this essay i consider the archived theatre costume in relation to persona studies and what the materiality of costume might reveal or conceal about the celebrity performer’s persona(s). can an archived costume have its own persona? what complexities arise when the charged historical narrative of an archived costume is at odds with a current persona? and in the following case study of deborah mailman, what happens when the framing of a living indigenous actress’s costume constructs a persona that is quite different to the one that the actress currently constructs for herself? a costume worn by a performer live on stage is remembered in particular ways – and many in the audience might focus more on the performer’s stance, physicality, and verbal prowess than what they are wearing. but once a costume is archived, it is staged and framed differently, becoming an artefact in and of itself. the costume might then be understood to be of a different cultural value and resonance in relation to the performer. in this article i am interested in asking: what does the examination of a three-dimensional object bring, as opposed to two-dimensional source material (image and text), to persona and theatre scholarship? whilst there are existing models in persona studies which draw from text, film, photography, and social media, there is as yet less study of three-dimensional objects. collett 84 i take as my case study the performance costume worn by the indigenous australian actress deborah mailman as cordelia in bell shakespeare’s 1998 production of king lear, which is kept in the australian performing arts collection in melbourne. mailman is renowned for her early-career stage appearances and in the last decade has become renowned for her character acting in contemporary australian television drama. i shall begin by setting out some of the archival context of analysing performance costume in relation to persona. i will explore first how material culture and costume scholarship are useful in understanding the costume as an object and examine the politics of the performing arts collection. i then focus on mailman’s costume itself and interrogate how it sits within and without its material and theoretical framing. i am interested in the silences surrounding mailman’s archival narrative and what her archive costume suggests about persona construction. recognition of the research potential of objects is a major preoccupation of material culture in the form of object and museum studies, and has intensified in importance since the 1980s; as has been noted, “[f]ar more than documents, things have a special kind of immediacy … in a way a written account cannot” (deetz 1980, pp. 375-6). having established the significance of three-dimensional research material during the 1990s (see, for instance, kavanagh 1987; fisher 1991; leone & little 1993; and corrin 1994), more recently, material culture studies have highlighted how objects can communicate individual and collective identity, due to their integral role in our daily lives. as ian woodward argues, “we are defined as people not only by what we think and say, but by what material things we possess, surround ourselves with, and interact with … all of these material things help to establish, mediate and assist us in the performance of our personal and social identities” (woodward 2007, p. 133). in examining the ways in which methods for the study of material culture could advance our ability to find new knowledge, kate smith and leonie hannan suggest that “[r]ather than continuing to look through objects ‘to see what they disclose about history, society, nature, or culture – above all what they disclose about us,’ historians are starting to look at things per se and what they do more broadly” (smith & hannan 2017, p. 49). or, in other words, “[o]bjects offer scholars another form through which to examine human expression” (smith & hannan 2017, p. 47). contemporary material culture, then, has moved beyond a purely semiotic appreciation of objects and now understands objects as a valid resource for gaining knowledge about the people with whom the object interacted. but what does this mean in the realm of theatre costume, which is about role play and might be reflective of the character more than the performer, or suggest a persona which depends on a blurring of both performer and role? lisa g. corrin explores the relationship between artist and museum, where a growing trend in artist curated exhibitions resets the focus onto museum practices themselves which, in turn, explores not what the objects mean but how they mean: by shifting the way an audience interacts with an object, the object activates new connections, new information, and new ways of thinking. corrin’s study illuminates the wide scope of information, or life stories, a single object can communicate when it is activated in this way. to use phillip fisher’s turn of phrase in art and the future’s past, “[t]he life of things is in reality many lives” (2017 [1991], p. 436). according to corrin, through a material culture lens we can establish the research value and cultural resonances of three-dimensional objects and explore how a performance costume can communicate multiple individual and collective histories. at the same time, the framing of the costume can suggest more nuanced details about the wearer of the costume’s identities, or personas. a three-dimensional object is inherently active as a tool designed, made, used, collected, and archived by individuals informed by personal, institutional, and cultural ideologies. studying the framing of a single object activates the process of ‘how’ it means – through the action of each of its lives and the individuals who interacted with it. what sort of persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 85 information can performance costume-as-object relay about the personas attributed to that performer and the cultural majority at a particular time? performance costume scholar donatella barbieri has developed a methodology which argues that the archived costume, “a complex, charged object”, is a lens through which to better understand the archive in which it is kept. the costume highlights the “genealogies of ideas” discovered through the object’s materiality, alongside the functionality and performativity of the object in its original context, by using external evidence and biographical information (2013, p. 282). veronica isaac has expanded on barbieri’s work by uniting “approaches from dress history, theatre history and material culture to offer a specific methodology for the investigation and analysis of theatre costume” (2017, p. 115), offering a detailed analysis of the material object combined with extensive biographical research. her analysis of celebrity actress ellen terry’s 1888 lady macbeth ‘beetlewing dress’ resulted in detailed multiple histories, and the notion that theatre costumes carry “the ‘memories’, or ‘ghosts’, of their previous wearer(s), acting as ‘surrogates’ for the bodies that once inhabited them” (2017, p. 118). barbieri and isaac’s work draws on the theories of haunting and spectrality articulated by carlson (2003) and luckhurst and morin (2014), which investigate the ways in which an actress’s role and previous role-holders can influence and shape the actress’s persona. the study of archived costumes brings yet another complexity to the idea of a performer’s persona where it figuratively exists embedded within the costume. how does the performance costume carry within it the ‘ghosts’ or ‘surrogate’ of the body or bodies who wore it? how does the persona suggested by the costume and framed by other historical and contemporary contexts mutate over time? how much of the persona constructed by the actress at the time of the performance is retained? what overlays are there of reinventions of persona? what framing of persona does the archive itself bring and can those multiple personas be narrativised? and can a costume acquire its own persona overshadowing the persona of its wearer(s)? these questions have only just begun to be asked and often presume that the performer’s costume has been archived since her death. mailman’s costume was archived while she was and is still living. costume and persona in theatre, understanding celebrity persona requires consideration of a performer’s onstage roles in relation to the offstage persona(s) which make up public perceptions of individual identities. kim barbour recognises professional, personal, and intimate registers of performance in the creation of online persona (see marshall & barbour 2015, p. 5). melanie piper uses a stage analogy to understand american comedian louis c. k.’s complex on-stage, on-screen, and other public/private personas (2015, p. 14). study of the archived performer’s costume suggests a more complex model for persona, especially if the performer is indigenous. one of the most enduring markers of the onstage persona of any celebrity is their costume, a material object which acts as a full or partial body mask that the performer can adopt and remove like a second skin in order to play their professional onstage role. kylie minogue’s famous gold hot-pants, for example, in the same performing arts archive as mailman’s costume, have cultural resonance because there is a living memory of her appearance in them and of her persona as a pop star and iconic female celebrity. the celebrity status of the person is embedded into the garment, which as an object “can stand for particular features of a person, in the absence of interpersonal contact” (woodward 2007, p.137). but costume also suggests the performer’s intimate, private persona not just in terms of shape, size, and cut but also in the physical traces imprinted onto the costume’s materiality in the form of wear and tear, stains, and other marks. the on and offstage aspects of persona are manifest in the celebrity theatre costume and are inextricable. deetz has argued that “[t]he artifact is the material collett 86 correlate of the individual” (2017 [1980], p. 376). in other words, the ‘ghost’ of each persona lives in the garment and in their reliance on one another they converge to create a single and fully dimensional surrogate for the performer’s body. but again, with performance costume, how much involvement does a performer have in the design? mailman, as an indigenous actress breaking a taboo about cordelia as a white princess as well as a taboo about indigenous actresses playing shakespearean roles at all, certainly did not have as much choice or control over the design of her costume as minogue did. in addition to the histories a celebrity theatre costume surrogate might or might not tell about the private, public, and professional lives of the performer, it might also reveal a story about the production for which it was worn, and of the hands that made, sourced, or art-finished it. it offers details on the company and collaborators who created the production, the theatre venue(s) the production played at, and the audiences who saw it. finally, the costume reveals information about those who kept, collected, donated, and, ultimately, archived it. as such, a celebrity costume can contain within it a particularly nuanced account of a specific point in time, giving a detailed picture of the constituencies for whom it was created, something of the zeitgeist of its moment, as well as the persona generated by, or attributed to, the celebrity who wore it. in her essay exploring how the social theory of michel foucault can be applied to fashion studies, jane tynan suggests “[i]f material things become articulate only within a field of knowledge, then discourse can demonstrate how these objects become carriers of social and cultural meaning” (2016, p. 186). applied to the celebrity costume, this idea explains how it is only upon entering the archive, as a place suggesting ideologies of study and research and the seriousness of the item’s cultural value, that a persona for the costume in its own right is activated and the object can communicate the importance of its wearer(s) and/or the ‘social and cultural meaning’ of its time of creation. in relating the fictional life of a warrior’s sword, fisher describes the entry of the object into a museum as “a fourth form of access. now it is looked at, studied, contrasted with other objects, seen as an example of a style, a moment, a level of technical knowledge, a temperament and culture” (2017 [1991], p. 437). the object has gone beyond its initial function and purpose, beyond being collected as a sacred object or treasure, and is now seen as an artefact, a receptacle of knowledge and marker of culture, and in this case can be treated as a way of understanding a performer’s persona both at the time of wearing and at the time of viewing. of course the contemporary persona of that performer, if still living, may have been reinvented since the time the archived costume was worn as is the case with kylie minogue, whose hot-pants remind us of her youthful stage persona and sex appeal as measured against the mature, elegant celebrity singer who is equally well known for surviving breast cancer. mailman’s costume, however, is more complex in the questions it poses. mailman has not performed in a shakespeare play for some considerable time and prefers contemporary roles in which her indigeneity is not colonised, marginalised, or erased. marshall has described celebrity culture as an “explanatory tool” for the discourses of contemporary society, stating that “[c]elebrity in and of itself is fascinating because of the way it can describe significance and value in contemporary culture” (2013, p. 157). in their introduction to persona studies as a potent area for scholarship, marshall and barbour assert that the celebrity persona inhabits an “active negotiation of the individual defined and reconfigured as social phenomenon” (2015, p. 9). from this we can usefully understand how a celebrity persona, existing within a celebrity culture, is created as a socially reflexive agent. understanding celebrity persona as constantly in reflexive negotiation with its creators and its social receivers is also important in the activation of the celebrity costume. i am proposing that both the celebrity persona and the archived celebrity costume are markers of their time and persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 87 place of creation and exist in dialogic relation to one another. when a celebrity costume ceases to function as a working garment and crosses over into an archive, the cultural value of that costume is newly activated – sometimes problematically. the politics of performing arts archive established in 1975, the australian performing arts centre (apac) is “australia’s largest and most significant specialist collection documenting the nation’s performing arts heritage” (arts centre melbourne 2018) and holds over 680,000 items, presenting exhibitions and displays at the arts centre melbourne. it has an online catalogue which contains approximately ten percent of the collection and a dedicated centre which researchers can visit by appointment. the collection is divided into dance, theatre, costume, comedy, broadcasting, vaudeville and variety, circus, magic, music, designs, and photographs, as well as the arts centre’s public art collection, and essentially grew from two founding acquisitions: the j. c. williamson theatre archive and the dame nellie melba collection. j. c. williamson ltd was the dominant theatrical company in australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their archive provided a rich source of australia’s mainstage theatrical history. that history is a white settler history with a colonial narrative of nation-formation and largely contains information on white settler theatrical practices. the contemporary highlight of the collection is australian actressturned-singer kylie minogue, who donated a vast selection of her stage costumes from tours as early as 1989 up to more recent stage events from 2011. minogue features prominently on their website, and their free 2016 kylie on stage exhibition drew over 250,000 visitors, went on regional and national tour in 2017, and is still touring at the time of writing. the theatre collection, to which the costume at the centre of this article’s investigation belongs, is described as the “largest and most diverse part of the australian performing arts collection” (arts centre melbourne 2018). the collection focuses on personal and company contributions from australia’s dominant theatre history across drama, comedy, magic, musical theatre, puppetry, vaudeville and variety. within the context of this archive, the celebrity indigenous actress deborah mailman’s costume sits within the dramatic theatre category – but at the same time disrupts it. if we consider the suggestion by marshall et al that “persona studies is a technique that is fundamentally a study of agency” (2015, p. 290), one has to ask in relation to an archived object: whose agency do we mean? who is the donor? who makes decisions regarding archival acquisitions? and why? can a costume create a persona of its own? once in the archive, who has agency over the construction and dissemination of a version of the celebrity persona through the framing of the object in question? thinking of how objects can assist in negotiating individual identity within social groups, woodward suggests: [t]he fact that one has exclusive control and ownership of an object is the crucial aspect mediating the boundaries between self (who controls the object) and the other (who doesn’t). in this way, possession of the object affords cultivation of identity, sometimes irrespective of an object’s aesthetic or functional qualities. (2007, p. 135) chris fowler goes further when relating material culture to understanding social class structure and states that “social institutions exist, which play an ideological role in policing identities and maintaining particular relations between identity groups” (2010, p. 359). in considering the performing arts archive as a research tool for the study of social, cultural, and political information, it is important to recognise inherent problems with this transfer of agency and the institution’s role in ‘policing’ identities. collett 88 an archive is generally understood to be built on a principle of linearity which is more often than not historical; however, within this perceived linearity there is a disjunct between the time of an item’s acquisition, the time of its creation, and the time it becomes available to the public. is a newly acquired costume which was designed and made in the late nineteenth century considered a new item, or an old one? similarly, a sometimes complex donor lineage exists within each costume’s linearity and adds important information to the story the object now tells. this lineage can alter the specific history pertinent to the object and must be recognised as part of the performer’s story. as well as the conscious and unconscious bias of curators, the restrictions on funding and the capacity of archival storage force strict acquisition rules onto the curator. they must rigorously question the cultural value of each costume in relation to the significance of the wearer, the designer, the production and the producing company. as a result, many valuable costumes are rejected to the great regret of the curators and their teams, and the selected items then sit within particular curatorial frames dependent on the person(s) responsible for decision-making. consequently, bias has been common, intentionally and unintentionally, creating gaps in the knowledge base the institution is responsible for. in the primary performing arts collection of a post-colonial nation this has generated absences and omissions and resulted in the under-representation of marginalised ethnic groups – particularly australian indigenous performers and performance cultures. in the case of the apac, where their starting base was the acquisition of assorted items from j. c. williamson when it closed in the 1970s, they inherited their collection from a company started by a white american man which was then managed by an assortment of white british and white australian men. it is clear that the apac inherited a collection with a particular bias, the original owners of which had already practised their own forms of cultural censorship. although their focus is on archives of two-dimensional, textual records and documentation, in the silence of the archive thomas et al describe how “it has become more accepted that archival silences are a proper subject for enquiry and to view the absence of records as positive statements, rather than passive gaps” (2017, p. xx). this idea could be applied to archives of three-dimensional objects. johnson compares the silences to a ghostly voice, or emptiness in an archive, which, when examined, proves to be charged with the energy of what is missing (2017a, p. 105). speaking of white settler societies in particular, eilean hooper-greenhill argues that new approaches to communication and learning in art museums and archives gives communities the opportunity to re-remember their histories, where “[f]ormerly silent voices are being heard, and new cultural identities are being forged from the remains of the past” (2000, p. 563). johnson relates this even more closely to the artefacts themselves, whereby studying existing bias and resulting silences in an archive is “allowing records to speak with new voices” (2017b, p. 149). but can an absence be viewed? and how can it be filled? whose communities are being referred to here? these are fraught political issues given that indigenous cultures understand knowledge to be living memory passed from generation to generation. to many indigenous cultures the idea of the archive and the assumption that a life can be captured are alien and oppressive concepts. scholars increasingly ask “how do we use these things to produce new knowledge?” (leone & little 1993, p. 362). johnson suggests the answer lies in the idea of ‘sense-making’, which for an archival researcher equates to an active, user-focused, approach with “an emphasis on multiple contextual voices rather than the finding of a universal monolithic truth” (2017a, p. 107). smith and hannan agree, explaining that “[o]bjects (like events) can be understood and interpreted only through engagement with ‘multiple sources of data (texts, objects, quantitative data, lived experience, and hands-on knowledge) acquired in a multi-sensory fashion, firmly persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 89 grounded in and maintaining a credible link with existing knowledge’” (2017, p. 57). in other words, the researcher seeks puzzle pieces from a diverse and complex range of sources in order to better understand the object at large, as well as the potential meaning of any gaps or silences, before piecing them together to create their own ‘sense’ of a story. the performer’s costume as object could be an important focus of a ‘sense-making’ approach to gaining new knowledge relating to celebrity persona. the question of agency needs to be posed in relation to the archival construction of the celebrity performer’s persona, the cultural value attributed to the object, and the politics of the archivists’ decision-making. in these respects, deborah mailman’s costume as archived in the apac, certainly challenges a lot of new archival theorisations as well as assumptions about the community that the sense-making researcher/interpreter might originate from. deborah mailman: cordelia’s costume in king lear (1998) fig. 1: production photograph of deborah mailman as cordelia in king lear, bell shakespeare company, 1998. photographer: jeff busby. courtesy of the australian performing arts collection, arts centre melbourne. deborah mailman, born in 1972, recognises both indigenous australian and maori heritage from her father and mother respectively, but is widely celebrated and self-identifies as an indigenous australian actress. as the first aboriginal actress to win the australian film institute (afi) award for best actress in a leading role in radiance, mailman is at the forefront of a pioneering generation of indigenous actresses. her career was forged through theatre and she created her role in radiance in a 1998 queensland theatre company production. although shy as a child, mailman realised a passion for acting and worked hard to develop a career in the collett 90 performing arts (purcell 2002, pp. 3-28). radiance launched her on-screen career and gave her a public status. mailman is now held in great esteem and is fondly welcomed into the living rooms of many australians through television series such as the secret life of us, offspring and redfern now. her persona is of an actress with a disciplined work ethic who focuses on serious roles, rarely does interviews, and keeps her family and private life out of scrutiny. in the last decade, as her professional status has become increasingly distinguished, her public and professional personas have melded to form the image of a feminist activist and a role model of the progressive indigenous working woman. in an interview with fellow indigenous actress leah purcell, mailman has discussed her initial feelings of alienation within the film industry, and the time it took after winning her afi award to believe she actually deserved it rather than thinking “[o]kay, yeah, give it to the aboriginal girl because it’s the right time” (purcell 2002, p. 15). early in her career, mailman was careful to pursue an identity as an actress first and foremost, in order to establish strictly professional credentials, which meant she de-privileged her identity as an aboriginal woman in a white-dominated public and professional arena. in fact, much was made in the media about the significance of her afi award in relation to her ethnicity, but mailman was wary of the discourse and of the pressure to become representative of her community, fighting a private struggle to negotiate her position as an actress in the australian creative industry sector. in the last decade she has no longer felt the need to remain silent about her indigeneity, and she now privileges her aboriginal origins before professional actress, and is accepting of her role as a creative pioneer: “i’m an aboriginal woman who is an actor and it’s taken me a long time to kind of reverse that kind of description. it’s like. no. my whole being is aboriginal woman. that’s who i am and i’m fucking proud of it” (purcell 2002, p. 28). although hesitant at first to take on the persona ascribed to her because of prejudicial attitudes, mailman understood the importance of her success, the changes in industry and public perception that her professional profile has brought about, and became proactive in cultivating her pioneering indigenous persona. she embraced the challenge and responsibility of forging a new celebrity persona and deploying it as a force for cultural transformation. the apac online catalogue has just five items attributed to mailman: her costume for cordelia in king lear comprising a robe and hat; a photograph and transparency of her wearing this costume in production; and a poster for the 2004 melbourne theatre company (mtc) production of the sapphires in which mailman performed. her costume for cordelia was designed by celebrated architect and theatre designer peter corrigan and was worn by mailman in bell shakespeare company’s celebrated 1998 production of king lear directed by barrie kosky. the long coat, or robe, of mixed garish pink faux fur features a train and a large fold-over collar which is fixed with strings of fake pearls draping down the torso. the long sleeves are straight, but have been sewn around at regular intervals like a quilt which gives the impression of a medieval maiden’s puffed sleeves. the colour of the fur has been broken down with orange and brown paint or dye which mottles the surface texture and softens the visual impression of the coat. soft and textural on the outside, the inside of the robe is unlined inside the arms and bears the marks of repeated use through a build-up of grime on the train and multiple repairs across the garment. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 91 fig. 2: robe (front) worn by deborah mailman as cordelia in king lear, designed by peter corrigan. courtesy of the australian performing arts collection, arts centre melbourne. fig. 3: robe (back) worn by deborah mailman as cordelia in king lear, designed by peter corrigan. courtesy of the australian performing arts collection, arts centre melbourne. the accompanying headpiece is covered in pale pink velvet and sat on mailman’s head like a wide court-jester’s hat, with fake pearl edging and six large jewel ornaments swinging from underneath its flaps. the production photograph shows the hat sitting low on the forehead, with long sides curving down mailman’s cheeks framing her face, as did the hats on her character’s sisters’ heads. her smudgy whiteface makeup is highlighted with red lips, bright pink eyes rimmed in black, and double painted eyebrows which both accentuate her eyes and alter her facial expression. the pink of her coat in the light of the archive is a gentle baby-pink with flashes of orange, but under stage lights the pink becomes bubble-gum sweet, popping out at the viewer and appearing more luxurious than the cheap fabric actually is. faux fur coats in muted tones featured on multiple characters in this production, yet the quality of colour featured on mailman’s makes her appear almost lewd in her virtue as the honest daughter of the king. in a review of the original performance kate herbert suggests you ‘‘[i]magine texas chain saw massacre colliding with the cartoon south park and a hollywood musical with gorgeous collett 92 costumes and you have an inkling of the cacophony of styles” (herbert 1998). the style was deliberately mixing allusions of settler colonies and imperialism in a manner that culminated in the domination of an aesthetic of the grotesque. the politics of mailman’s whiteface is what strikes the researcher of today. i am mindful of smith and hannan’s theory that “[t]he first meeting with a text or an object is an inadequate indicator of future insights; long held assumptions can result in hasty conclusions” (2017, p. 52), but i am using the three-dimensional object of mailman’s costume as a launching off point to examine the potential of this area of study. writing about an object cannot be separated from critical thinking about it. therefore, the act of writing activates critical engagement with the meaning of the object, which, as smith and hannan argue, may uncover or highlight new and different connections and meanings, but may also further mystify and deepen contradictions. what kinds of knowledge about an indigenous woman can be presumed by white viewers, for example? bell shakespeare and mailman’s costume in performance the bell shakespeare company was founded in 1990 by the acclaimed australian actor john bell and enjoys considerable fame. it is australia’s only touring shakespeare company, and has a well-earned reputation for taking risks by developing contemporary adaptations of the classics. in 2001 the company worked with the apac to establish the bell shakespeare company collection, which holds a selected array of documents and records, and a small number of costumes. it was in these early stages of developing the collection that bell shakespeare donated mailman’s costume to apac. mailman was not the only racially diverse actor cast in the production of king lear, which also included croatian actress melita jurisic, japanese actor kazuhiro muroyama, russian actor rostislav orel, and french actor christian manon. much has been made of the choice to cast mailman as cordelia, although kosky refused “to admit any deliberate intent towards mailman’s role” (farrell 2017, p. 35). rachel fensham argues that kosky has been more than evasive, stating that “with very little ‘cross-racial’ casting in australian theatre critics were hard-pressed not to consider this aboriginal presence as a provocation” (qtd in farrell 2017, p. 35). philippa kelly observes that “mailman’s aboriginal cordelia remains a singular and largely token mark of multiculturalism on the australian shakespeare stage” (kelly 2005, p. 227). there is no doubt that casting mailman in a canonical english play, re-worked as only wild-child director kosky could do, “provokes a post-colonial reading. [mailman’s] body draws attention to corporeal differences between cordelia as fair daughter and lear as white-skinned fleshy old man” (fensham 2009, pp. 97-8). indigenous australians have been notable in their absence from australian shakespeare productions, so the comparison between mailman’s and bell’s bodily presence alongside each other on stage is significant. kosky’s king lear presented a white man playing a father to an indigenous daughter, in an english text brought to australia by white settlers, and in a play essentially about colonisation and landownership. for some it was radical. however, many indigenous communities find the continued performing of shakespeare’s productions on australian stages an uncomfortably colonial phenomenon. mailman’s onstage persona, cordelia, is the innocent heroine in king lear, who holds true to her morals and is banished from the kingdom as a result, whilst her two sisters deceive the king in order to win his favour and seize his land. fensham critiques the production as “a serious interrogation of the excesses of power at play in male bodies”, and examines how it “transgressed taboos in the text, and white culture, that normatively secure transmission of male power” (2009, p. 74). by viewing this reading alongside the understanding that king lear persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 93 is about ownership and division of land, mailman’s costumed body acts symbolically as a vehicle for both patriarchal as well as colonial power, topics which are very resonant in australia. the hollywood glamour of mailman’s fur robe sits at odds with prevalent representations of many indigenous women, and the garish materiality of her robe and matching headpiece contradict the period silhouette and modesty of her character. mailman’s whited-up face and court-jester styled headpiece could therefore be read very ambiguously, as having clothed her in symbols suggestive of settlers. the costume acts as a grotesque mask that actually highlights her aboriginal body and draws attention to the colonisation of body and land and body as land. without mailman’s body the costume has no indigenous signifiers and could be seen as a further oppression. although all of the actors in the production wore whiteface make-up, white make-up on a white face reads politically very differently to white make-up on an indigenous face, on an australian stage, in a shakespeare production. indeed, not so many years later, such an act is no longer deemed appropriate or acceptable. similarly, a headpiece reminiscent of a court jester’s hat on an indigenous body reads very differently to those worn on her fellow actors’ white bodies. mailman’s costumed body in this production could not have been more transgressive, but not in ways perhaps that kosky intended. with the benefit of hindsight, his directorial concept in itself can be read as an act of oppression. fensham believes the powerful dramaturgy of kosky’s production works to “unmake the ‘classic body’ of shakespeare” and then contends that mailman’s “corporeal presence is less significant than the difference that her realist acting gives a non-abject identity from the other bodies on stage” (2009, p. 74). i would argue that it is not possible to separate her corporeal presence in the framing of her costumed body from the dramaturgy, nor from her realist acting. the ultimate sacrifice of cordelia, an indigenous woman in whiteface make-up, to a white australian king lear in a battle for land and power, transgressed the boundaries of shakespearean tradition. mailman’s costumed body transgressed the social norm of public representations of indigenous women’s bodies. neither mailman’s, nor the audiences’, politically charged experience of cordelia and her role in kosky’s production could have existed without the specific framing provided by her costumed body. the political landscape of australia in 1998, the year kosky’s king lear premiered and the year mailman received her ground-breaking film award, included the first national sorry day, now known as the national day of healing, on 26 may. this date marks twelve months from the government tabling a report that recognised past mistreatment of aboriginal people and was introduced to raise awareness amongst politicians and the general public regarding the stolen generations, in response to then prime minister john howard’s lack of action. kosky expressed surprise at the reaction to his racially diverse casting, but critical analysis of mailman’s involvement in particular reflected a contemporary white australia grappling with the implications of its colonial settler past and the position of aboriginal australians in mainstream society. mailman’s costumed body focused the narrative on an interrogation of landownership and on australia’s problematic history but, at the same time, kosky arguably also objectified mailman with his directorial concept. mailman today versus the politics of the archive it is significant that, unlike minogue, mailman did not herself own and donate her archived items. the costume was a gift of bell shakespeare in 2001, along with the robe worn by john bell as king lear in the same production. the apac online catalogue entries for each of the costume’s two parts are factual and brief and not supported by any accompanying documents or collett 94 information – this is perhaps unsurprising, given that mailman is still a working actress rather than an historical figure. or it may mean that mailman herself wishes to make no comment. the photograph, transparency, and poster are listed online without an actual image of the archived objects, just as a textual record. tellingly, it is not possible to ascertain how many indigenous actresses are represented in the apac nor who they may be, as their catalogue is currently organised in a way which does not allow for specific search options of ethnicity, country of origin, or even ‘actor’ or ‘actress’. a search in apac’s online catalogue using the term ‘indigenous australian’ returns 37 results (from a collection numbering in excess of 680,000 items). deborah mailman is the only indigenous performer who appears as a specific catalogue entry in the online database – through the coat and headdress this article is examining. however, unlike items such as those donated by minogue, the only way to find mailman’s costume is to search for it specifically. the remaining entries are batches of documents relating to theatre productions and non-specific costume and set designs. these results highlight a significant systemic erasure in the archive itself. the inclusion of mailman in a searchable system is anomalous, then, and is transgressive in relation to the collection’s historical origins. mailman’s costume, paradoxically, has become a transgressive celebrity presence in the australian national performing arts collection and that presence has little to do with the reasons it was donated in the first place. at the time, mailman was feted by the dominant culture for reaching the heights of a shakespearean role on a mainstream stage – the donation of her costume attested to her arrival as an actress. but mailman has made her name and built a following through playing indigenous roles in gritty political television dramas, where her indigeneity is unambiguously celebrated and affirmed. both johnson and fowler question the bias of cataloguing systems in document archives which can silence and suppress materials through their catalogue descriptions (fowler 2017; johnson 2017b). fowler considers whether archives are “deliberately or inadvertently perpetuating the value systems of those rich and powerful individuals who created the records or institutions which hold them” (2017, p. 55). they raise interesting questions about contemporary cataloguing systems and whether they are evolving in their methods for choosing what is important and necessary to catalogue about an archival entry, and what limitations search systems might place on which voices are active and which are silent. at the time of writing, apac’s cataloguing system is silencing many marginalised voices, but informal communications with staff associated with the collection indicate an awareness of these issues, and an active desire to develop archival and cataloguing systems to better address them. their collection is certainly growing, intentionally, towards a more inclusive representation of the nation’s performing arts communities. mailman’s archival framing constructs a persona which is inseparable from the politics and aesthetics of shakespearean plays and productions and freezeframes her at a point in time about which she is interestingly silent. how is it that only mailman’s and john bell’s costumes were donated or perhaps selected by apac? what are the reasons they were chosen to the exclusion of all others? this decision, significantly, appears to place mailman as an actress on par with john bell, one of australia’s most celebrated shakespearean actors, which is a high accolade, but the politics of framing, or erasing, her through john bell and shakespeare are deeply problematic. if the archival measure of success for an indigenous woman is performing shakespeare, how does the silence of that indigenous woman in relation to her archival persona trouble the attempt to colonise her? basic records from the apac indicate that mailman’s costume has been exhibited once in the arts centre foyer as part of the exhibition a dream of passion: the bell shakespeare persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 95 company, in 2001-2002. apac’s 2015 exhibition rough magic: celebrating 20 years of bell shakespeare included production photographs but not the actual costume itself. thus far, then, material relating to mailman in the collection has been exhibited only in relation to celebrating the company who donated her costume, and the politics of her costumed body were not addressed or problematised in these exhibitions. if we look to mailman’s celebrity persona as it stands today in relation to the persona generated by the archive, there is a chasm between them. in 2017 mailman was awarded an order of australia medal for services to the arts and as a role model for indigenous performers, and she is also, at the time of writing, a trustee of the sydney opera house. mailman’s decision to identify as an aboriginal woman first and foremost is integral to her negotiation of her private, public, and professional personas. when mailman’s appointment to the screen australia board was announced in march 2019, her public statement was as follows: 2018 was such an [sic] wonderful milestone for australia’s indigenous screen creators as we celebrated 25 years of being in control of our stories, and without doubt screen australia has been a constant collaborator, partner and of course investor. it is essential all australians see themselves on screen and we are able to hear our stories told in our voice, from our unique perspective. i am excited to be joining the screen australia board at this time when the industry is energised and the demand for our work both locally and abroad is growing. (screen australia 2019) mailman’s resume includes a long list of nominations and awards and clearly demonstrates her success as a highly respected actor for film and television. for the most part she has left behind her work on the stage. we could speculate, through her archival persona, that she has moved on from theatre because the available roles are ethnically limited in their scope. instead, mailman has utilised her celebrity status to create a powerful public persona which she uses to enact change, speak about socio-political issues, and make a positive difference in her social environment. conclusion mailman’s costume as an object and its framing narratives problematise the archive by generating its own shakespearean persona which mailman herself has not sought to pursue or promote in more recent times. studying archived celebrity costume in this way suggests new and important paths for persona studies. mailman’s costume highlights the complexities of persona studies in relation to ethnicity and the archive, and its position and framing within the archival context reveals that, paradoxically, it incorporates both erasures and transgressions. works cited arts centre melbourne 2018, australian performing arts collection, retrieved 26 march 2019, <https://collections.artscentremelbourne.com.au/> barbieri, d. 2013, 'performativity and the historical body: detecting performance through the archived costume', studies in theatre and performance, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 281-301. carlson, m. 2003, the haunted stage: the theatre as memory machine, university of michigan press, ann arbor. corrin, l. g. 2017 [1994], 'mining the museum: artists look at museums, museums look at themselves', in b. m. carbonell (ed.), museum studies: an anthology of contexts, blackwell publishing, oxford, pp. 381-402. deetz, j. 2017 [1980], 'a sense of another world: history museums and cultural change', in b. m. carbonell (ed.), museum studies: an anthology of contexts, blackwell publishing, oxford, pp. 375-380. about:blank collett 96 farrell, c. 2017, barrie kosky’s theatre of post-tragic affects, phd thesis university of new south wales. fensham, r. 2009, to watch theatre: essays on genre and corporeality, peter lang, brussels. fisher, p. 2017 [1991], 'art and the future's past', in b. m. carbonell (ed.), museum studies: an anthology of contexts, blackwell publishing, oxford, pp. 436-454. fowler, c. 2010, 'from identity and material culture to personhood and materiality', in d. hicks & m. c. beaudry (eds), the oxford handbook of material culture studies, oxford university press, oxford, pp. 352-385. fowler, s. 2017, 'inappropriate expectations', in d. thomas et al. (eds), the silence of the archive, facet publishing, london, pp. 41-64. herbert, k. 1998, 'king lear, bell shakespeare, barrie kosky', the australian, 2 september, retrieved 26 march 2019 <http://kateherberttheatrereviews.blogspot.com/2015/12/king-lear-bell-shakespearebarrie-kosky.html> hooper-greenhill, e. 2000, 'changing values in the art museum: rethinking communication and learning', in b. m. carbonell (ed.), museum studies: an anthology of contexts, blackwell publishing, oxford, pp. 556-565. isaac, v. 2017, 'towards a new methodology for working with historic theatre costume: a biographical approach focussing on ellen terry's "beetlewing dress"', studies in costume & performance, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 115-135. johnson, v. 2017a, 'dealing with the silence', in d. thomas et al. (eds), the silence in the archive, facet publishing, london, pp. 101-116. —2017b, 'solutions to the silence', in d. thomas et al. (eds), the silence of the archive, facet publishing, london, pp. 141-162. kavanagh, g. 2017 [1987], ‘melodrama, pantomime or portrayal? representing ourselves and the british past through exhibitions in history museums’, in b. m. carbonell (ed.), museum studies: an anthology of contexts, blackwell publishing, oxford, pp. 244-249. kelly, p. 2005, 'performing australian identity: gendering "king lear"', theatre journal, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 205-227. leone, m. p. & little, b. j. 2017 [1993], 'artifacts as expressions of society and culture: subversive genealogy and the value of history', in b. m. carbonell (ed.), museum studies: an anthology of contexts, blackwell publishing, oxford, pp. 362-374. luckhurst, m. & morin, e. 2014, theatre and ghosts: materiality, performance and modernity, palgrave macmillan uk, london. marshall, p. d. 2013, 'persona studies: mapping the proliferation of the public self', journalism, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 153-170. marshall, p. d. & barbour, k. 2015, 'making intellectual room for persona studies: a new consciousness and a shifted perspective', persona studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-12. marshall, p. d. et al. 2015, 'persona as method: exploring celebrity and the public self through persona studies', celebrity studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 288-305. piper, m. 2015, 'louie, louis: the fictional, stage, and auteur personas of louis c. k. in "louie"', persona studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 13-24. purcell, l. 2002, black chicks talking, hodder headline australia, sydney. screen australia 2019, 'deborah mailman am appointed to screen australia board', 27 march, retrieved 14 april 2019 https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/mediacentre/news/2019/03-27-deborah-mailman-am-appointed-to-board smith, k. & hannan, l. 2017, 'return and repetition: methods for material culture studies', journal of interdisciplinary history, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 43-59. thomas, d. et al. 2017, the silence of the archive, facet publishing, london. tynan, j. 2016, 'michel foucault: fashioning the body politic', in a. rocamora & a. smelik (eds), thinking through fashion: a guide to key theorists, i. b.tauris & co., london, pp. 184199. woodward, i. 2007, understanding material culture, sage, london. about:blank about:blank persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 97 illustrations fig. 1: production photograph of deborah mailman as cordelia in king lear, bell shakespeare company, 1998. photographer: jeff busby. courtesy of the australian performing arts collection, arts centre melbourne. fig. 2: robe (front) worn by deborah mailman as cordelia in king lear, designed by peter corrigan. courtesy of the australian performing arts collection, arts centre melbourne. fig. 3: robe (back) worn by deborah mailman as cordelia in king lear, designed by peter corrigan. courtesy of the australian performing arts collection, arts centre melbourne. yee 92 podcasting and personal brands: mapping a theoretical path from participatory empowerment to individual persona construction timothy yee abstract this research paper critically analyses the osher günsberg podcast to illustrate a theoretical disconnect between early participatory media theories and the contemporary practice of using the podcast to construct a networked branded persona. i trace the history of early theorisations of the medium, first regarded by leading scholars as a tool for user empowerment in the ‘participatory turn’ in media studies before examining how it is employed by conventional media personalities to establish transmedia personal brands; a particular phenomenon emerging at the forefront of a renewed interest in podcasting by traditional media stakeholders. i argue that this disconnect reveals a need for scholars who study the podcast to now draw on the emerging field of persona studies, which offers a range of new tools that will be useful in analysing the continued evolution of podcasting under its new market pressures and potentials. key words podcasting; participatory media; personal brands introduction – established players entering a new market in august, 2016, i attended the australian broadcasting corporation’s ozpod 2016, australia’s very first media industry conference exclusively dedicated to podcasting. the event explored “everything from audience acquisition and retention, approaches to measurement, new technologies, the rise of the podcast in traditional media, revenue opportunities and the art of storytelling” (abc 2016a) through a program of panel discussions and keynote presentations. this was an ambitious agenda for a one-day conference, but that so much was crammed into such a short period of time reflected the fact that podcasting had been paid far less attention than other new media formats such as blogging, social media or online video streaming. following in the wake of a rapid growth in podcasting worldwide, this business-focused schedule seemed understandable. the underlying implication was that there is much work to be done if podcasting was going to be taken seriously by the media industry, its advertisers and broader australian audiences. globally, the apple podcast app served up over 10 billion streaming plays in 2016 across 155 countries, up from 8 billion in 2014. according to the company’s podcast business manager james o. boggs, podcasting has three established business models: “ads and sponsorship, community support/donation and upsell,” each which are key for creative and financial success persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 93 (boggs 2017). third-party research commissioned by a group of prominent podcasting businesses including gimlet media and midroll media suggests that the “podcasting industry” is now on track to generate more than $659 million in annual revenue by 2020 in the usa alone (price waterhouse coopers 2018). in australia, initial research for ozpod 2016 showed there had been a 14 per cent net increase in podcast listening year on year, with 36 per cent of people listening to a greater variety of podcasts compared to the year before (abc 2016b). all of this development and excitement around the podcast hints at the fact that it is no longer adequate to consider the media format as just remediated radio or questionable-quality audio produced by amateurs existing in non-commercial environments (mchugh 2016, p. 7077). instead, podcasting is undergoing a maturing process that requires media scholars to more closely examine the podcast and its nuanced developing cultures. this research paper specifically investigates the way that australian media personalities use podcasting to add a sense of intimacy to their already-established personal brands, as a particular phenomenon emerging at the forefront of this new interest in podcasting as a serious media channel. to do this i offer a brief history of early theorisations of podcasting, first regarded by leading scholars as a tool for user empowerment in the ‘participatory turn’ (jenkins 2014, p. 271) in media studies. this is followed by an examination of how the involvement of traditional media brands such as this american life have altered the podcasting landscape, pushing professionally produced shows such as serial into the cultural mainstream. a critical analysis of popular australian podcast, the osher günsberg podcast, proceeds to illustrate how traditional media personalities are using the format to construct nuanced transmedia personal brands that straddle both participatory and commercial environments through the medium’s intimate affordances. i draw on the emerging field of persona studies to describe the nuances of this phenomenon which are not widely accounted for in existing podcast studies literature. in doing so it is argued that media scholars studying the podcast must move beyond popular ideas of collective user empowerment and draw on the range of new theories and tools that place persona construction at the centre of participatory media studies and practices. methodological approach to conduct this research, i have performed a close critical reading of a high profile australian podcast, the osher günsberg podcast. i created an archive of approximately eight hours of audio content with the selection of episodes i studied all published in the apple podcasts app within the previous 24 months at the time of listening. by performing a close critical reading i have been able to interpret these podcast episodes as cultural artefacts using a range of theories from discourses including participatory media studies, affect theory and persona studies to better understand how participatory media cultures are evolving. as mckee explains, “we interpret texts (films, television programmes, magazines, advertisements, clothes, graffiti, and so on) in order to try and obtain a sense of the ways in which, in particular cultures at particular times, people make sense of the world around them” (mckee 2003, p. 1). i listened to each podcast episode in line with glaser and straus’ inductive grounded theory approach, that is, an intensive rather than extensive research approach (harré 1979, p. 137) concerned with processes instead of patterns (sayer 1992, p. 242-244 cited in hesmondhalgh and baker 2010, p. 15). additionally, “glaser and straus (1967) argued that theories developed using their model will be understandable by practitioners, and will ‘work’ in real world settings” (oktay 2012, p. 5). yee 94 grassroots beginnings: a brief history of podcasting and its potentials on february 12, 2004, the guardian published an article titled ‘audible revolution’ written by ben hammersley, a british journalist, internet technologist, blogger and broadcaster. hammersley claimed that the increasing flow of communication between journalists and their readers, the decentralisation of networked distribution and the emergence of new business models for the online marketplace were leading the media landscape to a “boom in amateur radio”. this exciting medium was so new at the time that hammersely didn’t even have the adequate terminology to categorise what he was reporting at the intersection of ipods, cheap audio software and the rise of weblogs. “but what to call it? audioblogging? podcasting? guerillamedia?” he wrote (hammersley 2004). across broader networked environments other groundbreaking new media experiences were transpiring. that same year, mark zuckerberg made facebook available to students at harvard university; in 2005, the video sharing platform youtube was founded; in 2006, time magazine proclaimed “you” the person of the year; and in 2007, apple launched the first ever iphone. just one month after hammersley first used the term “podcasting” (berry 2006, p. 143, madsen 2009, p. 1192), henry jenkins published an article in the international journal of cultural studies that attempted to map such shifts in the media into “a theory of media convergence that allows us to identify major sites of tension and transition shaping the media environment for the coming decade” (jenkins 2004, p.33). clearly, both media practice and media theory were undergoing a period of incredible change. moreover, it appeared that the podcast was an important component of this movement, embodying a sense of empowerment experienced by new media users. early theorisations of podcasting comfortably placed the medium within what jenkins had previously referred to as ‘participatory culture’. these are cultures in which individuals feel encouraged to express and share ideas, where knowledge is transferred from experienced members to new members, contributions are seen to matter, social relationships are meaningful, and most individuals are able to participate due to low barriers of entry (jenkins et al. 2009). in jenkins’ ethnography of star trek fans, he adapted de certeau’s (1984) concepts of ‘poaching’ and ‘tactics’ to demonstrate how television fans could be understood to be active and empowered agents who made meaning through mediated communities and derivative work they were creating as ‘trekkers’ (jenkins, 1992). this work called on traditional media organisations to reconsider the idea that “all participation in the consumer economy constitutes cooptation” (jenkins 2004, p. 36). recasting fans as participants in the development of a media franchise instead of simply consumers set the groundwork for his theories on participation in a convergent media environment. he canvassed his perspectives in his article ‘the cultural logic of media convergence’ (2004), and then expanded these theories in convergence culture: where old and new media collide (2006a) and fans, bloggers, and gamers: exploring participatory culture (2006b). a key pillar of this effort to extend the conclusions in textual poachers (jenkins 1992) was the work of pierre lévy (1997), which provided an explanation of how empowering practices of participatory fandom could evolve alongside networked technologies. lévy’s idea of ‘collective intelligence’ articulated jenkins’ theory that media fans were increasingly empowered by the rise of digital networks and as a result were able to access knowledge and power that far exceeded their own individual limitations. speaking on lévy’s concept jenkins says, “and this organization of audiences into what lévy calls knowledge communities allows them to exert a greater aggregate power in their negotiations with media producers” (jenkins 2006a, p. 27). persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 95 this signaled a ‘participatory turn’ in media studies (jenkins 2014, p. 271) which asserted that a new conceptualisation of the media consumer as participant occurred at the intersection of new technologies that enabled consumers to remix and recontextualise content, expanding cultures of do-it-yourself (diy) media production and economic trends that encouraged the flow of information across different platforms (jenkins, 2006b, p. 135-136). this thinking expanded the concepts of the ‘prosumer’ (toffler, 1980) and the ‘pro-am’ (leadbeater and miller 2004), themselves more recently contemporised by axel bruns’ idea of the ‘produser’ (bruns 2008). such cultures were open to willing contributors, which disrupted the established dichotomy between artist and audience, producer and consumer (jenkins 2006a). according to richard berry, podcasting is an example of this way of conceiving media producers and consumers. berry states, “what podcasting offers is a classic ‘horizontal’ media form: producers are consumers and consumers become producers and engage in conversations with each other” (berry 2006, p. 146). the medium was identified as an early expression of diy media in the digital era that allowed individuals to leverage the network to communicate with each other (meserko 2015a, p. 798) and establish important new social connections (mcclung and johnson 2010, p. 85). the podcast’s nascent popularity was spurred on by a rising culture of ‘music for free’ which emerged from the prevalence of peer-to-peer sharing platforms and the ascent of the apple ipod (menduni 2007, p. 9). at the time, the ipod was redefining how listeners ‘inhabited’ the spaces they moved through in the everyday, creating “privatised audio bubbles” in which they could control “thoughts, feelings and observations as they manage both space and time” (bull 2006, p. 344). the device’s technological ability to port a vast library of audio files far exceeded what was possible with precursory personal music players such as the sony walkman and discman, which relied on hardware. through its integration with the itunes software, the ipod enabled its owners to travel with a near limitless number of voices, songs and ideas, ready to be played at the click of a button. through this non-linear listening capability, podcasting contributed to a new form of freedom in which audiences could time-shift their listening and avoid the same homogenous programming and saturated advertising found on traditional radio. it celebrated the new possibilities of fragmented media consumption (crofts et al. 2005), aided by the medium’s incorporation into the itunes software in 2005 and later the introduction of a standalone apple ‘podcasts’ iphone app in 2015 (morris and patterson 2015, p. 223). but beyond illustrating new models of networked and mobile communication, podcasting was a tool of empowerment that placed the capabilities of media production into the hands of the non-professional audio producer. it enabled a type of “de-professionalised” (luders 2008 cited in bottomley 2015, p. 181) world-building that helped producers and consumers make sense of the hyper-mediated environments that increasingly surrounded them (macdougall 2011, p. 718). for the first time, networked audiences could seamlessly listen to unconventional perspectives brought into public forums by the audio recordings of amateur content creators. virginia madsen draws attention to the dawn and drew show! as an example of how early podcasting enabled audiences to connect with niche voices (madsen 2009, p. 1196). in 2004 dawn micelo and drew domkis started recording a podcast about “two exgutter punks who fall in love, buy a retired farm in wisconsin (then move to costa rica and back) and tell the world their dirty secrets” (micelo and domkis 2017). at the time, the hosts were reflective of a new wave of alternative voices in the networked media landscape that did not rely on endorsement from traditional gatekeepers. micelo commented on the success of their homegrown, self-produced amateur show in their 100th episode saying, “who’d have yee 96 thought anyone would listen?” “take this, big brother! i don’t need you. i don’t need your fucking contracts. i’ve got my own radio show!” (micelo as cited in madsen 2009, p. 1196). madsen says this is expressive of the early excitement that accompanied amateur podcasting and its ability to challenge traditional media and communication channels (ibid). what the podcast provided for dawn and drew and a raft of other early non-mediaprofessionals such as dan klass of the bitterest pill and mignon fogarty of grammar girl, was agency to independently connect with audiences. this kind of grassroots broadcasting posed a challenge for traditional media companies such as public broadcasters, which had long “promoted themselves as gatekeepers of quality content and journalistic integrity among the free-for-all babble of the internet” (murray 2009, p. 199). established media companies risked “brand dilution” as they navigated the bourgeoning days of the medium and its “interactive and participatory characteristics” (ibid.) the diy, user-generated podcast embodied the optimism and the potentials of participatory cultures in the early days of the web to redefine the media landscape beyond the influence of traditional media corporations. the podcast’s second coming: attention from big brands and big personalities despite the idealistic rhetoric of user empowerment marked by the participatory turn, columnist kevin roose wrote in new york magazine that sometime in 2009 or 2010, the hype surrounding the early days of podcasting seemed to wither. roose attributes a lack of content innovation as well as the rise of online music and video streaming as potential detractors, and claimed that only podcasting stalwarts such as this american life and radiolab (two remediated broadcast radio shows) remained prevalent in apple’s podcasting top charts. “download numbers fell. interest waned,” he reported (roose 2014). yet just five years later in 2014 an entirely different problem had emerged – “there [were] too many great podcasts to keep up with” (ibid., emphasis in original text). independent podcasting networks such as radiotopia had formed, podcasting production companies such as pineapple street media were founded, and a number of ad buying companies such as midroll media were making ground in monetising content at scale. consumers and producers alike heralded in a renewed podcasting boom. roose speculated that an increase in audience awareness, higher quality production values, and the integration of smart phones into new cars were three significant factors contributing to this podcasting renaissance. richard berry identifies the podcast serial as a landmark that encapsulates this second coming. serial’s first season was released in 2014 and followed the 1999 true crime murder story of high-school student hae min lee. each week a new episode was delivered by rss feed to subscribers as per the standard protocol for podcast distribution. however, unlike any other podcast that came before it, serial achieved record-breaking success. it became the fastest podcast to reach five million downloads (dredge 2014), it was still being downloaded 500,000 times per day months after its initial release (kohjer 2015 cited in berry 2015, p. 171), and it was the first podcast to attract an off-season ad campaign (blattberg 2015), meaning that marketers were willing to pay to retro fit their advertisements into the show to capitalise on any downloads thereafter. it also spawned a number of podcasts about the show, a practice not common at the time (ibid.). in addition to the technological convergences roose wrote of, berry attributes serial’s success to its association with the “well-known, much loved and highly respected brand” this american life (tal). he unpacks how a new media brand forged by a traditional broadcast powerhouse gained traction in an environment that was originally celebrated by scholars and persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 97 amateurs for its ability to subvert such media hierarchies. berry notes that serial was a spin-off of tal with co-producer and host sarah koenig having worked on the former radio show for a number of years before starting her own podcast; tal’s anchor host ira glass is himself a wellregarded and highly visible media personality, who also appeared on popular television show the tonight show with jimmy fallon to promote serial, including airing an instructional video telling viewers how to listen to serial; and glass also presented a preview of serial via the tal rss feed (berry, 2015). through all of this promotion, a serial trailer had already reached the top spot on the apple podcast charts before the first episode’s release. furthermore, berry’s research discovered that more than half of survey respondents said that they were listeners of tal before they listened to serial (berry 2015, p. 174). it was a show that was entering a market that had been primed by the success of highly produced independent shows such as 99% invisible (ibid.), but it had the cultural clout and marketing channels of one of american public radio’s biggest entities. in other words, the podcast’s renaissance and its entry into the pop-cultural zeitgeist wasn’t only caused by the participatory potentials of new media exemplified by the efforts of amateur content creators such as dawn and drew, but also due to the profile of professional media brands such as this american life. the role that traditional media brands have played in the rise of podcasting is an important consideration for scholars studying how media participants use the podcast in the contemporary moment. since 2014 many traditional media personalities have created their own podcasts, banking on their traditional media celebrity status similar to the way serial leveraged the brand capital of tal. in australia, a selection of recognisable media stars from radio, television and print media have started their own independent podcasts. for example, the abc’s leigh sales and annabel crabb host chat 10 looks 3, a show offering insights into their lives as television hosts, journalists, mothers and friends; triple j radio alumnus tom ballard hosts like i’m a six-year-old, an interview show featuring young political and social activists; former cosmopolitan editor and founder of the mamamia women’s network mia freedman hosts a talk show called no filter; and standup comedian wil anderson produces, hosts and cohosts a variety of shows about philosophy, sport and pop culture. the turn to personal broadcasting by these media personalities reflects a shift in the rhetorical dimensions of podcasting; it’s no longer exclusively the side hobby of diy pundits, scifi fans or bedroom producers. it’s now an important content channel for serious players in the australian media landscape. to illustrate the emerging dynamic between this new culture of podcasting and traditional media brands i have performed a close critical reading of one of australia’s most popular shows, the osher günsberg podcast (togp). observing how wellknown media personalities use podcasting to reveal intimate aspects of themselves places the medium within the context of the contemporary practice of transmedia personal branding. participating to construct an intimate personal brand: reading the osher günsberg podcast despite a successful career in commercial australian media that has spanned more than a decade and canvased stints in radio, television and live performance, osher günsberg hosts an independent podcast self-described in the apple podcasts app as “a weekly conversation with someone remarkable that will leave you truly inspired.” by some measures, it is an australian podcasting success story that celebrates what is possible when individuals invest in participatory media formats. it has an international audience of listeners (as comments in apple itunes reveal), over 800 mostly favourable reviews on the apple podcasts app, is, at the time of writing, ranked 17th in the corresponding comedy top charts, has a 5-star apple listener rating, yee 98 and boasts an archive of more than 170 past episodes recorded over more than four years. günsberg states he produces the podcast in his spare room using off-the-shelf consumer technology (please support the podcast x 2016) allowing him to deliver content with ease (tulley 2011, p. 268), free from the limitations of traditional radio (fauteux 2015, p. 203). günsberg alludes to his ability to connect with audiences and build an online community premised on developing a meaningful relationship with his listeners saying, “this show makes my week and i know from the emails that i get every single week that a lot of people enjoy it” (please support the podcast x 2016). günsberg’s podcast is notably different to his show business work elsewhere where he is known for hosting popular reality television shows such as australian idol, the bachelor, bondi rescue and so you think you can dance (us). on tv screens his personality is confined by well-worn formats of novelty challenges, confession cams and contestant eliminations. the podcast, however, holds potentials in its intimate medium affordances which make it more conventional to talk about more personal anecdotes, perhaps unexpected of a high-profile media personality. in this way togp can be immediately seen to operate within the transmedia personal brand of osher günsberg. this personal brand also consists of his roles as the host of primetime television shows and as co-host of the stav, abby & osher show on hit105 brisbane. in convergence culture: where old and new media collide (2006a), jenkins outlines this kind of matrix with the concept of transmedia storytelling as a marketing strategy for brands. it is a storytelling technique that stems from the japanese marketing strategy known as ‘media mix’ and refers to “a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience” (jenkins 2007). he confirms the potential of transmedia brands saying, “close collaboration between program producers, brand gurus, and new media companies suggests rapid growth of industry interest in transmedia entertainment over just a few short years” (jenkins 2006a, p. 125). though jenkins is referring to massive fiction story world franchises such as the matrix, elements of this framework appear prevalent in günsberg’s media participation, too. as a podcast host, television presenter and radio personality günsberg is at an epicentre of australia’s creative industries and exposed to those same producers, brand marketers and media companies that converge in transmedia storytelling. comparably, where jenkins says transmedia stories reveal different dimensions across different channels, günsberg is revealing different parts of his personality across different discourses. the outcome of participating in both commercial and self-produced media in this fashion is increased listener self-brand connection, which generates social and commercial authority (granitz and forman, 2015: 44). the crosspollination of the personal and professional is clear in a podcast episode where günsberg asks listeners to tune-in to the 2016 season premiere of the bachelor, which is “less than 72 hours away” (ep 143: socratis otto 2016). he calls on his podcast listeners to watch because the tv show’s stakeholders are “looking for a big opening,” referring presumably to high numbers in audience viewership and ratings. the outcome of günsberg positioning himself as an accessible yet layered media personality is what jenkins refers to as transmedia engagement (jenkins, ford & green 2013, p. 132). transmedia engagement is concerned with prolonging interactions between media participant and media stimulus for a deeper, richer experience, (ibid., p. 137). in the case of osher günsberg, audiences can discover the dynamics of his personal brand on their morning commute via his radio show, during their lunch break via the television and in bed before going persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 99 to sleep via his podcast. the result is a nuanced personal brand that feels familiar to large populations across multiple settings, increasing the personality’s exposure, status and social capital. it is a formula that works because the host benefits from having an existing audience. within this matrix of media formats, the podcast operates as a contrast to other mediums, giving listeners a behind-the-scenes and seemingly intimate look into the host’s personal life. meserko explains that positioning oneself between traditional and new media broadcasting technology is a strategic response to the increasing preoccupation that audiences have with ‘technologies of self-fashioning,’ (johnson 2008, p. 32 in meserko 2014, p. 458). these podcasts are examples of “overt commitment to self-improvement and self-fashioning […] such podcasts are lessening the distance between celebrities and their fans through discourses of therapy, self-improvement, and intense indulgences of feeling” (ibid., p. 458). this can become an important routine practice for both podcaster and audience as kris markman notes that interpersonal connections are one of the main motivators for podcasters to continue podcasting. markman says, “listener emails, submissions, discussion fora, and phone calls (via voicemail playback) were used regularly, and the feedback podcasters received from these channels helped sustain their interest” (markman 2011, p. 557). that is, the more of their personal life a podcaster is seen to reveal to their audience, the stronger that bond can become, and therefore, the more resonant the overarching transmedia persona may be. this is a common conceit in the podcasting landscape as meserko’s research on the immensely successful us comedy podcast wtf with marc maron reveals. meserko investigates how wtf’s perceived authenticity – of its host comedian marc maron and his guests (having previously included former us president barack obama) – has contributed to the show’s success. meserko claims, “there is a perception that maron’s podcast allows him a space to be more real and reveal a more ‘authentic’ version of himself” (meserko 2015b, p. 797). he adds that the podcast’s affordances enable first-person accounts to explain away controversy, participate in communal reflection and provide a more authentic presentation of oneself (ibid., p. 808). furthermore, consider the closeness of the human voice as it penetrates a listener’s private sound-world (madsen and potts 2010, p. 43), the mobility of human connection made possible by devices such as the iphone (crawford 2012, p. 214) and the practice of ‘background listening’ that is “critical to the sense of intimacy generated in these spaces; ongoing contact with the minutiae of a person’s life” (crawford 2009 cited in crawford 2012, p. 68). siobhan mchugh notes that audio media can impact its creators and listeners in intense ways that draw on the ‘affective power of sound’ (mchugh 2012). mchugh locates the power of affect in audio in the emotional tenderness portrayed by the human voice. in a study on radio documentaries, she noted that “when an informant narrates an experience in an affecting way (i.e., with palpable emotion), listeners will register the emotion through the prism of their own lived experiences; we can infer that this personalization will confer added impact” (mchugh 2012, p. 195). the human voice can be used to emote empathy in listeners and place them in an intimate mediated relationship with the storyteller. for the podcast, the ‘inbetween-ness’ of affect (gregg & seigworth 2010, p. 1) is constructed not just in moments of “affective auditory elements such as ambient sound and music” (mchugh 2012 p. 198), but also through additional medium affordances. in their analyses of the love + radio and the heart podcasts, spinelli and dann (2019) argue that the use of earbuds to listen to podcasts re-embody the networked voice when placed in contact with the listener, literally inside the body in most cases. while historically scholars have considered earbuds as tools to keep noise out by creating private sound bubbles, this emphasis highlights what they let in. earbuds “allow for hyper-intimacy” that channel another yee 100 human’s voice directly into your mental space, “present inside you” (spinelli & dann 2019 p. 84). in their fieldwork the researchers found that podcast hosts were sometimes aware of this physicality, and considered how tone, granularity and microphone proximity may be delivered within this context. they further suggest that this format intimacy – the “native podcasting approach” (ibid. p. 87) – allows for podcasters to put various storytelling techniques to work in order to create empathy between podcast host, subject and listener. “[p]roducers brought about empathy very often through identity formation narratives, through a human seeking for belonging or searches for relationships that deliver a meaning or insight” (ibid. p. 87). günsberg can be seen employing these native podcasting self-help narrative tropes in episode 143 when discussing his mental health: i hope your week was good, i had some tough days this week. i’m not going to lie. it was difficult for a couple of days there. yep, it was tough. it was tough on [günsberg’s fiancé] because she was worried about what was happening with me and i just had to explain: this is all it is, it’s just a thing that plays in my brain. it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be thanks to the new meds, which are nice. but it’s still there and it’s always going to be there and i just have to get better and better at learning how to rationalise it and figure it all out. so, yeah, i did have some tough days this week… (ep 143: socratis otto 2016) delivered physically via earbuds, in a tempered tone and without any novel sound track or effects, this snippet reflects the intense intimacy channeled into the medium. through his podcast, günsberg leverages these affordances, simultaneously contrasting and complementing his involvement in traditional media franchises, to champion a personal brand, premised on broadcasting ‘real conversations between real people’. this ‘realness’ may or may not be performed, but it doesn’t mean it is not perceived as authentic. while in other participatory media cultures, such as mp3 blogging, authenticity is perceived in part by distance from commercialisation (borschke 2014), the podcast’s native affordances and diy history seem to assist even those from highly commercialised backgrounds in a kind of redemption; an opportunity to ‘truly be themselves’ despite whatever association with programming on corporate media networks they may have. this kind of affective, open, tell-all content is an example of the show’s tagline in action: “authenticity is the new black. come and join us.” the phenomenon of traditional media personalities turning to the podcast to add depth and nuance to their existing personal brands through mediated authenticity and intimacy requires an advancing of the podcasting literature canon. while early participatory media theories from jenkins et al. are useful to make sense of podcasting at the turn of the millennium, this study of the osher günsberg podcast demonstrates its inadequacies in describing more contemporary trends. what the emergence of transmedia brands in this space tells media scholars is that – alongside building collective intelligence and creating grassroots fan communities – the construction of multifaceted persona is now a central tenet of participatory media cultures. for this, researchers studying podcasting may benefit from turning to the emerging field of persona studies. potentials in persona studies in david marshall’s work on persona he builds on early theorisations of the concept in psychoanalysis and philosophy, following on from the work of key scholars such as jung, goffman, butler and foucault (barbour, marshall & moore 2014, p. 2). marshall describes persona as the strategic construction of forms of public identity and states that the concept is “not about the real ‘self’, but it [has] indices that link the individual to the persona” (marshall persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 101 2016, p. 1). key to persona studies is exploring the construction of persona through participatory media use. marshall proposes that creating a public persona is a task that is now increasingly common for greater and greater parts of the population (marshall 2014, p. 154). marshall has also identified the movement from a primarily representational media environment to a primarily presentational media environment (marshall [1997] 2014, p. xxxiixxxvi cited in marshall 2015, p. 126). representational media consists of “books, newspapers, magazines, film, radio and television” and has been considered dominant over the past two centuries. they are representational in that through “stories, narratives, and images, these media forms attempt to embody a populace” and represent a culture (marshall 2014, p. 160). presentational media, by contrast, is media that is “performed, produced and exhibited by the individual” outside of the representational media structure (ibid.). as participatory media technologies become more and more a part of everyday life, so too does the act of constructing personas (marshall 2015, p. 124). clearly, scholars in both participatory media studies and persona studies are concerned with the acts of cultural production occurring at the hands of participatory media users (barbour, marshall & moore 2014; marshall 2015; marshall and barbour 2015; marshall 2016). however, the persona studies perspective is interested in the idea that these acts of production involve constructing networked identities, each akin to wearing a different kind of mask. studying participation through the lens of persona is to acknowledge that identity construction is part of participation in networked environments and vice versa. barbour et al. cite hannah arendt’s reading of persona in ancient greece to note that “this mask of public identity was not seen in a derogatory way; rather it was natural to assume a public/political persona that was quite removed from the private and home sphere” (arendt 1958 cited in barbour, marshall & moore 2014, p. 2). in other words, there was an expectation that individuals perform different personas in different settings. persona studies places emphasis on the individual’s inherent task of constructing identity through participation, considering it as an outcome alongside the emancipatory potentials of participatory cultures. it theoretically allows for the possibility of one individual having multiple personas, consisting of multiple dimensions (moore, barbour & lee 2017), which arguably better describes participatory media use in networked settings. traditional media personalities may use podcasting to create communities, build bodies of collective intelligence and democratise the media landscape, but also because it allows them to grow their transmedia personal brands. this position thus recasts individual participation as an important economic task as well as a potentially social, cultural and political pursuit. participation can therefore lead to the empowering potentials that jenkins wrote of, but also feed into the commercial logics of traditional media hierarchies. as such, persona studies reveals concepts that can be used to insightfully describe the contemporary use of the podcast with nuances not currently considered in podcasting literature. kim barbour has observed how variations in the performance of persona exist more broadly in networked environments. in her research on persona construction of street artists, tattooists, craftivists and performance poets, barbour identified three registers of persona performance – professional, personal and intimate (barbour 2015). the practicing of these various registers by individual artists revealed a process of selective self-presentation and the “capacity for agency in persona creation” (ibid., p. 59). persona registers enabled the subjects to retain some form of agency in experiences of tension that barbour categorised as: strategy/happenstance, specialisation/diversification, visibility/self-protection, self/collective and work/play (ibid., p. 61). for example, some of barbour’s subjects employed a professional yee 102 persona register to engage in networked environments where visibility and self-protection were at odds. this involved revealing only certain aspects of their personalities online, which was effective in distancing the artists from their work where a degree of anonymity was needed – critical for street artists whose work is oftentimes deemed illegal (ibid., p. 62). barbour further observed, “the personal register of performance extends the artist’s persona past that of artistness, and gives their audience of fans and followers insight into the personality and values of the person behind the work” (ibid., p. 64). additionally, artists observed employing an intimate register of persona did so to discuss life matters and moments not linked to their art practices, such as giving birth and taking drugs (ibid., p. 67). barbour’s typology provides media scholars with a lexicon to understand nuanced performance of persona across both traditional and diy media networks, but also how these personal brands are constructed within single podcast episodes. it proposes that networked individuals have the ability to create discrete boundaries between these registers by strategically performing personas, but also offers clarity as to how these performances may operate in tandem. when applied to the osher günsberg podcast barbour’s concept creates clarity for scholars but also for listeners, viewers and readers potentially helping them to identify what persona register is being employed and importantly, to ask why and to what effect. these ideas from persona studies are not comprehensively considered in podcasting discourse within media studies. standing literature predominantly subscribes to the rhetoric of participatory empowerment that stemmed from early media theories associated with web 2.0 technologies. a persona studies approach has the potential to bring theories of strategic selfpresentation into conversation with these new media canons that now appear unable to adequately describe contemporary phenomena such as the trend of branded media personalities creating their own podcast shows. importantly, a focus on the imperative to create a networked persona with professional, personal and intimate registers draws academic research into closer contact with commercial agendas being explored by high profile conferences like the abc’s ozpod event and will allow scholars to further explore exactly how an individual’s brand is used to navigate a changing media landscape. acknowledgements thank you to dr margie borschke in the department of media, music, communication and cultural studies at macquarie university for her mentorship and supervision during the writing of this research paper. works cited abc 2016a, ozpod 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https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018_iab_podcast_ad_rev_study_vfinal.pdf https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018_iab_podcast_ad_rev_study_vfinal.pdf http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/whats-behind-the-great-podcast-renaissance.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/whats-behind-the-great-podcast-renaissance.html timothy yee abstract key words introduction – established players entering a new market methodological approach grassroots beginnings: a brief history of podcasting and its potentials the podcast’s second coming: attention from big brands and big personalities participating to construct an intimate personal brand: reading the osher günsberg podcast potentials in persona studies acknowledgements works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 56 persona as key component in (cultural) person branding nich olas qyll i n d e p e n d e n t s c h o l a r abstract this article examines the elements and processes involved in the visual construction of person brands, and their personas as key components of those brands, in pursuit of the research question: what pictorial design strategies make person brands succeed? key findings of the empirical investigation of the iconic artist brand madonna allow a focus on madonna’s image and her fans’ co-creative image practice through a visual frame analysis and cultural reading of her selfbrand. madonna has created a complex ‘worldview world’ that is governed by a metanarrative and feeds on the diverse acts of referencing cultural image icons. at the same time, central strategies of her image representations are reflected in the fan artefacts investigated. this article thus focuses not only on the role of the visual in person branding and in a modern-day visual brand culture. it also considers the place and form of such cultural person branding within the persona studies field. key words cultural person branding; persona; visual representation; madonna; prosumer culture; fanart introduction: cultural person branding brands are pervasive phenomena of our time (kornberger 2010; lury 2004; marshall 2017; moor 2007) that comprise not just companies, products and services, but increasingly persons. the broadening of the brand concept is promoted by challenging conditions of perception when an image-dominated information society seems to say “esse est percipi”: you can’t stand out from the crowd unless you show yourself. this visibility requirement emphatically calls for construction of a public persona (marshall 2015, p. 115). effective self-presentations thus occupy a central position in the struggle for attention. this struggle is particularly dominant in the “personality market” (nessmann 2005, p. 20) of media. in competition with established protagonists such as stars, celebrities, and fictional characters (who accumulate often vast amounts of attention capital), social media influencers and people stylized as so-called “microcelebrities” (senft 2008, p. 25; 2013) have energetically vied for the attention and consumption of an ever-growing audience. today, the ability to transfix holds promise for cultural, social, and economic power. in spite of all the cultural diversity arising from a global expansion in and accessibility of information through the media, we can still see homogenisation in visual representations of identity. often implicit in their effects and oriented around predominantly western ideals, these trends towards visibilisation favour a normopathy of stylisation. the personality market is increasingly flooded with competing offers from which one must stand out. resounding and sustained success promises not simply short-term direction of attention but rather a goal-oriented and permanent management of meaning that can engage targeted consumers in the long term and assert itself against competing offers, including other personas. qyll 57 a “person brand” represents a specific variant of the general brand construct, the reference object of which is a person as a strategically acting “dominant force” (cohen 2014, p. 2). celebrities and stars are usually viewed as person brands, as are “[...] any well-known persona who is the subject to marketing communication efforts” (thomson 2006, p. 104). they enlist public representations and fame for the professional marketing of their services and products: grasping the person as a brand means enlisting the extensive knowledge of modern brand management to make persons known, building up the unique mental concept (image) of his or her achievements in the heads of fans, broadcasters and the press, and shaping this in the long term. (herbst 2003, p. 9, transl. by author) some person brands attain the status of a cult object within a cultural community. these iconic brands are viewed as bearers of collective values and mythical stories, but also of the fears and longings of members of a particular group. they are also of high symbolic significance (holt 2004). pictorial codes render these brand icons ‘instantly recognizable’ to a cultural community (hollis 2011). the field of cultural branding describes and investigates the conditions under which, and the measures with which, brand icons such as these (typically firms and products) can be created. but to date, few scientific studies have examined person brands from a culturalist point of view (see, for example, street 2004; hearn 2008; schroeder 2010; kerrigan et al. 2011; oray 2012; lieb 2013; eagar & lindridge 2014, 2015; hackley & hackley 2015, 2017). consequently, the investigation of iconic person brands is still in the early stages of a scientific direction that is described here as ‘cultural person branding’. against the backdrop of an economy of cultural meaning, this article uses the example of iconic pop artist madonna to examine the strategies and design tools that underlie the communication of her public image. the persona as published image figure the persona plays a key role in developing and communicating the brand image of a person brand. as an outwardly oriented presentation of the self (marshall 2016), the historical origin of the concept of the persona already emphasises that side of an individual that is intended to be noticed by a social or media public. hence, it is not the real person behind the person brand that lends the product or service offer its intrinsic value and distinctiveness but rather the persona image that emerges via public and private presentations, both onand off-stage and in the real and virtual worlds (off-/online). in principle, the structure of a “brand persona” (herskovitz & crystal 2010; dion & arnould 2016) is subject to even narrower strategic requirements in an effort to achieve desired ascriptions of meaning and (attention) economy effects. given the curtailment of the natural multifaceted nature of the personality, the presentation compulsion that this implies can create a tense relationship between a real person, on the one hand, and their persona, on the other (shepherd 2005, p. 596). unlike a product brand, the human being as brand is complex. as behaviour is highly variable, it is difficult to manage through day-to-day shifts in mood and the workings of the subconscious (rein et al. 1987, p. 151; bendisch et al. 2007, p. 12; fournier & eckhardt 2018). this tension poses a considerable challenge for strategic brand management, not unlike the media staging of the complex construct of the persona. within the context of the management of visual meaning, it is one of the key objects for the brand image of a person brand (qyll 2019). in brand communication, the persona as published image figure, the marking elements (like logo, typography, colours, graphical forms, key visuals) and the product representations (comprising not just physical goods but also, for example, performances of a person brand) are used in isolation or in combination (fig. 1). meaning is managed not just by the brand owner, but by the person brand and the team around persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 58 it. in media contexts, external media stakeholders such as journalists, critics, and fans also participate in a brand’s impact and dissemination. figure 1: systematisation of the central brand-image objects of a person brand as in the case of real-world presentations of self, the basic principle of framing is also involved in managing the meaning of a person brand in mediatised settings. information is used selectively in the effort to evoke a desired impression whilst simultaneously avoiding undesired and for the most part negative impressions (goffman 1956, p. 69). moreover, even though they may be satisfied with a particular brand, consumers seek variety and are curious about other brands (“variety seeking”). brands must constantly stage-manage themselves, if only to counteract a certain demystification and devaluation. through brand enrichment – communicative linkage with strategically selected entities – a brand can be enhanced or further developed in terms of attention and the constitution of meaning (keller 2013, p. 261). the “match-up hypothesis” calls for attention to the compatibility of the properties, as their credibility and transfer performance increase with the closeness of fit. in terms of collective effectiveness, image-based communication of a person brand in the context of its positioning can draw on established topics such as religious parables, myths, symbols and archetypes (herskovitz & crystal 2010, p. 21; mark & pearson 2001). where the topics of imagery are concerned, this communication can also follow, oppose or induce discourses in social media (e.g. projects for social responsibility). the elements suitable for this purpose include visual representations of persons (competitors, collaborators, endorsers, et al.), places (country of origin, channels, etc.), objects (events, causes, etc.) or other brands (cobranding, etc.). displays that feature successful contemporaries – the element of “basking in reflected glory” (cialdini & richardson 1980, p. 406) – or that avoid unpopular persons – the “cutting of reflected failure” (snyder et al. 1986) – are also means of upgrading personas. when selecting image themes, it is crucial for a persona not to move too far away from the actual core of meaning of his or her own person brand (herbst 2005). particularly in times of fragmented media interfaces, a central task of media identity and branding is to make strategic use of storytelling. as a substantive and formal element of integration, the persona ensures not only continuity in cross-media brand communication (herskovitz & crystal 2010, p. 21), but also variety. the persona can even gain new means of expression (“characters”) through variability (auslander 2004, p. 7). a persona’s image-based topical references can be quite diverse, as can the spectrum of image styles employed. along with the visual appearance of the persona as determined by body, hairstyle, clothing and so on, this also comprises the factors involved in a media display of image. photographic images are associated with a reality effect that offers the qyll 59 beholder a seeming proximity to reality (sachsse 2003, p. 177). other modes of presentation, such as animation, 3d renderings, etc., may be regarded as phenomena that deviate from the photorealistic standard (eder 2008, p. 382). these representational styles also remain effective by fostering a parasocial brand relationship with the recipients. in sum, the brand persona as understood here is a manifest, symbolic image construct designed for effect, dynamically existing or arising in the field of tension of continuous production and reception by media audiences. it is initially determined by a reduction of information within the scope of strategic brand identity, on the one hand, and the media transformation of the real person, on the other. as a figure in a highly dynamic and published image, however, the persona gains media complexity over time. with thematic references created through images, and presentations through image styling, collective brand meanings are ascribed to the persona in continuous interaction with and among various stakeholders, particularly in the sphere of action and interaction found online. research approach cultural branding views brand management from a culturalist perspective (holt 2004). the approach calls for a deeper understanding and a detailed analysis of the social and cultural brand environment. it is considered successful if, through strategic storytelling (myth-making), a product or corporate brand develops into a cultural icon within a particular community. building on this newer brand paradigm, the specific approach of cultural person branding (cpb) pursued here broaches the specific principles, patterns, and processes that specify the (visual) construction of meaning of an iconic personal brand from different stakeholder perspectives in the sociocultural environment. within the scope of qualitative case study research, the pop artist madonna was selected for this purpose. madonna may be a much-investigated phenomenon of pop culture, but this case study differs from existing studies in that the research question and the focus of the analysis involves holistic consideration of the construction of her visual identity as a prototypical example of a successful cultural person brand. within the framework of the overall investigation plan of the individual case analysis (mayring 2002), its empirical consideration involves a separate, three-part analytical structure that has proven expedient in the research process: in the first step, central types of action of her brand persona are reconstructed from data-based contextual information about madonna drawn from the observation period of 1958–2018.1 in the second step of the case study, brand images and their semantic offers were analysed from the standpoint not only of madonna the person brand but also of prosumers, particularly fans and artists. the case-specific image material compiled for this purpose, which can be assigned to the period 1983–2018, was reviewed for significant elements, coded and frame-analytically interpreted.2 the image analysis identified a comprehensive set of central presentation strategies with regard to the design processes in the case of madonna. a qualitative sample of n = 419 pieces of user-generated content (ugc) was collected through an extensive google and instagram search in an effort to analyse the fan artefacts based on visual superimposition. the fan-art sample revealed central interpretative patterns and pictorial practices that prosumers use to visually interpret madonna as brand persona. in the third step, more general patterns and processes of madonna’s dynamic and complex brand presentation – i refer to this as the ‘worldview world’– were reconstructed by means of case reflection, transcending the results of image analysis. these constructive patterns and processes include the ‘principle of cultural transformation’ as effects-oriented management of resources, and a ‘metanarrative’ that ensures the coherence of the communicative content. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 60 case study: madonna part of the reason i’m successful is because i’m a good businesswoman, but i don’t think it is necessary for people to know that. (madonna, cited in morton 2001, p. 17) madonna is fascinating in many respects. even though she is not one of the best singers or songwriters in her field, for nearly four decades she has managed to remain a relevant and influential figure in the pop music industry. behind this success and the marketing machinery involved, lies an ambitious woman who has woven business acumen, assertiveness, and perfectionism together with a strategic career approach that is characterised by continuous repositioning of her persona. this relates to musical products, effective transgressions of the bounds of moral taste and gender expectations, and cultural appropriation. through this approach, she manages to strike a balance between art and commerce, social controversy and mass marketability. she describes this balancing act, which is strongly reminiscent of the ideology behind the work of pop artist andy warhol, in an interview with holden (1989): what i do is total commercialism, but it’s also art, […] i like the challenge of doing both, of somehow making art that is accessible and making commerce something artistic. i think i have a very healthy point of view about myself […]. the case study reconstructs four key types of action by her persona that constitute the basic structure of the brand persona of madonna: the artist persona, the entrepreneur persona, the philanthropist persona and the private persona. these subtypes of persona and their further breakdown into more specific roles are illustrated in figure 2 and briefly described below. the persona subtype of the artist persona comprises madonna’s multi-layered, multimedia, performative, and conceptual activities. appearing on larry king live (1999), she herself described: “i think of myself as a performance artist, i hate being called a pop star”. the roles manifested by this persona subtype include the ‘performance artist’ (e.g. singer, actress, model), ‘producer’ (e.g. i am because we are, 2008), ‘director’ (e.g. secretprojectrevolution, 2013) and ‘journalist’ (e.g. the english roses, 2003). the activity type of the entrepreneur persona comes to the fore particularly when madonna acts as a businesswoman and marketer of her products, and of herself, whether in a media or business setting, as a ‘self-promoter’ (e.g. in bed with madonna, 1991), ‘shareholder’ (e.g. boy toy inc., 1992), ‘testimonial’ (e.g. mitsubishi commercial, 1986) and ‘co-brand’ (e.g. mdg glasses with dolce & gabbana, 2010). for madonna, the assumption of social responsibility known in the corporate context as corporate social responsibility (csr) is evident at the outset of her career. based on a politically liberal ethos, she has fought primarily for environmental protection, equal rights for women, educational equality, artistic freedom, in the peace movement, and for aids education, and she has repeatedly voiced her opposition to racism, homophobia, sexism, and ageism. the persona subtype of the philanthropist persona emerges when her social activities occur as part of organized projects in which she plays concrete roles including those of the ‘sponsor’ (e.g. the mercy james institute, 2017), the ‘activist’ (e.g. women’s march, 2017) or the ‘endorser’ (e.g. greenpeace spot, 1995). finally, the subtype of the private persona links up with the mode of presentation of “published privacy”. the disseminated “private images” provide a person brand with relevant tools for attracting attention and managing relationships, as they create an illusion of intimacy towards the viewer and reveal fascinating stories about (allegedly) private glimpses into madonna’s roles as an individual (e.g. kabbalah since 1996, art lover), as a wife (e.g. guy ritchie, 2000 – 2008), as a mother (e.g. family portrait in people magazine, 2017) and as a lover (e.g. jesus luz, 2008 – 2010). qyll 61 figure 2: basic structure of madonna’s brand persona madonna’s complex “worldview” world the qualitative analysis of the brand images and their range of meanings succeeded in reconstructing a set of central types of madonna’s pictorial representations. one of the key types of visual strategies of representation is the initial stylisation of madonna. during this early stage of her career, marked as it was by currents of american culture including the hip-hop movement (graffiti), the ballroom scene, and pop art, madonna developed her signature look of the “post-punk girlie” in the absence of a comprehensive strategic preconception (cf. scaggs 2009). this phase already marks the creation of the basic patterns that remain the pervasive hallmark of madonna to this day and have become condensed into independent strategies. these include pictorial symbolism, marking (“initial m”), polymorphisation including the substrategy of idolisation, (para)social relationships, (synergistic) aesthetisation, panculturalisation/politicisation, pictorial self-referencing of the person brand, and the strategy, as examined in more detail here, of royalisation. taking as her point of departure the name-based association as the “queen of heaven” and the external attribution of “queen of pop”, madonna consistently stages herself as a “queen” in the effort to underscore her claim to uniqueness and leadership in the pop music world. the elements used in the queen frame include the crown, diadem, ermine, the sun, the throne, and the sword, as well as royal figures such as marie antoinette (1990), the archaic god-queen at super bowl xlvi (2012), and the gothic queen at the met gala (2018). for example, on 7 september 2016, madonna posted an image on instagram with the lettering “queen” and a stylised four-notched crown. the subtitle to the image reads: “and be treated like a ". she uses the royalisation strategy not only for social media, but also on stage and this strategy has solidified into a quasi-obligatory form of artist staging. although she was described as a “queen” in her early days3, madonna is quite strategic in her effort to stand out from this royal monotony. she places some of her musical competitors in the role of faithful vassals in an effort to consolidate her status as the legitimate monarch of pop. during the mdna tour of 2012, for example, nicki minaj, who herself bears the nickname “queen of rap”, appears in the video backdrop sitting on a golden throne in a nun’s habit, rapping to the audience: “there is only one https://www.instagram.com/p/bkejnesbcez%3e. http://www.julesfashion.com/2012/06/madonna-mdna-tour-les-premieres-photos.html http://www.julesfashion.com/2012/06/madonna-mdna-tour-les-premieres-photos.html persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 62 queen – and that’s madonna, bitch”. madonna’s image of the “queen” appears as anamorphic. it navigates between the exalted and the salacious. for example, she sits on the throne, her legs spread apart, and curses “nobody fucks with the queen”, or wears a jacket with “the queen” in graffiti lettering, creating a connection to street culture and the early years of her career. the queen frame serves to position the madonna brand in terms of status, tradition, ambition, and her pioneering role, and proves an effective narrative for commanding attention in the face of the difficult conditions of a fluctuating entertainment market. in the course of the analysis, it was initially possible to identify what makes madonna a “queen of cultural transformation” or “cultural material girl”. this references the selective transfer of meaning for the enrichment of madonna’s own brand meanings through integration of such historical and popular culture symbolic resources as image motifs, rituals, gestures, persons, figures, objects, and currents, mostly with iconic status. madonna also integrates discursive attributions by external stakeholders, as well as iconic persona images of her own. in her interview with grigoriadis (2015), she explains “i reference many things in pop culture, and i’ve written so many songs and had such a long career, that i end up referencing myself, too. if i can rip anybody off, i can rip me off”. this statement confirms the findings by other studies on external referencing (for example guilbert 2002; krützen 2002; schuhen 2012) and particularly on the “iconizing” (gernalzick 2010, p. 212) of madonna. in contrast to the supposedly arbitrary openness that the principle of cultural transformation suggests, there is a complex metanarrative that continuously governs the coherence of the communicative content and fundamental effectiveness of madonna’s imagery. through the three central metaframes of ‘madonna’ (holy mother), americanism, and life, this forms a networked semantic space through which cultural schemes and archetypal patterns are activated (figure 3). figure 3: metanarrative of madonna the brand qyll 63 the first metaframe in visual communication is (implicitly) called up via the brand name ‘madonna’ as a consistent linguistic bracket. on the one hand, her name with the italian meaning of “my lady” refers to the honorary designation of the virgin mary, a central figure of christianity. on the other, it relates to a general form of representation of the image of the madonna in art. the image of mary has remained one of the most common objects of christian iconography since the 3rd century (lechner 1968, p. 155), while madonna ciccone represents one of the most popular female figures in contemporary media. taking as a point of departure the doctrines in roman catholic dogmatics about mary, what results is an illustration of the archetypes of femininity, the diverse manifestations and implicit references of which madonna, the pop artist, constantly achieves. key among these manifestations are those of the mother, the virgin, the saint, the queen of heaven (regina coeli), spiritual leader, and the bride of christ or of the holy spirit. madonna is well aware of the integrative effect of her name and its cultural significance, based on the watchword “nomen est omen”. in an interview with holden (1986), she said: “[…] i think people are named names for certain reasons, and i feel that i was given a special name for a reason. in a way, maybe i wanted to live up to my name.” in this metaframe, madonna exhibits the positive and negative aspects of the role of femininity, invoking her personal approach to a divine spirituality, and criticising the fundamentalist observance of faith seen in different religious communities. the second meta-framework, that of ‘americanism’, is rooted, on the one hand, in madonna’s biographical roots in the midwest of the usa and, on the other hand, in the diverse references to american culture within her world of brand imagery. madonna, whom guilbert (2002) described as “america’s mirror”, corresponds with ideals of the ‘american way of life’, including individual self-actualisation and personal responsibility, as well as competition, the love of freedom, and the pursuit of happiness and prosperity. moreover, the american lifestyle is closely linked to the collective ideal of the american dream under which every person, regardless of his or her origins and current situation, can achieve a higher standard of living solely through determination and hard work. the meritocratic logic of the “from rags to riches” narrative thus rests on the principle of continuous optimisation and transformation of the individual. madonna, who evolved – based solely on her iron will and hard work – from a “small town girl from detroit” (ciccone 2016b) into one of the richest in popular music, can be regarded as a female personification of the “american dream”. the effect of the universal basic pattern of human yearning and the dream of a better future that madonna embodies is put to commercial use by traditional american brand companies in advertising spots such as make a wish by pepsi (1989) and long live dreams by american express (2003), but also by mitsubishi, the japanese firm, which advertised with a testimonial by madonna in its 1987 advertising campaign with the slogan “dreams come true”. but madonna would not be madonna if, in addition to the romantic transfiguration of the “american way of life”, she did not highlight its schizophrenic undersides, such as excessive consumption, pollution of the environment, exploitation of human labor, and the waste of raw materials. as giles (1997, p. 127) observes, madonna uses “[…] her capacity to mirror some of the most cherished american values – fame, money, success, self-promotion – while at the same time reflecting them in a hyperbolic, surreal, and disturbingly alien manner.” this confirms the same axiom of the cultural branding approach under which iconic brands always seize upon a society’s yearnings and concerns in their mythmaking (holt 2004, p. 7). suspended in the field of tension between the two cultural value systems of the “holy mother” and “americanism” is the third meta-framework of the overarching brand narrative, referencing nothing less than the representation of ‘life’ through specific instantiations of (sub)cultural everyday topics but also topics of universal human relevance, such as time, love, sexuality, play, ego, war, faith, fashion, and the psyche. in an interview on good morning america persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 64 with steve fox (1991), madonna claimed: “i’m only presenting life to people. i’m not presenting anything that they are not exposed to in everyday life”. in her staging, however, she does not simply create a parallel figurative construction of reality, but instead transposes this into an ideologically coloured, critically assessed, and partially ironised worldview in the figurative sense. in this own “worldview world”, in the centre and periphery, madonna’s persona acts as a polymorphic, unifying figure between the extremes – simultaneously as creator and creature, framer and framed. given its dynamic complexity, life can never be fully represented. only current or generic topics can be broached as the content of brand communication. this elusiveness, unpredictability, and uncontrollability of life is transmitted and feeds the myth of the madonna brand as a culturally unifying and world-constructing phenomenon. madonna’s continuous variance and her communicative activities as a person brand in the media, on stage and in the self-referential presentation of the quotidian are thus governed by the cultural value systems of the metanarrative, which can always occur in different ways. the ‘relational mode’ that exists between the meta-level and the specific contents of communication generates further levels of meaning on the basis of criticism, irony, parody, subversion, exaggeration, alienation, allusion, citation, combination, plagiarism, and imitation. the aim here is to employ increased reflection in an effort to inspire the audience to heightened awareness and critical questioning. thus, madonna embodies a special type of person brand. on the one hand, she enlists traditional “cross-media” measures of strategic brand management, such as sales events, product placement, co-branding, experience design, advertising, and public relations. in the visual branding of her products, her persona, and the construction of her world of brand imagery, however, she also sets herself significantly apart from classic product brands. the person brand is comparable to an open-ended, self-similar brand platform in which the brand persona functions as an integrating figure and pursues a philosophy of calculated complexification at the visual and semantic levels. yet this branding approach harbours a risk of a semantic blurring of the concentrated messages. hence, the question of what madonna stands for can be answered only with difficulty, if at all. this is precisely why classic brand management strives to achieve a standard simplification of the elements of visual communication in an effort to ensure uninterrupted brand recognition, and retention of consistent messages amongst stakeholder groups. for a brand like madonna, however, the principle of visual variability shows that visual branding is authentic and effective if it derives from the person, their personality and history, and their representational approach. madonna used her extraordinary branding, extensive artistic œuvre, and business acumen to ascend to an american lifestyle brand of global mass entertainment. along the same lines as madonna’s ideological and visual thematic overlaps with the artist figure andy warhol (1975, p. 92), and in keeping with his motto that “being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art”, her incredible success in business can be deemed art in its own right. prosumer culture: “j’adore fanart!!!” at present, the mediatisation of the everyday living environment gives consumers far more opportunities than they have ever had before to participate co-creatively in the emergence of a brand. brand meanings are thus no longer subject to the absolute control of the brand owners alone – “brand co-creation takes place between the brand and consumers and between consumers and consumers” (shao et al. 2015, p. 417). in the virtual space of the internet, “prosumers” (toffler 1980) and “produsers” (bruns 2010) can sway overall public perception of a person brand through their media artefacts, which are referred to as “brand-related usergenerated content (ugc)” (arnhold 2010, p. 33). consequently, this case study is not limited to an analysis of the strategic image representations of the brand owner madonna, but also concentrates on the co-creative meaning practices as occur in fan’s visual artefacts. qyll 65 madonna not only takes a positive view of fan artefacts, as her tweet “j’adore fanart!!!” (ciccone 2015a) illustrates, but also strategically integrates these into her own brand communication in an effort to highlight desired brand meanings. examples of this include the fan-made cover for the single release bitch, i’m madonna – which was designed by hardcore fan aldo diaz of brazil and personally selected by madonna – and a “live digital gallery” produced by director danny tull that featured fan art and was displayed on stage during the rebel heart tour (2015–2016). the latter showcased the best works by “rebel heart artists” who had been invited to create them through a competition at madonna’s website. madonna also constantly shares and reposts fan content about herself on her own social media channels, and uses this strategy of inclusion to provoke creative engagement with fans. fans are encouraged to increase the shareability of their artefacts in relation to easy-to-imitate and dynamically applicable image schemata, such as the “visual ribbon” of the rebel heart album. based on this cover, not only did madonna fans wrap their faces with cables (ciccone 2014), but also imposed the cables on an array of cultural figures including jesus, marilyn monroe, and civil rights activists nelson mandela and martin luther king (ciccone 2015b). the controversy of this campaign ultimately benefits madonna. more recently, madonna – within the framework of her 14th studio album, madame x (2019) – wore an eye patch with a glittering silver “x” as an image schema that fans and fellow celebrities readily took up in the form of selfies, as can be seen in the image “madame x and monsieur j” (fallon 2019) taken with jimmy fallon. these strategies of pictorial appropriation work towards viral dissemination of madonna-related content in the digital space. to briefly explain the central interpretative patterns or creative pictorial practices of fan art, fan-generated works based on sacralisation include superimpositions of madonna with holy persons and supernatural entities of various religions (e.g. mother mary, lakshmi, angels). figure 4, for instance, shows madonna as a marian icon, holding her african adoptive son david banda in front of her breast, rather than the christ child. this references the christianbyzantine icon type of νικοποια, characterising the enthroned madonna with jesus in her arms as “bringer of victory”. images of madonna superimposed with the british monarch elizabeth ii are dominant among royalising fan images. in the context of pop culturalisation and heroisation, madonna is superimposed with icons of art and (heroic) figures of popular contemporary culture. an example of this is the iconic comic book figure wonder woman, one of the earliest superheroes of us-based publisher dc comics. figure 5 shows the superimposition of madonna with this symbol of a “strong woman”. this fan artist has creatively inverted wonder woman’s actual “w” logo to create an “m” logo. in contrast to the idolatrous-benevolent worship of madonna dominant in the representational practices of her fans, as discussed above, image artefacts can also be found here that are enlisted in public media discourses with a criticalsatirical effect. these revolve, among other things, around madonna-specific topics such as ‘fitness craze’, ‘compulsion to be attractive in old age’, ‘illuminati conspiracy’ or her ‘lasciviousness for men’. figure 6, for instance, reflects the criticism of her child adoption, with madonna depicted as a hand-hewn wooden sculpture of an african tribe superimposed with the inscription “african baby snatcher”. the power of such statues is actually meant to keep marauding tribal invaders – evil, in other words – at bay. the crucial point here is that the interpretative patterns and pictorial practices reconstructed in the fan-generated works of the sample – of pop culturalisation/heroisation, sacralisation and royalisation – reflect dominant strategies that the madonna brand also uses to construe meaning. the central, recognisable image elements that play a key role in creating these products include madonna’s face along with some of her iconic outfits, gestures, and hairstyles. in the case of the effective artefacts, visual superimposition is always enhanced by a semantic overlap at the conceptual level, comprising, for example, common characteristics. https://twitter.com/madonna/status/646767422473699329 https://twitter.com/madonna/status/646767422473699329 https://twitter.com/madonna/status/546453635413311489 https://www.instagram.com/p/xw44cageui https://www.instagram.com/p/by80w4nanyr https://www.instagram.com/p/by80w4nanyr persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 66 finally, it can be noted that, except for the critical user content and memes that any strong (person) brand must be in a position to withstand, the dominant proportion of the fan creations in circulation ultimately help, implicitly or explicitly, to reinforce the brand’s intended meanings and their presence in the global consumer culture of the internet. figures 4-6: fan artefacts: sacralisation, pop culturalisation/heroisation and criticization (image sources: fig. 4: artist 14 2007; fig. 5: woods 2016; fig. 6: artist 14 2009) conclusion contemporary media society reveals an increased tendency to apply branding measures to people. long-term, successful persona brands in particular draw upon goal-oriented management of broad-based meanings in order to maintain their market position over the long term. this paper proposes the research approach of cultural person branding (cpb) based on the culturalist brand paradigm identified by holt (2004), which examines the means and strategies of the constructions of meaning of iconic person brands in sociocultural environments from the points of view of different stakeholders. since madonna is a prototypical example of a cultural person brand, the methodological approach used in this analysis can serve as an example for other studies. madonna’s polymorphic persona was first analysed on the basis of the key brand-image objects of a person brand, such as persona, products and marking. text and data-based contextual information was used to reconstruct central types of action by the persona that constitute the basic structure of its brand identity. this forms the interpretive framework for the qualitative frame analysis of madonna’s image communication. three levels of abstraction of brand meanings with a universal claim were systematically elaborated through case-internal reflections and cross-case comparisons. the meta-level regulates the profound overall significance of the brand and exists in a relationship with the contents of all communication. the level of strategy is based on strategies of representation for the brandimage objects and the imagery through which intended partial meanings of the brand are generated. specific image meanings of the brand are generated at the operational level by means of visual schematic work on the brand-image objects and on the images employed. where iconic person brands are concerned, the image-based management of meaning is not only geared towards short-term direction of the target group’s attention but also employs cultural meanings at the various levels. these meanings are based on the brand identity and the individual design approach of a person brand (madonna’s polymorphism), but also generate a wide-ranging resonance and hence maximum involvement amongst followers, especially in the qyll 67 co-creation of additional (desired) meanings. madonna’s polymorphic persona in particular serves as an iconic reference and inspiration for fan artists in whose products the central image strategies of the person brand are clearly reflected. madonna skilfully returns these fan artefacts to her own brand communication in an effort to underscore desired brand meanings, by, for example, reposting relevant fan content on instagram, thus unleashing a controversial discourse or encouraging other prosumers to produce additional fan art. the framework conditions of contemporary media technology have significantly favoured the co-creative possibilities of influence on a brand by its consumers. beyond this case study, it can be seen that the pictorial practices and interpretative frameworks such as sacralisation, royalisation, criticisation and pop culturalisation – here specifically the visualisation as a star, hero or villain – represent basic cultural patterns that visually represent iconic personas within the creative prosumer culture of the internet. ultimately, the main finding of this article is that the persona – particularly as a published pictorial figure – represents the central integration instance of a person brand and, as a ‘common thread’, simultaneously ensures continuity and dynamism at the semantic, narrative, and visual levels of communication. the research approach of cultural person branding deals with both the strategic structure and the cultural analysis of iconic person brands. best case examples of iconic personal brands, such as madonna, reveal significant insights into successful strategies. these strategies, in turn, can be useful in building and managing brands. accordingly, the findings of this article can serve as a suggestion not only for the practice of design and brand management but also for the scientific investigation of other iconic person brands. the great relevance of iconic person brands in our global media culture also facilitates the cultural person branding approach pursued here within the research field of persona studies, which is devoted primarily to the construction of the public self in a variety of contexts, such as online, star and everyday culture (cf. marshall et al. 2019). 1 these types of action are the result of a qualitative coding that investigated the behaviours of the persona in the public media field. to this end, typical information about madonna found in the collected online texts such as biographies, articles, overviews, self-descriptions, etc., was first thematically filtered and then, at a higher level of abstraction, condensed into the four subtypes of persona. 2 the method of qualitative evaluation employed in the case study is a visual frame analysis. it is triangulated from thematic analysis according to braun & clark (2006), visual semiotics pursuant to kress & van leeuwen (2006) and critical visual analysis based on schroeder (2006). the image data were compiled on the basis of an extensive search of google and social media and were collected circularly. theme-specific image sets with a total of n = 3,082 images were extracted from the entire body of images (n = 9,727). 3 already at the �irst mtv music video awards in 1984, the actor dan aykroyd announced madonna’s controversial performance as a lascivious post-punk bride with the words “queen of music and motion”. the magazine super stars (1985) writes of “queen of rock”, and the 1989 issue of smash hits magazine concisely entitles madonna the “queen of pop”. end notes works cited anon. 2012, ‘mdna tour’ israel, retrieved 14 july 2020, <http://www.julesfashion.com/2012/06/madonna-mdna-tour-les-premieresphotos.html>. arnhold, u 2010, user 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lauren pattison; felicity ward), or feigns the staging of mental collapse (stewart lee). based on the analysis of live events and one-on-one interviews, the essay considers the role that persona plays in mediating the relationship between the comedian and their material, arguing that shaping persona is key to developing practices framed within a poetics of vulnerability. key words vulnerability; role; comedy; mental health; stigma; performance introducing persona, stand-up, and mental health one of the first tasks of the stand-up comedian on their stage entrance is to amplify their voice, usually by means of a microphone. at the same time, they must attempt something more complex but no less vital: to amplify their subjectivity by means of persona. my use of persona references erving goffman’s definition: the “implicit or explicit claim” that a social being makes “to be a person of a particular kind” (1959, p. 24); in this case a distilled, or exaggerated, essence of themselves, embodied on stage, which becomes the vehicle for their comedy. several authors (brodie; double; frances-white & shandur; ince; quirk) have stressed the importance of persona in comedy, between them providing the basis for a critical framework. first, the comic’s persona must be highly subjective and quickly signal their unique perspective on the world. this becomes particularly apparent in club nights featuring four or five comedians. in a short time, the stand-up must convince the audience of who they are, a process which is mirrored in chris rock’s joke: “when you meet somebody for the first time, you’re not meeting them, you’re meeting their representative” (rock 1999).i secondly, subjectivity must be maintained consistently: most comics will not move from surreal flights of fancy to politcal gags, or from physical clowning to confessional depth, unless they address this tonal shift as an integral part of their act. as robin ince explains, “an audience need to know what they believe they are dealing with – the universe they occupy must be defined“ (2018a, p. 126). for ince, the authenticity of who he is on-stage would be undermined if he could not meet people ‘as himself’ off-stage after the performance (2018b).ii thirdly, the persona of many stand-ups will convey not just a specific point of view but a socially marginal one. as folklorist ian brodie points out, “marginalisation is a subjective framework created by the performer in collusion with the hargrave 68 audience“ (2014, p. 104). one of the ways a marginalised framework might be created is when a comedian openly declares mental distress, which is itself the playing out of a stigmatised social identity. the symbiotic relationship between comedy and mental health is an open secret that, until recently, few have considered more than common fact. the ‘tears of a clown’ and/or suicidal comedian are cultural clichés and can be summarised in the groucho marx joke: a man goes to an analyst and says he has lost the will to live. the doctor says, “why not go to the circus to see grock, the world’s funniest clown. i’m sure you will be much happier”. the man says, “i am grock” (qtd in kanfer 2001 p. 432). it is a cultural trope that the desire to perform stand-up comedy is itself evidence of a mental health problem. judd apatow’s book of conversations with fellow comedians, for example, is called sick in the head (2015). “when someone is laughing”, apatow explains, “i know they don’t dislike me … i … need … constant approval” (qtd in maron & mcdonald 2017, p. 237).iii the point is reinforced by the late robin williams: how desperately insecure we are that made us do this for a living … you get to do stuff, where if you did it in the street people go: ‘that man! he talked about his penis! to me openly!’ and you do it in a club, suddenly there’s this license to thrill … you’re this weird insecure guy who does this looking, like lenny bruce said, looking for love. do you love me? temporarily? kind of? i don’t care if you love me, i gotta say this shit. is that an artist or is that a sociopath? or a psychopath? … well i’m not going to label him! (maron 2010) williams’ positioning of himself as outsider is part of what brodie means by “the vernacular theory of comedy” which views the comedian as a social type differentiated as “marginalized … rooted in loneliness and the need for approval … seeing the world from a different perspective” (2014, p. 104). the sense that there is something ‘wrong’ with comedians has led to medical studies that seek to uncover apparent psychotic traits: psychological profiling via online tests indicate that “perception aberration” (paranormal or magical thinking); “cognitive disorganisation”; “anhedonia” (inability to feel pleasurable emotions); and impulsive risk taking are all disproportionately found to be traits of stand-ups (ando et al. 2014).iv in this essay, i address the under-researched issue of comedy and mental health through the prism of comic persona. i do not diagnose comedians, rather i seek to analyse the vivid contribution that stand-ups make to understanding vulnerable states of mind. i focus on british and australian comedians whose material addresses conditions such as bipolar disorder (john scott), depression and anxiety (seymour mace; lauren pattison; felicity ward), or feigns the staging of mental collapse (stewart lee). based on analysis of live events and one-on-one interviews, i consider the role that persona plays in mediating the relationship between comedian and material or between comedian and audience. i suggest that there are at least five ways that persona operates in this context: as a protective device which allows the performer to share vulnerabilities (scott); as an interruption of an established identity which allows the voicing of revelations (pattison); as a theatrical conceit which troubles the notion of fixed identity (lee); as an emotional distancing effect (ward); and as a way of articulating a sense of belonging (mace). i am not suggesting that such persona transactions are purely technical devices that can be picked off the shelf by the next aspiring comedian: they are deeply embedded in each individual and work in specific ways. nor do i intend to be patronising or reductive about a complex performance dynamic. i argue that by describing and analysing the affect of persona, it is possible to understand the importance and subtlety of self-presentation as one component in conveying complex subject matter. the analysis of stand-up and persona, i assert, can make an original and important contribution to the fields of persona studies and to the emerging field of performance and mental health. such analysis dismantles reductive persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 69 binaries (well/sick; sane/insane; happy/suffering) and leads to more productive ways of thinking: not to administer or medicate, but to illuminate the subjective experience of stigmatised states of being. ‘mental health’, in so far as it means anything, is the capacity to develop and cope with having a self. ‘mental health’ is embedded in the craft of stand-up since the form places high demands on the individual practitioner’s ability to negotiate this self aesthetically and publicly. my essay is underpinned by the philosophical work of erinn gilson, who argues that vulnerability is an increasingly urgent issue in the neoliberal era, in which the prevailing mode of selfhood is ‘entrepreneurial subjectivity’ that promotes competitive self-seeking as the only rational choice. gilson’s ethics of vulnerability (2014) explores the implications of three assertions: first, that the normative equivalence of vulnerability with weakness devalues vulnerability as something socially ‘bad’; second, that vulnerability can be viewed as an ethical resource that helps manifest virtues of empathy and compassion; and third, that vulnerability is often wrongly reduced to a state of perpetual risk, as opposed to an ambiguous, multifaceted, and productive experience, full of human potential. i argue that stand-up, as an artistic and social platform, provides a unique place to observe vulnerability at work and offers a critique of the entrepreneurial self. like gilson, i question why vulnerability is overwhelmingly equated with socially undesirable indicators such as weakness and risk. i argue that vulnerability is an aesthetic and social resource to be explored and celebrated. i take this theme forward here, echoing comedian phil jupitus: i’ve always had this belief that you have to have something wrong with you to want to do stand-up, because it is putting yourself (particularly as a performer) in possibly the most vulnerable position you can be in, aside from people who fuck each other in amsterdam for money … i think it’s really baring and putting yourself out there. (qtd in double 2013, p. 129) the craft of stand-up involves a dual decision: not only the choice to put your ‘self’ out there but also which ‘self’ to send as representative. persona as shield: john scott’s creative recovery the first category of comic persona is that of protective shield: a mode of address which allows the comic to choose those parts of himor herself that they will allow public scrutiny. it permits the voicing of vulnerabilities that would otherwise be too painful to share. scottish comedian john scott has, in his own words, had “nineteen years’ experience as a comedian and twenty-four years’ experience as a mental health service user”. furthermore, he says: “i don't think comedians statistically experience mental health issues any more than the general public at large. it's just that you hear them talk about it” (scott 2019). scott points out in his 2017 show delusions that the relationship between his psychiatric self and his comic self has always privately, if rarely publicly, intertwined: the unusual thing about me i suppose is it was actually becoming a comedian that got the right diagnosis. when i started out in comedy i was without treatment. a doctor took sympathy on me and also doubted my diagnosis so we had a wee experiment with going meds free. so after six weeks i went back to see the doctor. how are you doing meds free? she asked. awesome i said, i’ve become a comedian. she went, oh no … i was worried about something like this happening … at one point i visited the local gp because my condition was acting up, and he didn’t believe i was a comedian. he actually thought i was being delusional again. you might be thinking the same. (scott 2017) hargrave 70 delusions was the first time scott had ‘come out’ as having a history of acute mental health difficulties. utilising a punchline-rich political satire, the show presents his own struggle with bipolar disorder in conjunction with, and possibly as a manifestation of, the current worldpolitical order. scott deploys the constant interruptive dissonance between his own narrative journey through the mental health system and wider geo-political chaos. the show is a narrative of how he was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia as a young man and the difficult process of having this diagnosis overturned to bipolar disorder, for which he now, by his own admission, receives successful treatment. the show delusions is both memoir and educative tool. scott’s message is one of creative recovery: there’s been a lot said about anxiety and depression but this show looks at the more acute end of mental health and is about the period in my life when i was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. don’t worry i got better … but i wouldn’t want to catch it again. (scott 2017) scott’s on-stage persona is not far from his everyday self: affable, good humoured, sharing of enthusiasms. the lines above, early in the show, demonstrate how far he is at pains to put the audience at ease, to acknowledge the potential for discomfort and to gently put it to rest. as he said in interview: i’ve never exposed myself like this as a comedian. i felt very vulnerable doing this, now i feel empowered by it. vulnerability in stand-up comedy is really when you’re talking about very personal material. it’s not just whether they are going to laugh at this, it’s how they are going to take me as a person because of this … it’s probably the most out of my comfort zone space i’ve ever been as a comedian … rather than saying ‘i’m weak, i’m vulnerable’ i’m using the defence of laughter as a barricade, as a shield, but that is my job as a stand-up. (scott 2019) perhaps the most affecting moments in his routine, and some of the funniest, are when scott tells how others around him were implicated in the diagnostic journey from schizophrenia to bipolar. after an involved description of the events leading to the over-turning of his first diagnosis, his then girlfriend is consistently referenced as a supportive other: “i should also mention i no longer have that girlfriend in these stories any more … now she’s my wife” (scott 2017). as scott explained: my wife is pivotal [in the show]: helping me get the treatment. when i first spoke of this and i talked about her it hit me i became very emotional how hard it had been for both of us. so i checked myself and tried to write in a way that wouldn’t make me emotional. i was very conscious. i could have made it more sentimental but i wanted to keep it to just for laugh. i don’t want people getting weepy. (scott 2019) this is an important principle of what i refer to as a poetics of vulnerability: that vulnerability avows structural support. i argue that scott’s work, like others discussed here, extends gilson’s idea of vulnerability as a productive human state: it is an aesthetic and comedic resource, which has not thus far been properly understood. delusions upsets the notion of the self as autonomous entity: scott’s journey is an implicit critique of the ideology of what gilson terms ‘entrepreneurial subjectivity’, the now prevalent mode of citizenship which promotes competitive self-seeking. what comes across clearly in his material is the care and attention of a range of psychiatrists and a loving partner who supported scott to attain his current equilibrium. delusions then, despite being a solo performance, to borrow from shannon jackson, “foregrounds performance as a series of supporting relations” (2011, p. 42). this is persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 71 echoed in two iterations of the performance i have seen where scott openly refers to written material on the stage floor. he makes no secret that this work is ‘supported’ by written material and occasionally allows us to see the written mechanism that comics often keep hidden. scott’s psychiatric condition, bipolar disorder, is, one might argue, already personified. psychoanalyst darian leader states that bipolar disorder often involves the “creation of a new persona, as if one were someone else” (2013, p. 15), which he associates with the role of “the night club entertainer who has to keep his audience focused on himself at all times” (2013, p. 25). is it “any accident”, leader asks, “that manic depression is so common in the world of comedians?” (2013, p. 25). for leader, the ‘signature motifs’ of bipolar, during high periods, correlate with stand-up: the flight of ideas; the sense of a special connectedness between things; compulsions and increased appetites; a tendency to create categorical distinctions between good and bad; and the need for an audience. such correlations have been questioned by comedian sarah pascoe: it is tempting to say "yes, that is what comedians are like, we are not normal, we are so special and creative, quickly put us in the attic and get remarried!" but we're not that interesting. very little of what we do is inspired. we work hard on sculpting our routines. through nightly practice. what remains in a set and what gets cut is mostly decided by the audience, whose reactions are essential within the creative process. are they psychotic too? (pascoe 2014) these comments reflect what psychoanalyst adam phillips views as the problem of both undervaluing so-called mental illness – disciplining it through normative rules – and overvaluing it – idealising or romanticising those who have ‘it’ and convey some essential truth (phillips 2012, p. 197). i do not want to reinforce a binary opposition between ‘the nightly grafter’ and the ‘gifted psychotic’. i simply suggest that there is a formal synergy between the art of stand-up and the clinical label of bipolar, as it is defined by leader. both ‘forms’ share a hyper-connectivity; a propensity for word-play and punning; and the need to keep the language flowing: “manic discourse freezes the listener; speaking keeps the other person there ... the listener will often feel manipulated or controlled” (leader 2013, p. 25). stand-up is manic speech formalised: the underlying rule that makes stand-up work is that what appears to be dialogue is always one with a silent interlocutor. as comedian dylan moran observes: “it's like you’re having a conversation with the other person, but you’re having to work it out for both of you” (maron 2012). any disturbance in this formal contract, heckling for example, is an exception that proves the rule: it is disruption that must be suppressed to make way for continued monologue. persona interrupted: lauren pattison’s “shit tonne of layers” the second category of persona in relationship to comedy and mental health i refer to as ‘interruptive’ because it splits and refocuses an established persona in order to voice another more layered truth. perhaps the most shocking example and at the time of writing, most influential in the comedy industry is the australian comedian hannah gadsby’s 2017 work nanette, which broke with her habitual persona and has become a touchstone for a reexamination not just of mental health but of the formal conventions of stand-up. these, gadsby argues, perpetuate harmful tropes of self-degradation and gender violence and make audience and performer complicit in the diminishment of personal suffering through self-deprecation. mary luckhurst’s detailed essay on gadsby in this issue can be read both in its own right and as a kind of parallax to this analysis. a comedienne at an earlier point in her career is newcastleborn lauren pattison, who has enjoyed rapid success over the last two years, with shows lady hargrave 72 muck and peachy. pattison’s comic persona plays with her identity as a young woman, recently graduated, who finds herself in a world which jars with her working-class roots. she references her appearance as ‘cute’ like a baby or a kitten; is self-deprecating about her ability to find suitable relationships; and much of her comedy derives from her class position as the underdog in most relationship and social situations. this persona works itself through the two shows: the first is a break-up narrative, the second a redemption tale of new love and new adventures, touring comedy in australia. pattison’s child-adult status is consistently deployed through references to her mum, and the sense that lauren is vulnerable and in need of being looked after. pattison willingly delves into the underlying anxieties which underpin her success. two thirds into peachy, pattison moves seamlessly into the following monologue, which occurs after her new boyfriend has bought her a gift, which demonstrates how much he has listened to her, not something she is used to: i find it quite hard to get people to listen. if i want to get people to listen to me i have to charge you £10, put on some sequins and scream into a microphone [big laugh] that’s how i do it [as laughter fades] ... ‘comedy lauren’, everyone cares what comedy lauren’s got to say. ‘normal lauren’: nobody gives a fuck. no one gives a shit. i can put a joke on facebook and it’ll get few hundred likes ‘cause i’m fucking hilarious. i can ask for someone to go for a coffee with me and no one will reply. no one gives a shit about the real me. everyone just cares about that version of me: the on-stage me, the comedy one, that’s who people want to know, and i can’t be that person all the time. i’m not that person all the time. so this was the first time that someone cared about me, normal lauren, who puts on a shit tonne of layers, just to make someone laugh. that’s who someone cared about. (pattison 2018) when i saw this show live, the immediate impact of these words was incredibly powerful. it was as if someone was literally taking off the mask she had maintained up to this point and trying on another. pattison’s reference to the “shit tonne of layers” is a call back to an earlier routine where she literally dresses herself in an absurd number of clothing layers, awaiting her boyfriend’s arrival. yet, it also echoes the psychological layering happening in the moment: that what we see on stage is a layered, constructed persona. perhaps the correlation between the sartorial and the psychological is accidental but pattison’s work is so carefully written and constructed that this seems unlikely. in its way, it is a direct challenge to the audience, as if she is saying: i’m not just a clown, i’m not just what you can see, i’m a whole other person besides this. this on-stage revelation echoes john limon’s central thesis that stand-up’s true subject is always abjection: abjection as an abasement and a prostration before the audience; but also abjection as a way to describe “something miring your life, some skin that cannot be sloughed off, some role … that has become your only character” (2000, p. 4). perhaps in this case not the only character, but a character that has suddenly given pattison a degree of fame and hard-won recognition that would be difficult to give up. it is as if pattison, like batman’s enemy, bane, has found a true purpose through a mask. as bane in the dark knight rises says of his position: “no one cared who i was till i put on the mask” (nolan & nolan, p.3)bane’s survival, and perhaps that of some comedians, is dependent on the putting on of a persona. pattison’s work also underlines alain ehrenberg’s thesis that “depression … serves as a canvas upon which to sketch out the changes in modern subjectivity, the displacement of the hard task of being healthy” (2016, p. 232). ehrenberg asserts that depression is an endemic contemporary phenomenon, one which reflects the weariness of the postmodern subject, who must undertake the daily labour of self-definition. i argue that stand-up is a particular kind of persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 73 self-definitional labour, one that reflects via persona what it means to live in a world of perpetual, self-monitoring choices. pattison, in peachy, has achieved the success she desired and been given new choices: international travel, awards, independence. yet this choice, this sovereignty of the individual, as ehrenberg terms it, leads to insecurity and the inability to act. depression is the opposite of the desired social norm: future-orientated, goal-driven, autonomous, proactive, and invulnerable. pattison, in her portrait of the artist as a young depressive, offers, like several other comics analysed here, a counter-discourse, one that gives voice to depressive subjectivity. this subjectivity is, as nietzsche once asserted, a complaint: “there is one small dose of revenge in every complaint”, he said, which “can give life spice and make it endurable” (qtd in ehrenberg 2016, p. xiii). there is an anger in pattison’s words at this point in the show, a reproach, not just to the world at large but to the audience. it is this act of anger that seeks to make the most direct connection. yet it also hints at the fleeting nature of this connection. it is a statement of rage at one human being’s incapacity to connect beyond the level of the joke. persona as theatrical conceit: stewart lee and the ghosts of dead comedians stewart lee, who has increasingly had to reinvent his marginalisation because of his commercial success, is an example of the use of persona as theatrical conceit which troubles the notion of a fixed or authentic identity. deploying a faux-arrogant persona, aggrandising mania coupled with despair, lee has defined his creative process in part thus: like a lot of stand-ups i try to write in the rhythm and cadences of someone who has cornered you in a bar or a train carriage, continues drinking steadily and determinedly over a two hour period, grows increasingly agitated and unhappy whilst holding forth on a series of subjects he really knows little about; and in so doing, inadvertently reveals some great truth and/or the real things that are driving him to despair. (lee 2013) lee is underlining an important issue: that comic persona is constructed, intimate and vernacular, and often implies deep-rooted distress. if ‘agitation’, ‘despair’, and ‘unhappiness’, not to mention alcohol and other self-cures, are often part of the dramaturgy of stand-up per se, might this not make stand-up a form a priori equipped to explore mental distress? some readers may find the inclusion of lee in this discussion surprising. i am, for the most part, analysing the work of stand-ups who declare a clinically specific mental health issue. lee does not. but some of his routines have led certain audience members and critics to believe that he has: i was in dublin and i did a long bit about thinking i’m being haunted by the ghosts of comedians who have killed themselves. it goes on for ages and people buy into it. i’ve had people in the front row going, “can you see them? are they around you?” anyway, a woman in the front row got her camera out and took a photo. so i went, “why would you do that? why would you take a photo of someone remembering people they know who have taken their own lives?” then she crept out …. she’s a journalist … and she’s tweeted: “i’ve just seen stewart lee have a mental breakdown on stage thinking that ghosts are attacking him.” she bought into it to the point where she thought she’d got a scoop that i’d gone nuts. (lee 2013) the routine which, which eventually appeared in stewart lee’s comedy vehicle (bbc 2016), reminds me of frankie howard’s joke: “the most important thing in show business is you’ve got to be authentic. and if you can fake that, you’ve got it made” (qtd in ince 2014). lee’s authentic conceit is precisely that: fake. he presents the trope of the wounded clown recovering from hargrave 74 childhood trauma (a bullying incident where other boys urinate on him); berates his audience for laughing in all the wrong places (saying “audiences like you as good as murdered robin williams”); and then pretends to hear voices and see the bodies of dead comedians on stage in a painful pseudo-collapse. part of my research process has involved practising stand-up as a creative intervention with people who identity as mental health service users, which has involved watching recordings of some of the comedians discussed here with members of recoco recovery college, newcastle -upon-tyne. responses to lee’s recorded work were mixed. one person asked: “how does he get an audience for that?” (seminar 2019b). another praised the way lee was able to weave different elements together over the course of the half hour so that if you missed one bit, you would miss the whole point. another found it offensive and walked out, stating: “that is totally disgusting. i’ve heard voices. you can’t take the piss out of that” (ibid). another stated “i laugh at my voices like he does. you’ve got to laugh about it” (ibid). furthermore, we discussed the possibility that lee was doing the equivalent of blacking up: ‘madding up’. if so, who had the authority to claim ownership of madness? to exercise its limits? stand-up troubles the relationship between public statement and truth: in the field of medicalised mental health, which has become ever more obsessed with the ‘objective’ truth of diagnosis, stand-up can convey the limits of such objectivity. lee’s deployment of persona dismantles any simple, unambiguous model combining stand-up and mental health. i argue that the utility of stand-up in deconstructing stigma for example is not limited to the ‘honest’ or ‘authentic’ confession of mental health labels. the complex interplay of public utterance, joke, truth, persona, and audience-performer relationship creates a space in which all fixed labels, especially those of psychological instability (which cause some people to be described sane and others mad) seem to disappear for the life of the performance. it is by understanding how each comic manages the relationship between truth, persona, and socalled illness that stand-up might offer new ways of thinking about the lived experience of mental health. in lee’s case, the line between art and psychosis is intentionally blurred when he discusses the distance between himself and his stage persona: i remember being on stage in liverpool, and a terrible thing had happened in liverpool that week and i was thinking how awful it would be to accidentally mention that and i found myself up above myself looking down on myself and i was saying all these things and i was trying to stop me from doing it and i realised that it wasn’t happening, that i wasn’t saying those things and i became this other personality and i lost time. i don’t know what i was doing in that time, i had a kind of panic that this other voice had got the better of me. but now i use that. i sort of let it … let it do things, and i think i can normally get it back before it’s ruined everything. it might be from having been in the double act, with rich herring, where that was sort of my function, was to, um, bait him into going too far and then i would get the thing back on track. but now i do that to myself. (hagen 2019) this is an example of where a sort of fugue or panic state has inspired a later creative choice. it is interesting to note that lee evokes the earlier double act as a potential reason for this voice hearing, as if he is channelling his one-time stage partner, even as a solo act. if the seeing of dead people on stage is fictional, drawing as much on victorian medium shows as stand-up (luckhurst 2014), even more ambiguous is the mental mechanics of a live stand-up working out, in the moment, what he can or should get away with. it is possible that this aesthetic choice was born of a previous necessity: an overcoming of an earlier on-stage trauma in which he genuinely lost control. lee often seeks to ‘lose the room’ in his longer sets; there is a built-in dynamic of failure in his work where he is consciously trying to make it appear as if the act has persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 75 lost its way. lee claims that this is because he wants his act to be liked (or respected) in spite of his on-stage persona, not because it is charming the audience (lee 2010). persona as distancing effect: felicity ward’s exuberant depression australian-born comic felicity ward represents a fourth potential category for understanding persona: as an emotional distancing device. ward describes her on-stage persona as: quite joyful. i do find it very pleasurable being on stage. i also think that that’s very unbritish. it’s not a very common persona over here [in the uk] to be exuberant on stage. it also depends on confidence. if i’m confident i can get away with being really cheeky or really dark and because the audience feel safe, they know that they’re going to come out of it … i’m not a sit-back-on-my-heels, cynical, you’ll-come-to-me, kind of comic. i’m very open-hearted. (ward 2019) this ‘open-heartedness’ has led one reviewer to refer to ward’s comedy as “highly strung and needy” (logan 2015). logan’s review of ward’s 2015 edinburgh festival show what if there is no toilet? a narrative of anxiety, depression and irritable bowel syndrome; and of recovery from recurrent on-stage panic attacks brought on by the fear that ward would be unable to find a toilet if needed claims that ward has “brought her nervous negative energy under control” and “learned how to use it for good” (logan 2015, my italics). logan underlines an important issue: the extent to which vulnerability is equated with socially undesirable characteristics such as ‘neediness’, an over-burdensome way of being in the world which is not ‘good’. logan’s brief critique of ward’s persona suggests that the success of what if there is no toilet? is due, in part, to ward having ‘tamed’ her anxiety. the show, with its narrative thread of recovery, has outed the panic attacks that were once hidden: it has made them material as well as persona. or put another way, the show has made ward’s anxiety more bearable to logan because ‘it’ has been explained. thus, logan is ambiguously both celebrating ward’s vulnerability and setting the ‘proper’ parameters of how it should be deployed. there is a potential gender bias in such criticism. as ward says: i think something that has been tricky for british reviewers to swallow with me is i’m not a damaged genius. so sometimes when i do a joke that doesn’t quite get the reaction i want, i say, guys you can clap louder than that, that was very funny. that’s … fauxarrogance. but other comedians who attack the audience as part of their schtick: they are lorded as being unique. there’s definitely sexism that comes into play. rose matafeo [new zealand comic] and i talk about how women are perceived, how anxiety is perceived. ‘oh, she’s very anxious on stage, she’s got an anxious persona, an anxious personality’. and rose says, they’re writing it like it’s a bad thing! we have anxiety: of course we’re anxious! many comics come across as depressed, often men are depressed as part of their persona. or russell kane: he’s very hyper; and he’s been hugely successful. when he was first exploding [onto the scene] it was this refreshing, energetic, hyper-active young man. with women, it’s like: ‘oh, she’s a bit anxious’. (ward 2019) in addition to the way that certain readings of female artists reveal gender bias, i argue that the analysis of ward’s persona can lead to more generative readings of vulnerability as a vital aesthetic resource which extends the range of what is possible in stand-up comedy. at one point in what if there is no toilet? ward tells the story of a panic attack she experiences on her birthday. because she is so distraught, her boyfriend makes the decision to physically restrain her. this is one instance, perhaps, where one’s sympathy for ward threatens to overwhelm her comedy. however, this moment of extreme vulnerability is undercut in two ways. first, ward deploys a vivid metaphor to describe her physical state: hargrave 76 i started flailing around … i looked like one of those blow up men out the front of used car dealerships. i’m like n…no! [begins to physicalise the image arms and body waving as she is speaking but smiling at the same time] these prices are crazy! everything must go! nothing to do with diarrhoea, just quality toyota camries. [big laugh from audience] (ward 2016) this moment jolts the spectator away from the emotional content and toward a more distanced perspective. the comedy arises from the absurd juxtaposition of the lived reality with the metaphorical extension; one that feels oddly apt. a balloon man, after all, has nothing inside him. he is a hollow skin filled with air, he is nothing but the ‘behaviour’ of his image, which is weightless, chaotic movement. the comedy enriches the metaphor by enacting and physically demonstrating it. it also points to a rather obvious fact about comedy: that it always pushes toward weightlessness. as kant put it, laughter creates a “sudden evaporation of expectation to nothing”, a disappearance of something into the void of laughter (qtd in critchley 2002, p. 5). in her personification of anxiety as a blow-up man, ward attains a kind of weightlessness that, however briefly, allows her and her audience to transcend the memory of a trauma, to turn it into material. far from the unbearable vulnerability of being, for ward this is the bearable lightness of being ward. the balloon image works so well, both as poetry and comedy, because it represents a complete lack of subjectivity in a highly subjective moment.v secondly, ward undercuts the vulnerability of the moment by stating, matter-of-factly: “after a while i think i just tuckered myself out!” this is followed by a nod and a wink to the audience: it’s very tiring being mentally ill, let me tell you. [changes persona into a workout instructor with a faux upper-class english accent] and that’s why i’m in such great shape [poses, legs stretched in profile, as the instructor, as if for camera]. (ward 2016) this impish knowingness is a major part of ward’s persona, brechtian in its estrangement of material and mood: the exuberant depressive, able to share harrowing personal detail with the breezy flamboyance of a butlin’s redcoat. this is not to suggest that ward’s smile is somehow fake, the rictus grin of the bored entertainer. far from it, ward’s originality lies in her ability to match high level performance energy with searing distress, without ever appearing shamed or in need of sympathy. ward enjoys performing. in her own words, “performance is an act of service” (ward 2019). it is such moments of verfremdungseffekt that forcefully remind us of performance’s contribution to a poetics of vulnerability: that in heightened states of mood and attention, performance can disrupt the binary that falsely separates the normative good socially positive behaviour from so-called mental illness (bad). for the time of her performance, ward suspends the judgement that requires some people to be labelled mad and others sane. persona as belonging: seymour mace’s revels in depression the fifth and final category is that of persona as a way of belonging in the world, of creating and maintaining a useful social role. seymour mace is a newcastle-based comedian who enjoys a cult following due to his long-standing work as a headliner on the club circuit and his awardwinning edinburgh fringe shows, such as niche as fuck (2015); shit title (2016); and seymour mace is my name: climb up my nose and sit in my brain (2019). difficult to categorise, mace’s work regularly includes material about depression: “i’ve been spending a lot of time by myself. i’ve been doing that thing where you don’t wash your hair… depression.” as mace stated in interview: persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 77 it’s easy to see how ridiculous the world is. we wear clothes, build houses, but we’re just animals like all the other animals. everything is ridiculous. it’s easy to view that negatively. the world is crazy. i see depression as a switch. because my switch is switched to negative, i only see the negatives. (mace 2019a) mace rarely allows the audience to settle into a cosy relationship with him or the material. there is something edgy about his work: he is not asking you to build a relationship with him. he is not asking for permission. he uses his voice and body boldly: this is me. take or leave it but i will make you laugh. often his observations are delivered in a conversational drawl, frequented by pauses, doubtful err’s and ah’s. the comedy is heightened by the way polished material is scuffed and broken up by the slowness of delivery. the literal transcription of the above joke would be: so err, right, i’ve err i’ve been spending a lot of time by myself… been doing that thing where you don’t wash your hair… depression. perhaps of all the comics whose persona i analyse here mace is the one who presents the least concern for what the audience thinks of him. this is not the ‘faux arrogance’ that ward and lee utilise to great effect. with mace, unlike ward and lee, one is rarely conscious of another self, peeking through the façade. mace’s on-stage self is closer to a kind of ontological ground zero: a purified deprecated self, which acts as a foundation from which all else follows. his uniqueness lies in the juxtaposition of a depressed, despairing, often angry perspective on the world – its injustice, its need for conformity – with flights of childlike fancy and a love of home-made theatrical props. this conjunction has led to his work being described as “dark whimsy”, which mace has further dubbed “grimsy” (see goldsmith 2016). a normative reading (or performing) of vulnerability would single out mace as ‘the vulnerable one’ because he is speaking of suffering, different in essence from the autonomous, invulnerable spectators. such a reading would be wholly in keeping with normative assumptions that seek to close down a nuanced engagement with vulnerability. stand-up circumvents this paradigm in several ways. the most obvious way this happens is that comedians have the microphone, and thus take control of the room. as mace puts it: there’s a definite separation between the persona on stage and the persona off stage. a lot of people don’t get that, they expect you to be that person they just saw on stage. for many people, their worst nightmare is doing what i do, getting on stage in front of people but for me it’s the opposite way round: the stage is the one place where i feel comfortable where i can be 100% myself. i can be a complete arsehole and its perfectly alright for people to laugh at me. if i did this kind of thing out on the street i would be sectioned. it would be inappropriate to form a crowd and laugh at me. for me on stage is only place where i feel sane. i feel at one. when i get off stage that’s the insane place. i have to wear blinkers, i have to fit in with society, become a happy little robot … i’d happily be on stage all the time. (seminar 2019a) echoing both robin williams’ and lauren pattison’s comments, what is remarkable is how much of this off-stage conversation – recorded in a public seminar – found its way into mace’s 2019 show climb up my nose, almost verbatim. these words elicited much laughter in an edinburgh fringe preview, suggesting that the line between the on-stage and off-stage persona is not quite as clear-cut as mace suggests. i do not know whether the off-stage conversation was a ‘bit’ before the seminar, or whether mace logged it in his mind and decided to use it for the show at a later stage. i do not think that this matters; my point is not to ‘test’ the origin or authenticity of a thought. the point is the fluidity between life lived and life as material. for mace, and perhaps hargrave 78 for many comics, there is no distinct line. it is as though mace is continually inhabiting a potential stage, where personal revelation operates as material and vice versa. in his full-length fringe shows – and in his monthly panel show seymour makes it up as he goes along – mace turns on the house-lights and often eschews use of a microphone. the gap between onand offstage is therefore traversed and the informality heightened. in his 2019 show mace follows the above monologue with a literal illustration of the gap between his onand off-stage self. standing off-stage, he stands head down, to the music of tom waits, the sombre piano underscoring the slow lyrics: “lonely, lonely, lonely i, lonely place”. leaping on stage, the music cuts to uptown funk by mark ronson and bruno mars: “come on, dance, jump on it / if you sexy then flaunt it / if you freaky then own it”. the demonstration becomes funnier the more the juxtaposition is repeated and the swifter the changes between each persona. with depressive panache, in the performance i viewed, mace made a point of berating his own performance for its lack of finesse and pointing out all the ways it should be improved. this generated more laughter. any sense of ‘recovery’ in mace’s case in not visible or voiced. he exists on-stage in a comic present, any recovery always offset to some future point, some moment where his apartness from the world may end. indeed, as his most recent fringe show attests, he had to abandon his working title, seymour beats depression, because he could not beat it (mace 2019b). mace’s depression becomes material, alongside other material. this is counter to a normative societal pressure for disability or mental illness to carry a weight of meaning: a warning for others; or a cathartic message to take forward about overcoming tragedy; or an exemplar of the contemporary watchword – resilience. mace’s depression, in other words, is not redemptive. during one scratch pub gig in 2017, mace created a montage of personal humiliation (a ritual shaming by his ‘parents’, drawn from members of the audience; and indecision as to the practical means of a potential suicide, performed to the soundtrack of pharrell williams’s happy, which offered few obvious punchlines). such comedy depends on an unusual complicity. mace invited several spectators to join him on stage, to play members of his family. we were given a script. while we briefly rehearsed the lines, mace stripped down to his underwear. there followed what might be described as a ritual shaming, with each family member taking turns to inform mace what an inadequate human being he was and that he was not really a member of the family. the majority of the audience met this event with hysterical laughter – although one did leave in tears. mace’s humour, i argue, slips the knot of hannah gadsby’s nanette moment because the self-deprecation is so extreme, so foundational to him as a person: it becomes a commentary on deprecation itself and the lengths an audience will go to support a performer. mace himself is resistant to the idea that his depression is a muse that fuels his comedy, but for me, a delighted spectator, i am not sure. it is as though i am witnessing someone seeking to understand who they are in the world, only able to find themselves, momentarily, through performance. mace takes something that he finds chronically debilitating in real life and turns it into something beautiful on stage. during shit title (2016) he states: “i suffer from depression. well no, i don’t suffer from it. i revel in it!” so (mostly) does the audience. conclusion this essay has demonstrated five ways in which persona can be understood in relation to standup and mental health and has focused on the surface presentation of self (persona) rather than the depth of underlying desires (psyche). this focus mirrors both the form of the joke, which deliberately shatters distinctions between surface and depth, and the form of modern psychiatry, which turns surface symptoms into diagnostic labels and thus eschews subjective depth (see leader 2011, pp. 31-33). subjectivity, as darian leader has argued, is currently persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 79 missing from clinical responses to mental illness. this is proven by the fact that in a single year (2008) only 0.17 per cent of published medical papers about schizophrenia referenced patients’ direct experience (geekie & read 2009, p. 25). to treat distress as a problem of pharmacology – a set of symptoms, an object to be treated, a pill to be swallowed – denies the essential human stories that create a person and enable them to connect with others. stand-up provides a direct channel to these stories and gives permission for other stories to be heard. in this essay i am suggesting new theoretical perspectives in the emerging field of performance and mental health. i am offering the field a poetics of vulnerability. such a poetics suggests that that vulnerability is a comedic resource to be used and celebrated: that vulnerability invites spectators’ complicity; that it re-avows concepts of support and care; and that it places both fixed identity and fixed judgement in doubt. stand-up is an art form well suited to ‘therapeutic subjectivity’ – the projection of an inner self that needs to be witnessed and understood by others. this operates in resistance to ‘entrepreneurial subjectivity’ that promotes competitive self-seeking as the only rational choice and which makes the individual consumer solely responsible for his or her own health. a poetics of vulnerability also supports the concept that performance and mental health is a gendered subject: performance mirrors the cultural tendency for male artists’ distress to be “reframed as [being] indicative of essentially male attributes of creativity, uniqueness” (bell 2011, p. 203) whereas the “hysterical body has become emblematic of all the traditionally negative characteristics considered to be feminine: duplicity, theatricality, suggestibility, instability, weakness, passivity and excessive emotionality” (bankey 2001, p. 40). the comic form does however render this category ambiguous. the artists discussed here engage in an art form that utilises all the negative ‘feminine’ characteristics, identified by bankey, as constitutive of its craft: duplicity (scott’s misdirection and double meaning); theatricality (ward’s exaggerated personification); suggestibility (lee’s outrageous maintenance of false truth in the service of the joke); weakness (pattison’s revelation of vulnerability as a mode of selfdeprecation); passivity (ward’s faux-arrogance of not ‘caring’ what an audience thinks); and excessive emotionality (mace’s ‘manic’ rants). a poetics of vulnerability has room for both acceptance and critique of official diagnostic labels. ward reports that she is diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and emerging depression; scott, at the point of writing, is content with his fought-for diagnosis of bipolar; and mace expresses the relief that accompanied his diagnosis of depression (goldsmith 2016). at no point, aside from lee’s routine which acts as a meta-commentary on stand-up and depression, is there an indication of the problem of labelling per se. does this indicate that the absence of diagnostic categories has become unthinkable? rather it suggests that by wearing the label – by absorbing it into the persona as it were – the diagnosis itself has become a kind of shield from a vulnerability that would otherwise be too painful to share. one of the issues that scott faced when publicising his show was the sudden fact of having the words bipolar and schizophrenia next to his name. scott had to adjust to the reality that his public persona was now inflected with new labels and over time he became comfortable with them (seminar 2019a). this is a considerable contribution to a growing culture of de-stigmatising and ‘un-shaming’ of psychiatric labels. funding this research was supported by the uk northern network for medical humanities research seed award ‘understanding and developing the role of stand-up in health education’. hargrave 80 acknowledgments thank you to the comedians who gave up their time for interview. end notes i it is no accident that the joke teller often begins the set with a reference to their own physical attributes. the laugh comes from the recognition that they see what you see; that they are somehow standing outside themselves seeing themselves as you do: that is why “i know what you’re thinking…” is a common set up line. ii this also demonstrates ince’s care for his fan base, many of whom will see him repeatedly, year after year (ince 2018b). for stewart lee, the same applies in a slightly different way: “one of the reasons i always man the book stall afterwards is i find it very funny to do all that edgy stuff for two hours and then be all, ‘hello, how are you? would you like this signed, too?’” (self 2016). iii the portrait that apatow paints of himself as the artist as a young geek is instructive as a model or ‘ideal type’: he is “an angry kid” for whom the world does “not make sense”; and so turns to comedians to “fill the void” (2015, pp. xii-xiii). iv for detailed examinations of comedy and mental health by practicing comedians see robin ince’s documentary tears of a clown, bbc radio 4 and susan calman’s cheer up love: adventures in depression with the crab of hate. v it also tangentially acts as a comment on a cultural narrative in which female performers are emptied of subjectivity (see gregory 2018, pp. 1-2). works cited ando, v., claridge, g. & clark, k. 2014, ‘psychotic traits in comedians’, the british journal of psychiatry, vol. 204, no. 5, pp. 341-345. apatow, j. 2015, sick in the head: conversations about life and comedy, random house, new york. bankey, r. 2001, ‘la donna é mobile: constructing the irrational woman’, gender, place and culture: a journal of feminist geography, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.37-54. bell, e. 2011, ‘the insanity plea: female celebrities, reality media and the psychopathology of british pop-feminism’, in d. negra & s. holmes (eds), in the limelight and under the microscope: forms and functions of female celebrity, bloomsbury, new york, pp. 190223. brodie, i. 2014, a vulgar art: a new approach to stand-up comedy, university press of mississippi, jackson. calman, s. 2016, cheer up love: adventures in depression with the crab of hate, two road, london. critchley, s. 2002, on humour, routledge, london. double, o. 2013, getting the joke: the inner workings of stand-up comedy, a&c black, london. —2017, ‘tragedy plus time: transforming life experience into stand-up comedy’, new theatre quarterly, vol. 33, pp. 143-155. ehrenberg, a. 2016, the weariness of the self: diagnosing the history of depression in the contemporary age, mcgill-queen's university press, montreal. frances-white, d. & shandur, m. 2015, off the mic: the world's best stand up comedians get serious about comedy, bloomsbury, london. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 81 geekie, j. & read, j. 2009, making sense of madness: contesting the meaning of 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m. 2014. ‘giving up the ghost: the actor’s body as haunted house’ in m. luckhurst & e. morin (eds), theatre and ghosts: materiality, performance and modernity, palgrave, london, pp.163-177. mace, s., 2016, shit title, edinburgh fringe. —2019a, interview, 22 february, newcastle upon tyne. —2019b, seymour mace is my name, climb up my nose and sit in my brain, live show viewed stand comedy club, 7 august, newcastle upon tyne. maron, m. 2010, wtf, episode 67, interview robin williams, 26 april, retrieved 6 november 2019 <http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_67_robin_williams> —2012, wtf, episode 343, interview dylan moran, 13 december, retrieved 6 november 2019 <http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_343_-_dylan_moran> maron, m. & mcdonald, b. 2017, waiting for the punch, flatiron books, new york. nolan, c. & nolan, j. (2012) the dark knight rises, imdsb https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/dark-knight-rises,-the.html pascoe, s. 2014, ‘we comedians are not really that interesting’, the guardian, 16 january, retrieved 28 october 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/16/successful-comedians-displaysymptoms-psychosis-study-says> pattison, l. 2018, peachy, live show viewed stand comedy club, 10 november, newcastle upon tyne. phillips, a. 2012, missing out: in praise of the unlived life, penguin, london. https://www.comedianscomedian.com/167-seymour-mace/ https://www.comedianscomedian.com/167-seymour-mace/ https://www.madeofhumanpodcast.com/episodes/2019/3/13/133-stewart-lee-well-only-go-if-you-throw-glass https://www.madeofhumanpodcast.com/episodes/2019/3/13/133-stewart-lee-well-only-go-if-you-throw-glass https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n20v4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irxvaytvjtq https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b076ntxs/stewart-lees-comedy-vehicle-series-4-6-childhood https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b076ntxs/stewart-lees-comedy-vehicle-series-4-6-childhood https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/20/felicity-ward-what-if-there-is-no-toilet-edinburgh-festival-review-pleasance-courtyard https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/20/felicity-ward-what-if-there-is-no-toilet-edinburgh-festival-review-pleasance-courtyard http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_67_robin_williams http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_343_-_dylan_moran https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/dark-knight-rises,-the.html https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/16/successful-comedians-display-symptoms-psychosis-study-says https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/16/successful-comedians-display-symptoms-psychosis-study-says hargrave 82 quirk, s. 2015, why stand-up matters: how comedians manipulate and influence, bloomsbury, london. rock, c. 1999, bigger and blacker, live recording, spotify, retrieved 22 june 2019. scott, j. 2017, delusions, live show viewed live theatre, 5 july, newcastle upon tyne. —2019, interview, 5 march, newcastle upon tyne. self, w. 2016, ‘will self meets stewart lee: are you really embittered, or not?’ the guardian 26 february, retrieved 28 october 2019 <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/feb/26/will-self-meets-stewart-lee-areyou-really-ultimately-embittered-or-not seminar 2019a, ‘understanding and developing the role of stand-up in mental health recovery’, 4 april, northumbria university, newcastle upon tyne. seminar 2019b, ‘comedians and mental health’, mad studies series, 2 march, northumbria university, newcastle upon tyne. ward, f. 2016, live at the bbc series 1, episode 4, retrieved 6 november 2019, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03l29v1/live-from-the-bbc-series-1-4larry-dean-and-felicity-ward> —2019, interview, 5 july, london. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/feb/26/will-self-meets-stewart-lee-are-you-really-ultimately-embittered-or-not https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/feb/26/will-self-meets-stewart-lee-are-you-really-ultimately-embittered-or-not https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03l29v1/live-from-the-bbc-series-1-4-larry-dean-and-felicity-ward https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p03l29v1/live-from-the-bbc-series-1-4-larry-dean-and-felicity-ward persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 7 the female video game playercharacter persona and emotional attachment jac qu eli n e bur ge ss u n i v e r s i t y o f t h e s u n s h i n e c o a s t an d chr isti an jon es u n i v e r s i t y o f t h e s u n s h i n e c o a s t abstract this research, using online qualitative survey questions, explored how players of the playstation 4 console game, horizon zero dawn, formed emotional attachments to characters while playing as, and assuming the persona of the female player-character, aloy. it was found that the respondents (approximately 71% male) formed emotional attachments to the female player-character (pc) and nonplayer characters. players found the characters to be realistic and well developed, and they also found engaging with the storyworld via the female pc a profound experience. this research advances knowledge about video games in general and video game character attachment specifically, as well as the emerging but underresearched areas of persona studies and game studies. key words video games; player-characters; gender; emotional attachment introduction persona studies explore how individuals move in social contexts, and negotiate and present themselves in various contexts (marshall & barbour 2015; marshall, moore & barbour 2020). video game contexts have been a rich area of interest for persona studies due to the merging of the persona of the video game player and their avatar/player-character (pc) that they control during gameplay (milik 2017). video game contexts involve multiple personas interacting at once. however, much of the persona studies’ research has examined massive multiplayer online video games (mmos) (milik 2017; moore 2011), instead of single-player games in which players control and merge their identity with a pc and where personality and character are designed by the video game developer, rather than the player. the interaction between the persona of the player and their pc, and how this affects the player’s emotional attachment to the characters they and their pc encounter during gameplay, is an innovative and intriguing area to explore. video games have not been typically thought to be able to deliver emotive and deep experiences and instead have been stereotyped as delivering violent and unrealistic experiences (haggis 2016). however, narrative video games are games where the story plays a significant role in the game (egenfeldt-nielsen, smith & tosca 2008), and these games are capable of telling moving stories and include non-player characters (npcs) with sufficient depth and characterisation for players to interact extensively and meaningfully with them (burgess & jones 2020; jørgensen 2010). furthermore, players are able to develop deep emotional burgess & jones attachments to these characters (burgess & jones 2020; bopp et al. 2019). however, research into these attachments that players can form with npcs is still an emerging area of research (bopp et al. 2019; mallon & lynch 2014). there have been repeated calls to further understand the video game industry due to its financial significance and fast growth (alpert 2007; teng 2017): the industry was worth usd $152.1 billion in 2019 which is a 9.6% rise year-on-year (newzoo 2019). by exploring the interaction between the player’s persona, pc’s persona, and the npcs they meet while playing the playstation 4 console game, horizon zero dawn, this research advances knowledge of both game studies and persona studies through offering a better understanding of emotional attachments to video game characters, literature review player-characters (pcs) pcs have thus far been the central preoccupation of academic research into how players form attachments to video game characters, rather than npcs (daviault 2012). banks and bowman (2016) investigated the emotional connection between players and their pcs in the context of an mmo, finding that players were developing relationships with their pc, and huang and yeh (2016) found when examining a serious game—one designed for purposes beyond entertainment—that the more players became attached to their pcs, the greater the players perceived their mastery of the game. lewis, weber, and bowman (2008) developed a scale for measuring character attachment using five dimensions focusing on pcs and defining video character attachment as the psychological merging of a player’s and character’s minds. bowman, schultheiss, and schumann (2012, p.2), using a similar definition involving a “melding of mind” as lewis, weber and bowman (2008), found that character attachment can be useful to understand the motivations of video game players. this definition of character attachment, with its focus on mind melding, would appear to be similar or refer to identification which explores how audiences lose awareness of themselves and imagine their sense of self as a character (cohen 2001; klimmt, hefner & vorderer 2009). identification has been a prominent focus of media research for decades, with attention turning to video game characters more recently (van looey et al. 2012). however, much video game research into pcs has approached them from a more technical point-of-view, focusing on design and mechanics rather than audiences’ reactions (apperley & clemens 2017), or focused on mmos (bessière, seay & kiesler 2007; teng 2017; van looey et al. 2012; wu & hsu 2018) rather than games where the pc has a distinct character with a set personality and backstory. non-player characters (npcs) historically, game studies literature has critiqued videogame characters: for example, aarseth (2006, p. 51) has stated npcs are “wooden”, and a “convenient vehicle.” this view is still held by some modern video game players as evidenced by the emergence of the ‘npc meme’ in 2018, which viewed some people as having no internality and, like npcs, only capable of repeating a limited number of canned lines. the meme was then used to attack those who identified as progressive (alexander 2018). the meme, and the perceived shallowness of the people it critiqued, ignores the depth of characterisation and the intense emotional attachments players can form with video game npcs. most game genres utilize npcs, which may help or hinder the player, to make the game interesting, immersive, and challenging, and to develop relationships with players and prompt emotional reactions (daviault 2012). these emotional reactions and relationships are important because prompting emotions from players is critical for games to be successful and enjoyable (lankoski 2012; bopp et al. 2019). coulson et al. (2012) investigated the factors that may affect how players become attracted to video game characters and noted persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 9 that using npcs with sufficient depth and characterisation can prompt extensive and meaningful interactions between the npc and players. using npcs from bioware’s dragon age origins, they found that players developed real and meaningful emotions, and even love for these characters (coulson et al. 2012). investigating players’ responses to npcs in half-life, daviault (2012) found that rather than considering them part of the game mechanics, players perceived the npcs as friends and that they added emotion and enjoyment to their game. overall, 96 per cent of daviault’s (2012) participants stated that they considered npcs, despite not being controlled by the player, as still playing a role in the story. mallon and lynch (2014) analysed players comments that were diarized about their feelings during play in order to suggest ways that game creators could make players feel involved and engaged with both pcs and npcs. their results found two criteria were necessary for players to care for video game characters: (i) responsiveness of the characters; and (ii) stimulating deep and meaningful relations. they also found that players enjoyed developing relationships between their pc and an npc, and when deep relationships were established, particularly when the relationships were of a romantic nature, players expressed high levels of engagement. waern (2015) focused on romantic relationships in video games and found that the four romantic options for pcs (two male and two female npcs) in dragon age origins prompted emotional attachment. burgess and jones (2020) found that the emotional attachments that video game players formed with npcs motivated game manipulation behaviour, for example customising their pc’s armour to match the npc’s armour they were attached to and attempting to control the composition of cutscenes to better reflect and understand the persona of their pc as developed by the player. furthermore, burgess and jones (2020) found indications that the attachments male and female players feel might be different. based on an analysis of forum comments dedicated to beloved characters, they suggested male players might feel something closer to identification and a merging of their persona with that of their pc, while female players retained a distinctive identity that did not merge with their pc. female players saw their identity and that of their pc as two separate personas and individuals, in contrast to the male players. furthermore, female players spoke of their pc as a separate character and identity using the pc’s name of ‘shepard’ to describe them, while male players used first-person pronouns and conflated themselves with the pc. pcs, npcs, and fans fans are audience members who have an intense love and emotional connection to media, termed a fan objective, to the point where they consider it part of their identity (jenkins 2012; proctor 2013). fans will often form online networks and communities to discuss the fan object and to create and share fan works. fan works include stories (fanfiction), art (fanart), videos (fanvids), songs, toys, clothing and costumes (cosplay) (jenkins 2012). video game fans will also share video game walkthroughs, theories, and speculation, and tabletop role-playing game (trpg) might share fan-made guides and rules, rulebooks, and mods (newman 2013). fans will engage in debates with minute detail to strengthen or refute theories and viewpoints (newman 2013). the majority of the pleasure fans derive from their fan objects comes not from viewing and consuming them but from discussing them with other fans, and the more fans share their experiences with each other, the more their attachment to the original fan object grows (schwabach 2011). fandom is thus highly performative and productive; fans’ creation and sharing of fan content are acts of performance and also generates social capital within online fan communities (maccallum-stewart & trammell 2018). furthermore, the act of developing an online persona requires public, performative actions that allow for the expression of self often assisted by media technologies (moore, barbour & lee 2017). due to their focus on story, role playing games (rpgs) tend to be the video game series that attract fans. video game series that have prompted high amounts of fan productivity include the mass effect, dragon age and final burgess & jones fantasy series (maccallum-stewart & trammell 2018), which are series that have also received praise for their well-constructed pcs and npcs (jørgensen 2010). indeed, the emotional bonds created between characters and the audiences are often what creates emotional attachment to the fan object (williams 2015). thus, the lack of research into npcs could be limiting research into and understanding of video game fans and how they relate and negotiate their personas and those the npcs they encounter via the pcs they control. video games and gender video game players have been stereotyped in media and society as being male (vermeulen et al. 2016; condis 2015), despite research indicating that 47% of australian video game players are actually female (brand et al. 2019). it has been demonstrated that male players are more likely to play console games, while female players tend to prefer mobile and casual games (nichols 2014). however, despite this near gender parity, the characters in video games are far more likely to be male than female (mccullough, wong & stevenson 2020). furthermore, when female characters do appear, they are more likely to be supporting characters, rather than leading characters (williams et al. 2009), and depicted in a sexualised manner (lynch et al. 2016). the two most famous and enduring female video game characters are lara croft, who was depicted as highly sexualised, and samus, who had her gender hidden (ubaldi 2017). female characters are more common in independent games, although some big-budget game series, known in the industry as aaa (pronounced ‘triple-a’), have included female player-characters in sequels and spin-offs such as dishonoured, uncharted or the last of us. however, a female pc in a new aaa series, as was the case in horizon zero dawn, is still rare and sony, the game’s publisher, considered the design decision to be risky (peterson 2015). despite the near parity of female to male video game players, female players often feel a lack of belonging in video game contexts (vermeulen et al. 2016) and report harassment, objectification, and verbal abuse, which has been suggested as being related to the sexualised and/or absent female characters in the medium (hanus & dickinson 2018). thus, it appears that the female persona, whether encapsulated as players, pcs, or npcs, is not welcome in some elements of the video game community and industry. the video game industry has long assumed that male players would not enjoy playing as a female pc (hanus & dickinson 2018). for example, even though the pc, commander shepard, in the mass effect trilogy of video games released from 2009-2012 was originally envisioned as female by bioware, they added a male option and made this the default because they believed that male players would not want to play as a female shepard pc (jean 2019). bioware’s statistics indicated that 18% of players selected the female shepard (makuch 2013). assassin’s creed odyssey, released in 2018, was another game that allowed for a (binary) choice of the gender of the pc and approximately 33% of players selected the female pc (totilo 2019). since the video game market crash in 1983, video game developers have adopted a conservative, safer business approach prompting them to create male characters in the belief that the majority of their audience is assumed to be male (hanus & dickinson 2018). williams et al. found in 2009 that 89% of characters were male in their content analysis of the 150 top-selling video games between march 2005 and february 2006 (for the nine most sold game systems sold in the usa during that time span). this lack of representation of female characters also extends to video game box art, where female characters are more likely to appear as a supporting figure, if at all (hanus & dickinson 2018; near 2013). at the 2016 e3 (electronic entertainment expo), the industry’s premier industry conference where the developers and publishers announce and preview their upcoming releases, only 2 of the 59 video games showcased at press conferences had a female lead character (petit 2016). four games did not have a lead character. one of these two video games with a female lead character was horizon zero dawn, the research site selected persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 11 for this study. for this research, the player’s persona (whether male or female or other) was interacting with a female pc’s persona while both the player and pc explore the world of horizon zero dawn and interact with the gameworld’s npcs. the player controls aloy’s persona during gameplay. methodology research context horizon zero dawn is an action-role-playing video game that was released in 2017. the game involves playing as the female pc, aloy, who has been praised by critics for her strong personality, characterisation, and lack of sexualisation (williams 2019). as is the case with roleplaying games (newman 2013), horizon zero dawn’s story that was a key aspect of the game. players explore a post-apocalyptic earth to understand what caused society to regress to an agrarian level of technology but also resulted in advanced robots roaming the earth (farokhmanesh 2015). upon release, the game became one of the best-selling games on the playstation 4, and had sold over 10 million copies by the end of 2019. tie-in products were made and sold such as journals and action figures, a downloadable content (dlc) expansion, and there have been plans for a sequel (hood 2019). despite this success, concerns were raised during the game’s development about using a female protagonist pc as it was deemed ‘risky’ by the game’s publisher, playstation (makuch 2013). research approach and data analysis audiences regularly post comments online revealing their reactions to media and narratives (mittell 2015). therefore, a qualitative survey was posted on the horizon zero dawn subreddit that asked players of horizon zero dawn about their connections with the pc, aloy, and the attachments they formed for the npcs they encountered while playing as aloy. demographic data about players was also gathered. the answers to these questions were analysed following the phenomenographic approach as it involved iterative familiarisation, analysis, and interpretations in considering collective meaning (åkerlind 2012; mccosker, barnard & gerber 2004). the coding was done manually and at the semantic level, where only the surface or explicit meanings were considered (braun & clarke 2006) and was an iterative and continuous process with responses returned to and re-examined to refine codes and groupings as the analysis progressed (mccosker, barnard & gerber 2004). all of the responses were read before analysis began to ensure the researcher was familiar with the data and any recurring themes, phrases, and concepts. peer debriefings, in the form of meetings, were used to validate the analysis and the codes derived from it (creswell & miller 2000), which included definitions of each theme and example quotes. the human coding was informed by the role of active story interpreter that was undertaken by the researchers (reid & duffy 2018). this ‘interpretivist’ role involves immersion in the data and the context surrounding it in order to understand and decode the context and to form cultural insights into the phenomenon being investigated and ensure a valid analysis (reid & duffy 2018). such an approach allows for more accurate representations of the participants’ feelings and the research context under investigation (mittell 2015). the specific immersion took the form of playing the game to completion several times, lurking on the subreddit, reading news articles, reviews, and tips about the game, and watching gameplay video and commentary online prior to the data analysis. burgess & jones results participants 120 respondents completed the survey: 32 (26.6%) female, 86 (71.6%) male, and 2 (1.6%) who identified their gender as other. the vast majority of respondents, 83.6%, were aged between 18 and 34 (table 1). respondents named 30 different countries of birth with the united states and the united kingdom being the two most common (table 2). age number of respondents percentage of all respondents 18 to 24 61 50.8% 25 to 34 41 34.2% 35 to 44 13 10.8% 45 to 54 4 3.3% 55 to 64 1 0.8% table 1. gender and age of respondents country of birth number of respondents united states 60 united kingdom 8 the netherlands 6 germany and canada 5 each the philippines 3 malaysia, india, france, croatia, norway, portugal, romania, ireland, and italy 2 each mexico, spain, sweden, belgium, new zealand, aruba, colombia, czech republic, greece, hungary, jamaica, luxemburg, south africa, bosnia and herzegovina, and vietnam. 1 each table 2. country of birth of respondents 56.7% of respondents had completed horizon zero dawn either once or twice, while 37.5% had completed it three times or more (table 3). 40% of the respondents had completed the game on ‘ultra-hard,’ which was a difficulty mode launched after the release of horizon zero dawn and intended for experienced players who had prepared and planned for the increase in difficultly by stockpiling items and developing strategies. however, 66% of respondents had ‘platinumed’ the game, which involves completing extra challenges and activities for virtual trophies. when all of these trophies are collected, the player receives one final platinum trophy, hence the name. 95% of respondents owned the frozen wilds dlc released for the game, and 85% (of this 95%) had finished it at least once. the responses to the questions indicate that the sample was familiar and engaged with the game, as they had purchased dlc and played through persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 13 the game more than once. approximately 6% of all players who started horizon zero dawn (hzd) obtained the platinum trophy, and 34% finished the game’s main storyline, according to playstation’s publicly available trophy percentages. number of times completed hzd number of respondents percentage of all respondents 0 7 5.8% 1 39 32.5% 2 29 24.2% 3 17 14.2% 4 8 6.6% 5 or more 20 16.7% completed ultra-hard number of respondents percentage of all respondents no 72 60% yes 48 40% platinumed hzd number of respondents percentage of all respondents no 53 44% yes 67 66% own the frozen wilds dlc number of respondents percentage of all respondents no 6 5% yes 114 95% number of times completed main story in frozen wilds dlc number of respondents percentage of all respondents 0 18 15% 1 57 47.5% 2 24 20% 3 12 10% 4 4 3.3% 5 or more 5 4.2% table 3. respondents amount of play burgess & jones codebook a codebook was generated displaying the themes, theme counts, brief descriptions of each theme, and example quotes that were present in the survey responses (table 4). theme counts description example quote very much attached 34 this theme encompassed short, responses to the question answered in the positive. these tended to be quite short responses. “super attached.” moderately attached 11 this theme encompassed short, reactions to the question that was answered ambivalently. these tended to be quite shallow and rushed responses. “mildly. 3/10. i love aloy like a sister but can barely remember anyone else’s name.” not attached 7 this theme encompassed short, reactions to the question in the negative. these tended to be quite shallow and rushed responses. “not very much.” attached to aloy 24 this theme encompassed answers that identified their attachment as focusing specifically on aloy and her character, goals, and personality. “even though it is just a game, i could not help myself from becoming emotionally attached to aloy’s life story. i cared a lot for her, and wanted her to succeed.” attached to the characters 21 this theme encompassed comments that expressed an attachment to the characters of horizon zero dawn and their backstories and personalities. respondents praised the writing of the characters and developed connections to them. “i am extremely involved with the narrative and characters of horizon zero dawn. almost every character seems fleshed out and driven. the dlc of the frozen wilds helped to draw me in even further. aloy and the supporting cast have very compelling stories and characteristics. no character is perfect, which helps the immersion of the game and it's surrounding world immensely. it added a layer of thought to the narrative that explains the drive of specific characters and how their shortcomings tripped them up.” persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 15 attached to past side characters 6 this theme encompassed comments that expressed an attachment to the characters of horizon zero dawn but focused on the characters that appeared in the game’s past through holograms, recordings, and computer files. “interestingly enough i cared more about the characters and their struggles and reactions to the faro plague and creating zero dawn, then the contemporary characters. parts of the contemporary character stories were on a personal level relatable and therefore in these moments there was a stronger emotional attachment.” attached to the storyworld 14 this theme encompassed comments that expressed an emotional connection to the story and world of horizon zero dawn. players felt the world and history created in the game was moving and discovering it was an emotional experience. “as i did the main story missions all in a row at the end, the events and revelations during them were at the fore in my mind. the worldbuilding invoked empathy, sorrow, loss, and curiosity.” attached to the experience of horizon zero dawn 8 this theme encompassed comments that expressed an emotional connection to the experience of playing horizon zero dawn. respondents felt playing the game was a profound experience that had changed their world view and perspective. “i can’t imagine a world where this game doesn’t exist. this game changed my life.. made me more conscious about how i lived my life, what i take for granted… it's a master piece.” table 4. codebook of qualitative responses discussion although the survey did not explicitly ask about the overall storyworld of horizon zero dawn, players reported feeling attached to the entire gameworld including its history and locations. exploring the fictional history and geography of the world was a moving and emotional experience, and it was through aloy that players did this. the sense of wonder that players reported when playing the game does not seem to have been negatively impacted by playing as a female pc. interestingly, in the game, aloy lived in a confined area and knew little of the world outside, which the game explores briefly before the main plot takes aloy to other parts of the gameworld. as such, the wonder that players reported feeling as a result of exploring the gameworld could be influenced or enhanced by the persona of aloy and might indicate some ‘mind-melding’ (lewis, weber & bowman 2008), despite aloy being perceived as having a distinct character and identity. this finding also indicates that players found the story of horizon zero dawn compelling and emotional, despite the long-held view that video games are incapable of deep storytelling (haggis 2016). burgess and jones 16 importantly and understandably, the second most common theme was the attachment to the pc of aloy, notwithstanding the preference for male pcs by the industry or players when video games offer a choice of gender, as was the case with assassin’s creed odyssey and mass effect. controlling the pc of aloy and thus adopting her persona did not negatively impact on the player’s ability to develop attachments and relationships with the characters they encountered through her. in fact, participants of all three gender identities indicated they developed an attachment to her. in contrast to industry concerns that male players would not enjoy playing as a female pc (hanus & dickinson 2018), participants found aloy a compelling and enjoyable character through which to explore the gameworld of horizon zero dawn, even though the majority of respondents self-identified as a different gender to her. aloy was described as “compelling” and participants reported they knew “how she thinks and what she’s been through” indicating they believed they possessed insight and understanding of her character and her personality. thus, aloy was perceived as a distinct identity and persona that players controlled during gameplay. players saw her as a distinct persona they guided and controlled, which is in contrast to prior research that has focused on the merging of the player and player-character personae (milik 2017). players did engage in some merger of their persona with aloy’s, but even while viewing her as a distinct personality. this view developed despite the difference in gender of aloy to most of the participants (73.3% male). participants wanted her to succeed, and they developed an empathy for her and what she went through. some were even relating to her, and her experiences indicating their emotional attachment influenced how they saw winning the game. winning or finishing the game was seen as not entirely about the player’s success, but also about aloy’s success. several explicitly talked about their “love” for the character. juul (2013) noted that the players’ emotions should mirror those of their pc, so when their pc is happy, the player should feel happy, but when their pc experiences an upsetting event, the player should also feel those emotions. interestingly, this research indicates that this mirroring still occurred, despite the difference in gender and the perception that aloy was a distinct personality, indicating a merger of personas. thus, participants viewed aloy as a distinct persona, due to her well-developed character and personality in the game but were also involved in some merger of their persona and hers during their gameplay. players also expressed attachments towards the other npcs in the game and reported their emotional attachment to these npcs increased the stakes of succeeding and the motivation players had to finish the game. players attachment to the npcs increased their investment in succeeding in quests and gameplay. the characters were described as “fleshed out”, which made the characters “easy to get attached to”. one player even wrote that they “learned something from them[the npcs]”. these sentiments were developed as a result of players’ interaction with the npcs in the game, interactions that would have taken place via their pc of aloy. players described the characters they met throughout the game as meeting “friends” and “enemies”, the same classifications aloy would give to the characters in question, and developed connections to them as well. by controlling and adopting aloy’s persona, they were identifying the characters they met as friends and enemies as it was through her outlook and point-of-view. thus, players did not appear to encounter difficulties aligning and integrating aloy’s persona as they explored the game. as players interacted with the other characters in the game through aloy, they appeared to merge their viewpoint and persona with her while also viewing her as a distinct entity and persona. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 17 conclusion this research explored the personas of the players of horizon zero dawn and their pcs, and how these personas might affect their emotional attachment to the characters they and their pcs encountered during gameplay. this research has contributed to the emerging discipline of persona studies (marshall & barbour 2015) by examining personas in a single-player video game and the emerging but growing body of knowledge examining attachments to npcs (bopp et al. 2019; mallon & lynch 2014). it was found that despite the difference in gender between the majority of respondents and their female pc of aloy, players developed emotional attachments to her and could relate and empathise with her. the difference in gender of the persona of the pc and the players was not a barrier to this emotional attachment or game experience for the players of horizon zero dawn who participated in the survey despite industry concerns about female pcs being unpopular with male players. furthermore, although aloy possessed a distinct personality and identity, rather than being a customisable pc, players also reported mirroring her emotions, indicating that this was no barrier to mind-melding and elements of identification. players viewed aloy as possessing a persona distinct from their own, which is underexplored in persona studies with a video game context, but also reported aspects of mind-melding and identification. the npcs in the game were described as fleshed out with personalities that players reported made it easy to get attached to. thus, video game developers need to ensure the characters they include in video games have distinct and developed personalities to prompt players’ emotional attachment, which can make video games successful (lankoski 2012). players also reported that the attachments they developed towards the npcs they encountered as aloy enhanced their motivation to finish the game and replay it. limitations and future research this research explored one pc in a single game, a scope that is admittedly narrow but due in part to the lack of aaa games that have launched with a female pc. the research also used responses from online forum participants, who are likely to be more engaged and pay more attention to the media they are consuming (mittell 2015). indeed, the participants platinumed the game at a higher rate when comparing their answers to playstation’s publicly available data. participants were also 71% male, higher than the near parity between genders identified by research into video game players, although female players have been noted to be more likely to play casual and mobile games (nichols 2014) rather than console games. further research should explore a sample of video game players who do not regularly take part in online discussions, and players who participate in general video game communities rather than ones dedicated to a specific game, to see if these segments have different responses and how they viewed the identity of aloy and interacted with horizon zero dawn’s gameworld and characters. practical 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sunshine coast abstract key words introduction literature review player-characters (pcs) non-player characters (npcs) pcs, npcs, and fans video games and gender methodology research context research approach and data analysis results participants codebook discussion conclusion limitations and future research practical implications works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 33 gaga: notes on the management of public identity math ie u deflem abstract lady gaga distinctively exemplifies the contemporary celebrity in popular culture because of the extent of her fame as well as the distinct persona she presents to her audience of both fans and onlookers. in this paper, i discuss how the persona of the person born as stefani germanotta was created and subsequently maintained in a variety of ways related to her naming as lady gaga. invoking the work of erving goffman, my discussion extends beyond an analysis of the effectiveness and fame of lady gaga’s presentation of self to the ensuing essence of her persona itself, that is, of lady gaga as gaga rather than gaga. not merely a brand, lady gaga is, in more ways than only economic, what lady gaga has become to herself and to others. as the performer slips in and out of the many public personae she has created in her name, i argue, she has become gaga to the public at large and, with only minimal qualification, among her once personal friends and in the privacy of her socially constituted self. the truth that has to be acknowledged today is that lady gaga has indeed become lady gaga. key words lady gaga; self; identity; fame; popular music; pop star introduction there have perhaps been only a few artists over the past decade that have captured the public imagination as much as lady gaga, and who have asserted their name, in some part because of their name, firmly in the pop culture lexicon. lady gaga is, of course, far from alone in inventing a moniker that effectively functions, whether by intent or not, to contribute to the construction of a public self. bob dylan, freddie mercury, elton john, david bowie, george michael, iggy pop, and elvis costello are just a few of the pop and rock stars who invented a name for the stage of their music different than that of their birth. lady gaga was not even the first female singer to be explicitly named a lady, although lady bianca may not be well known outside a small circle of hard-core devotees of frank zappa, with whom the american r&b singer briefly performed in the 70s. nevertheless, as one part of lady gaga’s focused attempt to climb to the top of the pop landscape, the choice of a name as strange and malleable as her persona has been anything but inconsequential. in this paper, i contribute to the growing academic interest in lady gaga (gray 2012; iddon & marshall 2014) and the persona of artists (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, pp. 133– 153) by uncovering those aspects of the singer’s public identity that relate specifically to her name and its sociological significance in establishing the singer’s fame. readers with some deflem 34 background in sociological theory will have noted the blatant allusion made in this paper’s title to the famous work by erving goffman (1963) on stigma and the management of spoiled identity. as the name lady gaga will not evoke all too many negative connotations of exclusion, my discussion theoretically fits more broadly within the theoretical model goffman (1956) suggested on the management of the self in public life. informed by that perspective, my musings on the name lady gaga and the identity of the singer as both gaga and gaga are framed within a constructionist framework that focuses on the conditions of the fame of the singer and its various dimensions. “what’s in a name?” is the question that drives the analysis in this paper. dimensions of fame the study of fame and celebrity has developed well in recent years (marshall & redmond 2016; turner 2014) and has also begun to be applied to the world of music. fame in music is particularly interesting, amongst other reasons, because both music and fame constitute social relationships, between the performer and the celebrity, on the one hand, and their respective audiences, on the other (deflem 2017). the impact of these relationships is additionally amplified in the case of pop music because of the potential size of its audience. the fame of lady gaga is as undeniable on a global scale as it has been notable in its initial ascent some ten years ago. the singer’s fame is in fact now such that its study invokes a sense of banality. uncontroversially, i conceive of fame as the quality of being well known, whereas celebrity refers to being known or celebrated for being well known. despite the possible confusion in terminology, a person who is famous is called a celebrity. like music, fame is a social relationship with a particular cultural meaning. music is sociologically understood as the social organization and cultural meaning of the communication of organized sound by a musician towards an audience (martin 1996). fame is established relationally between a celebrity and their audience in connection with some achievement, which today most strikingly can indeed be fame itself. the constituent elements of fame and music, as of all things social (berger and luckmann 1967), are thus objective, subjective, and inter-subjective. on the basis of a constructionist perspective of culture, i have elsewhere analysed the sociologically relevant conditions of lady gaga’s fame as entailing a variety of artistic expressions that are mediated by means of marketing strategies and their legal aspects, activism and feminism, and, as the primary constituents of fame itself, the media and audiences of the singer’s fame (deflem 2017). to be sure, there are other factors as well, but they will be interwoven with those just mentioned. one such case is the naming of the singer as lady gaga, such as it has (objectively) taken place as well as the (subjective) presentation and identity of being lady gaga and its (inter-subjective) reception and understanding by the audiences of her music and fame. a small tradition of the sociology of naming exists (finch 2008; pilcher 2015), but it has not been explored much in connection with fame and celebrity. in what follows, i will show how the naming of lady gaga can be examined sociologically in terms of its role as impression management with respect to the various dimensions of fame. naming as impression management my analysis on the naming of lady gaga is theoretically framed in the sociology of erving goffman. goffman’s 1963 book stigma is most centrally concerned with discredited identity, but he also discusses the relevance of naming and renaming in establishing personal identity. goffman (1963, pp. 57–58) specifically argues that a name primarily functions as an identity peg that reveals a person’s sex and family lineage. while goffman briefly mentions that it is persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 35 customary in the world of entertainment for performers to change names, he goes on to argue that the legal name always remains traceable. although goffman is, in line with his focus on stigma, mostly interested in infamy or illfame and its functions of social control, it is noteworthy for the present analysis that he briefly addresses the relevance of fame. specifically, goffman (1963, pp. 87–89) describes fame in relation to a group of people who know a person without knowing them personally, that is without relating to them in the face-to-face interaction order, and which can therefore be much wider in composition. the more famous the person, the wider the group of people who know them without knowing them personally. goffman’s (1956) dramaturgical model in the presentation of self in everyday life is readily applicable to the world of fame and pop culture as the theory is derived from that very context by suggesting that the theatrical performance can serve as a basis to study how the self is presented to others. goffman (1956, pp. 10–46) thereby unravels the techniques of the presentation of self as an impression management to impart on others a belief in the role one plays. dramatization of the self in interaction occurs by highlighting certain notable aspects of one’s self, while idealization thereof can be employed to accomplish upward mobility. any mistakes and difficulties are covered up or concealed. lastly, goffman suggests the role of mystification of the dirty work that is involved in playing a role so that the audience will not question the performer. while goffman’s work is lacking in terms of its systematic theory-building capacity, it can be usefully employed in connection with a constructionist approach to fame. apart from expressing fame sociologically in a language of relationships, not attributes, the perspective i apply in this paper treats fame as a distinctly cultural phenomenon. in opposition to the reductionists who, following c. wright mills (1956) and the culture industry scholars (horkheimer and adorno 1944), conceive of fame in terms of its purported function of pacification as a political economy of profit and power, i rely on a neo-weberian model of fame as a cultural status (deflem 2017, pp. 20–23; kurzman et al. 2007). thus, relevant aspects of naming in terms of lady gaga’s fame can be related to the interpersonal privileges that are established in mediation with an audience, the economic privilege that comes with a name as a brand, and the legal privileges associated therewith. within these dimensions of fame, i will analyse the naming of lady gaga as a mechanism of impression management in connection with, first, the objective aspects of the history of lady gaga’s naming and, second, its subjective presentation and intended meaning on the singer’s part and the intersubjective reception by her audiences. the name lady gaga the history of the naming of lady gaga is, even in terms of its objective aspects, not entirely without confusion, something that has functioned to build the mythology around the performer and contributed to her fame (deflem 2017, pp. 30–37). the singer born on march 28, 1986 in new york city, was named stefani joanne angelina germanotta by her parents, both of italian descent. the family (stefani and her six-year-younger sister natali) were raised in the catholic faith, in which the use of multiple first names (rather than the more usual use of a first and a middle name in the usa) is not uncommon. the first name, stefani, appears to have no family ancestry and may have been chosen precisely because of its singularity. the spelling is not italian. the singer’s second and third first names refer to family members. joanne was the sister of her father joe germanotta, while angelina refers to her paternal grandmother angeline. to this day, the singer’s parents, sister, and other close relatives refer to her as stefani or stef, as deflem 36 she was also known among her friends during her teenage years. father joe’s nickname for her is loopy. according to her yearbook in high school, a nickname in her teenage years was ‘the germ’ (grigoriadis 2010). the second name in lady gaga’s birth name is not insignificant to the singer’s career, as she has often used it in her career. the singer’s aunt joanne passed away when she was only 19 years old, on 18 december 1974, a date that lady gaga herself cited during the concerts on her monster ball concert tour in 2010–2011 upon reciting a short, so-called manifesto of little monster, concerning her relationship with her fans. she also has the date tattooed on her arm in between a quote from one of rainer maria rilke’s letters about the passion of writing. on her first album, the fame, appears “a poem for joanne” in the album liner notes, and in 2016, the singer released an album named joanne, which contains a song of the same name about her aunt’s passing. at the time the album was released, the singer referred to herself at live concerts as joanne and also use that name for fan autographs. before and since the album, lady gaga has, in interviews, often referred to herself as a continuation of the spirit of her aunt, who was said to be artistically gifted and whose memory has been nurtured by her family through various remembrances. father joe, since 2012, has operated a restaurant in new york’s upper west side, just two blocks from where the family has been residing since the early 1990s, called joanne trattoria. the singer known today as lady gaga only sporadically performed publicly as a teenager. she began to take her professional music career more seriously, first as a student in musical theatre at new york university, beginning in 2004, and more resolutely after dropping out in march 2005 to seek an independent career in music. she was briefly a band member of a cover group called mackin pulsifer but otherwise performed under her birth name, either with or without the last name included, and occasionally with a group, the stefani germanotta band. most typically she would perform in clubs in new york as stefani or under the heading “stefani live.” no official recordings were released by stefani, but two self-released demos were sold by the singer at select club performances, and various live performances from 2005 and 2006 are now readily available on youtube. among them is a video of a showcase performance at the cutting room in new york city on 23 march 2006, nearly one year since she left college, the time her father had given her to make it on her own (deflem 2017, p. 34). that performance would go on to be a crucial turning point in the transition from stefani to gaga as the singer was there seen by fellow singer wendy starland, who had been asked by her manager and producer rob fusari to be on the look-out for a singer who could function as a performer in the style of the alternative rock band the strokes. in those days, stefani’s musical style was primarily moulded in a grungy indie-rock style. starland called fusari, who had by then acquired a name in the recording industry as producer of such songs as bootylicious by destiny’s child, and a week later stefani met him in his studio in new jersey. the two would go on to collaborate fruitfully on dozens of songs over the coming months on the basis of a production and artist development contract between the producer and a company representing the singer, mermaid music, which was set up by her and her father. importantly, it was fusari who first referred to the singer as ‘gaga’, in reference to her flamboyant style, which the producer thought to be reminiscent of freddie mercury of queen, who had a hit with the song radio ga ga in 1984. it is perhaps fitting for a singer whose initial rise to fame was in some part related to the assumed or real mythology that existed around various aspects of her persona (who is she? what is she doing and why?) that even the objective aspects of the choosing of her moniker are somewhat shrouded in mystery. most often lady gaga herself will say that the gaga nickname persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 37 was adopted by her from fusari and thereafter used by her friends as well. she has said she later added the suffix ‘lady’ to give herself a more rounded, noticeably feminine, and somewhat pretentious artist name. fusari, however, claims that the expression lady gaga was initiated by an accidental autocorrect when he was trying to type out “radio gaga” on his phone (dambrosio 2019). whatever the case may be, it is certain that the name change to lady gaga was formally accomplished by september 2006, when the singer was signed to a recording contract with island def jam. still appearing in her naturally dark hair, the singer’s first known performance as lady gaga took place at the cutting room on 6 october 2006. what is also certain is that the change from stefani to lady gaga was accompanied by a deliberate transition in her sound and style from indie-rock to electronic dance, a move that at least in part was made in collaboration with fusari, in view of its anticipated chances of success for a female performer in the pop world. after having been suddenly dropped by def jam a few months after her signing, lady gaga began to immerse herself in the underground culture of new york’s lower east side. there she met another self-named lady, performance artist and heavy metal dj lady starlight, with whom she would perform glam-oriented pop and rock shows under the heading “lady gaga and the starlight revue” (deflem 2017, p. 36). the two also performed together, billed only as lady gaga, on a small stage of the lollapalooza festival in chicago in august 2007. although that show failed to garner much attention, lady gaga’s music was gradually finding its way to the higher executives at interscope and its parent company universal, for which lady gaga was first hired as a songwriter before she was given a break to establish herself as a performing and recording artist. on 1 january 2008, a now blonde-haired lady gaga flew to los angeles and began recording music for her first album, the fame. the debut single just dance was released on 8 april 2008. initially deemed a failure, the song gradually performed well in some countries and radio markets and ultimately went to number one on the billboard charts in january 2009, some nine months after its release. from then on, lady gaga steadily established herself as a global pop sensation. being (lady) gaga: between self and others turning to the subjective meanings that lady gaga herself attributes to her name and its intersubjective impact on the audiences of her music and her fame, it is not incidental that the name lady gaga itself invokes a notion of mystery and bewilderment, and initially even some ridicule. unlike other artist names that are not readily recognized as artificial (bob dylan, donna summer, freddie mercury), but also unlike those artist names that are not always understood to be a performer’s legal name, whether from birth (prince) or upon a formal name change (alice cooper), the immediate weirdness of the lady gaga name relates well to her music and aesthetic persona. somebody who names herself lady gaga is probably more likely to envision a career in the pop world rather than in the serious art world. explicitly invoking notions of craziness (being gaga), especially in association with an ostensibly formal term (lady), the name fits perfectly with the music and style of her artistry. lady gaga herself acknowledged as much when she said the name is fitting because “gaga is sort of crazy and lady has such connotations” (quoted in keegan 2019). the deliberately, somewhat unsettling nature of the name lady gaga ties in with the manner in which the performer sought the limelight of fame, as the name is meant to be confusing precisely to have people wonder who she is. explicitly framed in the burgeoning celebrity culture days of 2006–2007, with its new class of young (female) celebrities who were famous for being famous, lady gaga developed her artistic persona expressly to be noticeable and to feel famous, even when she was not. the fame to which she aspires, she has said, is an deflem 38 inner sense of accomplishment based on being aware that “no one knows who you are but everybody wants to know who you are” (quoted in barton 2009). the name lady gaga served to contribute to make this dream come true as the expression readily invokes a question, “who is she?” or, even better yet, “what is she?” when she first appeared on the club scene, the name was received to be so unusual that pop singer christina aguilera, who was asked what she thought about the up-and-coming singer, claimed not to know who she was or even to know “if it is a man or a woman” (quoted in vena 2010). the comment would later sustain the rumour that lady gaga might have a penis, despite the inclusion of the gendered suffix lady in her name (deflem 2017, pp. 175-176). the relevance of lady gaga’s name to the dimensions of the conditions of her fame is most sharply revealed in its use in various media, both those that relate to her artistry and those that make her fame. it is evidently impossible to speak of lady gaga without invoking her name, but also, particularly during the formative years of her career, to discuss that name in and of itself, a quality that is lacking with artists who go by their birth name or are unrecognized to have an artist name. as such, the very fact that the name lady gaga appears on her albums in all their many forms, ranging from cd and vinyl to downloads and streaming services, shows the relevance of naming, however tangential it may be to the experience of the content of the music. in this connection, it should be noted that the spelling of the name in print is somewhat controversial. on her recorded music, the singer’s name appears in all caps (lady gaga), while in liner notes and credits it appears as lady gaga, but fans, and indeed the lady herself in her autograph, have at times also written it lady gaga. to know a person is also to know their name. seeking become known, at the beginning of her career, lady gaga would often yell out her name from the stage so that the audience would know who she was. several of her songs also contain her name in the lyrics, typically at the beginning of the song. her first hit just dance begins with the singer chanting her own name along with those of her producers (“redone, konvict, gaga”). other songs feature a similar audio cameo appearance of the gaga name, such as on eh, eh and i like it rough, from her debut album, where she chants “gaga” along with the nickname of the songs’ producer (“cherry cherry boom boom”) as well as at the beginning of smash hit bad romance (“gaga-ooh-la-la!”). in bloody mary, from the 2011 album born this way, the name gaga is sung in the style of gregorian chant. whichever other artistic purpose it might fulfil, the explicit reference to her name in a song will also place it audibly into the mind of the listener. at live concerts, likewise, the singer often explicitly refers to herself as lady gaga – at the beginning of her career to make sure the audience knew who the performer on stage was and later to clearly define herself as the person who not only carries the name but who truly is lady gaga. during her highly successful 2010–2011 monster ball tour, the singer introduced a short spoken-word narrative about self-worth by screaming loudly and proudly, “my name is lady gaga!” during a short run of live performances at new york’s roseland ballroom in 2014, merchandise was sold that contained the even stronger expression “lady fucking gaga,” the message being she is not only lady gaga but is also here to stay, like it or not. the naming of lady gaga has arguably shown its most explicit impact with respect to the media of her fame, inasmuch as her name has been explicitly discussed, even recently, some ten years into her successful and firmly established career, in various news media on tv, radio, in print, and on the internet. reviewing some of the earliest cover stories about the singer in influential news outlets such as rolling stone, vanity fair, and vogue, all of these early reports comment on the singer’s biography, including stories on her childhood and the years before her rise to fame, additionally being careful to mention her birth name and an explanation of the persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 39 origins of her artist name (hiatt 2009; robinson 2010; van meter 2011). news items telling the story of lady gaga’s name appear until this day, typically in online articles with such banal titles as “how lady gaga got her name” or “what is lady gaga’s real name?” (dambrosio 2019; keegan 2019). the ever-popular type of kitsch articles that involve some kind of faked “did you know…?” or “x-number of things you did not know about…” deal with the singer’s birth name and the origins of her stage name, even in recent years (joyce 2018; vogue 2019). no doubt a function of the ease with which all kinds of nonsense flourishes on the internet, it nonetheless also shows a continued obsession with the singer and anything related to her, including her name. lady gaga is arguably among the best examples in the digital era to have connected so well with her many and large audiences, an issue that has received all due academic attention as well (bennett 2014; click, lee and holladay 2017). in this mediation of the singer’s music and fame, her name has revealed several practical advantages. the global reception of the name benefits from it being made up of relatively common terms, as the words “lady” and, even more so, “gaga” are relatively universal. importantly, the connections lady gaga has thereby successfully established relate not only to her fans, but to a much broader audience of fans, nonfans, and anti-fans, all of whom are watching her (deflem 2017, pp. 125–127). in terms of the various and widely appealing styles of her music and artistry, also, the singer benefits from the emphasis in her name shifting from the first term to the second or, vice versa, from the second to the first as she moves in and out of contemporary pop as well as jazz, acting, and celebrity advocacy (deflem 2019). corresponding to lady gaga’s successful use of various media, the devotion of her most dedicated fans is likewise a notable feat that has received much scholarly attention (click, lee, and holladay 2013; dilling-hansen 2015a, 2015b; huba 2013). from the viewpoint of this paper, an important aspect of naming is that lady gaga also gave a unique name to her hardcore fans (deflem 2017, pp. 127131). while preparing the release of her album the fame monster in the summer of 2009, she began to refer to her fans during live shows as little monsters, a term that she from then on developed more explicitly by communicating it to her fans and, effectively, having them adopt it as theirs. correspondingly, the singer at times refers to herself as mother monster. lady gaga’s naming of her fans is reminiscent of other music fan bases with their own unique names. yet, the little monsters carry a name (and use the symbol of the so-called “monster claw” that was likewise suggested by the singer herself) that was deliberately invented and subsequently widely, if not universally, adopted by her most loyal fans. the general audience likewise use the term when referring to the singer’s most devoted followers as a component of her performance. like the name lady gaga, the term little monsters creates attention and thus functions as a source of fame, a phenomenon that in the world of pop music has been accelerated since lady gaga, with varying levels of success (e.g., beliebers, swifties, lovatics, arianators, fighters, and all too many others). while it is not useful to conceive of celebrity as an exclusive function of media industry forces (couldry 2016), it is also true that a successful career cannot be maintained without an appropriate infrastructure. as such, lady gaga also needs to be marketed so that her products can be sold and bought. besides various sponsorships and company tie-ins, lady gaga derives her wealth from recording and performing as lady gaga and from selling related merchandise (deflem 2017, pp. 62–64). in part as a result of the fact that contemporary pop stars cannot survive from selling recorded music alone, and in view of her many talents, lady gaga has presented herself, and is generally understood, as a multitalented artist, a singer and musician deflem 40 of pop, rock, and jazz, an actress, a fashion icon, and an activist, among other roles she successfully performs. hand in hand with the marketing of lady gaga as a product are a series of legalities involved with the business aspects of her career. as a performer who engages in a variety of contractual obligations, lady gaga is usually not named as such nor by her birth name, but instead is represented by a legal entity that is a company. for her business ventures, lady gaga (and her father) set up the limited liability company mermaid music in march 2005, when she first engaged in a contract with producer fusari (deflem 2017, p. 76). other, related companies that have since been set up include the functionally specialized mermaid touring and mermaid music management. the singer’s publishing interests are overseen by house of gaga publishing, while her trademarks are represented by the company ate my heart. litigation involving lady gaga has taken place as a direct function of her success and fame, involving contractual obligations, copyright violations, and trademark infringements (deflem 2017, p. 76). contracts are signed with one of lady gaga’s companies, and any related litigation involves those companies as well as the singer herself, who is then typically mentioned as “stefani germanotta aka lady gaga.” one of the few instances where lady gaga uses her birth name, stefani germanotta, is in matters involving her songs’ copyrights, such as the registration of her songs with the performing rights organization broadcast music, inc. to collect licensing fees and royalties (deflem 2017, p. 79). legal aspects of trademark involve regulations concerning the very name lady gaga and the products that are legally secured in association with that name (deflem 2017, pp. 77–79). defending the rights to use lady gaga’s name, the company ate my heart has successfully acquired some 50 trademarks, involving the name “lady gaga” in association with music recordings as well as a variety of clothing and beauty products. related names for which ate my heart has secured trademark include the names of some of her songs such as bad romance and artpop, the name of her creative team “haus of gaga”, and the name she coined for her fans “little monsters”, among others. since 2010, at least 35 trademark claims have been pursued by ate my heart for all kinds of named goods and services that were argued to involve trademark violations, such as a video song called lady goo goo and the breastmilk-derived ice-cream brand, baby gaga. not all of these litigations have been ruled in lady gaga’s favour. at times, not even the name lady gaga can help. the name of fame the name lady gaga has functioned as a device that sought and has attained attention. not only has the name of lady gaga in several ways contributed to her fame, that fame is in turn also expressed through the singer’s name. it could be no different, inasmuch as a necessary condition of fame is having a name and having it be known. thus, goffman’s (1963) notion of the identity peg in the case of a celebrity’s name becomes a necessary, if insufficient, condition of fame. applied to the case at hand, it would be too obvious to question the fact that lady gaga has been able to establish her career primarily as the result of her talents in music and, from there, her accomplishments in other ventures such as fashion and acting. people enjoy lady gaga primarily because and inasmuch as they like the many tangible expressions of her aesthetic persona. but there is also no doubt that, in lady gaga’s case, there is much in a name. subjectively, lady gaga presents herself consistently as lady gaga. as an indication of her own understanding of self, the singer would, at the concerts of her first head-lining tour the fame ball in 2009, admit that lady gaga is a lie, but also go on to say that she would kill to make it true (caramanica 2009). this transformation of lady gaga from an ideal to an achievement persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 41 corresponds to the singer’s notion of the fame that grows out of an initial delusion, to become famous by feeling and acting famous before one is famous. once established, lady gaga never wants to not be lady gaga, with the possible exception of her very smallest circles of family and intimate friends and boyfriends, who, by definition, we can never fully know. in 2010, she still used her birth name to position herself as involved as a citizen in political activism, such as when she spoke out against the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy against gay people in the us military (deflem 2017, pp. 149–150). but since those days, lady gaga has become the only name of her persona, although she has not gone so far as to legally change her name and is unlikely to ever do so. even lady gaga is not that gaga. the singer did recently, however, have her name tattooed on her arm in its corresponding musical notes (g-a-g-a) and uses a design with the letters on her current twitter feed, possibly in anticipation of her new album. inter-subjectively, likewise, the audiences of lady gaga’s fame refer to the singer by her name. journalists in the mass media sometimes include a reference to her birth name, as if this constitutes some type of special revelation or indication of her lack of authenticity in favour of the legally endowed objectivity of her birth name, which is designated as her “real” name. for all intents and purposes, however, the essence of lady gaga today is that she is lady gaga, even though she briefly called herself joanne during the joanne world tour and once “enigma” in preparation of her las vegas residency (dambrosio 2019). her birth name, in any case, is as irrelevant to pop culture as are those of vincent furnier, stevland hardaway morris, and paul hewson. during the promotion of the movie a star is born, the singer reaffirmed herself explicitly as lady gaga after rumours had circulated that she would be billed as stefani germanotta, probably as a result of co-star bradley cooper referring to her by her first name in the media (muller 2017). in the movie, lady gaga plays a singer called ally, a role perhaps not too far from, but nonetheless different from herself, as ally is reluctant to pursue the fame ultimately bestowed on her. from a constructionist perspective of fame as a cultural phenomenon, i reveal the name lady gaga to be influential at several levels, even including the mysteries surrounding its objective history, but especially revealing itself relationally in terms of the singer’s presentation of self to others, including the fans of her music and the audience of her fame, the media she uses, and her marketing and its legalities. this perspective runs counter to the scholarship of fame and celebrity that rests on a political economy of fame and accordingly reduces the naming functions in fame as branding, especially when it pertains to pop culture. in his analysis of the rise to fame of pop group new kids on the block, for example, david marshall (1997) highlights, among other matters, aspects of the name of the band as the name of a brand. the naming aspects of pop thus appear as an economic marketing issue, with the name of the pop icon representing a commodity that attracts an audience of buyers. “maintaining consistency around the name,” marshall (1997, p. 181) writes, “ensured a degree of brand loyalty among music consumers.” as my analysis has shown, it is not useful to reduce culture to economy, not even in pop, as the naming of lady gaga exerted itself in various ways, some of which, to be sure, also reveal the lady as a brand. but there is more. in many ways, lady gaga is the exact opposite of a brand because the singer herself was largely in charge of the construction of her own identity and its naming. the relationship her fans, the little monsters, establish with lady gaga is deeply emotional and cannot be bought, nor can they simply be thought of as having been fooled by a lie. to her fans, lady gaga is simply gaga, and she need not be called lady, suggesting an intimacy that is established by referring to the singer on the basis of her adopted first name rather than the formality that is suggested by any last name (marshall 1997, p. 144). calling her gaga establishes a closeness that is akin to that of a friend and probably more authentic than deflem 42 many of those who think they can refer to her as stef. for her personal friends who now call her gaga (as many of them now do), the situation is reversed, although the distance that is ironically created by those who used to know her as stef is offset by the fact that they can count one of the world’s most famous celebrities among their friends. in goffman’s terms of impression management, the naming of lady gaga has aided in establishing her as an artist, especially inasmuch as her name functioned as a combination of dramatization, idealization, and mystification. as a result, lady gaga has been successful, as a celebrity among celebrities, in manipulating the structural conditions of her presentation of self to further her popularity and its associated interpersonal, economic, and legal privileges. although lady gaga engaged in her own naming process early on in her career, to insert herself into the world of pop, she has since continued to affirm and re-affirm herself as lady gaga. this reiterative process of claiming to be, and thus publicly becoming, lady gaga has not only normalized her name, but also allowed her to fill in more liberally the meaning(s) associated with that name. indeed, what lady gaga stands for in this ongoing process of nameaffirmation is now much more than just a singer of catchy electro-pop songs, but instead has become a versatile artist who can just as easily sing pop as jazz, play classical piano, act in movies, and engage in political and activist causes. a key element that has enabled the formation of this multi-dimensional persona is lady gaga’s identity as a performance artist, which not only accepts but “embraces the possibility of transformation” (auslander 2016, p. 186). as this process of creating a multitalented lady gaga continues, she has begun to be perceived, not as just a pop star, but as an accomplished and respectable artist. in the goffmanian sociology of the self, the question emerges how the multiplicity of selves and their various roles are balanced and negotiated. lady gaga herself is firm on this matter, at least by stated intent, as she conceives of herself as full-time lady gaga (deflem 2017, p. 63). in interviews early in her career, for instance, she would often have to explain where the name lady gaga came from and if her friends and relatives call her gaga. rarely would she admit that her family and close friends held on to stef or stefani, instead emphasizing that everybody calls her gaga and even suggesting, no doubt falsely, that the name was already used by her friends before she formally adopted it (dambrosio 2019). the only known exceptions to which the singer has admitted are her parents, especially her father, and her boyfriends. on her album the fame monster, the song alejandro contains the oft-repeated line “don’t call my name”, to denote the anonymity the singer prefers to enjoy when having casual sex with unknown men who she in turn generically labels as just one of many alejandros, fernandos, and robertos. the song monster, about a sexual exploit, begins with the singer softly singing “don’t call me gaga,” as if she realizes the ridiculousness of still maintaining to be lady gaga when she is having sex with a man. inasmuch as lady gaga is now always lady gaga, there is no more private self that is not gaga. besides, although she rose to the top of the pop world because of her electro-pop dance songs, the performer has since proven her worth as a multi-dimensional artist. the moniker lady gaga has thereby allowed the performer to play different versions of herself or different selves. theoretically, an interesting problem presents itself: how can this multiplicity be captured in terms of the concept of persona? whereas philip auslander (2014, p. 188) suggests, explicitly in connection with lady gaga, the possibility of performance artists generating “multiple personae”, i argue it is conceptually sounder to adopt the notion of a persona (in the singular) that is multi-dimensional and versatile. after all, the various manifestations of lady gaga’s artistry and identity co-exist in the same person and do not appear as discrete entities. as such, lady gaga exists and performs, in kate warren’s (2016) words, as a “parafictional persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 43 persona” who can drift in and out of a variety of public roles, while always being true to her own self. as such, the performer can be said to exist, in the words of lady gaga herself, “halfway between reality and fantasy” (quoted in kelly 2011). conclusion naming has played a distinct role in the career of lady gaga. discussions about and with lady gaga during the beginning of her career and fame, not least of all dealing with her career and fame, did much to increase her visibility. likewise, talk about her name did much to promote her fame. even her fans and her audience are not immune to this process as they, naturally, become referred to, by name, as lady gaga fans and members of the lady gaga audience. only jazz singer and sometime lady gaga collaborator tony bennett calls her lady, as if it is her first name. the only other time that occurred, with all due comedic effects, was at a press conference for the movie a star is born at the venice film festival, where lady gaga’s name on a nameplate was abbreviated, similar to bradley cooper’s “b. cooper”, to “l. gaga” (rosenberg 2018). namerelated humour was deliberately pursued when lady gaga appeared in a mock tv quiz show sketch called “what’s that name?” on the popular comedy show saturday night live in may 2011. in the sketch, lady gaga knows everybody she has ever met by name, even a fan called alphonse she’s supposedly seen only once before (deflem 2017, p. 227). there is no denying that since, and at least partly because of, lady gaga, dozens of other performers in popular music have recently sprung up with rather unusual names. although they may not have been singularly influenced by lady gaga, there is no doubt that her success and fame did contribute to a normalization of the reception of such contemporary performers as fka twigs, sza, st. vincent, grimes, and m.i.a. what is also striking is that the naming of these artists remains a source of debate and curiosity in the media, even though the use of pseudonyms in popular music can rely on a long tradition. it is worthy of further research to examine if and why such discussions are gendered, as especially women performers are the object of such popular contemplations. in pop culture, it appears that the question ‘who’s that girl?’ is asked much more than its male equivalent. more broadly, more systematic research is needed to estimate whether the case of lady gaga is relatively unique or can be generalized to a broader universe. it is not only in line with a focus on the conditions of lady gaga’s fame, but also particularly because lady gaga has now become a household name, that the emphasis in this paper has been particularly concerned with the role of naming in the performer’s initial rise to fame, rather than its further development when attention on her name decreased, even though it did not become any less relevant. that very fact shows the success of lady gaga’s naming as a technique of impression management. yet, there has most recently been some change in how lady gaga relates to her name and its relation to her birth name, especially since she has begun to venture more seriously into acting. speaking of her role in a star is born and director bradley cooper, she has said, “i ran from stefani for a long time and i put on a superhero cape and called myself lady gaga. he challenged me to deep dive into a place where i had to see her again” (quoted in botticello 2018). but despite this one-time proclamation that there still would be a stefani 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gaga’s cultural revolution’, vanity fair, september 2010, pp. 280–286, 329–331. rosenberg, l 2018, ‘these “l. gaga” memes about lady gaga's venice film festival nameplate are too good’, elite daily, september 1, 2018, retrieved 14 march 2019, https://www.elitedaily.com/p/these-l-gaga-memes-about-lady-gagas-venice-filmfestival-nameplate-are-too-good-11477415 turner, g 2014, understanding celebrity, 2nd edition, sage, london. van meter, j 2011, ‘lady gaga: our lady of pop’, vogue, february 10, retrieved 14 march 2019, http://www.vogue.com/865458/lady-gaga-our-lady-of-pop/ vena, j 2010, ‘christina aguilera on lady gaga comparisons: “my work speaks for itself”’, mtv.com, april 21, 2010, retrieved 14 march 2019, http://www.mtv.com/news/1637525/christina-aguilera-on-lady-gaga-comparisonsmy-work-speaks-for-itself/ vogue 2019, ‘5 things you didn’t know about lady gaga’, vogue, january 6, 2019, retrieved 14 march 2019, https://www.vogue.com/article/lady-gaga-5-things-you-didnt-know warren, k 2016, ‘double trouble: parafictional personas and contemporary art’, persona studies, 2(1), 55–69. mathieu deflem abstract key words introduction dimensions of fame naming as impression management the name lady gaga being (lady) gaga: between self and others the name of fame conclusion works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 88 positioning in personal games: perspectives of the authorplayer persona in memoir en code: reissue thryn hen ders on u n i v e r s i t y o f y o r k abstract in creating autobiographical narratives through games, there exists a new theoretical problem in the game-player tension: how may a game creator relate their own story through a medium that relies primarily on another (the player) to execute? the blurring and shifting lines between the game creator and player resemble the same death knell roland barthes sounds for the literary author in “la mort de l’auteur” (1967). this paper proposes a more nuanced theory for understanding the ‘player positioning’ of autobiographical games with a triangulated framework. the player position is a player/author persona collaboration that facilitates a shared presence in the game space through various ratios of three positions: the player as the protagonist, protagonist-proxy, and witness. through a close reading of the autobiographical game memoir en code: reissue by alex camilleri, the paper explores how the player may perceive the autobiographical game. viewed through the protagonist, protagonist-proxy, and witness lens, the paper interrogates how the player position alters the nature of player-author identity within the game. it offers an approach for considering how the different perspectives of the author-player persona offer meaningful game(play), and argues for the shifting presentation of the author-player persona as an effective negotiation of a shared experience in the design of autobiographical games. key words autobiographical games; player positioning; perspective; narrative agency introduction the more you play the more you know me alex camilleri, memoir en code (2016a) the embodied digital self in games is often examined primarily through the lens of character or avatar (roine 2015; waggoner 2009; wilde 2018). an in-game persona occurs where play involves performing a specific version of someone within the game space. however, in the game space of the autobiographical game, players play under the expectation of understanding someone who exists for them primarily through their presence within the game. where an ingame identity is neither crafted for nor evolved from the player, neither character nor avatar is applicable as a basis for player persona—i am aware that i am not playing as myself, but i also lack the full context to play as the person acknowledged to be core to the autobiographical work. henderson 89 the player experiences a conflict of identity because they cannot claim to be the subject of the autobiography (its author). in her exploration of autobiography as a narrative of transformation, carolyn barros (1998, p. 6) neatly sums up a core conceit of autobiography, arguing that “the something happened of autobiography always has reference to a me”. in autobiographical works, players are attempting to connect the narrative (the ‘something happened’) to the ‘me’ it happened to. in autobiographical game spaces, however, something is happening to or around the player through their interactions with the autobiography. in his work phenomenology of perception, merleauponty (1962) argues that our continuous sensorial perception of the world, both situated and subjective, provides us with our meaningful knowledge of it. an “objective view” of a given reality, he suggests, could be obtained only by combining the views from different perspectives into a meaningful composite of depth and dimensions. my understanding of the author as an experience then can be seen as a collage of my various perspectives on the something that has happened, and the me to whom the something relates, although the “objective” possibilities of any autobiography are debatable. in considering the player’s understanding of the author as the meaningful act of play, i concern myself primarily with the player’s cognitive and somatic embodiment of the game as an experience or perspective of the author (that is, the game’s creator and the subject of its autobiography). the ‘player position’ then, is the perspective from which players understand the game, and it becomes the player’s perspective(s) of the author’s experiences. the way the player perceives the something happened/is happening is both situated outside of the game while the player is bodily interacting with it, and within the game through the audio/visual contexts and views that the game world provides them. the ‘me’ of the autobiographical game becomes a shared, mutable construct unique to each instance of play. this paper aims to investigate the negotiation of player-author persona in autobiographical games, primarily through a close reading of memoir en code: reissue (camilleri 2016a) a vignette compilation game. this reading explores the inconsistency of the playerauthor persona in play, and examines how shifting perspectives and possibilities presented to players inform the relationship with the autobiographical content of the author. the focus is mec:r’s varied player positioning and abstracted autobiography; i argue that, to the extent that any meaningful interpretation of the content is achievable, understanding the game is a collaborative work of play which relies on an abstract and malleable persona. each avenue of this close reading is presented in parallel with short comparative examples of smaller autobiographical vignettes, cross-examining the genre through the same analytic lens. the core aspects of this analysis centre on a triangulated conceptual framework of ‘player positioning’ which considers the degree to which the player assumes a protagonist, protagonist-proxy or witness role in relation to the game’s events and the author’s experiences. player positioning is shaped by the player’s awareness of their character in the game, their presence in the scene, and the narrative contexts provided to them by the author. the autobiographical game, as a space between diegetic and mimetic play, is where the personal experience of the author is told and relived by the player asynchronously. by applying the player positioning framework, i offer ideas as to how the author-player persona exists as variations of protagonist, protagonist proxy and witness through the 'conversation' of play. this paper will first review the criteria through which mec:r fits the autobiographical game genre and the invitations it extends to players to understand the author through its play. it will consider the unconventional frame of presentation through which the game builds connections between author and player. i will then examine mec:r through the triangulated player positioning persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 90 framework, alongside select other autobiographical games, to consider the influence of the shifting player perspective on the player-author persona and the act of understanding the game’s autobiographical experiences. memoir en code: an autobiographical game memoir en code: reissue (hereafter “mec:r”) is a self-proclaimed autobiographical game by alex camilleri, who describes it as “the most personal game i’ve ever made” (camilleri 2016b). the game comprises a series of individual scenes about camilleri’s life, which lead the player through a variety of his lived experiences: “from the struggle of keeping together a long-distance relationship to the exploration of childhood memories” (camilleri 2016c). after the initial release in 2015, the game was updated to include an extra scene, redeveloped graphics and audio, and a set of developer’s notes on each game that aimed to provide “a new take on some recentlife[sic] events” and republished as memoir en code: reissue in 2016. the game is an autobiographical character study and an experimental work, exploring the limits of game creation as a life writing tool. from graphics made from photographs of the author’s hair to sections of code written using personally significant dates, camilleri’s work utilises the game beyond the playable portions to craft the digital object as a whole into an autobiographical self. the game was chosen for this close reading due to its presentation: it is composed of multiple short vignettes collated into one larger single game, akin to a music album. this “game album” approach offers various autobiographical vignettes for close reading, all created within the same context, but utilising different techniques of player positioning. mec:r specifically was chosen over its original version because of the author’s choice to extend the re-issue into a more updated self-portrayal. the core of the game is presented through nine individual vignette game “tracks”. each track is presented as a small 2d space of minimal, flat colour graphics and limited player interactions, with the exception of one purely text-based screen. the tracks can be played in order or skipped/replayed if desired; each scene is designed around a specific, contextless memory or mood of the author. while mec:r has no singular, formal narrative arc, it does prioritise an evocative sense of narrative in its framing, and players are encouraged to know camilleri through their actions and involvement. in its first moments, before play begins, mec:r explicitly invites the player into camilleri’s life via the message “the more you play the more you know me”, framing the game that follows as an intimate personal and private investigation. identity in autobiographical games conventionally, playing role-playing or narrative games involves an avatar (a self-representation or proxy of the player) or a character (a fully or partially realised separate entity, controlled by the character) that players might identify with or as (shaw 2011). players may use what they know about their in-game avatar or character to influence their behaviour, or help them to make sense of their actions: how i see the world through the camera may help me locate where i am, for example, and to ascertain my physical and emotional distance from the actions that take place therein. within role-playing games that use an in-game avatar, i may take guidance for my actions or my in-game personality from the physical traits i have been assigned or chosen (yee & bailenson 2007). differing viewpoints, such as first-person and third-person game cameras, may imply and impact my 'game body'. the screen or camera which follows/inhabits a game character functions as a perceptive organ of a ‘‘game body”, confirming its corporeal presence within the game to the player (crick 2011): the way i gaze upon myself or the world through my eyes or the camera lends some further indication of how i am placed within the physicality of the game world, as well as the immediacy of my connection to the character. henderson 91 many autobiographical games do not typically offer either to the player; however, i may still gain some sense of my identity from my presence as a physical entity in the game world. werning (2017) argues that autobiographical games present author personas not as narrative character archetypes, but as sets of characteristic actions or possibilities for actions; the persona is a space for projections of players' assumptions as well as authors' personal experiences. in this possibility space, shaped by the author, players find themselves somewhere between a mimetic and diegetic player, between their narrative agency and their own desires, and acting not as a narrative transforming story protagonist, but a protagonist of the experience (wood 2017). alongside issues of physicality in the game-space, autobiographical games must also consider how an avatar or character that connects players to a game space may also break them from it, such as when possible actions and intentions do not line up to player desires and expectations. an avatar asserting their own “individuality”, where previously intra-dependence seemed cohesive, may lead players to seek control over them (wilde 2018). this becomes a source of potential conflict when the desires of the player may conflict not just with that of a character or hidden game designer, but also with that of the authors present with them in the game space. wardrip-fruin et al. (2009) propose a helpful redefinition of agency addressing some of these game/player conflicts. he argues that we should not consider player agency as a structural game property with the aim of “do anything”, but instead as an interaction where the dramatic possibilities suggested by the world fit the player actions that the game supports. karen and theresa tanenbaum argue in the same vein that in game spaces where narrative understanding is prioritised, agency can better be understood as the player’s commitment to meaning (tanenbaum & tanenbaum 2009). this view of agency prioritises communicative commitments between player and author, considering the game space as a stage for the improvised performance between author and player together (tanenbaum & tanenbaum 2010); it is through this lens which i examine how it is that autobiographical games such as mec:r evoke the particular desires that they satisfy, through both action and behaviour. reading for player position player positioning is considered within this paper as the perspective and contexts through which the player may interact with the game world and form their own interpretations of its autobiographical content. the player position informs the player how they are situated regarding the autobiography of the game: their position relative to the author, built from their contextual and sensory understanding of the scene. player positioning need not be tied to a character or an avatar, then—a particularly useful concept for autobiographical games, where the author's presence pervades the game object as a whole. authors in this autobiographical realm of game design can knowingly or unknowingly utilise levels of control or aesthetic/narrative abstraction—such as the possible interactions or the visual representations of the player character—to create barriers or intimacy, distance, or detail. traditional concepts of “action”-based agency may be mitigated through positioning, which renegotiates the terms of shared persona and narrative agency; in other words, allowing the player to function and have purpose within the established boundaries and contexts of the experience. by forgoing casting the player as an author character, autobiographical game authors may create spaces to share vulnerable lived experiences, without the player controlling the author’s agency or claiming those personal experiences as their own. instead, i consider playerauthor persona collaborations in varying ratios between three points of reference: • player as protagonist, experiencing the game space under the author’s influences, but through the player’s own actions and contexts; persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 92 • player as protagonist-proxy, behaving as a stand-in for the author, acting with their direction and contexts; or • player as witness to the experience, given access to the author’s thoughts, actions, or memories as a bystander. through these near-author positions, players may have meaningful, intimate access to thoughts, feelings, and memories, and act out their part from wherever they may best be positioned to understand what is being shared with them. in the case of mec:r, narratively speaking the voice of the game is consistently that of camilleri himself. however, the access i as the player am provided is a kaleidoscope of viewpoints and controls, as my positioning is readjusted scene by scene. mec:r plays with this notion of self throughout, asking the player to adapt to a changing, fluid player position as the game progresses. while mec:r assures me that my play will reveal camilleri to me, it does not tell me i will be him, and i am not encouraged to strive to do so as i play. addressing the protagonist, protagonist-proxy, and witness positions, in turn, i will examine how mec:r repositions players within each game track to support affective and cognitive connection with the shared author/player persona. negotiated persona through player position player as protagonist although the term “protagonist” generally refers to a character central to a narrative (miller 2004, pp. 89-105), in the case of player positioning, i consider the “player as protagonist” to mean that it is the player who is the focus of their own attention within the scene. rather than having the player act as though they are the author, they are instead given primary control over the scene and asked to find meaning in their actions and responses. assuming a protagonist position presents an immediacy of the connection between the player and the game space—one where the player is given the opportunity to play directly in the space, inhabiting, and acting within the scene primarily as themself. the idea of the player performing as the author may be stated or implied in the game’s fiction or meta-text. if the player is provided with an avatar in an autobiographical game, it may be an obvious representation of the author, and not presented as a blank slate for the player’s projections. arguably, though, where the player is presented a scene as a ‘real-time’ event (a reaction-based game, for example), or focused internally on their own presence and body, the requirement of piloting or inhabiting a character may be a cognitive one less demanding than the affective responses arising from the player’s own experience. when players are asked to make meaning from their surroundings largely through their actions, and where affective choices take precedence over deliberate cognitive choices, authorplayer understanding lies in the internal, self-focused interpretations of events. the author may direct play through the allowances of the scene and the options provided, but the player utilises their body outside of the game extensively. they are “doublesituated” as a game entity, their interactions with the hardware and software re-embodied in the game as it responds to their input, establishing a shared phenomenological physicality with the author (ensslin 2009). i may, for example, find shared frustrations or physical responses with the author as i try to adequately control my on-screen presence, blurring the separation of my inand out-of-game self. by making the task an extended, complex act of play rather than a single button to carry out my intention (press x to pick up an object, or click to open a door), the conditions of play become more active and involved and so i may become more aware and more insightful through my active participation in the task. regardless of whether the interaction is relaxed or high tension, when the act itself is part of the narrative and the execution of the mechanic is core to finding henderson 93 meaning in the scene, the player may benefit from being given more front-seat control over their behaviour. the player as protagonist positioning, then, in allowing players high degrees of controllable action, lends itself in autobiographical spaces to the experience of instinctive motivations, bodily actions, and spaces where the player’s immediate responses take priority. mec:r most often asks me to step in and play without context when the matter at hand is rooted in bodily experiences, and a great deal of my play prioritises awareness of bodily presence, sensations, and reactions. in the first interaction of the game, after its title sequence, the player drags the needle of a record player onto the image of a record which serves as the game’s title screen. this action takes place before any idea of being a character is introduced. this is crucial to the player as protagonist position as arguably the first act the player undertakes in the game is as themself. these types of largely wordless moments of physically-focused interaction ask me to find meaning, not in cognitive understanding of the complex emotional history of camilleri, but in the shared experience of physicality: an understanding of his life rooted in my embodied responses, different though those may inevitably be. where camilleri’s anecdotes of play focus around the feeling of a generic task rather than a specific memorable moment—a complex hand-eye coordination challenge frequently set to him by an aunt, or the pitfalls of clumsy everyday interactions carried out in a second language—i am let loose to understand these experiences through my own abilities and reactions. the meaning that takes precedence is the immediate frustration, embarrassment, and attention elicited by the event and by the success or failure of the action. in autobiographical games, though the hands i manipulate on the screen or the eyes i gaze out from may nominally be the author’s, i am asked here to commit my attention, my focus, and my physicality differently than a digital game would otherwise demand of a task, such as picking up an object or shaking a hand. the quick-time style events presented in the game track oranje focus the player on the impulsive responses and perceived need for haste that arises when they are surprised by others. the frantic actions in play require quick reaction times, and a speed read of the situation— whether timing a button press to choose the right option between a handshake or a fist-bump, or desperately figuring out the correct response to a cashier before passing the socially acceptable time to answer. no access is provided to the author’s context for the scene, nor any narrative goal required of me, and so i cannot act in the author’s stead—i act as myself, due to the constraints that extend a mechanic rooted in sharing a feeling. the lack of information, the cold opening, and the mere moments to react—all may invoke a flustered state much akin to an unexpected social awkwardness, and so are as much a part of understanding the interaction as the actual act of timing the move correctly. by amalgamating the individual experiences into one representative task, and then placing that interaction into the player’s own hands both on and off-screen, camilleri invites players to know him only by their personal understanding and responses. we see this same use of task-orientated presence in indelible (2015) by melody lee (zhi xin), a game comprising three short vignettes about dealing with an unexpected period in public. built around this shared social-body experience, rather than a specific memory from a specific person’s life, indelible strips background, foreshadowing, or context completely: the game simply throws players straight into the action of the first game—rushing to a public bathroom, attempting to cover a visible blood stain—and assumes the player has some context and knowledge to ground the experience. by being in direct control of my responses, i am asked to confront the shame or embarrassment bodily functions can bring. in the second vignette, players struggle to correctly position and insert a tampon, the difficulty is exaggerated by an unpredictability of movement in relation to the mouse input. though i see ‘my’ body as an onlooker, through a side-on view of abstract line art, the frustrations of the moment and battles with my physical existence are conveyed through my bodily connection to the mechanic. in the persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 94 third game, players try to clean blood stains from underwear, repositioning them under the water with the mouse in one hand and mashing buttons to scrub with the other. the lack of visible hands on-screen does not inhibit my connection to the shame this body brought me, or the unfairness of this moment. that a lack of physical/visual form should not inhibit protagonist positioning suggests inserting ourselves as an immediate presence is not as simple as hopping into a waiting vessel. indeed, throughout mec:r, my bodily sense of presence takes many varied forms. i may be a pair of hands or even just the one, or my physical existence may be merely implied. the game track silippo is formatted entirely in the style of a text adventure or interactive narrative, but it is crafted such that player access to the narrative it tells is immediate and close. in this track, which i also argue is mec:r’s most traditionally narrative moment, we are told a bedtime story. my body is missing entirely from the scene (i see only white text on a black background), yet i still find myself receiving bodily information as i listen to the tale. my body becomes a known presence through the aesthetic presentation of the scene, if not a visible one; as the tale continues, the text visually blurs and fades, its content becoming less coherent. looking at the scene on the screen, my eyes can understand a bodily response through the altered text—i am becoming unfocused on the voice that speaks to me, not ‘hearing’ as clearly as before; perhaps i am falling asleep. though i see only the text, i am provided poetic feedback to shape a bodily experience. this bodily awareness may come from a specific recreation of an internal system or provide the context to a whole scene; although it may be difficult to recreate senses beyond sight and sound, the player can at least perceive the entirety of a situation to better grasp what those senses may have told them. even with a body on screen, extracted to a distant viewpoint to better understand the situation, i may watch my body from afar but still be present in the scene in a very immediate sense. when my locus of bodily control is far removed—watching myself wander a beach from above as in the game track s.s.s, for example—despite my displacement from the body i am provided, i may feel this presence is still my own. players are given no task to complete in s.s.s, no guidance on where to go, no time limit or suggestions; the scene allows me to enjoy it however i choose. with the author’s influence over my actions not noticeably present in the scene, and nothing to understand but the sensation of a day at the beach, there is no cognitive demand to comprehend another’s specific motives. though i am far from my avatar, i am present wholly in the scene, without any obvious detachment. in indelible’s opening moments, i find this same duality of visual separation yet affective closeness. here, my relinquished control over the body as a whole serves to reinforce a different sensation to focus my attention; namely, that of panic. almost on autopilot, my in-game entity, which i watch from above, navigates their way to the nearest restroom. removed from an inner locus of control, i must watch this body, external from it, and see how it elicits the stares of strangers; i focus my physicality on hiding the stain i bear with a handbag, swinging my hands from side to side as i endeavour to conceal it from all angles. back in mec:r’s bedtime tale vignette, my bodily autonomy is stripped down for a similar effect. the playable portion of the screen—my vision, from within myself—is reduced over time as i mumble responses. eventually, my input to the tale is blurred out and illegible, just as the text becomes more nonsensical, as i struggle to stay awake and active in the storytelling. like falling asleep, my slowly closing eyelids are not necessarily a voluntary function. just as the uncontrolled path i hurry through in panic, i can understand what my involuntary closing eyes means; that my body is not always fully under my control. henderson 95 player as protagonist-proxy while positioning the player as the protagonist prompts players to examine their affective understanding of the game world (and the author’s experience), positioning the player as protagonist-proxy asks them to examine their cognitive connection to the game instead. the player as a proxy for the author’s actions and choices may take on a near-protagonist role, and be given some level of control over the scene but may remain distanced from the immediate emotional responses. they are, instead, focused on understanding their actions more contextually. stepping away from the close self-focus of the protagonist, this positioning inserts a veneer of the author over my own in-game presence. i perform as or alongside the author who becomes spectatorial, directing and shadowing my actions as i act in tandem with them. in this sense, the protagonist-proxy position sees me to some extent as a puppet-player in the scene. my performances are shaped through the author’s stage directions and contexts, the form i take in the space, the actions and choices that are available to me, and the reactions that the game world offers back. players can step into more complex situations with their own intentions and interpretations, with any necessary contexts to the scene being provided by the author. in a space between playing camilleri’s life and merely watching it, i find myself carrying out ghosts of his past conversations without the contexts that brought him to them. in oranje, i greet party hosts nonsensically for reasons i do not understand (i, like many players, do not share the cultural knowledge of birthday traditions in the netherlands). as i watch my game body and its reflection stare at each other in the mirror of otoloop (a game track that loops endlessly unless skipped in the game’s minimal interface), i fail to escape negative patterns of thought and behaviour, no matter what my intentions may be. i see a version of my player/author self carrying out tasks under my instruction, and am steered toward questioning and therefore understanding the narrative or personal meaning to my actions, rather than simply feeling my immediate affective responses. i am encouraged to consider the author’s lens alongside my own frame of reference through my connection to the scene. i find myself closed off from the most intimate moments, and separated from being wholly in the scene, my in-game presence, and even the full emotional weight of context and consequence. in the track øresund, my camilleri counterpart talks to a faceless woman in a train station, the conversation moving forward facilitated by my choices. my stand-in avatar is unmoving, placed between the woman— the other party to the conversation—and my own position, observing the conversation externally. facing away from me as we talk through the open doorway of a train, i stare at the back of my protagonist-proxy presence, the conduit through which i speak but a body i do not control. as i begin to unfold what this conversation is, and whom we are talking to, my conversation flickers through time; clothes change with each new attempt to connect to the woman, whole chunks of conversation appear to be missing. i am not acting out a conversation as myself, but investigating a number of previous conversations through small moments of camilleri’s memory. i am provided with a selection of sentences to choose from, which provides space for me to act how i believe camillieri would or should have done. although the responses from which i choose are presented to me in the exact way i will say them (rather than, say, the topic-based prompts of larger roleplaying games such as mass effect, or the emotional response systems seen in games such as l.a. noire), my player positioning as an agent in the scene has me move away from a full protagonist role. i am positioned as an external entity, watching two other people talk from outside the body, and more importantly outside the conversation. the history behind it and the details of my author-self’s reactions are inconsequential to my understanding of the conversation’s tone. i cannot, at any point, even see my own face. a layer of emotional distance yawns between me, the player, and me the character—and even more so between me and the woman i am speaking with, and the reality of where the conversation has come from. i persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 96 understand what these moments were, to camilleri, through deciphering through his lens on one hand, and my own on the other. however, this cognitive understanding between author and player does not necessarily imply a static in-game presence or rely on interactive fiction or written game narrative. in the track laurana, after a brief opening message explaining that exams are approaching, players are in charge of a god-like, top-down management game as they pilot a white square (camilleri, they can reasonably assume) around a noisy house. managing to study becomes almost a puzzle, a balance of focus on the avatar and the game’s information overlay— two aspects of bodily/cognitive awareness in the scene. with one eye i monitor the ever-decreasing time until my exam, and with the other i watch the increase in my knowledge bar, all while constantly redirecting the avatar under my control to flee the noises created by others. i am not inhabiting the house or the moment in a bodily sense, but instead attempting a strategic placing of my cube-self in the game map, while monitoring resources and the approaching threats. while this splintering of my attention may aptly recreate a stressful situation and invoke flustered, distracted responses, contextually i do not know whom i am avoiding, what i am studying, or why. what matters here is not what i would do when presented with all the facts, so much as that i can understand the frustrations camilleri felt under these particular constraints. the fine detail does not, to the player, convey any extra meaning—and so does not, in the context of the scene, really matter. there is a distance between my actions and my complete understanding of them, similar to the dexterity games i play when positioned as the protagonist. here, although, i am not asked to understand the motions i make or the affective frustrations of the task, but the complexity of the situation and the actions of the author. i study under the circumstances of camilleri, using his own room-switching strategy, to understand the complicated balancing of expectations and external pressures; my full visual of the house plan, the context-setting of the opening screen text paragraphs and the interface progress bars all ask me to act with a narrative commitment to the author’s experience. i amalgamate these experiences to approximate camilleri’s cognitive and bodily awarenesses, and i act according to his habits. my only alternative is to walk my cube out the door and leave. by curating the experience of the player through a protagonist-proxy and therefore distanced position and providing only the salient details such as a conversation that frequently occurs at a train station goodbye or a house that is too loud to study, the player has just enough context to make meaning of the autobiographical feeling of the scene from their action in it. positioning a player as a protagonist-proxy offers a distance between the author’s potentially very personal lived experiences and the player’s in-game actions, overlapping the two through the details that are key to whatever meaning the player is asked to explore. the tools to understand the author are the contexts within which i act, and the interactions illustrating what the author would, or did attempt. as an author proxy character, players may find their choices, actions or presence in the game world more directly influenced by the author's experiences or memories. positioned with the author between myself and the moment the vignette explores, i negotiate my responses and desires through the filter of the author’s presence. where i aim to understand both the game scene and space and the motivations or responses of my avatar, i translate my actions through the contexts of the author’s experience. to a certain extent, i am walking alongside the author in the scene—both of us on the same path, but with our experiences shaped by our personal context. the author-shaped version of the player as proxy comes with internal complications and restrictions placed to recreate, resemble, or reflect on the author’s own lived experiences through my own interpretations of my play. within the game my presence is a cast shadow, a poetic rather than literal translation of the author's lived experience, directed by their presence and the interactive possibilities they have provided. henderson 97 player as witness the player position as witness presents perhaps the most subversive mode of player positioning, stepping the furthest away from the widely-accepted notion in larger video game productions that a player should have a direct impact on or control of the game world around them—and that game worlds as objects exist around the player (as a character or avatar) at their narrative centre. relying instead on the evocative aesthetic and narrative elements to give the player a sense of meaning, player as witness provides a great deal of control and protection over the portrayal of an author's lived experience, while still granting the player close and open access to the intimate moments being shared. by positioning a player as a witness to the events, memories, or feelings shown within the game, the game appears to offer a playful method of sharing without passing over control—allowing players access to lived experiences without placing them in the position of the author. positioned as witness, the player is, in a sense, almost removed from the game as an active agent, playing in the space of the story rather than as an active part of it. where the player’s role in the game is diverted away from solving, changing, or forming the narrative, they may instead focus on the delivery and experience as the ludic element of the game. in the space of the game, the player may explore the narrative simply by navigating through it. in doing so, the act of witnessing becomes just that: an action that the player is taking upon themselves, as themself, to understand the author. as such, we see that in its most intimate moments—namely, those dealing with ephemera of camilleri’s life in an unrepresented and literal form—mec:r shifts the player into a passive role almost, although not entirely, disconnected from the play. the opening and ending scenes of mec:r (pieces and lei disse) see me witnessing camilleri through his personal ephemera: various small items laid before me on a desk. although the ‘thoughts’ that appear on the screen when i click on an item are written in the first person ("i wonder if..."), it is hard to find anything that implies i am assuming the place of the author, or that this is my space. although cognitively i may piece this together from my access to an intimate workspace and having thoughts on the objects available, the emotional connection to the objects on the table is not familiarity but curiosity. the musings triggered by the objects, small snippets without context, could easily be my own. however, as i have no memory of them and no context to explain them, i view them through my own eyes before viewing them through camilleri’s. although my interactions may flick a light switch or turn a tablet on (confirming me as existing somehow in this digital room), i cannot otherwise alter the items before me, and i am asked to do nothing with them. it is the act of seeing that we have been brought here for, to understand an element of camilleri’s life through our witnessing; although he has no physical presence in the game space for this scene, the feeling is of listening to him talk to me as i point out one object, then the next. however, positioning a player as a witness does not necessarily require the player's physical presence to be removed visually from the scene. in the same manner as wandering the empty halls of an exhibit, the player may well be located within a physical representation of memory and self, finding themselves in the first-person view and with a visible digital body, but distanced in some other way from the objects and narratives within. the interactive diary game, sacramento (dziff 2016) for example, is a first-person, 3d space, where the player is physically present in the game as a hand, brought to the player’s line of sight on the screen when they check their watch. while the player has a bodily presence in the world, the game world responds very little to their passage, offering no interactions, text, or prompts to act. the game, made up of sketches created by the author, feels almost like a gallery visit where the player’s presence is only for themselves. to explore the watercolour diaries sacramento displays, players are placed persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 98 bodily into a digital landscape built from the author’s sketches, dropped off there quite literally at a train station, then left to explore. they can see the world shift and come to life as animations play when they approach each new feature, the world playfully reacting to the player rather than the other way around. players are asked only to admire a world which acknowledges, but does not require, their presence. witness player positioning is exemplified in the genre of ‘walking simulators’, in which active play is centred around the slow uncovering, exploring, or deciphering of a game space rather than changing, achieving, or altering events (koenitz 2017). there is a similar approach in interface games—games played via interacting with a simulated technology on the screen, uncovering information through unearthing digital ephemera. clicking around the brightly coloured personal desktop of my computer (gibson 2017) or flicking through the projector slides depicting fading memories in mushrooms red as meat (godliman 2016), players aren’t asked to do so with any particular purpose in mind. when i look through these digital artifacts, it is through examining and interpreting their content and aesthetics that i find my understanding of the author; my physicality in the game sense is largely unrequired. player positions in parallel although i have established three points of the positioning framework that define the player position in relation to the author, that is not to say that these three positions are discreet, disconnected, or mutually exclusive. for example, in and i made sure to hold your head sideways, a 2017 autobiographical game by jenny jiao hsia, the player is plausibly positioned as both a protagonist and a witness simultaneously. the game is presented as an unchangeable linear narration (about waking up after a night out with missing memory), as a friend relays the events of the missing night. fragments of text are delivered alongside deconstructed sketches of the author and others involved in the event. i have none of the author’s contexts for this recollection—i do not know any of these people, or when it happened, or why—and so i follow along with events i was not part of as an onlooker or listener overhearing a conversation. to read/witness this event meaningfully, however, i perceive it through a protagonist-like element that gives a better understanding of the author’s experience remembering and deciphering after the fact. my interactions with the game see me manipulate the scattered lines of these drawings, moving them around with the keys of my keyboard until a comprehensible image appears; an act not unlike trying to piece together a memory from fragmented, half-recalled sensations. i draw understanding of the tone of the experience through rough outlines of characters and places. in a way, i am the protagonist of the feeling of remembering, but a witness to the narrative, exploring two aspects of the author’s experience from different positions at once. conclusions arguably one of the greatest challenges of autobiographical game works is establishing a selfnarrative that holds personal and player meaning, without surrendering the author’s narrative and bodily agency to another—thereby rendering its status as autobiography somewhat inconsequential. while it may seem at odds with the intentions of autobiographical works to create them through shared acts of play, camilleri’s mec:r highlights the identity-ambiguity of player positioning as an interesting solution for sharing the intricacies of ineffable personal experience not as objective fact, but as embodied and contextualised personal perspectives. i argue that the use of player positioning (and repositioning) reduces tensions between player and author as separate entities within the game space, and that this author-player shared identity makes room for players in experiences they may otherwise struggle to understand meaningfully. henderson 99 that is not to say that player positioning addresses all author-player-game tensions. this framework may be harder to incorporate into autobiographical games modelled more after traditional first-person, story-focused games, for example. it may also be important to remember that the player brings their personal context to the game space, and their own individual sense of their situated self. for example, what may, from the author’s perspective (consciously or unconsciously), be very firmly a position of witnessing, could, to a player with adequate shared experiences, feel more like a protagonist positioning, an act they have a bodily connection to. this examination of player positioning primarily explores how a game’s aesthetics, contexts, and interactive/somatic experiences inform the perspective of the player and their closeness to the author. however, influences from the game’s external framing—such as how the player is introduced to elements of the game and its meaning through the game pages and texts surrounding it—should not be ignored. although a sense of self within game space may be heavily influenced by the way players see, hear, act, and understand within the game, they are not immune to the contexts of when, where, and how the game is encountered within the physical world. mec:r demonstrates the potential power of an abstract, impermanent identity within personal narrative games; somewhere between lived, recreated, or observed life experiences, meaningful understanding arises. this positioning allows for an interpretive, nuanced understanding of camilleri through various perspectives and proximities to and of the author, in the face of the self-driven and emergent meaning-making by the player, as a co-creator and performer. by asking the player to constantly renegotiate their cognitive and bodily relationship to the screen and the author, repositioning their locus of understanding, and rebalancing the weight of their doubly-situated self, we create intimate moments of shared experience and understanding. in this way, i believe that mec:r uses the fuzzy, interpretive notion of the self to obtain an intimate tone, through which the player is invited to understand another’s experience without inhabiting it as an actor. works cited apperley, th & clemens, j 2017, ‘flipping out: avatars and identity’, in boundaries of self and reality online, elsevier, pp. 41–56. barros, ca 1998, autobiography: narrative of transformation, university of michigan press. crick, t 2011, ‘the game body: toward a phenomenology of contemporary video gaming’, games and culture, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 259–269. barthes, r 1977 [1967], ‘the death of the author’, in image, music, text, translated by s. heath. fontana press, london, pp. 142-148. camilleri, a 2016a, memoir en code: reissue, videogame <https://www.memoirencode.com/>. camilleri, a 2016b, retrieved from <https://twitter.com/alexkalopsia/status/778641053683486721>. camileri, a 2016c, ‘memoir en code presskit’, retrieved from <https://www.kalopsiagames.com/press/sheet.php?p=memoir%20en%20code%20rei ssue>. dziff 2016, sacramento, videogame <https://dziff.itch.io/sacramento>. ensslin, a 2009, ‘respiratory narrative: multimodality and cybernetic corporeality in “physio cybertext”’, in new perspectives on narrative and multimodality, routledge, pp. 169–179. hsia, j 2017, and i made sure to hold your head sideways, videogame <https://q_dork.itch.io/andi-made-sure-to-hold-your-head-sideways>. gibson, s 2017, my computer, videogame <https://sgx.itch.io/my-computer>. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 100 godliman, a 2016, mushrooms red as meat, videogame <https://acgodliman.itch.io/mushrooms-red-as-meat>. koenitz, h 2017, ‘beyond “walking simulators”–games as the narrative avant-garde’. lee, m 2015, indelible, videogame <https://melodily.itch.io/indelible> merleau-ponty, m. and smith, c., 1962. phenomenology of perception (vol. 2012). routledge, london. miller, ch 2004. digital storytelling: a creator’s guide to interactive entertainment, elsevier/focal press, amsterdam boston roine, h-r 2015, ‘how you emerge from this game is up to you: agency, positioning, and narrativity in the mass effect trilogy’, in narrative theory, literature, and new media, routledge, pp. 67–86. shaw, a 2011, ‘“he could be a bunny rabbit for all i care”: exploring identification in digital games’. tanenbaum, k, tanenbaum, t 2009, ‘commitment to meaning: a reframing of agency in games’ wardrip-fruin, n, mateas, m, dow, s & sali, s 2009, ‘agency reconsidered.’ tanenbaum, k, tanenbaum, t 2010. 'agency as commitment to meaning: communicative competence in games', digital creativity, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 11–17. waggoner, z 2009, my avatar, my self: identity in video role-playing games, mcfarland, incorporated, publishers. werning, s 2017, ‘the persona in autobiographical game-making as a playful performance of the self’, persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 28–42. wilde, p 2018, ‘avatar affectivity and affection.’, transformations (14443775), no. 31. wood, h 2017, ‘dynamic syuzhets: writing and design methods for playable stories’, in springer, pp. 24–37. yee, n & bailenson, j 2007, ‘the proteus effect: the effect of transformed selfrepresentation on behavior’, human communication research, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 271–290. thryn henderson university of york abstract key words introduction memoir en code: an autobiographical game identity in autobiographical games reading for player position negotiated persona through player position player as protagonist player as protagonist-proxy player as witness player positions in parallel conclusions works cited persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 25 creating personas for political and social consciousness in hci design an na wils on, stef an o de pa ol i, pa u la forb es an d ma rc o sachy abstract personas have become an important tool for human-computer interaction professionals. however, they are not immune to limitations and critique, including stereotyping. we suggest that while some of the criticisms of personas are important, the use of personas is open to them in part because of an unquestioned focus on explicating user needs and goals in traditional persona research and creation. this focus, while helping designers, obscures some other potentially relevant aspects of persona creation and use. in particular, when the goal of the product or software being designed is associated with social and political goals rather than with bringing a product to the market, it may be relevant to focus personas on political aspirations, social values and the will or capacity of personas to take action. we argue that it is possible when producing personas (and associated scenarios) to partially move away from representing needs and embrace personas which more explicitly represent political or social beliefs and values. we also suggest that a phenomenographic approach to user data analysis is one way to achieve this. we provide empirical evidence for our position from two large-scale european projects, the first one in the area of social innovation and the second in the area of eparticipation. key words personas; phenomenography; values; difference; possibility; action introduction design personas have become an increasingly popular tool intended to help human-computer interaction (hci) professionals reflect on and design for the potential users of their products (cooper et al. 2007; pruitt and grudin 2003). ideally based on empirical research, personas, and the narrative scenarios that accompany them, are intended to synthesise the needs and goals of different possible users (cooper 2004) and to illustrate the likely nature of interactions with the technological artefact being designed. the principle underpinning personas is that the user’s use of the product/service is the basis on which that product/service should be designed (cooper et al. 2007; rogers et al. 2007). this perspective breaks with traditional top-down approaches to requirements gathering in software engineering, such as the waterfall or spiral models, where user requirements are defined via top level engineering representations (avison and fitzgerald 2003). in contrast, personas, as archetypes of likely users, are used to help designers make decisions around user needs and their social contexts. by naming and giving a face to potential users, and providing contextual details of lived experiences, personas also encourage technical and design teams to develop empathy (cooper 2004; pruitt and grudin wilson et al. 26 2003). as such, personas have become an important element of ‘user-centred’ design approaches (rosenfeld and morville 2002; nielsen 2003) and are finding their way into software projects adopting participatory (shuler and namioka 1993) and lean (gothelf and seiden 2013) design approaches. however, design personas have recently been subject to some critique, ranging from their inevitable collapsing of highly-varied individuals into broad categories that easily slips into stereotyping, to their status as boundary objects that can actually serve to distance designers from users and their politically-loaded function within design teams (e.g., massanari 2010; turner and turner 2011). in this article, we suggest that while some of these criticisms are important, they arise in part because of an unquestioned focus on explicating user needs and goals. while this may be appropriate in contexts where hci professionals are designing products for commercial purposes, it may not be appropriate in other contexts, such as those in which the social value of the designed artefact is more important than its market function. for example, when the artefact has a socio-political function with a social justice or sustainability orientation (such as a system that promotes community or environmental awareness), it may be more important to create personas that illustrate potential users’ values, desire for emancipation, philosophies and/or political beliefs, and willingness/capacity to take action. this may be particularly important in creating the kind of empathy in designers that will allow them to create artefacts that are congruent with and support users to act according to these beliefs. in other words, we argue that in some contexts, those involved in researching and creating personas might need to shift the emphasis away from the representation of needs, and embrace personas which more explicitly represent political or social beliefs. we suggest that phenomenography (marton 1981), an analytical approach developed in educational studies but that can be applied in broader contexts to explore variation in concrete experiences as well as conceptual understandings, may be an effective way of surfacing and articulating such values and beliefs. we show how phenomenography can be translated to the field of hci in order to build personas. we provide empirical evidence for our position from two large-scale european projects. the first aims to facilitate complementary, bottom-up approaches to social welfare for people experiencing poverty and precarious social and financial conditions. in this case, persona development has emphasised the desire for dignity and emancipation, and the capacity for action of personified users (wilson et al. 2017). the second involves persona development in the design of digital platforms intended to foster young people’s engagement with environmental policy making (vogiatzi et al. 2017). in this case, development of personas has emphasised breaking the barrier of mistrust that exists between young people and policy makers, and the capacity to take action for the environment. in the following, we first present a brief overview of the persona method and significant criticisms. we then describe our work in these two projects, including the phenomenographic approach to data analysis, in order to show how we arrived at our position regarding the need to create personas that emphasise values and capacity. personas in hci design: an overview and critique the creation of personas intended to inform the design of technological artefacts has become widespread in the field of hci (cooper et al. 2007). usually created in the form of short text pieces accompanied by a photographic image, they provide designers and engineers with a quick, engaging connection with potential users of the technologies they are working on. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 27 the development of personas traditionally starts with qualitative, inductive empirical research, such as ethnography or qualitative interviews, into intended or potential users of the technology being designed. qualitative approaches support the exploration and identification of new ideas and insights for the design of new products and services (cooper et al. 2007). this user research also focuses on revealing what users say and do (mulder and yaar 2006), with the goal of identifying patterns in motivations, actual behaviours, activities, frustrations, and skills, and involves collecting data on and with target user groups. personas are ‘user archetypes’ that help ensure that decisions about design solutions are informed by a user-driven perspective. personas “are not actual people but are synthesized directly from observations of real people” (cooper et al. 2007, p. 81). personas are models of real users whose traits “are identified through the analysis of interview data” (ibid., p. 82). scenarios are narratives that describe the personas interacting with the future product or service. capturing the user perspective, scenarios deliver an array of potential advantages (carroll 2000) such as enabling designers to imagine plausible and feasible solutions to user needs or focus on actual user activities in a real situation, rather than on abstract assumptions about user behaviour that are not based on empirical evidence. the use of personas has undoubtedly increased designers’ awareness of and sense of connection with the potential users of the artefacts and technologies they design. however, they also bring to light and possibly create new problems with implementing genuinely user-centred design processes. recently, criticisms of persona-based approaches have been raised by several authors. for example, despite the widespread belief among hci experts reported by marsden and haag (2016) that anyone can use the persona method, accurate, representative persona construction is not trivial. some authors have noted a tendency for designers to construct personas that reflect their own, rather than their potential users’ preferences (floyd et al. 2008). gudjonsdottir (2010) and matthews et al. (2012) found that designers sometimes find personas abstract and impersonal: in an attempt to counter this, anvari and tran (2013) suggest the use of what they term holistic personas, which include a personality element as well as factual and cognitive dimensions. however, the incorporation of a somewhat psychologised version of personality (anvari et al. 2017) may not avoid another key problem – that of stereotyping (marsden and haag 2016; turner and turner 2011). turner and turner’s (2011) work focuses on “the tension between the economy of stereotyping on the one hand and the potential for bias and loss of rich detail on the other” (p. 30). they identify this as an important issue because, “as widely discussed in science and technology studies … designs inscribe cultural values and notions of ideal users. such values in turn prescribe and shape everyday activities and expectations” (ibid., emphasis in original). noting that “the power of stereotypes lies with their cognitive economy … that is, their use allows us to assess, sum up and engage with a situation with the minimum of cognitive effort” (ibid., p. 36), they caution that stereotypes have an “insidious quality” (ibid.) in that they can lead us to immediate and, perhaps, lazy and unjustified assumptions and generalizations. such assumptions and generalizations can then “serve a discursive and social purpose in legitimating design arguments and ‘pet’ design features and softening refutations of others’ contributions” (ibid., p. 37). personas, perceived as stereotypes of objectified consumers, could actually decrease designers’ engagement and empathetic connection with the target user group. on a related issue, chapman and milham (2006) suggest that personas are not actually effective or accurate ways of communicating data. they identify three key problems: the nonverifiability of fictional constructions, a problematic relationship between personas and actual user populations, and difficulties with inference from highly-specific personas to wilson et al. 28 understandings of use by those actual populations. marsden and haag’s (2016) empirical study of the development and use of personas by experts concluded that “person perception can bias design when working with personas, thus making it obvious how many difficulties the unreflected use of the persona method involves” (p. 4025). however, their hci expert interviewees did not discuss bias, stereotypic attributions or the implications for design, leading them to conclude that, in general, these expert designers did not recognise “the responsibility to actively take ownership of the impressions generated by the personas” (p. 4026). these last observations link to another key criticism: the commercial and political contexts in which personas are used. rönkkö et al. (2004) found the impact of their personas was far outweighed by issues relating to the desire to use new technology and concerns about competition and market position. massanari (2010) describes personas as “political tools that may oversimplify important differences between individuals using technological artifacts” (p. 407) within design organizations, serving to impose particular solutions: they “can be invoked to reduce conflict or win certain political disputes within the design team” (p. 411). we acknowledge that the problems of stereotyping and political use of personas are significant. in the following, we suggest a modification to traditional approaches to persona construction that may help ameliorate these problems, particularly in contexts where the technology being designed is not a commercial product intended to generate economic return in a competitive market. while our approach does not address the non-falsifiability problem (chapman and milham 2006) – indeed, in attempting to create engaging and agentic personas we have embraced fictional narrative techniques – it may also provide a clearer relationship between personas and the user populations they represent through the explicit aims and processes of phenomenographic analysis. re-thinking persona creation: values not needs we believe that some of the criticisms of personas outlined above may result from a widespread tendency to take users’ perceived needs as the starting point for persona creation. in the following, we describe two research and design projects in which we came to the realisation that values (social, political and ethical) were more important than needs. one of these projects is funded through the european commission’s collective awareness platforms for social and sustainable innovation initiative, and the second was funded through the young-5b-2014 programme. both projects are part of the broader horizon 2020 programme. both projects were committed from the outset to using design personas (and scenarios) to inform the design of platform functionalities and interface features, anticipating basing them on needs and goals. it was only during the field research with potential users that the centrality of values and capacities emerged; our use of the methods of phenomenography (marton 1986; åkerlind 2012) turned out to be a powerful way of drawing out and maintaining this focus. values and capacities subsequently became both the starting point and key emphasis in the creation of the personas: it is this that distinguishes our approach from others. phenomenography: an analytical approach to inform persona creation in hci as described above, one of the criticisms levelled at persona use is the tendency towards stereotyping that seems inevitable when a large amount of qualitative data originating from different individuals is collapsed into a small number of personas. given the already precarious and potentially marginalized nature of our target user groups (see below) and the emphasis on persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 29 inclusivity and user participation at the heart of both projects, it was important to both avoid such stereotyping and ensure that the personas and scenarios represented not only the commonalities across, but also the range and richness of, the experiences. for this reason, the interviews were analysed using an approach developed from the methods of phenomenography (åkerlind 2012; marton 1981; marton 1986). phenomenography was originally developed in the field of education studies, but has subsequently been applied in many other areas that make use of qualitative social science methods for example, phenomenographic analyses have been used in nursing and health research (barnard, mccosker and gerber 1999; mccosker et al. 2003; sjöstrom and dahlgren 2002); research into domestic violence (mccosker et al. 2003); studies of organisational change (dunkin 2000) and business studies (lamb, sandberg and liesch 2011). they have also been used in information research (yates, partridge and bruce 2012) and sustainable design (mann, dall’alba and radcliffe 2007). in what follows, we extend the application of phenomenography to hci and the creation of personas, especially when these may need to represent understandings, experiences, values and aspirations rather than just needs or problems and solutions. phenomenography is not a research method but rather an approach to the analysis of qualitative data that may have been collected in a variety of ways but most commonly through semi-structured interviews. it has much in common with grounded theory (strauss and corbin 1990), an approach to qualitative data analysis that is already in use in the hci community (see muller (2014) for an overview), but differs in some fundamental aspects. grounded theory looks to build theories of causal relationships. in contrast, phenomenography seeks to describe the range of ways in which people can experience the same phenomenon, and, in particular, to identify the qualitatively different components or dimensions that are responsible for that range. phenomenographic researchers may also ask why two different people understand or experience the same phenomenon in different ways, but they do not attempt to construct causal theories. instead, the focus is on the range of possible ways a particular phenomenon can be experienced: this focus on internal variation makes it “fundamentally different to other approaches” (trigwell 2006, p. 370). it is this focus that makes phenomenography a potentially productive approach to building personas representing possible users, as it surfaces and supports the rich description of variations and different possibilities in users’ experiences. it seems particularly well-suited for our research into different experiences of social and economic precarity (commonfare) and young people’s relation to environmental policy making (step), as we attempt to understand a multiplicity of experiences and perspectives, rather than collapse them into an average, and subsequently illustrate key aspects of this multiplicity to technical designers. the object of study of phenomenography is the “variation in … awareness or ways of experiencing a particular phenomenon” (åkerlind 2012, p. 116). the aim of phenomenography is to develop a set of descriptive categories that illustrate similarities and differences in how a particular phenomenon is or can be conceived of or experienced. it has been described as “a research orientation” (svensson 1997, p. 159) and “a set of assumptions about … how we can acquire knowledge about other people’s ways of experiencing the world” (sjöstrom and dahlgren 2002, p. 389). phenomenography is a non-dualist approach which does not recognize a division between an external, ‘real’ world, and internal, subjective representations of it: instead, one of its core ideas is that our experiences and understandings are constituted as internal relations. it also approaches human experience from a collective, rather than individualistic, point of view. wilson et al. 30 this offers a further interesting element for hci and the creation of personas, in particular for digital platforms where users are expected to conduct participative and collective activities by working together to achieve common goals, such as peer-production or participatory policymaking. phenomenographic analysis views collections of interview transcripts or similar data as a set or whole, that gives access to different dimensions of experience. within each dimension, there is variation in the way that dimension can be experienced, but these variations are not ascribed as the properties or characteristics of individuals but rather as of the set (or sample) as a whole. because of this, phenomenography provides a way of looking at experience of particular phenomena holistically, despite the fact that the same phenomena may be perceived differently by different people and under different circumstances. as emphasised by åkerlind (2012), phenomenographic researchers may approach data analysis in different ways, but there are some commonly shared elements of the process. the analysis is conducted through an iterative and comparative process of reading, discussing, and re-reading transcripts. two or more researchers independently read each transcript in full, rereading often enough to familiarise themselves with the data. preliminary categories relating to the way a particular phenomenon is experienced are then discussed and agreed on. subsequent readings of transcripts look for sections that help clarify and refine those categories; this process is repeated until a stable set of categories is reached. the focus then turns to how variation within those categories can be described. the outcomes of the analysis represent “the full range of possible ways of experiencing the phenomenon in question, at this particular point in time, for the population represented by the sample group collectively” (åkerlind 2012, p. 116). that is, we do not try to describe an average experience, but rather focus on difference and possibility. the findings from the qualitative research in each of our projects are therefore set out as a series of dimensions of experience, within each of which one can find qualitative variation. in phenomenographic research, these dimensions and variations are referred to as an “outcome space” (åkerlind 2012, p. 116) and are usually presented in tabular or matrix form with one axis representing dimensions of experience and the other qualitative variation within them. we adopt this representational convention in the following, and illustrate our outcome spaces in tables 1 and 2. case study 1: design personas for commonfare.net commonfare.net (https://commonfare.net/) is a digital space that is being designed to facilitate a self-organising, bottom-up approach to social welfare, named commonfare (fumagalli and lucarelli 2015), as a means of countering the failures of state-based welfare in addressing the needs of the european population currently experiencing or at risk of experiencing poverty, precarity, and/or social exclusion. the commonfare approach is not intended as a replacement for state-based welfare (and therefore as a way for governments to reduce welfare responsibilities), but is, instead, an attempt to generate additional means of support and care. it has three core components: proper management (and reappropriation) of the commons; the distribution of an unconditional, universal, basic income; and development of complementary monetary or financial circuits (fumagalli and lucarelli 2015). it relies on the development and spread of grassroots, community-based initiatives intended to provide mutual help and support, and promotes a genuine sharing economy and recognition of the value of all types of human labour. the project is thus inherently normative, placing high value on social inclusion, cooperation, sharing, and mutuality. it is well-established (chiu, hsu & wang 2006) that shared values are important to the successful creation of (online) cooperative communities, and our platform design therefore consciously includes these values. as we shall see below, however, https://commonfare.net/ persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 31 other values emerged as equally (if not more) important to potential users in the pilot research. the personas described in this article were developed to inform two specific aspects of the commonfare.net design: the creation of a complementary monetary circuit in the form of a digital currency, and the inclusion of a reputation system to facilitate the creation of trusting relationships and interactions. the commonfare.net project is a participatory design project involving academic, technical, and social activist partners working in collaboration with potential platform users drawn from communities in croatia, italy, and the netherlands. because the aim of the project is to improve the situations of people currently on the margins of european society, these potential platform users are drawn from specific target groups with whom local activist organisations already work. these are: in croatia, young unemployed and precariously employed people; in italy, unemployed and precarious workers; and in the netherlands, precarious free-lancers, benefit recipients and non-western migrants. to inform persona creation, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 people (6 in croatia, 12 in italy and 13 in the netherlands). interviews explored interviewees’ experiences of financial, employment, and social precarity and also aspects of their experiences of trust, distrust, and relationship formation. in the following, excerpts from these interviews are labelled with a country indicator (hr=croatia, it=italy, nl=netherlands) and an interviewee number. the interviews were transcribed, translated where necessary, and read by the authors several times. they were treated as a set or pool of experience from which common themes could be identified, and within which variation could be found. key themes and categories relating to the experience of financial and social precarity were identified, discussed among the authors and refined during the iterative process described above, with two authors initially analysing interview transcripts independently, then combining their analyses and verifying with the remaining authors. there was also some member checking through the distribution of a report to the design participants, who confirmed that they felt the reported findings mirrored their experiences. phenomenographic analysis for commonfare.net design persona research because the contexts of the different target groups are in some ways quite different, some practical differences quickly emerged. for example, unique to the croatian context was the common experience of reliance on parents for accommodation and food, in the face of being unemployed and receiving no state support; and unique to the italian context was the experience of being paid in vouchers rather than currency. however, there were also important commonalities across the pilots, and differences within each pilot. the main dimensions of experience we found from our interviews were: • values and aspirations • relationships with o the state/system o family/friends o nature/the environment • practical problems/daily life • time an important source of variation within these dimensions stemmed from how much freedom for movement, dignity, and control interviewees felt they had over their own lives. wilson et al. 32 while all interviewees were or had been experiencing financial precariousness, some were in this position as a result of what they felt to be their own life choices, whereas others felt it to be forced on them by circumstances beyond their control. people also experienced different levels of agency with respect to what they could do to change their situation (if they wanted to). this difference meant that each of the dimensions was experienced in different ways, depending on the degree to which interviewees felt (at that moment, or in that context) in control. this variation in degree of perceived autonomy or empowerment provided the logical, structural relationships within the dimensions of experience that are essential to phenomenographic analysis. here, we illustrate our findings in more detail in relation to the dimensions of experience ‘values and aspirations’ and ‘relationships with the state,’ in order to show how they influenced the resulting personas. evidence for the criticality of dignity and autonomy as values to be respected in the design process although we did not explicitly ask interviewees about their values, their answers to various questions and their descriptions of their experiences suggested that, for many, maintaining a sense of their own freedom, independence, and dignity was important: i am very proud of my family, as we have always lived with dignity. (it7) i always keep a standard where i feel good. (nl7) it’s also more freedom, being free to get out, not owning a place … (hr2) … i don’t want to get caught back in that trap, the trap of the social system. (nl13) an aspect of their experiences that emerged as important in creating or diminishing interviewees’ sense of agency and self-authorship was whether they saw themselves as following a vocation or (social) mission. related to this was the question of where interviewees identified the source of their own value or self-worth, in relation to talent, work, and/or contribution to society. a sense of control over one’s own existence was often accompanied by evident pride in a talent being put to good use or the decision to follow a vocation rather than prioritize stable income: [i’m] proud to have had the courage to listen to the heart and stop a job, losing €3000 per month, to stay happy … it was a very difficult decision because i had nothing, but i managed it, and it ended up being a statement. the reactions were very interesting, some of the other dancers in the company were shocked. they would like to do it but didn’t know how … it was a decision of path. (nl7) this notion of “path” was important to many of those interviewees who expressed a sense of control over their lives. it was often coupled with a belief that the interviewee was contributing to society in some way, either through the work they were doing or through socio-political activism. this contribution might be at the level of helping individual people, contributing to reform within a profession, or attempting to remake society at large. there was a related theme of to what extent, and in what ways, interviewees felt their own value to be determined by work. here, again, the extent to which interviewees felt themselves to be in control was important. for some, the determination of their value through work was seen as culturally imposed. for others, this cultural norm had been internalised, and produced intense frustration when opportunities to demonstrate value through work were not persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 33 available. for others, “path” and necessity were in tension. while able to see that precariousness might offer some freedom, some interviewees described how the reality of the situation meant they were not really free to do anything other than work. for example, one italian precarious worker described how his “passion is writing poetry and also prose,” but then went on to tell us that “you are so much projected into the need to work, it is hard to feel realized and satisfied as you cannot do those things you would like to do” (it5). the dimension of experience ‘relations with the state’ also illustrates the high value users placed on freedom and dignity, most often by referring to their erosion. interviewees described “corrosive” and “embarrassing” interactions with the state using terms such as “chains” and “slavery.” this not only reinforced people’s desires for freedom and independence, but also gave rise to a generally high level of political awareness and distrust. almost every interviewee expressed generalised distrust of and disaffection from the political and business systems. the attitude among young croatians can be summarised by the statement, “of course it’s only logical that i don’t trust the state” (hr1). many of the interviewees showed a keen awareness of politics and the social impact of both government policies and capitalist economics. many interviewees in italy and the netherlands expressed anti-austerity or anti-capitalist views, and all croatian interviewees made disparaging comments about their own government. one dutch interviewee described how a right-wing city government “made several measures that stimulate poverty instead of repairing it” (nl3). a final recurrent theme reflecting interviewees’ relationships with the state and society as a whole relates to the representation of unemployed and precarious people in the media and the attitude society holds towards them. interviewees in all three countries described a pervasive culture in which the poor and precarious were seen as at fault for their condition, in what was widely referred to as a “blame the victim” (nl5) culture. phenomenographic outcome space for commonfare.net currency and reputation system persona research the final set of dimensions of experience and variation within them relating to sense of agency we found in our analysis are presented in table 1. these dimensions and variations formed the basis for creating the personas and scenarios needed to inform the design of the reputation system, digital currency, and network dynamics elements of commonfare.net. wilson et al. 34 table 1: phenomenographic outcome space for the experience of employment, financial, and social precarity of interviewees in the commonfare.net project. dimension of experience low sense of agency/selfauthorship/control high sense of agency/selfauthorship/control values and aspirations • loss of freedom and dignity • feeling one’s value to society lies in capacity to contribute professionally, but no opportunity to do so • aspirations tempered by realism, or feeling unable to think of the future • maintaining a sense of freedom and dignity • pursuit of a vocation and/or social mission gives one’s actions value • self-improvement in pursuit of own goals relationships • erosion of freedom and dignity in interactions with state • complete loss of trust • looked down on by others, blame the victim • isolation from supportive networks of friends/family • inability to settle down, start a family • two-way flows of social capital, i.e. individual offers as well as receives support • no need for trust in the state if interactions with it can be avoided • feeling able to form settled intimate relationships, start a family if desired practical problems • inability to cope without help • debt and indebtedness • pursuit of a vocation and/or social mission makes it worth putting up with material deprivation • cooperative strategies such as food-buying groups, occupations time • time poverty • time slipping away • able to use time wisely • investing time in selfdevelopment creating personas for commonfare.net our analysis of the interviews suggested it was essential to construct design personas and scenarios that reflected the high value placed on dignity and autonomy by the people we had talked to. the interviews also offered rich illustrations of the emotional states, aspirations, goals, and frustrations of our interviewees, including in relation to their interactions with the state and other controlling factors. we therefore set out to create personas and associated scenarios that explicitly included (and even made central) such feelings and experiences. in total, we constructed six design personas and, ultimately, nine related scenarios. here we discuss only personas (further discussion of the commonfare.net scenarios can be found in sciannanamblo et al. (2018)). the personas took the form of combined text and photographic image elements, including a name, demographic information and the following sections: persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 35 • financial situation • educational history • work history/skills • home circumstances • internet use • emotional state/personality traits • goals • frustrations • quotes figure 1 is an example of a complete persona created for the commonfare.net digital currency and reputation system features. as is evident from this example, these personas were (deliberately) rather reliant on text-based narrative, written to create pictures of believable and engaging characters. here, however, we focus on the way the personas foreground the dimensions of experience and variation in relation to agency described above. the first three text sections in the personas consisted mostly of ‘factual’ (although fictional) information that would be typically included in a design persona. the remaining categories were deliberately scripted to focus more on the social, political, and ethical values that had emerged during the analysis. the language used in the text of the personas included phrases indicating what is or is not valued, for example: • valuing being in work as a source of self-worth, e.g.: “is unhappy, but feels that any job is better than none” • valuing stability in housing, e.g.: “glad to own [their home] for themselves” • beliefs about what is fair and just, e.g.: “does not like … avoids … is irritated by …. believes that it is unfair” • ambivalence or distrust of the internet and social media, e.g.: “worries about using the internet too much,” “worried about the impact of social media use on her children.” the personas were carefully constructed to reflect not only the dimensions of experience, but also the variations within them and the key role of a sense of agency and control in that variation. we endeavoured to create a set of personas that included people currently experiencing a strong sense of agency and control over their lives, others whose current situation left them feeling precarious in terms of control as well as in relation to work and money, and others still who felt strong control over some aspects of their life but less over others, such as difficulties interacting with the state. for example, we included phrases such as “sense of uncertainty and doubt” … “feels constant pressure” … “suffering from loss of selfesteem” to convey a diminished sense of agency. however, such phrases could also figure in descriptions of characters who had a strong sense of self-authorship. for example in the persona shown in figure 1, ana is described as having deliberately decided to avoid reliance on state aid because when she applied, she “felt [the process] was soul-destroying.” the apparent importance of both positive and negative relationships revealed by the interviews also suggested that individualized discourses of success and failure are inadequate; this needed to be reflected in the personas and scenarios we developed. thus, the scenarios in particular highlighted dependencies, contingencies, and cooperation – sometimes connecting personas across scenarios, sometimes using chance meetings or interactions to prompt the beginnings of longer term change. wilson et al. 36 figure 1: an example of a completed design persona for commonfare.net. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 37 our desire to convey values and beliefs rather than simply needs was also a strong motivation for the inclusion of the section “emotional state/personality traits,” and for closely associating this with the goals and frustrations sections by means of the visual layout of the personas. thus in the persona in figure 1, the description of ana as “independent, self-sufficient, proud, calm and generally happy with her life” deliberately avoids ascribing needs to her that the platform could satisfy. in addition, the inclusion of both “staying independent” and “helping others by engaging them in artistic and creative activities” immediately after this charactersketch places emphasis on the need for designers of commonfare.net to think about how the platform might create opportunities for her to exercise her capacities for independence and contributing to the well-being of others. this is in marked contrast with a needs-based approach, which might have led to a persona focused on ana’s need to get information on pensions or get more freelance work. thus by taking values and capacities as our starting points, we created personas that themselves had dignity and socio-political agency. case study 2: design personas for step we now turn to our second example from the step project, an eu horizon2020 project (www.step4youth.eu ), completed in december 2017, that developed and piloted a cloud based eparticipation platform (https://en.step.green/) in five municipalities and regions in italy, spain, turkey, and greece. the goals of step were: 1) to enable policy makers to open up their environmental decision processes to a wider audience and 2) to enable young people, who were the main target group for the project, to actively participate in the shaping of policies. the project’s success depended on capturing the multiplicity of users’ perspectives, in order to create a digital platform solution supporting users’ active participation. our goals were twofold: • to understand what policy makers perceived they would need to enable them to open up their decision making and what obstacles they saw for young people’s participation; and • to understand young people’s perspectives on what would make the platform relevant to their life and what would encourage them to express their opinion and potentially take action. as in the commonfare.net project, step developed personas and scenarios based on empirical research. we shall discuss here only the personas, focusing on young people. one important concept that has underpinned the project is that of facilitating agency and capacity with respect to the environment. having a positive attitude towards the environment does not necessarily translate into the desire of young people to take action for positive change. whether or not action is taken depends on values which may include global issues such as younger people having more at stake in the future of the planet than older people, and local values such as improving and helping out their own local community. however, within step, these motives need to be translated into the capacity of young people to participate in decision-making on policies. it is widely accepted that there is a gap between a positive environmental attitude and participating in concrete action for the environment (see, for example, european commission 2008). research has also pointed to a decline in public participation and social capital (putnam 2001) at a general level, which also impinges on participation regarding environmental action. the goal of step was to bridge the gap between intentions and action by engaging young people in shaping policy and participating in decision making, and thus to partially counteract this decline. many of the factors that influence positive environmental attitudes (dietz et al. 1998), such as age, social class, residence (urban/rural), political orientation, sex/gender, social/cultural norms, and socialization processes cannot be changed through the design of a http://www.step4youth.eu/ https://en.step.green/ wilson et al. 38 platform for eparticipation; they have to be acknowledged as pre-existing, external conditions. the step project therefore adopted a strategic focus on the idea of environmental action. this does not require attempts to change long-term demographic factors or social processes, but instead affords a focus on the situation in which young people currently find themselves. social action requires intentionality and can be directed towards instrumental goals but also towards values (see, e.g. weber 1978). in this regard, environmental action has been defined as “a deliberate strategy that involves decisions, planning, implementation, and reflection by an individual or group … intended to achieve a specific positive environmental outcome” (emmons 1997, p. 35). thus, the problem for building personas for step became one of capturing aspects of young people’s capacity to take action. to develop personas we interviewed 28 young people (14 females and 14 males) between 18 and 29 years of age representing 9 different eu nationalities (5 living in european countries different from their nationality). seven interviews were conducted in the national language in order not to exclude young people who do not speak english. interviews were organized in two parts: a main/general part aimed at gathering background knowledge around the social context in which users live and work, and a specific part with questions directly related with the engagement with environmental issues and desires of technological support for achieving their goals in this area. our intention was to uncover users’ value propositions through exploring users’ understandings of what the step platform was for, what opportunities it offered, and how users’ currently understood and experienced issues relating to the environment and social action. phenomenographic analysis for step persona research applying phenomenographic approaches to the analysis of the interviews undertaken for the step project meant, as with commonfare.net, treating interviews as a pool of understandings and looking within that pool to find the qualitatively different dimensions that defined those understandings and the variation in ways the dimensions were experienced. the interviews were transcribed in full but then analysed together, avoiding assigning individual respondents to categories of experience and instead looking for common issues or experiences that might, however, be experienced in very different ways or viewed from different perspectives. the main dimensions associated with taking action or the obstacles for action we found were: • young people’s attitudes to and beliefs about policy makers • perceptions of the quality, availability, and relevance of information about the environment • perceptions of the scope of responsibility a key source of variation in the dimensions of experience was trust. another key source of variation, similarly to our findings in the commonfare.net research, was young people’s sense of agency and control. in some cases, this was at the level of the individual such as when young people felt they could have no impact because their voice would not be listened to. in other cases, however, the young people interviewed for step experienced agency (or a lack of it) on a wider scale, for example when considering the impact of the potential actions of a relatively small country. it seemed, from our interviews, that variation in trust and sense of agency were key factors in determining whether young people would take action: this led to a realization that the step platform might best enable such translation by maximizing opportunities for engagement and action at the local level, where sense of agency appeared to be strongest. persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 39 evidence for the criticality of values around trust and local action in the design process trust, or the absence of it, seemed to be a critical issue for interactions between young people and policy makers and for their expectations of each others’ behaviour. expressions of mistrust were more common than of trust, particularly among the young people we interviewed. many of these young people had a generalized mistrust of policy makers, in particular politicians, assuming them to be more likely to act out of self-interest than for the general good. some young people believed that policy makers were likely to engage in eparticipation activities to enhance their profile and popularity in order to win votes, rather than because they saw genuine value in involving young people in decision-making processes, as illustrated by the following two excerpts: an obstacle is that politicians don’t give us much of their time, they are thinking of their own opportunity not about young people. (italian yp) people might participate just for the image, i think some politicians would do this. (uk yp) lack of trust could also arise from perceptions of cultural barriers between young people and policy makers, as the following excerpt indicates: policy makers think that it is difficult to have a relationship with the citizens. i think they need to go to the square more and speak to the people, and publicise things more using the internet. not only for issues on the environment but for other policies. (italian yp) against this background of low expectation of trustworthiness, policy makers could make things even worse through their actions in relation to environmental policy, or indeed their lack of action, so that they could contribute into turning a generalized mistrust into a more evidencebased and therefore active distrust. however, some young people indicated that an eparticipation process could be an opportunity for a significant increase in the transparency of decision-making processes and consequently an increase in the potential to trust policy makers and their actions: facilitating discussion between policy makers and citizens – for me it would be quite interesting if we could get space to see the background of the decision making. what are the advantages and disadvantages of the policy? usually we cannot see the background at all – we cannot understand the reason for the decision and it can be frustrating. (hungarian yp) the sense of agency of young people in relation to environmental issues and policy-making was clearly related to their degree of trust in policy makers if you do not feel your voice will be listened to, you will not trust someone to act in your interest. this is clearly captured in the following excerpt: i am not convinced that the politicians will care about the opinions. (hungarian yp) however, a second major factor in young people’s experiences of agency was perceptions of the potential impact of actions at the individual, local, and global level. this, in part, reflected varying values placed on local and global issues. many of our interviewees expressed an awareness that we all live on the same planet and that what happens in other countries often has a direct effect on everyone else. they were also more pessimistic over the long-term global outlook. they felt that positive environmental actions could make a difference at a local level, wilson et al. 40 however they felt more powerless to address global issues such as climate change. thus a focus on participatory local policy-making would have had better chances to translate into young people action than focusing on global issues. however some interviewees believed that small, local actions could have some global impact: global is more important, but the way to achieve this is through local action and local groups. if everyone works together and takes it bit by bit, rather than starting for a massive global scale then we might be able to do it. if everyone did a little bit then it would help. i think it’s needed to have this global impact. (uk yp) these excerpts illustrate how variation in sense of agency, including a distributed agency at the level of local communities, impacts on how likely it is for individual young people to translate attitudes to the environment into concrete action. they also show how important trust in policy makers and politicians is in deciding whether the action of participating in decision-making processes is worthwhile. table 2: phenomenographic outcome space for young people’s likely participation in action towards the environment emerging from the step project dimension of experience low sense of trust/low sense of agency high sense of trust/high sense of agency attitudes to and beliefs about policy makers and politicians • mistrust towards policy makers • perceptions of large cultural barriers between young people and policy makers • assumption that policy makers act for their own benefit rather than the public interest • sense of potential exploitation • placing trust towards environmental ngos and other non-governmental actors • willing to give policy makers an opportunity quality and relevance of information • no clarity about quality of information produced by user communities • perception that some necessary information is hidden • perceives opportunity to raise awareness of projects going on in the area • perceives opportunity to have informed discussion about policies • feels that information can be tailored to young people scope of responsibility • global problems like climate change difficult to tackle • concentrating on local environmental problem can produce visible effects persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 41 phenomenographic outcome space for step persona research table 2 on the preceding page presents the outcome space describing the dimensions of experience we found in the interviews. it highlights the variation within the dimensions depending on trust and agency. creating personas for step our personas have been designed to embed the values emerging in the phenomenographic analysis described above relating to creating high senses of trust and agency. these were then used to inform the design of the platform’s core features and user interface. in total, we constructed eight personas (six young people and two policy makers). the personas took the form of combined text and photographic image elements, including a name, demographic information and the following sections: • general environmental attitude for action (not labelled as such in the persona itself, and forming the main text block) • goals • motivations • frustrations • quotes • behaviour (in the form of visual indicators of levels of environmental concern, involvement in civic life and social media use) figure 2 shows an example of a complete persona from the step project. as with the personas for commonfare.net, the language used in creating the personas was critical to conveying the values and beliefs of the interviewees that related to their likely participation in local policy-making processes through the step platform. words and phrases were chosen to show not only the dimensions of experience but also variation within them. examples showing variations in trust and agency included: • in relation to attitudes to policy-makers and politicians and likely engagement with them: “feels that her voice is not heard and that politicians are only interested in themselves,” “not that interested in politics,” “thinks the political system is ‘a mess’,” “enjoys debating issues,” “thinks it is very important to be politically engaged.” • in relation to perceived responsibility: “not hugely concerned about the environment,” “believes that most environmental actions are just delaying the inevitable demise of the planet,” “very interested in policies that directly affect them and their families,” “keen for her workplace to become greener and adopt more sustainable policies,” “likes to find and share upcycling ideas,” “thinks that threats to the environment are greater and stronger than ever … believes in locally produced food which has a much lower carbon footprint,” “concerned about the relationship between developed and underdeveloped countries.” again, these personas were deliberately constructed to avoid presenting potential users as individuals with problems that could be solved or needs that could be fulfilled through the step platform itself. instead, they were developed to suggest how the platform could reflect users’ values and beliefs, and include features that would let them exercise their own capacities. for example, the persona in figure 2 emphasises local action; it suggest jan’s goals are to do with outreach, increasing engagement and change, rather than meeting immediate or personal needs. it describes frustrations with issues that step itself is unlikely to be able to resolve, such as information overload and the misconceptions of policy makers, but that should be taken into account in the platform’s design. wilson et al. 42 figure 2: example persona from the step project persona studies 2018, vol. 4, no. 2 43 discussion and conclusions we suggest that careful analysis of users’ beliefs and values, and construction of personas and scenarios using carefully chosen language, contextual, and narrative details to express these, can help to avoid the problem of stereotyping by retaining the tensions, contradictions, and value-conflicts that characterise real human experience. an emphasis on values and beliefs also makes the political dimension of personas explicit, allowing the politics of the users into the same space as those of the designers, engineers, funding organizations and so on. the two case studies described above illustrate a process of persona creation that avoids presenting users as objectified consumers of a product or service to be offered by the platform being designed, with that product or service designed to satisfy (and simultaneously create) needs. instead, the process is intended to result in personas that present people with values, beliefs, and associated desires whose self-authorship might be facilitated through the platforms, if they are designed to allow users’ to exercise and, perhaps, develop their own capacities for action. we believe that because of this, our personas may avoid, or at least reduce, some of the risks associated with using design personas described earlier in this paper. goh et al. (2017) suggest that the use of personas to convey local cultural contexts has recently become significant; our approach goes beyond considering the average or typical impact of local cultural contexts to attempt to show variation across and within local contexts, particularly in terms of values and beliefs. thus we do not produce, for example, croatian personas that all experience their precarity as disempowering, but rather personas that experience different degrees of selfauthorship while experiencing similar external conditions. our focus on variation as well as commonality, which has been facilitated through our use of phenomenographic approaches to qualitative data analysis applied to the creation of design personas, offers a way of reducing the tendency to stereotype (turner and turner 2011; marsden and haag 2015). it does this both by highlighting variation in the experiences and perceptions of the interviewees who contribute to the pool from which the personas are drawn, but also by shifting our focus from creating artificially self-consistent individuals (recognizing that internal tensions and conflicts are part of normal human experience), and allowing such tensions and conflicts into individual personas. our process also highlights the importance of including textual elements that emphasise users’ capacities and desires more than their needs. that is, we include both explicit and implicit references to moral, social, and political beliefs and values, and connect these with common elements of design personas such as ‘goals’ and ‘frustrations.’ by making our personas carry political intentions and tensions, we thus hope to minimize the possibility of their being used in a political way within the design process, to advance the agendas of people other than the users (massanari 2010). we hope that our process produces design personas that have some agency of their own. of course, our approach does not mean that we avoid all the potential problems associated with the use of personas and scenarios in the design process. we do not yet know how much impact they had on other designers involved in the projects, but within our own work they had a profound effect on how we viewed the creation of a reputation system for the commonfare project in particular. we suggest that further research, perhaps through an ethnographic study of the use by technical designers of personas that deliberately emphasise values and capacity over needs, problems, and solutions, would be highly desirable in order to determine whether they do, indeed, reduce designers’ perceptions of personas as abstract and impersonal. also, while we believe that the story-telling function of personas and scenarios may wilson et al. 44 be an important contributor to their effective impact on design, our approach remains open to criticism regarding scientific falsifiability (chapman and milham 2006). in conclusion, we have described an approach to creating personas which moves away from needs, to emphasise more value-beliefs and capacity, and consequently personas actions (in scenarios) to achieve these beliefs via the designed technology. while there are likely to be approaches and research processes that can lead to similar results, we suggest that shifting the focus from needs to capacities, and from commonality and consistency to variation and tension, is an important step in creating personas for political and social consciousness in hci design. acknowledgements this paper has received funding from the european union’s horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements no 649493 and no 687922. the paper reflects only the author's view and the research executive agency or european commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. works cited åkerlind, gs 2012, ‘variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods’, higher education research & development, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 115-127. anvari, f & 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passani, e kontopoulos, s diplaris & d mcmillan (eds), proceedings of the international conference on internet science, thessaloniki, pp. 148-156. weber, m 1978, economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology, university of california press, berkeley ca. wilson, an, sachy, m, ottaviano, s, de paoli, s & de pellegrino, f 2017, ‘pie news deliverable d3.1 user research report and scenarios’, retrieved 31 march 2018 http://pieproject.eu/2017/07/03/d3-1-user-research-report-and-scenarios/ yates, c, partridge, hl & bruce, cs 2012, ‘exploring information experiences through phenomenography’, library and information research, vol. 36, no. 112, pp. 96-119. http://pieproject.eu/2017/07/03/d3-1-user-research-report-and-scenarios/ anna wilson, stefano de paoli, paula forbes and marco sachy abstract key words introduction personas in hci design: an overview and critique re-thinking persona creation: values not needs phenomenography: an analytical approach to inform persona creation in hci case study 1: design personas for commonfare.net phenomenographic analysis for commonfare.net design persona research evidence for the criticality of dignity and autonomy as values to be respected in the design process phenomenographic outcome space for commonfare.net currency and reputation system persona research creating personas for commonfare.net case study 2: design personas for step phenomenographic analysis for step persona research evidence for the criticality of values around trust and local action in the design process phenomenographic outcome space for step persona research creating personas for step discussion and conclusions acknowledgements works cited mayer 38 making mischief: david hare and the celebrity playwright’s political persona sandra may er abstract this article examines the fashioning of the authorial persona of british playwright, screenwriter, and director david hare through autobiographically inflected extra-theatrical interventions. both exploratory and explanatory companion pieces that frame his artistic work, hare’s lectures, essays, and memoir capture and stage the field migrations between art and activism that lie at the heart of his public profile as a politically engaged celebrity playwright and astute social commentator. it will be shown how hare exploits the generic properties of nonfictional life-writing formats that raise, and ostensibly meet, audience expectations of sincerity and authenticity and therefore become ideal vehicles for hare’s ‘autobiomyth’ of the prophetic writer-propagandist who strives to appeal to the moral conscience of his readership. hare’s conception of the authorial persona is informed by a romantic tradition of strong authorship that is intimately connected with truth-telling discourses and that relies on the author’s combined identities of artist and politically engaged commentator. this contribution argues that hare’s proclivity for non-fictional life-writing formats ties in with a sense of discomfort about his position as a playwright between establishment recognition and selfdeclared radicalism. key words literary celebrity; theatre; politics; life writing; lecture; memoir introduction the harry ransom center at the university of texas holds one of the most extensive performing arts collections in the world, including the papers of british playwright, screenwriter, and director david hare (b. 1947), which make up over sixty boxes of typescript drafts of his stage and screen plays, production notes, rehearsal scripts, reviews, as well as personal notes and correspondence, covering his entire career from the late 1960s. picking their way through the mundane and everyday in this personal archive, readers will come across a letter by broadcaster melvyn bragg, dated 13 june 1998. bragg’s message, scribbled on the south bank show letterhead, is a brisk and poignant response to hare’s knighthood, conferred as part of the queen’s 1998 birthday honours in recognition of his services to british theatre: “dear david, congratulations! now where do you go? all the best, melvyn” (bragg 1998). for all its simplicity, bragg’s note carries weighty implications for the authorial profile and self-conception of someone newly endowed with the official badge of establishment recognition. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 39 hare himself is clearly at pains to make light of his honours, owed to tony blair’s ‘new labour’ government, which, in its ‘third way’ social democracy and shift from left to centre, eerily mirrors the playwright’s own ideological trajectory, taking him “from an alternative and marxist-informed praxis to the mainstream of the political centre ground” (deeney 2010, p. 429). in a note to actor simon callow, hare is light-hearted: erik satie was being driven mad by a friend who was boasting to him about all the awards he had turned down. satie said: “don’t you realise the clever thing is not to turn down awards, it’s to live the kind of life where they never offer you one in the first place?” in this i have failed. (hare 1998) what looks like self-ironic flippancy may well have been a strategy designed to pre-empt any niggling concerns about the apparent incongruousness of a relentless establishment critic turned decorated establishment figure; a disingenuous admission of defeat that resonates with bragg’s enquiry, mirroring hare’s often conflicted discomfort about his theatrical work and standing as a playwright. indeed, hare’s knighthood appears to have tapped into, and augmented, what has been identified as a troubled phase in his career, coinciding with his “great champion and power-base” richard eyre’s departure as artistic director of the national theatre and his inability to complete the full-length play about israel and palestine he had been commissioned to write by the royal court theatre’s international department (luckhurst 2007, p. 58). mary luckhurst is among the scholars who believe that hare’s artistic crisis is firmly rooted in an anxiety about the socio-political relevance of his work in an increasingly fragmented political landscape that no longer offers ideological certainties and straightforward choices between socialism and capitalism (luckhurst 2007, pp. 57-58). moreover, in the light of theatrical practitioners who, from the 1990s onwards, have found innovative ways of engaging with the wider ramifications of identity politics and subscribed to a more inclusive definition of political theatre, hare’s aesthetic impasse can be attributed to “his profound sense of unease that theatrical realism and traditional purveyors of it like himself might indeed be redundant” (luckhurst 2007, p. 57). what at times seems close to a lapse of faith in his political theatre ultimately expresses itself in a curious vacillation between “the roles of ‘outsider’ and ‘insider’, both the ‘enemy’ and the ‘guardian’ of the dominant culture and ideology” (deeney 2010, p. 433). when south downs, his autobiographical play about his time as a scholarship boy at lancing college, opened in 2012 in the london west end in a double bill with terence rattigan’s the browning version of 1948, hare came close to acknowledging a dilemma more keenly felt than he has cared to admit: t s eliot, the most conservative of cultural critics, said that you can only add to a tradition by changing it. but at some point, you do actually fall into that tradition, don’t you? if you’re 64, as i am, you’re part of it. so you can put a play on with one of rattigan’s and see the connection, whereas once you would have seen only the difference. (qtd in coveney 2012) this ambivalence about his own career trajectory, from the leftist theatrical fringe of the 1970s to his status as canonical playwright whose success has been closely linked to the established, male-dominated institutions of the theatrical mainstream and their key stakeholders,i most prominently suffuses hare’s autobiographically inflected extra-theatrical interventions. it is through them that he stages the persona of the truth-telling political playwright and fierce social and cultural critic who appears to speak from an outsider position in response to the need to find new relevance in a swiftly transforming political and theatrical landscape with which he has increasingly felt out of joint. as genres of self-exploration and self-justification, lecture and memoir both capture, and serve as vehicles for, the fluent cross-field migrations between the mayer 40 spheres of literature and politics that have been a vital element in the fashioning of hare’s public profile as a celebrity playwright. this article explores the construction of hare’s politically engaged authorial persona through the specific properties of non-fictional life-writing formats, whose ‘truth capital’ not only ties in with the truth-telling claims of his political drama but appeals to the playwright’s authorial self-conception, heavily indebted, as it is, to the romantic tradition of the author as rebellious and enlightened poeta vates. hare’s case demonstrates how a renewed focus on the personal and its illusion of authenticity can be employed as a strategy to address the vagaries of literary reputations over the course of a long career that spans both alternative and mainstream traditions and the need to reclaim authorial legitimacy in the fast-moving worlds of art and politics, where there is a serious threat of slipping “behind the dustcart instead of [being] in front of it” (hare qtd in kellaway 2018). staging the persona of the political playwright over the course of his long career, david hare has steadfastly cultivated and maintained a highprofile public persona as one of britain’s leading political playwrights, screenwriters,ii and theatre and film directors, whose oeuvre also includes television plays, an opera libretto, theatrical collaborations, and stage adaptations of brecht, chekhov, schnitzler, and pirandello. covering a range of dramatic subgenres, from well-made play, satire, and documentary and verbatim theatre to biodrama, pastiche, and what the dramatist himself identifies as ‘stage poetry’ (see boon 2007, pp. 3-4), hare’s plays, with few exceptions, address topical issues and bear the recognisable hallmarks of english dramatic realism: they include, for instance, the media satire pravda (1985), his collaboration with howard brenton; the national theatre trilogy racing demon (1990), murmuring judges (1991), and the absence of war (1993), which undertakes a painstaking dissection of the church of england, the english legal system, and the labour party as three quintessentially english institutions in crisis; his self-performed, semiautobiographical stage monologue via dolorosa (1998), inspired by his middle eastern travels; the verbatim play stuff happens (2004) about the invasion of iraq in 2003; the power of yes (2009), hare’s meditation on the financial crisis; and, most recently, i’m not running (2018), in which he addresses the conflict between traditional party politics and single-issue campaigning and tackles the thorny subject of female labour leadership. frequently hailed, these days, by the media as “a grand old man of theatre” (kellaway 2018), hare started out his career in the late 1960s as part of a generation of socialist theatre practitioners operating within a network of alternative venues and touring companies. following the west end success of his comedy knuckle (1974), he quickly established himself as a figurehead who would lead “that generation, and its political and stylistic concerns, on to the stages of mainstream theatrical culture in the 1970s, when the epic ‘state of the nation’ play in many ways set the agenda of theatrical innovation” (boon 2007, p. 5). hare’s long-standing association with the “mainstream subsidized theatre sector” (deeney 2010, p. 429) resulted in a prevalent media construction of him as the ‘national playwright’, and indeed no less than seventeen of his plays have to date been presented at the royal national theatre in london. not surprisingly, perhaps, for someone who for many years served as its associate director, hare’s privileged position as the national theatre’s “‘house dramatist’” (deeney 2010, p. 431) facilitated his access to – and prominent exposure through – one of england’s prime institutions of culture, enhancing his critical acclaim and public recognition and thus feeding straight back into the ‘national playwright’ myth. royal court realism (mainly that of a white, male variety) has made a claim to be dominant in english theatre, and this myth simultaneously builds upon and sustains one of the master narratives of english theatre historiography that fails to persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 41 acknowledge the full scale and diversity of theatrical practice on the british isles (see luckhurst 2002). given hare’s well-known distaste for anti-realist aesthetics and their presumed detachment from historical and political realities, offering “not just a boring but an untrue view of life” (hare 1991a, p. xiv), it is not without irony that he should have been the recipient of the 2011 pen pinter prize. awarded annually to a british, irish, or commonwealth writer who “casts an ‘unflinching, unswerving’ gaze upon the world, and shows a ‘fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies’” (english pen 2019), the prize is named in honour of nobel laureate harold pinter, whose credentials as a political playwright hare has always called into question.iii hare has always firmly situated himself in the social realist tradition of the royal court writer’s theatre that places the playwright at the centre of the theatrical process and invariably traces its contemporary pedigree back to john osborne and harley granville-barker (see hare 2015a, p. 156). it is a tradition that has struggled to accommodate the political dimension of pinter’s work, and yet, hare’s pen pinter award, received, according to prize judge michael billington, for “address[ing] the big public issues over the past four decades with great rigour and wit” (qtd in flood 2011), suggested he was an uncompromising cultural commentator uttering uncomfortable truths both on and off the theatre stage. it was a recognition in keeping with hare’s long history of border-crossings between the fields of art and politics, but one that both confirmed and, paradoxically, undermined his proudly flaunted non-conformism, reinforcing his familiar quandary: how can you be both outsider and insider, the leftist ‘people’s playwright’ and part of the cultural establishment at the same time? the way in which mainstream acceptance and establishment recognition complexly, and often uncomfortably, intersect with hare’s over-stated political radicalism and its perception by theatre practitioners and the critical profession crucially informs the construction of his public persona as political playwright and commentator. in the wake of his knighthood and in what could be interpreted as an instinctive response to bragg’s taunt, hare has doubled up his efforts performing that persona. when asked, in an interview for the guardian in 2011, whether in accepting those honours he had compromised his “radical credentials”, hare became defensive: “it was an honour for which i didn’t have to wait for someone to open an envelope and announce i’d won. they just gave it to you. to anyone who criticises me for it, i can say, ‘has my work declined or become less radical since?’ my own view is no. i have written some of my most radical work ... since.” (qtd in jeffries 2011) hare does not elaborate on what exactly “radical” means in the context of his work, but it is clear that he is at pains to stress its trailblazing vision and political edge even if the days are long gone when (revolutionary) socialism seemed a viable means of societal transformation. in what could be seen as an anxious move to fend off charges of establishment co-option, hare steadfastly strives to maintain the image of the polarising playwright who has always subscribed to a “sound working principle” of ‘making mischief’, as he declares in a 1982 essay on public broadcasting and institutional censorship (hare 1991b, p. 105). priding himself on his adversarial thinking, which, in hare’s view, sets him apart from a somewhat bloodless generation of younger playwrights, thus forms an essential component of his self-canonisation strategy, aimed at reifying his status as one of the key figures of contemporary english drama. over the last forty years, hare has increasingly stepped outside the dramatic medium and engaged in public lecturing, journalism, criticism, and autobiographical writing to communicate his views on topics as varied as the relationship of theatre and politics; the ethical function of political drama in a corrupt political world; the financial crisis and the effects of mayer 42 austerity; the collapse of traditional party politics; or, most recently, the disastrous consequences of brexit.iv such extra-theatrical performances of the authorial self are in many ways symptomatic of a heavily commodified literary culture that is built around the celebrity capital of the media-savvy star author, whose heightened degree of public visibility results from repeated (re)presentations through a diverse range of media (driessens 2013a, p. 552). as the author has successfully weathered poststructuralist opprobrium, and negotiated the literary sphere as a public intellectual, literature becomes a “lively and complex negotiation of text, author, reader and society” (heynders 2016, p. 20) that no longer recognises a clear-cut demarcation line between poetics and politics. hare’s public talks, essays, and prefaces to his plays have been collected in two volumes, writing left-handed (1991) and obedience, struggle & revolt (2005). together with his published diary, acting up (1999), and his 2015 memoir the blue touch paper, they map out the migration processes across different social fields that characterise the formation of celebrity persona. media sociologist olivier driessens identifies migration as a “twofold process that captures the mobility and convertibility of celebrity” as well-known public figures like hare “use both their relative autonomy as public personality and their celebrity status to develop other professional activities either within their original field or to penetrate other social fields” (2013b, p. 648). the four books, all published by faber & faber, point towards hare’s multiple professional identities of playwright, screenwriter, stage and screen director, public lecturer, essayist, and general ‘man of letters’, all of which are designed to promote the persona of the contrarian, which, perhaps most obviously, is paratextually produced by the works’ titles. hare’s “background murmuring”: managing the authorial persona through the medium of the lecture testimony to his dynamic movements between art and action, hare’s non-fiction forms part of a public intervention which, on the one hand, frames or ‘decorates’ his work for stage and screen “with a kind of commentary”: a “background murmuring”, as hare calls it, that helps him probe and sharpen his thoughts and ideas (2005a, p. 1). on the other hand, such ventures outside the literary medium to “take some kind of aerial view” also feature prominently in hare’s conception of the persona of the political writer as someone “who is likely to have an analysis as well as a view” (2005a, pp. 2, 1). while in the introduction to writing left-handed, his first collection of lectures and essays, he still presents himself as ill-attuned to the activity of writing and delivering prose (hare 1991a, p. ix), he has, in the meantime, clearly become a convert to the merits of the non-literary as exploratory and, more to the point, explanatory companion discourse to his artistic work. for hare, the perceived limitations of the latter engender a keenly felt predicament that lays bare the complications of aligning the personas of artist and propagandist, both of which function as “fictive public identit[ies] drawn from elements of one’s individuality but designed for public use” (marshall & henderson 2016, pp. 13-14). as hare explains in a 2004 lecture, my creative self – the person inside me who would slowly go on to write twenty-two plays – was me and yet subtly not me. and, because of my companion’s separate identity, an urgent dilemma would soon emerge. my desire was to use the theatre to argue for political change, and, at the start, to no other end. but early on it became obvious that the demands of what you would wish to accomplish politically cannot be so easily reconciled with what is artistically possible. (2005b, p. 22) among the genres that complement the political impetus of theatre, it is the lecture format that holds a particular attraction for hare, not because it fundamentally differs from, but because, in persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 43 his understanding, it closely resembles the architecture of a play, which emerges from a dialectic between what happens on the stage and what the audience makes of it. writing in the introduction to his second volume of published lectures, obedience, struggle & revolt, hare suggests that “[l]ectures and plays are alike in relying for their true vitality on the richness of the interaction between the performance itself and the thoughts and feelings created by the unspoken reaction in the room,” only to add: “it is as if – hey! the better the speaker, the deeper the response” (2005a, p. 5). indeed, taking a closer look at hare’s frequent appearances on the international lecture circuit, it is apparent that they involve a considerable degree of performative self-projection and playing to the audience, which, from the early 1980s, he has increasingly found at elite institutions all over the world. invitations to speak at top-ranking universities, prestigious literature and theatre festivals, the royal society of literature, or at english pen international writer’s day simultaneously attest to, and further consolidate, his establishment status, which hare often responds to by castigating those very same institutions that provide a platform to the playwright’s truth-telling voice. when hare gave a lecture at the university of oxford in march 2016, it was not only another poignant reminder of the political edge that has always lined his performances of the authorial self; it also highlighted his tendency to adopt a strategy of ‘attack from within’, following his line of argument that “the best place to be radical [is] at the centre” (hare 2015a, p. 256), where the rebellious playwright’s voice can be heard by broad and diverse audience segments. offering “a playwright’s view of dismal conservatism,” as the lecture’s title promised, hare delivered a scathing invective against thatcherism and its aftermath: the invariably oxford-educated tory (and labour) key players responsible for the invasion of iraq, the refugee crisis, the global financial crash, and austerity politics. the audience was left under no illusions about the general drift of hare’s message when he opened his address with what was designed as a running joke: “occasionally, since the 1950s, whenever prime ministers have shown either unusual stupidity or unusual ignorance and i have asked the question ‘where on earth was he or she educated?’ the answer has invariably been ‘oxford’” (hare 2016, p. 1). sustained throughout the lecture whenever some high-powered but hopelessly inept political figure was invoked, hare’s oxford-bashing was a performance meant to antagonise his local audience (the greater part of whom, it is reasonable to assume, could not have agreed more) in a transparent bid of managing the persona of the leftist ‘people’s playwright’. to all appearances, david hare fully recognises the powerful impact of uninterrupted, unmediated utterance as a direct mode of self-presentation that relies, paradoxically, on the performative production of authenticity, turning the speaker/writer into a “clear eyed” observer (hare 2005c, p. 95), a plain-spoken commentator and, at the same time, a theatrical performer. as john lahr notes in his unflattering review of writing left-handed, hare’s essays are less a serious commentary on the state of the arts and the contemporary political situation than a personal vanity project that serves the playwright’s self-fashioning; they “don’t so much illuminate the political stage as stage himself politically” (1991, n.p.). lahr’s severe appraisal ties in with hare’s own reluctant admission in the foreword to that volume that “it is hard for a playwright not to think of prose as an extended dramatic monologue, sometimes, i’m afraid, for a semi-fictional character” (1991a, p. xv); in his embrace of the lecture format, he takes full advantage of its theatrical potential and creates his own one-person show through which he moulds, performs, and manages the authorial persona of the politically engaged playwright and social commentator. chris megson and dan rebellato have offered a compelling analysis of hare’s affinity for the lecture and other non-fictional formats and demonstrated how this preference relates to the aesthetics of his dramatic work and theatrical practice, which has relied on a “long-standing mayer 44 commitment to the pure, transparent and direct communication of subject matter in performance” (2007, p. 236). both hare’s dramatic work and metadiscourse on the function and purpose of theatre reveal “a remarkable and doggedly persistent vision of theatre’s potential capacity to deliver unmediated expression of content in a way that elides or even transcends the artifices that conventionally suture dramatic writing, authorial style and stage aesthetics” (2007, p. 238). his distrust in the artifice, false rhetoric, and mediation of theatrical representation in the late 1990s and 2000s culminated in his intermittent embrace of (semi)verbatim and documentary theatre. starting with his self-performed monologue via dolorosa (1998), there has also been a move towards an at least partial conflation of author, performer, and subject, embedded in a discourse of authenticity and truthfulness. hare’s the power of yes (2009), for instance, features a fictionalised version of hare, thinly disguised as the “author”, who tries to get to the root of the financial crisis. based on hare’s conversations with bankers, investors, journalists, and academics, it fetishises the author’s “inquisitorial persona” (billington 2009), signalled, with little subtlety, by the play’s subtitle: “a dramatist seeks to understand the financial crisis”.v as hare’s “preferred mode of public address both on and off stage”, the lecture enables hare to navigate the vast territory between the poles of dispassionate dissection and provocative polemics, moving “from exposition to excoriation in equal measure” (megson & rebellato 2007, pp. 236, 241). more importantly, however, when it comes to the negotiation of the public persona of the author, it provides him with a “form of direct address to an audience and a mode of self-presentation that entirely dispenses with actorly interposition in the communication of content” (2007, p. 238). there might be a fundamental scepticism on hare’s part towards the potentially distorting effects of theatrical mediation processes, such as dramaturgy, acting performance, and aesthetic experiment; yet, in the case of his extratheatrical interventions, they get eliminated only to be replaced by a strong authorial interposition as a mediating agency that creates a similar “barrier of artifice” (2007, p. 246) between the audience and the communicated content in the shape of the playwright-activist persona. this persona emerges from a performative self-presentation that rests, most crucially, on the unchallenged authority of the inspired artist-creator who is supposedly qualified not only to deliver acute assessments of larger socio-political and ethical questions but to provide guidance and instruction on the interpretation of their work. a portrait of the artist as young genius: authorial ‘autobiomyths’ in hare’s memoir the blue touch paper a firm belief in the absolutism of authorial meaning-making underlies hare’s repeated attacks on the critical profession and director’s theatre. “[w]ith all its naff ideas and its opportunities for largely arbitrary pieces of self-advertisement”, the latter, in his opinion, stubbornly fails to comprehend the play “as something which work[s] in an intended area of meaning” (hare 2005c, p. 106). as he insists in his 1997 lecture “a defence of the new”, a play is “not just a toy with which a director might mess around at will in order to advertise for further employment”. in his self-understanding as a political playwright hare thus subscribes to a primal myth of authorship in which those fabled ‘intended areas of meaning’ might perhaps not simply be reduced to, but are sharply staked out by, the omnipotent “author’s conception” (hare 2005c, p. 106). in fact, the title of his talk, full of nostalgia for the good old days of political playwriting and their uncomplicated ideological militancy, invokes an illustrious historical progenitor that powerfully serves hare’s self-mythologising of the artist as rebel and visionary: percy bysshe shelley’s 1821 essay “a defence of poetry”, his defiant celebration of creative power which ends persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 45 on one of the most programmatic lines of authorial self-affirmation – “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” (shelley 2000, p. 802). indeed, the authorial persona that materialises through what is clearly more than the subtle “background murmuring” hare professes to engage in, feeds on a romantic conception of strong authorship that casts the author in the role of the enlightened poeta vates – a prophetic (but generally misunderstood and underrated) moral authority who strives to appeal to the political and social conscience of their readership. in this theory of authorship, the author’s cultural capital and authority are intimately connected with truth-telling discourses that render the author’s combined identities of artist and cultural critic a veritable default mode. in a recent interview for the guardian, hare suggests as much when he comments on what sets apart writers and politicians in the public perception: “i’m a writer and it’s assumed i’m speaking the truth” (qtd in kellaway 2018). in what might be a belated reaction to his traumatic encounter with leavisite literary criticism at cambridge,vi he thus firmly situates himself within a romantic tradition that fetishises the author as expressive genius and divinely gifted agent of metaphysical revelation when he outlines his vision of the author’s universal role: “whether they intend to or not, … in free as in totalitarian societies”, writers “remind their audience of an alternative and perhaps more profound way of looking at experience than would otherwise be available” (hare 1991a, p. xii). this white, colonial myth of (usually male) authors as unyielding truth seekers and tellers is an important factor that legitimises their forays into political commentary, which reminds us, as nahuel ribke has shown in his ‘genre approach’ to celebrity politics, that notable public figures come with a whole set of meanings, anchored in, and constructed through, their original or primary field(s) of action. these meanings, ribke argues, are “hierarchically structured according to the prestige of the genres with which they are associated within the fields of cultural production and consumption” and thus vitally affect someone’s success in converting their celebrity capital into political influence (2015, p. 172). the status writers occupy in the cultural imagination and its framework of literary values and traditions, as well as the media they have access to in the fields of cultural production, trigger specific audience expectations that can be instrumental to easing their passage into the sphere of political commentary. genre and the prestige it carries not only enable and facilitate the literary/political field migrations that lie at the heart of david hare’s authorial persona, but they also intimately affect the way in which they are staged and articulated. in his proclivity for the lecture, the essay, and, more recently, the memoir, he recognises and exploits their value as direct and controlled selffashioning platforms but also heavily relies on the cultural expectations raised by these genres’ potential of “truth capital” (gonzalez 2018, p. 298). as hare concedes, his lectures and essays are suffused by a marked “autobiographical thread” (1991a, p. ix) and therefore – just like his published diary or memoir – enable the audience to enter what philippe lejeune has famously called the ‘autobiographical pact’: a social and literary convention through which the reader implicitly accepts the purported truthfulness and authenticity of autobiographical utterance that resides in the unity of a text’s author, narrator, and subject (lejeune 2016, pp. 37, 43). in the light of such a ‘contract’, which is established by a host of paratextual and textual clues, autobiographical narrative will invariably be assessed in terms of the truth claims it makes; and yet, autobiographical truth is necessarily a “polyphonic site of indeterminacy” as it comes into being through “intersubjective exchange” between author-narrator and audience in a joint meaning-making project (smith & watson 2010, p. 16).vii uneasily positioned between the factual and the fictional and intimately concerned with notions of the self, identity, subjectivity, and agency, autobiographical telling seeks to stage and negotiate public and private versions of the self through strategies of narrativisation, selection, interpretation, and relationality; always mayer 46 a performative display of identity, and therefore inherently political, it strives to impose patterns of coherence and teleology onto the messiness and inconsistencies of an individual life and whip it into a seemingly pre-determined shape. promising the insight and revelation of a ‘true story’, it also expects audiences to be “open to the complexities of truth” (marcus 2018, p. 4). an analysis of david hare’s performances of authorial identity through autobiographical narrative and commentary could usefully draw on michael benton’s concept of “biomythography”. developed in the context of literary biography, which often approaches its subjects with a wish to illuminate the origins and inscrutable workings of the creative impulse and to untangle the knotted and myth-encrusted relationship of the author’s life and work, the term “subverts any concept of life-writing based on a simplistic account of supposed ‘facts’. it acknowledges the importance of context and historicity; but, more than that, it reflects the ways in which what we take as facts are subject to narrative representation and cultural mutability” (benton 2009, p. 63). the concept hence does justice to the processes of myth-making and fictionalisation and the multiple symbolic and subjective truths that underlie “versions of the self as expressed in different contexts, driven by different motives, for a variety of purposes” – especially in genres of life writing, where myth regularly steps in to battle the “anxiety of uncertainty” (benton 2009, pp. 64, 66) produced by gaps in the historical record or the ambiguities and contradictions that mark the trajectory of individual lives. what benton observes with regard to literary biography also counts for literary autobiography and memoir, which, as in hare’s case, often perpetuate the familiar cultural myth of the writer as rebel figure who offers an acutely perceptive critique of society, its norms and institutional frameworks, and the dominant zeitgeist. in his 2015 memoir the blue touch paper, based on a series of recorded conversations with journalist amy raphael, hare rehearses his familiar repertoire of ‘autobiomyths’, most of them offering variations on a ‘portrait of the artist as inspired young genius’ whose remarkable sensibilities – if not his hypersensitivity – render him an astute social and cultural commentator. covering the years from 1947 to 1979, the memoir charts hare’s path from an emotionally starved lower middle-class childhood on the sussex coast on to public school and cambridge university education and, from there, swiftly up the “food chain of british theater” (brown 2015). its narrative, broadly chronological though episodic and at times digressive, focuses on the self-making of the professional playwright, whose success story firmly rests on the heroic achievements of the post-war welfare state and whose unwavering commitment to theatre as an agent of political change ostensibly emerged from a gnawing sense that the ideals of social democracy were being betrayed. blending salacious gossip and strategic name-dropping with anecdote and confession, the blue touch paper bears all the hallmarks that define memoir as a notoriously unstable genre situated between the public and the private, the factual and the imagined, historical documentation and literary art. as julie rak argues, “it is both finished and unfinished, unofficial and official, a collection of reminiscences of an occasional character, but also a record of historic events where the events, or the person who records them, is emphasized” (2004, p. 495). not surprisingly, given his ‘autobiomythographical’ project, hare most prominently draws on the generic templates of the bildungsroman and coming-of-age narrative which chronicle the formation of the subject’s self and frame it in terms of growth, becoming, and agentic selfdetermination. as it “seeks to tell how a young man became a dramatist, and to describe the cost and effect of that decision”, hare’s account of his “apprenticeship” (2015a, pp. xv-xvi) feeds on, and perpetuates, a self-affirming artist-as-hero myth that accommodates both selfaggrandisement and self-deprecation, hyper-confidence and crippling insecurity. his story of becoming is clearly aimed at corroborating his significance as a political playwright and central persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 47 voice in contemporary english drama, and there is a curious reticence to play up his successes as a screenwriter and director. while hare has always felt at home in a text-based tradition of english writer’s theatre, focused on the “adulation of the playwright … as a sage for the times” (kershaw 2004a, p. 301) that bolsters the myth of the omnipotent auteur as the source of all meaning, there has been a marked scepticism towards the media of film and television (see hare 2002). there, the writer’s (or director’s) contribution is filtered through a whole host of agents and stakeholders and can result in the diminution of the strong authorial persona hare has been keen to perform. seamlessly switching in tone from light-hearted to caustic, self-ironic to pretentious, and consistent only in its round condemnation of politicians and critics of all shapes and sizes, the memoir is conspicuously marked by what one critic described as a “combination of deliberate ambivalence and more inadvertent contradictions” (walton 2015). what often expresses itself through “boastful modesty” (jury 2015), a curious mix of boisterous and humble, and a noticeable indecision between self-glorification and self-demolition, reveals hare’s underlying sense of unease about trying to reconcile his bourgeois status with the rebel, stuck in between centre-ground, middle-class respectability and a rhetorical harking back to old socialism. as he writes about his supposedly conflicted class-consciousness, his perpetual (and often physically incapacitating) fear of failure, his long-standing professional and romantic involvement with kate nelligan, which “made the pair of us both insufferable for years” (2015a, p. 203), the breakup of his marriage and the guilt of leaving a family with three young children, hare’s soul-baring narration occasionally teeters into self-hatred. as mark lawson observes in his review of the blue touch paper, “at times, a reader may feel that the book should have been called hare shirt” (lawson 2015). the way in which hare peppers his account with self-flagellating confession could be interpreted as an attempt to elicit sympathy for the failing hero forced to do penance for his hubris, which ties in with a desire for social levelling that underlies the cultural fascination with celebrity life narratives. at the same time, chipping away at his own pedestal lends gravitas to the myth of the author as clear-sighted genius, whose unique gift for penetrating analysis comes from a torturous sense of uncertainty that leads to rigorous selfexamination. hare’s comment on the memoir’s reception in a us radio interview suggests as much: a lot of people have said this about the book – that i seem to be very tough on myself. but you know, i’m a writer. and an awful lot of writers are driven by self-hatred. my ability to see what’s going on in a room or analyze what’s going on inside a person comes from my own doubts about what’s going on inside myself. (hare 2015b) as self-hatred is intricately bound up with hare’s project of self-mythologisation, the strategies of ‘new memoir’ might have allowed for innovative and aesthetically challenging modes of engaging with the narrator-subject’s ambivalence and frequent self-contradictions. often characterised by formal experimentation, including novelistic techniques, a fragmented and episodic structure, experimental syntheses of word and image, or playful subversions of ‘authenticity’ markers, such as footnotes and indices, ‘new memoirs’ – as opposed to traditional memoirs – “are fundamentally more obtrusively aware of the mediated nature of life, the unwieldiness of experience, the fallibility of memory, and the artifice of textual transformation” (madden 2014, p. 223). rather than questioning “the direct and transparent relation among act and memory and text” (2014, p. 229) and traversing the slippery terrain of ‘objective’ historical record and personal testimony with playful self-reflexivity, hare aims to achieve an effect of historical accuracy and authenticity. he presents himself as a reliable narrator by interspersing his recollections with primary material that serves the purpose of external validation and endorsement: letters and examples of “exceptionally perceptive” reviews (2015a, p. 341), mayer 48 reproduced either in full or in excerpts, by eminent contemporaries and long-standing associates such as peggy ramsay, tom stoppard, or philip roth. it is here, in the insistence on veracity and referentiality, and, perhaps most conspicuously, where the personal intersects with lengthy authoritative commentary on larger political and socio-cultural transformations, that hare’s memoir invariably assumes the guise of the author’s signature format of expression – the lecture. stirrings of self-exploration and analysis often get nipped in the bud by a potent mix of social history, lament, and polemic; not surprisingly so, given the memoir’s express aim to “reclaim the 1970s from the image which politicians of one fierce bent have successfully imposed with the help of largely compliant historians”, as hare stressed in his 2016 oxford lecture (p. 2). hare’s great grievance is the demise of the british welfare state, whose death knell came with the cataclysmic caesura of margaret thatcher’s election victory in 1979 and its fateful long-term consequences: like so many socialists of my age, i had insufficiently appreciated the values of the welfare state because all i had been able to see were its shortcomings. many of us in our nightmares had imagined violence, the seizure of the country at the end of a gun by plutocrats or the military. but for those of us who were committed to believing in the essential wisdom of electorates, the idea of the country agreeing to hand itself back to the laissez-faire barbarism of the years before the war was unimaginable … up till now, for those of us born in 1947, the direction of travel, however erratic, had been towards social justice and equality. from this point on, it would be a retreat. (hare 2015a, p. 332) linking up public with private watershed moments, david hare’s memoir thus situates itself in a category of self-writings that seek to relate personal experience to the momentous impact of historical events and external forces. the reader encounters an “autobiographical ‘i’ [who] becomes a traveller through, and at times a guide to, wider cultural and historical forces, as the individual life-course intersects with, and is shaped by, collective events and experiences” (marcus 2018, p. 79). and who could provide more sagacious guidance on the contemporary condition than the autobiographical ‘i’ of the author – the divisive, hypersensitive seer and speaker of uncomfortable truths acting as society’s much-needed corrective? conclusion in its capacity to construct and uphold a successful fallacy of authenticity and intimate connection between narrator-subject and audience, autobiographical discourse must necessarily hold an irresistible appeal for someone who seeks to build his authorial persona on a conflation of art and action, aesthetics and ethics, intraand extra-theatrical worlds. memoir in particular, as a site for negotiating the subject’s position in the cultural imaginary and the relationship between their personal and professional identities, becomes a powerful vehicle for the autobiomyth of the trailblazing, politically engaged author, who is aware of his social responsibility and, guided by principle and personal integrity, is “always happiest when [he] ha[s] a cause” (hare 2015a, p. 174). at the same time, the genre makes room for the staging of ambivalence, contradictions, and inconsistencies, as the image of the failing public figure, confessing their shortcomings and weaknesses and revealing themselves to be an ordinary, imperfect human being, constitutes a widely accepted key feature of seemingly authentic selfpresentation, inviting relatability and audience sympathy. as julie rak observes in her analysis of the twenty-first-century ‘memoir boom’, “memoir is a way of thinking and perhaps even of being public, as it remains a way to construct, package, and market identity so that others will want to buy it. therefore, it is subject to generic ‘rules’” (2013, p. 7). these generic specificities guide audiences in their consumption and interpretation of a cultural product as they raise persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 49 expectations that work through repetition and, eventually, the pleasurable recognition of the familiar; genres thus “produce a type of grammar that does far more than merely organize objects. it provides a way to say what constitutes a ‘legitimate’ or recognizable object in a system, and what does not” (2013, p. 26). ultimately, therefore, it is not so much about whether the ‘truth content’ of a narrative can be verified or discredited but to what extent it meets the audience’s expectations of sincerity, authenticity, and revelation. david hare capitalises on the generic prestige and impact of non-fictional life-writing formats in his quest to build and sustain the persona of the prophetic writer-activist and “latterday ‘man of letters’ in the tradition of bernard shaw and john osborne” (megson & rebellato 2007, p. 236). he feels acutely, it seems, the eternal conundrum of the writer, torn between aesthetics and ethics, form and content, subversion and conformism; alternately driven to step outside the artistic medium to fulfil a cultural responsibility, and anxious that literary art should have deteriorated into a mere tool of political propaganda. hare’s response to this dilemma has been to engage in a cultural idealisation of the artist as genius allrounder who is equally at home in the spheres of literature and agitation, the fictional and the factual, the literary and the nonliterary – a move that may, in hare’s own case, have led to an artistic deadlock but that has fuelled his celebrity status as a playwright. funding this work was supported by the austrian science fund (fwf) [grant number t922-g30]. acknowledgements for permission to quote from material preserved in the david hare collection, i wish to acknowledge the harry ransom center at the university of texas at austin; casarotto ramsay & associates ltd on behalf of david hare; sheil land associates on behalf of melvyn bragg. i am grateful to elizabeth l. garver for helping me navigate the harry ransom center’s holdings of the david hare papers and making uncatalogued material available to me. end notes i a complex and diverse phenomenon, ‘mainstream theatre’ is generally taken to comprise “west end commercial theatre and commercial venues of the regional touring circuits, subsidised regional repertory theatres and other municipal theatres, and the national theatres (royal national theatre, royal shakespeare company)” (kershaw 2004b, p. 349). ii david hare’s screenplays for television and feature films include wetherby (dir. david hare, 1985), the hours (dir. stephen daldry, 2002), the reader (dir. stephen daldry, 2008), page eight (dir. david hare, 2011), denial (dir. mick jackson, 2016), and collateral (dir. s. j. clarkson, 2018). iii commenting on pinter’s play the caretaker (1960), hare rejects the idea of a political agenda on pinter’s part, and, in the same breath, implies a categorical division between psychological and political drama that does not allow for porous boundaries: “the drama is psychological and between people in that room. (harold now argues that his intentions were political; i don’t believe him. …) i could never write a play in which the engagement was purely psychological, because to me, who people are is affected by time and place and the nature of the society they live in” (hare qtd in boon 2003, p. 173). mayer 50 iv referring to the outcome of the eu referendum and its aftermath as “the most depressing time in his life” (wiegand 2017), hare joined high-profile writers abi morgan, a.l. kennedy, meera syal, and james graham to participate in the brexit shorts campaign, a guardian and headlong theatre company co-production. part of a series of online films addressing the causes and effects of the 2016 referendum, hare’s “time to leave” features kristin scott thomas as a disillusioned leave voter one year on. v it is worth noting that hare is not alone among his generation of male, leftist playwrights in his turn towards the self and the personal as a way of renegotiating his standing and the tenets of his political drama in a changed theatre landscape. in 2018, hare’s long-standing comrade-inarms, david edgar, marked his 70th birthday by putting on and performing his autobiographical one-man show trying it on, a “mix of rigorous self-inquisition and exploration of the failed hopes and dreams of the 1960s” (billington 2018). vi in his memoir the blue touch paper hare recounts how it implanted in him a deep-seated aversion against “art which needs a framework of art theory to be understood” (2015a, p. 97). vii this ties in with hare’s understanding of the theatrical experience as residing in the interaction of playwright, stage performance, and audience. in his first lecture, given at a theatre conference at king’s college, cambridge, in 1978, he famously argued that a play and its political impact come into being through a collaborative experience of exchange: “a play is not actors, a play is not a text; a play is what happens between the stage and the audience. … so if a play is to be a weapon in the class struggle, then that weapon is not going to be the things you are saying; it is the interaction of what you are saying and what the audience is thinking. the play is in the air” (2005d, p. 118). works cited benton, m. 2009, literary biography: an introduction, wiley-blackwell, chichester. billington, m. 2009, ‘the power of yes’, the guardian, 6 october, retrieved 29 october 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/oct/07/power-of-yes-billington-review> —2018, ‘the haranguing of david edgar – by his 20-year-old self”, the guardian, 29 october, retrieved 30 october 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/29/haranguing-david-edgar-trying-iton-royal-court> boon, r. 2003, about hare: the playwright and the work, faber & faber, london. —2007, ‘introduction’ in r. boon (ed.), the cambridge companion to david hare, cambridge university press, cambridge, pp. 1-11. bragg, m. 1998, autograph letter signed to david hare, 13 june 1998, david hare collection, third acquisition (uncatalogued), correspondence 1997-1998, box 60, harry ransom center, the university of texas at austin. brown, t. 2015, ‘“the blue touch paper: a memoir,” by david hare’, the new york times, 16 november, retrieved 5 may 2019, <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/books/review/the-blue-touch-paper-amemoir-by-david-hare.html> coveney, m. 2012, ‘the unhappiest time of his life: david hare on dramatising his school days’, the independent, 20 april, retrieved 28 october 2019, <https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/theunhappiest-time-of-his-life-david-hare-on-dramatising-his-school-days-7660994.html> deeney, j. 2010, ‘david hare and political playwriting: between the third way and the permanent way’ in m. luckhurst (ed.), a companion to modern british and irish drama 1880-2005, wiley blackwell, oxford, pp. 429-440. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/oct/07/power-of-yes-billington-review https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/29/haranguing-david-edgar-trying-it-on-royal-court https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/29/haranguing-david-edgar-trying-it-on-royal-court https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/books/review/the-blue-touch-paper-a-memoir-by-david-hare.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/books/review/the-blue-touch-paper-a-memoir-by-david-hare.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/the-unhappiest-time-of-his-life-david-hare-on-dramatising-his-school-days-7660994.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/the-unhappiest-time-of-his-life-david-hare-on-dramatising-his-school-days-7660994.html persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 51 driessens, o. 2013a, ‘celebrity capital: redefining celebrity using field theory’, theory and society, vol. 42, no. 5, pp. 543-560. —2013b, ‘the celebritization of society and culture: understanding the structural dynamics of celebrity culture’, international 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‘introduction’ in d. hare, collected screenplays 1, faber & faber, london, pp. vii-xiii. —2005a, ‘introduction’ in d. hare, obedience, struggle & revolt: lectures on theatre, faber & faber, london, pp. 1-8. —2005b, ‘obedience, struggle & revolt’ in d. hare, obedience, struggle & revolt: lectures on theatre, faber & faber, london, pp. 9-32. —2005c, ‘a defence of the new’ in d. hare, obedience, struggle & revolt: lectures on theatre, faber & faber, london, pp. 87-110. —2015a, the blue touch paper: a memoir, faber & faber, london. —2015b, ‘author interviews: dramatist david hare says, like many writers, he’s driven by doubt’, national public radio, 31 october, retrieved 6 may 2019, <https://www.npr.org/2015/10/31/453155446/dramatist-david-hare-says-likemany-writers-hes-driven-by-doubt?t=1556171023562> —2016, ‘putting the clock back: a playwright’s view of dismal conservatism’, richard hillary memorial lecture, blavatnik school of government, university of oxford, 3 march, pp. 112, retrieved 25 may 2019, <http://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/wordpress/wpcontent/uploads/2016/03/david_hare_lecture_putting-the-clock-back.pdf> heynders, o. 2016, writers as public intellectuals: literature, celebrity, democracy, palgrave macmillan, basingstoke. jeffries, s. 2011, ‘david hare: “it’s absurd, but i feel insecure”’, the guardian, 3 september, retrieved 30 may 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/sep/03/davidhare-i-feel-insecure> jury, l. 2015, ‘the blue touch paper by david hare, book review’, the independent, 5 september, retrieved 3 may 2019, <https://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/books/reviews/the-blue-touch-paper-by-david-hare-book-review10484833.html> kellaway, k. 2018, ‘state of play: david hare and james graham talk drama and politics’, the observer, 6 may, retrieved 9 may 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/06/david-hare-james-grahamdrama-politics-labour-party> kershaw, b. 2004a, ‘british theatre, 1940-2002: an introduction’ in b. kershaw (ed.), the cambridge history of british theatre vol. 3: since 1895, cambridge university press, cambridge, pp. 291-325. —2004b, ‘alternative theatres, 1946-2000’ in b. kershaw (ed.), the cambridge history of british theatre vol. 3: since 1895, cambridge university press, cambridge, pp. 349-376. https://www.npr.org/2015/10/31/453155446/dramatist-david-hare-says-like-many-writers-hes-driven-by-doubt?t=1556171023562 https://www.npr.org/2015/10/31/453155446/dramatist-david-hare-says-like-many-writers-hes-driven-by-doubt?t=1556171023562 http://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/david_hare_lecture_putting-the-clock-back.pdf http://www.trinity.ox.ac.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/david_hare_lecture_putting-the-clock-back.pdf https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/sep/03/david-hare-i-feel-insecure https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2011/sep/03/david-hare-i-feel-insecure https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-blue-touch-paper-by-david-hare-book-review-10484833.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-blue-touch-paper-by-david-hare-book-review-10484833.html https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-blue-touch-paper-by-david-hare-book-review-10484833.html https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/06/david-hare-james-graham-drama-politics-labour-party https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/may/06/david-hare-james-graham-drama-politics-labour-party mayer 52 lahr, j. 1991, ‘hare’s breadth’, vogue, may, david hare collection, series v. career and personal, reviews writing left-handed, 1990-91, box 33, folder 2, harry ransom center, the university of texas at austin. lawson, m. 2015, ‘“i hated myself”: david hare’s self-flagellating memoir’, new statesman, 12 september, retrieved 5 may 2019, <https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2015/09/i-hated-myself-david-hares-self-flagellating-memoir> lejeune, p. 2016, ‘the autobiographical pact’ in r. a. chansky & e. hipchen (eds), the routledge auto/biography studies reader, routledge, london & new york, pp. 34-48. luckhurst, m. 2002, ‘contemporary english theatre: why realism?’ in m. rubik & e. mettingerschartmann (eds), (dis)continuities: trends and traditions in contemporary theatre and drama in english, wvt, trier, pp. 73-84. —2007, ‘harold pinter and poetic politics’ in r. d’monté & g. saunders (eds), cool britannia? british political drama in the 1990s, palgrave macmillan, basingstoke, pp. 56-68. madden, m. 2014, ‘the “new memoir”’, in m. dibattista & e. o. wittman (eds), the cambridge companion to autobiography, cambridge university press, cambridge, pp. 222-236. marcus, l. 2018, autobiography: a very short introduction, oxford university press, oxford. marshall, p.d. & henderson, n. 2016, ‘political persona 2016 – an introduction’, persona studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 1-18. megson, c. & rebellato, d. 2007, ‘“theatre and anti-theatre”: david hare and public speaking’ in r. boon (ed.), the cambridge companion to david hare, cambridge university press, cambridge, pp. 236-249. rak, j. 2004, ‘are memoirs autobiography? a consideration of genre and public identity’, genre, vol. 37, pp. 483-504. —2013, boom! manufacturing memoir for the popular market, wilfrid laurier university press, waterloo, ontario. ribke, n. 2015, a genre approach to celebrity politics: global patterns of passage from media to politics, palgrave macmillan, basingstoke. shelley, p.b. 2000, ‘a defence of poetry’ in m.h. abrams et al (eds), the norton anthology of english literature, vol. 2, 7th ed., norton & company, new york, pp. 790-802. smith, s. & watson, j. 2010, reading autobiography: a guide for interpreting life narratives, 2nd ed., university of minnesota press, minneapolis. walton, j. 2015, ‘the blue touch paper by david hare, review: “a vanished era”’, the telegraph, 18 september, retrieved 3 may 2019, <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-toread/the-blue-touch-paper-david-hare-review/> wiegand, c. 2017, ‘leading playwrights create brexit dramas for the guardian’, the guardian, 19 june, retrieved 10 may 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jun/19/leading-playwrights-createbrexit-shorts-david-hare-abi-morgan> https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2015/09/i-hated-myself-david-hare-s-self-flagellating-memoir https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2015/09/i-hated-myself-david-hare-s-self-flagellating-memoir https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/the-blue-touch-paper-david-hare-review/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/the-blue-touch-paper-david-hare-review/ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jun/19/leading-playwrights-create-brexit-shorts-david-hare-abi-morgan https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jun/19/leading-playwrights-create-brexit-shorts-david-hare-abi-morgan bassil-morozow 30 persona and rebellion in trickster narratives. case study: fleabag (bbc 2016-2019) hele n a bass il-moroz ow g l a s g o w c a l e d o n i a n u n i v e r s i t y abstract this paper brings together the concept of persona and the figure of the trickster to examine the dynamic between social norms and creative noncompliance, between the social mask and human authenticity, in moving image narratives. in particular, it looks at the female trickster challenging the female persona in recent television shows, primarily bbc’s fleabag (2016-2019), using the previously outlined framework of trickster attributes (bassil-morozow 2012; bassil-morozow 2015). the concept of persona is examined using a combination of erving goffman’s presentation of self theory and jung’s persona concept. it is argued that the female persona – the artificial vision of socially acceptable femininity – is a particularly rigid psycho-social structure, comprising repressive and unrealistic expectations for women’s looks, bodies, and conduct in public situations. using the nameless protagonist of fleabag as a case study, the paper shows how the female trickster can challenge these prescribed attributes and expectations while defying the individualcontrolling techniques: shame, social embarrassment, social rejection and ostracism. key words female trickster; persona; fleabag; jung; goffman; social mask persona and rebellion in trickster narratives. case study: fleabag (bbc 2016-2019) this paper brings together the concept of persona and the figure of the trickster to examine the dynamic between social norms and creative noncompliance, between the social mask and human authenticity, in moving image narratives. in particular, it looks at the female trickster challenging the female persona in recent television shows, primarily bbc’s fleabag (201620192019), using the previously outlined framework of trickster attributes (bassil-morozow 2012; bassil-morozow 2015). application of trickster features and the introduction of the specifically female social mask provide a new angle on the multidisciplinary concept of persona. meanwhile, the trickster theory also benefits from the inclusion of erving goffman’s analysis of social performance which shows off the trickster’s disdain for the artificiality of accepted social values. trickster narratives can be found in different media, from myth and folk tales to literature, film and tv. they typically depict a protagonist losing face (accidentally or persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 31 deliberately), entering a period of turmoil, and emerging out of it with a changed status. the link between the trickster and persona seems natural. after all, at the core of a trickster narrative is the disruption of the order of things and erasure of the official mask worn by the individual in their everyday interaction with society. this mask is discussed here using a combination of carl jung’s concept of persona and erving goffman’s performance theory. both are transposed onto the trickster narrative arch to explore the trickster’s relationship with all things orderly, lawful, and official. importantly, persona is also a gendered concept. this article focuses on the female trickster because persona requirements have been traditionally more potent for women in many societies, with additional prescriptions for etiquette, dress code, make-up, body language, and taboo topics. the contrast between the persona and the female trickster is therefore particularly stark, and their conflict is doubly antagonistic (as well as funny). the emergence of the rebellious, unruly, and chaotic female protagonist in recent television narratives, including crazy ex-girlfriend (the cw/netflix; 2015-2018), disenchantment (netflix 2018-), killing eve (bbc 2018-), and fleabag (bbc 2016-20192019), signal that the female trickster has fast becoming accepted into the genre. it signals a social shift, and shows that there is a demand for a new type of female character, the one who does not conform to the traditional vision of what it means to be a woman; a character who is not afraid to challenge the norms and to make change happen. phoebe waller-bridge’s chaotic nameless protagonist is one of the more prominent female tricksters because of her ability to uncover the embarrassments, errors, and genuine emotions underneath the smooth surface of the persona. persona: definitions according to jung, the persona is constructed to look like a coherent identity to the outside world yet it is a “segment of the collective psyche”, and “a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks” (jung cw7, para. 245). the persona is not to be confused with what jung calls “ego-consciousness” one’s personal identity parts of which an individual may choose to shield from society. by contrast, the persona is “that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is” (cw 9/i, para. 221). a persona often takes the form of a carefully cultivated image projected to the outside world. even though it is a necessary part of social adaptation, this image can easily become a trap when its wearer becomes excessively concerned with success and acceptance. jung writes: when we analyse the persona we strip off the mask, and discover that what seemed to be individual is at bottom collective; in other words, that the persona was only a mask of the collective psyche. fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be. he takes a name, earns a title, exercises a function, he is this or that. in a certain sense all this is real, yet in relation to the essential individuality of the person concerned it is only a secondary reality, a compromise formation, in making which others often have a greater share than he. the persona is a semblance, a two-dimensional reality, to give it a nickname. (cw7, para. 246) erving goffman employs terms such as facework, deference, demeanour, embarrassment, stigma, alienation from interaction, communication boundaries, situational proprieties, and other terms to describe the intricacies of the interaction ritual and public behaviour. unlike the psychoanalytic tradition, goffman is not interested in the authentic self versus the public self dichotomy, but only in the ritual interactions between people, which he calls “the ritual roles of bassil-morozow 32 the self” (goffman 2005, p. 31). neither is he interested in origins and development of an authentic personality which would then go on to have an ongoing, repressed conflict with authority. instead, goffman defines the self as “an image pieced together from the expressive indications of the full flow of events in an undertaking; and the self as a kind of player in a ritual game who copes honourably or dishonourably, diplomatically or undiplomatically, with the judgemental contingencies of the situation” (2005, p. 31). in other words, to the outside world, which in most cases has no time for exploring personalities and individualities, what really matters is one’s ability to participate in the ‘game’. anyone unable or unwilling to participate in it is side-lined, as only compliance is rewarded. by contrast, trickster figures in narratives are not invested in improving their “facework” or performing a social ritual; they does not aspire to being nice to others or being likeable; they reject the concepts of “earning a title” or “exercising a function”; they do not intend to become a civilized person or a good citizen. the willingness to build a persona emerges out of the propensity for imitation, out of the desire to belong to a social group. jung writes: human beings have one faculty which, though it is of the greatest utility for collective purposes, is most pernicious for individuation, and that is the faculty of imitation. collective psychology cannot dispense with imitation, for without it all mass organizations, the state and the social order, are impossible. society is organised, indeed, less by law than by the propensity to imitation, implying equally suggestibility, suggestion, and mental contagion. [...] we could almost say that as a punishment for this uniformity of their minds with those of their neighbours, already real enough, is intensified into an unconscious, compulsive bondage to the environment. [...] to find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realise how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is. (cw7: para. 242; emphasis is mine) to imitate is to belong, to compromise, to be like others in your environment. yet, the trickster dislikes everything to do with compromise, and goes with complete difference, with strangeness, with otherness – with pure individuality which, from the point of view of society, looks stupid and selfish. the genre staples of trickster behaviour – boundary-breaking, shamelessness, refusal (or lack of care) to have an assigned name, shapeshifting, messy, explosive creativity, obsession with taboo subjects such as sex and excretion – act as repellents against the persona, against the requirements to ‘behave’, to be proper, to become embarrassed when a protocol is breached, or to be ashamed when accidents happen. the persona is all about controlling oneself and one’s environment, by feigning similarity, by fitting in, by seeking external personal validation and professional confirmation. as marshall et al. put it, as human beings, we are constantly engaged in production of this public self as we negotiate ourselves through life (marshall et al. 2020, p. 1). even though the persona has “the appearances of being an individual”, it is, in fact, “the way an individual can organize themselves publicly” (2020, p. 3). persona is thus a ‘performance of individuality’ and not in any way the authentic individual self. both the persona and the rebellious human agency behind it are the two sides of what jung calls the individuation process – the journey of becoming oneself while navigating various societal expectations and rules. individuation is complex, and can be painful, not least because it involves two parallel strands: separating individual consciousness from the collective unconscious (jung cw10, para. 290), and maintaining the boundary with the external reality. it persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 33 is this boundary that the trickster inhabits, keeping alive the conflict between the personal and the social. the trickster: definitions essentially, the trickster serves as a metaphor for the human ability to manage and process change as well as to adapt to the environment. many mythological canons have a trickster character: a fool, a clown, a rebel, a prankster or simply a force of nature who does unpredictable things and behaves in ways that are socially unacceptable. (in traditional narratives this is a male figure, although he does occasionally switch between the sexes.) in other words, the trickster brings chaos into an existing order of things with the aim (if tricksters can have an aim at all) of testing the limits of existing rules and canons. by testing the structure, the trickster challenges outdated guidelines and triggers reform and renewal. rebellion has consequences, though: mythological tricksters are traditionally punished by gods or other representatives of power for disturbing what is otherwise a well-organised, tightly-controlled and well-preserved order. an intriguing and complex figure, the trickster has attracted the attention of sociologists, depth psychology theorists, anthropologists, and folklorists who have offered various definitions of it. carl jung describes the trickster as an archetype – a primordial figure shared by the whole of mankind and residing in the collective unconscious. jung emphasises the dual, contradictory nature of the trickster: a shape-shifter, malicious prankster, and demonic being who also displays features of a saviour (jung cw 9/i, para. 436). according to paul radin, the trickster is “creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself. he wills nothing consciously” (radin 1972, p. xxiii). sometimes, karl kerenyi notes, by defying gods, the trickster becomes a culture hero – for instance, like prometheus who enrages zeus by bringing fire to the people (radin 1972, p.181). similarly, laura makarius emphasises the trickster’s role as a “civilizing hero” as well as his propensity to violate taboos, and break laws and limits (hynes & doty 1993, p. 85). mac linscott ricketts also emphasises the link between the trickster and social progress, stating that he is the “symbol of the self-transcending mind of humankind”, “the human quest for knowledge and the power that knowledge brings” (hynes & doty 1993, p. 87). of course, perspective is everything. one person’s culture hero is another person’s fool – depending on whether one is inclined to comply with the rules and to work with the authorities or, by contrast, to defy the system by pointing out its flaws. in fact, the trickster’s shamelessness and fearlessness, which society can regard as foolish qualities, are inseparable from its role as s culture hero, as someone capable of advancing systems and improving the existing order of things by challenging stale notions, rules and laws. the trickster and the system are inseparable, they need each other, and their relationship is dynamic; it is dialectical. in the narrative structure, the trickster represents an unpredictable element that is introduced into an existing order of things, then challenges or demolishes it, and the new order is introduced at the end of the narrative – often after the trickster’s disappearance. the spirit of the trickster may reside in one or more characters, in an accompanying animal, or emerge as an accident or a chance. it can also inhabit multiple characters – or “possess” them – causing them to behave unpredictably and to say stupid things. for instance, in fleabag, the titular protagonist may be said to be hosting the trickster spirit as she keeps breaking the rules and crossing the boundaries of propriety. others around her also seem to think that chaos erupts whenever she is present (her brother-in-law martin (brett gelman) and her father (bill paterson)), although it is clear from the comedic situations that the actual chaos, and the bassil-morozow 34 accompanying impulse to control it, actually resides within the characters themselves as they are individuating in the unpredictable urban metropolis. the trickster (as a spirit) also changes the status of the characters in the narrative (particularly the protagonist), thus assisting them in the process of becoming themselves, of coming to terms with various social and physical limitations to their agency. in this sense, the structure is reminiscent of the tripartite ritual consisting of separation, transition, and incorporation. in a feature-length film, the trickster is often introduced a few minutes after the beginning of the film, after the main order is established and the principal relationships between the characters are outlined. in a television series, the trickster’s activities can be spread over several seasons, often contributing to the maturation and individuation of the protagonist who is learning to handle their agency against the backdrop of societal expectations. a trickster narrative is a story of loss of control, of temporarily existing in a liminal space: in its course, the characters (including the protagonist) and their environment undergo a transformation brought about by chance, chaos or other unpredictable forces. common motifs in trickster narratives1 trickster narratives tend to be structured in a particular way, and contain a number of stock features, including entrapment or imprisonment, shapeshifting, boundary-breaking, having no name or several names, boundless creativity, loss of control, dissolution at the end of the narrative, the presence of animals, scatological jokes and promiscuousness. not all elements have to be present in a narrative, and they do not have to follow in any particular order although it is fairly common for an entrapment scene to open a trickster narrative (the trickster is stuck/locked in a bottle or a box), and for the dissolution motif to round it up (the trickster disappears) (bassil-morozow 2015, pp. 12-31). the motif of entrapment and limitation in narratives explores the existing order’s fear of the trickster’s power and tests the system’s flexibility. for instance, in one of the stories in the prose edda, loki the trickster is famously captured by the aesir, tied to a stone and locked in a cave to prevent him from unleashing ragnarok – a chain of apocalyptic events which would end the gods’ rule (byok 2005, pp. 70–72). cinematic tricksters end up being trapped in a variety of containers, from wooden and glass boxes (rik mayall’s character in drop dead fred, 1991; loki (tom hiddleston) in the avengers (2012)) to a mechanical rhino (ace ventura: when nature calls (1995)). entrapment does not have to be physical; it can be mental, in which case it is often displayed by a protagonist prior to her or his turning into a trickster or plunging into chaos (the mask (1994), hector and the search for happiness (2014)). the trickster feels trapped because their personality is larger than life (or ‘overinflated’, from the system’s point of view): the assassin villanelle (jodie comer) in killing eve is unhappy in ‘normal’ society, but even the company of murderers and outlaws is too constraining for her. she ends up rebelling against her employers, an international mafia organization called the twelve. the entrapment motif can also be regarded as the human agency’s bid for freedom, for the right to individuate. together with her co-tricksters, luci the demon (representing the animal connection) and elfo the elf, princess teabeanie from disenchantment experiences all kind of entrapment, from a planned marriage to a neighbouring prince, to rooms, cages, boxes, carriages, and vaults. king zog, odval, sorcerio, the top priestess, and big jo want bean to “resume the life of obedience, chastity and sobriety”– to restore her (female) persona (series 1, 1trickster attributes were initially outlined in the trickster in contemporary film (bassil-morozow, 2013) and the trickster and the system: identity and agency in contemporary society (bassil-morozow, 2015). persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 35 episode 3). at some point she describes her future as a mother and wife to prince merkimer as “entering a state of semi-permanent pregnancy”. the externalised trickster (luci) pretty much escapes by the end of the first episode; while its carrier – the princess – leaves the kingdom of dreamland in the last episode of the season. the trickster’s duty is to unsettle that which is stagnating, and luci does the job well. moreover, the motif of entrapment is applicable to other female characters suffocating underneath their persona – primarily queen dagmar who, for the duration of the entire first season, exists as a statue. similar to the motif of entrapment, other trickster features are linked to the system’s desire to control individuals, and to manage change. tricksters like to cross all kinds boundaries, from physical to the rules of acceptable behaviour (ace ventura does this all the time, particularly when he finds himself at parties surrounded by wealthy people). they refuse to have one name assigned to them (villanelle’s other name oksana, and she regularly adopts pseudonyms). they cannot be shamed into compliance, into being ‘normal’, and are full of creativity so disorderly and explosive that society seeks to control it (like mozart in forman’s amadeus). meanwhile, teabeanie keeps fighting for the woman’s right to be disorderly, to be drunk, to look stupid, to publicly embarrass herself, to learn by trial and error instead of following the protocol. she rejects the idea of shame in general, and its gendered version in particular. likewise, sex, excretion and reproduction are very common themes in trickster narratives because all three are taboo subjects which are required to remain hidden behind the socially acceptable persona (sacha baron-cohen’s character, borat sagdiyev, has used scatological jokes to shock middle-class americans). the trickster seeks to uncover taboo themes for the purpose of shocking the system, of unsettling some of its rigidities. as such, silly as it looks, the trickster genre is ultimately about the freedom of expression, the freedom from oppression, and the balance between the individual life and societal demands. in the words of baron-cohen, the truth is, i’ve been passionate about challenging bigotry and intolerance throughout my life. as a teenager in the uk, i marched against the fascist national front and to abolish apartheid. as an undergraduate, i traveled around america and wrote my thesis about the civil rights movement, with the help of the archives of the adl. and as a comedian, i’ve tried to use my characters to get people to let down their guard and reveal what they actually believe, including their own prejudice. (baron-cohen, 2019) as a creature outside the norm, the trickster exists in the periphery, on the edge, on the limen. liminality is defined by victor turner as a phenomenon that is “outside or on the peripheries of everyday life” (turner 1975, p. 47). during the liminal phase, “the ritual subjects pass through … an area of ambiguity, a sort of social limbo which has few … of the attributes of either the preceding or the subsequent profane social statuses or cultural states” (turner 1979, p. 16). transposed onto the ritual process, trickster narratives almost entirely consist of the liminal phase, of disorderly metamorphosis, a tumultuous learning process, which, at the next stage (after the departure of the trickster) is incorporated into everyday existence. such a story has two contradictory didactic aims, simultaneously emphasising the importance of order in one’s life (it is chaos when the regime is gone), and the necessity of revising this order from time to time, of keeping a critical eye on it (in case it stagnates and keeps one from progressing). bound with these two aims is individual development, the bassil-morozow 36 individuation process, the perpetual negotiation between human agency and the necessity to belong, between the self and other(s). the female persona the female trickster is notably absent from folklore and mythology in most cultural canons, as well as from popular entertainment. the consensus seems to have been that principal features of trickster narratives (such as toilet humour, openly displayed sexuality or disorderly behaviour) are far too rough for a female protagonist to display. all of the traditional and most of the cinematic trickster characters are male; presumably because taboo-breaking, and chaotic and shameless behaviour are seen as being contrary to the patriarchal vision of the wellbehaved woman. as ricki tannen writes in the female trickster: the mask that reveals (2007), the emerging trickster-woman has to create “a new relationship with the historical adversity and hostility found in western consciousness toward females manifesting autonomy, agency, and authenticity as single, fulfilled, physically strong, and psychologically whole individuals” (tannen 2007, p. 10). expectations of propriety are different for women and men, and the female persona has its own dimensions defined by norms and taboos, and reflected in traditional narratives. it has connotations of modesty, kindness, dependency, silence and fragility. the female persona, the mask of femininity, is an inactive woman who voluntarily renounces her agency in order to be accepted by society. to transpose goffman’s analytical framework onto gendered interaction, women are participants in the interaction ritual who “accept definitional claims made by others present” (goffman 1990, p. 21-2). human beings would normally aim to keep definitional disruptions to a minimum, and take precautions to avoid them. women are socialised into gender descriptions, into what women look like and how they should behave, and perform according to conventions. appearance is a big part of this performance, the costume and make-up seen as an inherent part of being a woman. simone de beauvoir notes that “costumes and styles are often devoted to cutting off the feminine body from any activity [...] she paints her mouth and her cheeks to give them the solid fixity of a mask; her glance she imprisons deep in kohl and mascara [...]” (de beauvoir 1997, p. 190). often metonymically conflated with nature via her connection with “natural rhythms”, the woman has to enhance her body and face because “in woman dressed and adorned, nature is present but under restraint, by human will remoulded nearer to a man’s desire” (1997, p. 191). the female persona is certainly a large part of the myth of ‘feminine mystery’. women are ‘written out’ of trickster narratives because their prescribed performative functions did not include unruly elements; or these elements have been labelled excessive – as signs of mania, hysteria, or madness. the trickster is grotesque, but the female grotesque evokes the wrong kinds of excess: uncanny rather than carnivalesque, to use mary russo’s terminology, and the uncanny woman is not entertaining but scary (russo 1997). the trickster also inhabits the limen, the boundary, and pushing the boundaries of the existing social order by introducing change – in other words, being proactive – is traditionally seen as being in breach of the female persona. bodily fluids, the focus of so many a joke in trickster narratives, stop being funny and become abject when applied to female characters (brian de palma’s rendition of stephen king’s carrie (1976) is a good example of the fear associated with the female body). a menstruating woman is a subject to taboo and stigma in many societies, while in the west the subject menstruation has traditionally been surrounded by mystery and “dignified silence”. coded as persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 37 abject, relegated to the cultural limen, some natural functions of the female body, to use kristeva’s expression, challenge the master from their place of banishment (kristeva 1982, p. 2). the individuation process (“the journey”) had also been traditionally applied to male rather than female characters before things gradually started to change in the past twenty years. psychotherapist maureen murdoch asked campbell in 1981 whether the stages of the heroine’s journey were different from those of the men’s journey. campbell replied that the woman, in fact, does not have to make a journey at all because she has already achieved perfection, she is already accomplished: in the whole mythological tradition the woman is there. all she has to do is to realise that she’s the place that people are trying to get to. when a woman realises what her wonderful character is, she’s not going to get messed up with the notion of being pseudo-male. (murdock 2013: 7) what campbell implies here is that the woman not need to individuate; she also does not need an agency, an independent identity and a motivation to go on a journey. campbell’s woman does not need to ‘begin’ anything because she embodies the passive treasure the male character is seeking. she also does not need a trickster which would propel her on this journey. as bearers of cultural shame, women have been associated with perfection and cleanliness, while at the same time being seen as bearers of ‘sin’, responsible for the fall of adam and the loss of paradise, and privy to terrifying mysteries of the female body such as periods and childbirth. a ‘respectable woman’ wears the female persona, the mask that betrays none of the bodily struggles and physiological processes a woman experiences every day. the female trickster is the spirit of disorder that breaks through the female persona – through cultural expectations – to defy shame and, ultimately, to offer socio-political change. fleabag on the surface of it, fleabag (played by the author, phoebe waller-bridge) is a dedicated bearer of the female persona: she wears makeup (bright-red lipstick and perfect eyebrows), her clothes are stylish, and she is slim. she is happy to please men by wearing agent provocateur lingerie (season 1, episode 1) or a sexy jumpsuit (season 2, episode 1). yet, this mask repeatedly reveals gaps; it fails to attach to her face securely – fleabag’s rebellious nature slips off quite often, and she ends up with her make-up smudged in the middle of the street or her nose bloody in a public toilet. fleabag is a dysfunctional adult with a messy life. she has a hospitality business (initially failing but doing well in season 2) and very few friends. her family is equally dysfunctional although they like to pretend otherwise. we know from the flashbacks that she may have caused her best friend’s suicide by going out with her boyfriend. fleabag is obsessed with sex, has a string of bizarre relationships and one-offs, has very little idea of what she wants to do with her life and does not seem to be planning a family. in other words, she is not ‘normal’ – or, at least, not from the society’s point of view. in the true trickster fashion, the protagonist does not have a name, only the titular nickname which marks her out as ‘trashy’ and outside the norm. having a nickname instead of a name marks the trickster’s departure from the norm; it demonstrates its inability to belong to society (and the state) that aims to record individuals’ credentials and to neatly profile them. fleabag’s habit of breaking the rules is also reflected in the series’ semiotic choices such as the use of asides. occasionally she speaks directly to the camera, crossing the fourth wall and bassil-morozow 38 revealing the personality behind the persona. for instance, during the anal sex scene in the first episode of series 1, she communicates her feelings and sensations directly to the audience while her partner (‘the arsehole guy’) is unaware of this internal-external dialogue. her love interest in season 2, however (the hot priest (andrew scott)), notices these transcendental moments and starts asking her where she keeps disappearing (although, as a boundary-breaker himself, he does occasionally look into the camera as if he knows what lies behind the looking glass). throughout the two seasons, fleabag keeps revealing the true emotions and impulses – her own and others’ – hiding underneath the veneer of propriety. in trickster narratives, boundary-breaking practices range from physical boundaries to social, psychological, and symbolic ones. crossing (any kind of) border between the visible and the invisible is an activity which results in a re-drawing of maps, in transition, in movement – as well as in a magical ability to see beyond the surface, to predict future change. the greek hermes and the roman mercurus are both psychopomps, and in many other trickster narratives the ability to move freely between life and death is regarded as a sign of immortality. the breaking of the fourth wall device allows fleabag to see what others cannot; to transcend everyday routine, even at the expense of her own happiness. what fleabag really breaks by refusing to play along societal rules is the boundary between the ego and the persona, between private thoughts and an external presentation. this kind of transcendent activity acknowledges, and dismisses, the artificiality of persona with its desire for compliance. possessed by the trickster spirit, fleabag is also obsessed with sex which she sees everywhere. even a therapist’s scarf reminds her of it (“i am very horny, and your little scarf is not helping” she says in the second episode of season 2). in the first episode of season 1 fleabag confesses to her audience (while sitting the toilet – traditionally a taboo setting for female characters) that she loves sex because it makes her feel needed and desired. she is omnivorous and insatiable: she masturbates a lot (at one point, to an obama speech with her boyfriend harry (hugh skinner) next to her in bed, picks up a random guy on public transport, and propositions belinda (kristin scott thomas) whom she meets at a business awards ceremony. fleabag turns everyday situations into something to do with sex, often bordering on harassment, from a bank loan interview to a breast examination. usually the prerogative of the male version of the trickster, sex obsession flies in the face of decorum and modesty – the shame-forming requirements for being a decent member of a civilised society. performed by a woman, sex obsession or toilet humour (which is present in abundance in fleabag, including a scene in season 2 when she farts in a lift, disgusting and embarrassing her sister), make the transgression look more formidable because culturally defined behavioural limitations – the gendered persona – are tighter for females. when a woman pushes the boundary, she moves to the limen where she is judged and stigmatised. fleabag, however, is prepared to deal with the consequences. mythological and folkloric tricksters are often thieves and liars (both hermes and prometheus steal from the gods), these two properties emphasising their determination to break the social contract, to express their agency and to stick the middle finger to authority. fleabag, too, betrays the (middle class, female) persona by committing a range of misdemeanours (and not being ashamed of it): in the first two episodes of season 1 she steals a bottle of wine from a corner shop, a twenty-pound note from the wallet of her date, and takes an expensive artefact, belonging to godmother, from her father’s house. she takes her top off in front of the banker (hugh dennis) interviewing her for a loan. in season 2, she hits martin for being rude about claire’s miscarriage (even though martin does not know that claire has just persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 39 had it). even as a minor offender, fleabag does not fit neatly into the box of societal expectations: a middle class woman, she enjoys recreational theft. her moments of stealing can also be seen as flashes of inspiration, as impulses which she cannot control. a trickster’s creativity is messy and unpredictable, born out of a wild desire to live, and to bring things to life. it is impulsive, often misplaced or even completely inappropriate, like fleabag’s psycho joke when she accosts harry in the shower with a large kitchen knife. harry panics badly and starts crying. a trickster’s creativity is also linked to its shapeshifting qualities such as changing genders, and turning into other people and animals. by dressing as a (male) horror film character, fleabag demonstrates exactly this kind of fluidity; even though her thoughtless shapeshifting is not appreciated by poor harry. the animal motif finds its expression in the elusive fox which the hot priest keeps seeing in the presence of fleabag. animals are frequent guests in trickster tales, and constitute one of the many guises a trickster can take, from coyote and raven (northern american tricksters) to monkeys (hanuman, sun wukong) to spiders (kwaku anansi), hares and tortoises. jim carry’s trickster-possessed characters are often accompanied by animals and pets (ace ventura, stanley ipkiss in the mask). for jung, this association is designated to show the transitional nature of the trickster; the fluidity of its consciousness as it learns to become human but is not there yet (cw 9/i, para. 473). in russian fairy tales, the fox (kuma lisa) is a trickster character; the “wily one”, who lies and cheats, often to trap and eat other animals, or to con them out of their possessions. fleabag’s fox who keeps scaring the hot priest (who believes the animal stalks him), is a projection of his mixed feelings about fleabag: he is both fascinated by her and afraid of his own emotions, of the power and destructive potential of sexual attraction. the fox appears at the moment when fleabag and the priest are discussing the subject of celibacy (season 2, episode 4) and the priest looks spooked. the haunting effect of the failure to be in control of one’s emotions becomes apparent every time the priest unexpectedly bumps into fleabag: “i thought you were a fox” he says he says to her before the wedding ceremony. unsurprisingly, the final scene of season 2 ends with the fox turning up at the bus stop after the priest and fleabag have just parted, and fleabag, knowing that the priest will be terrified, sends the animal after her lover: “he went that way”. in a similar fashion, fleabag’s father is using the imaginary mouse, supposedly stuck in a mouse trap in the attic, to express doubts about his forthcoming wedding. the animal trickster stands for rule transgressions, for agency, for the escaped (if selfish) individuality in the face of societal structures (including religion and marriage). the entrapment motif is largely exemplified in the series by fleabag’s sister, claire (sean clifford). claire epitomises the constraining set of behaviours which a middle-class woman must display: decent, proper, demure, always observing the protocol in social situations, and never discussing uncomfortable or taboo subjects. if having to stave off what goffman calls “situational improprieties” is bad enough if you are middle class, the task becomes monumental if you are a female (goffman 1966, p. 5). throughout the two seasons, up to the very last episode, claire is the true bearer (and wearer) of the female persona: she has a well-paid office job, wears appropriate clothes for her gender and class (silk blouses, nice trousers), does not talk about her problems (“everything is totally fine” is the standard answer), does not say any “bad” words (like “penis”) or discuss controversial or difficult subjects, particularly if they relate to the female sexuality or anatomy (defecation, masturbation, miscarriage). claire likes to ward off embarrassing moments by reminding herself that she has “two degrees, a husband and a burberry coat”. she is wary of physical touch or expressing emotions in any other way. bassil-morozow 40 she also keeps reminding herself, her sister, and her family that her relationship with her husband martin (brett gelman) is fine when this is far from the truth. in other words, she is trying to live up to the ideal of the middle-class female persona: outwardly nice, presentable, polite, wealthy, and successful; the kind of person who does not say what she really thinks; who announces to the waitress that the sauce is delicious when she really thinks it is disgusting. she wants to appear ‘normal’ in terms of what society requires from individuals, and particularly in terms of what her social circles expect from her. this kind of persona aspires to the “economy of presentation” which allows the participant in a social situation to “by-pass unresolved issues” and to instead “proceed to the ones that might be resolved” (goffman 1966, p. 4). with this constraining mask on, she is struggling to individuate. one of the key lessons of trickster narratives is that perfection is impossible, however hard one tries to bypass all the uneven bits and uncomfortable elements. the permanently embarrassed, passive-aggressive sister serves as a foil to the trickster role of fleabag in that their difficult relationship shows the emotional strain a persona has on the individual required to wear it. claire likes to be in complete control over her body and work schedule. however, her desire for perfection and her definitional claims are regularly wrecked by fleabag’s trickster spirit, particularly in formal situations guarded by strict behavioural protocols such as funerals, weddings and dinners. the need to “fit in”, goffman notes, means that “the individual must be ‘good’ and not cause a scene or a disturbance; he must not attract undue attention to himself, either by thrusting himself on the assembled company or by attempting to withdraw too much from their presence” (goffman 1966, p. 11). in other words, “to fit in” means to navigate the trickster position of being “betwixt and between”; it means trying not to be “too much” or “too little”. one needs to be right in the middle, which may lead to failure. ignoring the reality of her own emotions makes claire unhappy, yet she projects her inner turmoil onto fleabag and blames her for the chaos erupting wherever she goes. ‘loss of control’ is one of the staple themes of trickster narratives in that the trickster is not fully in charge of its body and mind, and causes everyone in its vicinity to also lose control over their minds and bodies. fear of losing authority, of not managing the situation, is intimately connected with the feelings of shame, embarrassment and inadequacy. when tricksters play their tricks on humans, they show the power of chance over rational frameworks and established orders. claire is horrified when the trickster spirit takes over her seemingly perfect middle class life. in the opening scene of season 2, fleabag ‘hijacks’ claire’s miscarriage, causing a stir and attracting attention – not least because she ends up hitting martin who then hits her back. at the women’s awards ceremony organised by claire’s firm, fleabag breaks the glass trophy and then replaces it with the stolen naked woman figurine. when announcing the winner, claire, against her will, repeats the sexual harassment joke fleabag had just told her. when awkwardly flirting with her lover and co-worker klare, she keeps inadvertently hinting at sex. the ‘fitting in’ process, which is supposed to result in outward perfection, is continuously disrupted by the trickster external/internal spirit. even though fleabag is blamed for the ruined social occasions and everyone’s moments of lost control, the actual location of shame and embarrassment is internal, hidden behind the persona, smoothed over by polite demeanour. the sisters’ father is about to marry a narcissist who keeps interrupting him and inventing new ways of attracting attention to herself. claire is married to a selfish, needy man who had tried to kiss her sister, and then denied it. she is also cheating on him with a colleague in finland. the priest is fighting his demons. the people at the persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 41 table cannot face these issues so the pressure escapes, suddenly, in a very embarrassing situation. fleabag’s erratic behaviour is a litmus test for hidden vulnerabilities, wounds, emotions and desires. all she does is expose the tension between ego-consciousness and persona; the tension that her relatives and friends, as social individuals, are either unaware or keen to avoid because facing the demons would involve the pain of self-realisation, and not everyone is ready for it. by contrast, wearing the mask is an easier solution both for the individual and society as it supposedly protects the surface of social interaction. except, in fleabag it does not, exposing the ultimate failure of persona to prevent social tensions. ultimately, the trickster impulse in the series is linked to the subject of the individuation process, with the difficulty of choices, with being human. having to make decisions, being an adult can be a daunting process. it can be an unsettling, imperfect, messy, trial-and-error process that belongs to the realm of the trickster. fleabag says in her confession to the hot priest that she wants to belong to a structure which would tell her what to do, how to live her life. the trickster often merges with the protagonist as an unrealized (and unconscious) portion of the protagonist’s personality, prompting in her the desire for change, the impulse to escape the entrapment. as both the priest and the counsellor (fiona shaw) point out, fleabag knows exactly what to do – to keep learning and to keep acting; to appreciate her agency and to celebrate all the errors that she and her friends and family make in course of the complex and painful process of becoming oneself. conclusion this paper has brought together the concepts of trickster and persona to illustrate the continuous dynamic between individual agency and the rigidity of social rules; as well as between change and progress on the one hand, and the established social order on the other. both in cinema and television the trickster as an element of the narrative refers the element of chaos in an otherwise organized system. it has a range of standard attributes such as the impulse to express one’s personality in a uniquely creative way, the rejection of embarrassment, shame, conformity, and refusal to belong to a structure. meanwhile, the concept of persona has been examined using a combination of erving goffman’s presentation of self theory and jung’s persona concept. it has been argued that the female persona – the artificial vision of socially acceptable femininity – is a particularly rigid psycho-social structure, comprising repressive and unrealistic expectations for women’s looks, bodies and conduct in public situations. using the nameless protagonist of fleabag as a case study, it has showed how the female trickster can challenge these prescribed attributes and expectations while defying the individual-controlling techniques: shame, social embarrassment, social rejection and ostracism. unlike her sister who is desperately trying to conform to social norms, fleabag is not afraid to demonstrate her “deviance” – she is sexually voracious (and omnivorous), clumsy and erratic, and emotionally unstable. she is a kleptomaniac, a liar, and a cheater. she makes insensitive and improper remarks, farts in lifts, ruins special occasions with her behaviour, and seduces a priest. yet, fleabag the trickster is also the testing ground for the relationship between the persona and the ego, between the mask and authentic self. a story of an erratically individuating woman, the show reclaims the right of female characters (and women in the audience) to individuate in a messy, tragicomic way, by celebrating blunders, imperfection, and feeling lost. fleabag’s talent for awakening the individuation process at the expense of the performing self also extends to other characters. her consistent erosion of the persona throughout the show’s bassil-morozow 42 two seasons results in a series of comically catastrophic events leading to the change (of status) for both the protagonist and those involved with her. like any trickster, she reveals the precarious balance between external demands and individual needs in the individuation process: the people she embarrasses on a regular basis (friends, relatives, lovers and random acquaintances) often end up questioning their own life journeys. after all, the trickster’s ability to dissolve self-control over minds, bodies, and destinies is not just a source of comic effect in narratives. it provides a narrative impetus for characters to get on the road for self-discovery. works cited baron-cohen, s 2019, ‘sacha baron cohen's keynote address at adl's 2019 never is now summit on anti-semitism and hate’, adl, viewed on 18/08/20, available from: https://www.adl.org/news/article/sacha-baron-cohens-keynote-address-at-adls-2019never-is-now-summit-on-anti-semitism. bassil-morozow, h 2013, the trickster in contemporary film, london: routledge. bassil-morozow, h 2015, the trickster and the system: identity and agency in contemporary society, london: routledge. beauvoir, s de 1997/1949, the second sex, london: vintage classics. byok, jl (translated and edited by) (2005) the prose edda, london: penguin. hynes, wj and doty, w (eds.) (1993) mythical trickster figures: contours, contexts, tuscaloosa and london: university of alabama press. goffman, e 1966, behaviour in public places: notes on social organization of gatherings, new york: the free press. goffman, e 1990, the presentation of self in everyday life, london: penguin. goffman, e 2005, interaction ritual: essays in face-to face communication, new brunswick and london: aldinetransaction. jacobi, j 1973/1942 the psychology of c.g.jung (eighth edition), trans. ralph manheim, new haven and london: yale university press. jung cg [except where a different publication was used, all references are to the hardback edition] c.g. jung, the collected works (cw), edited by sir herbert read, dr. michael fordham and dr. gerhardt adler, and translated by r.f.c. hull, london: routledge. kerényi, k 1956, ‘the trickster in relation to greek mythology’, in paul radin the trickster: a study in american indian mythology, new york: schocken books. kristeva, j 1982, the powers of horror: an essay on abjection, new york: columbia university press. makarius, l 1993, ‘the myth of the trickster: the necessary breaker of taboos’, in in wj hynes and w doty (eds.) mythical trickster figures: contours, contexts, tuscaloosa and london: university of alabama press, pp. 46-65. marshall, pd, moore, c and barbour, k 2020, persona studies: an introduction, hoboken, new jersey: wiley and sons. murdoch, m 1990, the heroine’s journey: woman’s quest for wholeness, boston, ma: shambhala publications. ricketts, ml 1993 ‘the shaman and the trickster’, in w. j. hynes and w. doty (eds.) (1993) mythical trickster figures: contours, contexts, tuscaloosa and london: university of alabama press, pp. 90-106. russo, m 1997, the female grotesque: risk, excess and modernity, london: routledge. tannen, rs 2007, the female trickster: the mask that reveals, london: routledge. turner, v 1975, revelation and divination in ndemby ritual, ithaca, ny: cornell university press. turner, v 1979, process, performance and pilgrimage, new delhi: naurang rai van gennep, a 1909/2004, the rites of passage, london: routledge. helena bassil-morozow glasgow caledonian university abstract key words persona and rebellion in trickster narratives. case study: fleabag (bbc 2016-2019) persona: definitions the trickster: definitions common motifs in trickster narratives0f the female persona fleabag conclusion works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 23 judi dench and shakespearean personas in the twenty-first century soph ie dunca n abstract dame judi dench’s twenty-first-century theatrical career has defied the expectation that her performance as the countess in the royal shakespeare company’s 2003 all’s well that ends well would signal the culmination and conclusion of her stage acting career. this article draws on scholarship on the use of retrospection and persona-building to redirect attention from dench’s conspicuously ‘late’ success in film to map how dench has led, collaborated in and resisted public constructions of her persona. shakespeare has been consistently key to this process. while enlisting persona-building strategies inherited from her shakespearean forebears, dench has resisted the overt appointment of any kind of shakespearean ‘successor’ and thus the continuation of shakespeare performance genealogies. simultaneously, her role choices have contributed to her persona’s accrued significance as an avatar of moral virtue and authenticity – augmented by her association with the ‘national poet’, shakespeare, as england’s most prestigious playwright. the article also examines dench’s persona specifically as an ageing actress, and her significance for discourses of aspirational ageing, ageism, and national investments in the ageing female performer as a public persona. key words shakespearean roles; celebrity; ageing; silence; moral authority; nation introduction commentary on dame judi dench (b. 1934) typically emphasises her unusual career trajectory. dench has been an acclaimed classical stage actress since the 1960s, achieving international stardom as an older performer following film success in the late 1990s. dench attained international film recognition via lightly revisionist accounts of british queens: the widowed victoria with unconsummated yearnings (mrs brown, 1997, returned to in victoria and abdul, 2017) and a sharp-tongued, sexually astute but still-virginal elizabeth i (shakespeare in love, 1998). dench appeared eight times in another british institution, the james bond franchise, as the first female m. m’s death in skyfall (2015) was perhaps dench’s most shocking cinematic demise, but not unique; iris murdoch’s slow decline in iris (2001) won dench a bafta and an oscar nomination. she has played occasional villains (notes on a scandal, 2006) and victims (philomena, 2013), but on film typically explores the professional, intellectual, and/or romantic vitality of “slightly sad” older women (bradshaw 2019), as in tea with mussolini (1999), mrs henderson presents (2005), and the two best exotic marigold hotel films (2011 and 2015). while occasional critics detect a sexist and ageist trajectory for dench’s m “from iron lady to old lady” duncan 24 (pua 2018, p. 95), popular and scholarly consensus is usually that dench’s “unique trajectory […] fabulously subverts […] the general tendency for bias” against “older actresses” (krainitzki 2014, p. 32) while offering a glamorous, “graceful negotiation of ageing” (williams 2015, p. 161). for colleague dearbhla molloy, one of dench’s “greatest gifts […] is her modelling of how to grow old with dignity” (molloy 2005, p. 98). accounts of dench’s film work emphasise the “lateness” of her success: however, if dench was not expected to have a twenty-first century film career, neither was she expected to have one in theatre. michael dobson identified dench’s 2003 countess in all’s well that ends well as essentially her swansong, describing the “consciousness in all our minds that […] this would almost certainly be the last shakespearian [sic] role dame judi would ever play on stage” (dobson 2005, p. 163) in “one of those occasions of national mourning which the english do so well, partaking slightly of the mood of the queen mother’s funeral” (p. 164). misidentifying the positively last appearance is a hazard of commenting on older stars. in may 2018, caitlin moran responded to a cnn commentator’s description of prince harry’s marriage to meghan markle as “a poignant occasion for the queen – as this must be her last wedding” with patriotic outrage: “hang on! princess eugenie is getting married in october! […] long live her majesty, you mad american bastards! we reckon we can keep her alive for a good while yet!” (moran 2018). dench is, if anything, more beloved than the queen, with an 81% approval rating vs. the queen’s 72%; both are idealised elderly female figureheads with their strongest fanbases among middle-aged women (yougov 2018a & 2018b). england’s establishment culture is predicated on astonished celebration of female longevity, and fear of its curtailment. examining the “late voice” of late-career musicians, richard elliott identifies “the retrospection allowed [to performers] by lateness and successful ageing”; this article argues that dench’s conspicuously “successful ageing” has allowed her to use retrospection to control and shift her public personas (elliott 2019, p.19). elliott also examines how musicians active across multiple decades often accrue two kinds of diametrically opposed attributed personas: the “artist as shape-shifter” and the “artist as consistent, layered self” (p. 20). while elliott primarily locates his concept of “autobiographical performance” (p. 19) in the performance of original songs by their songwriters, i argue that dench has made crucial use of shakespearean roles to build and sustain her twenty-first century personas. the roles dench has played carry connotations of virtue, truthfulness and authenticity which have (in marvin carlson’s terminology) “ghosted” the actress and contributed to her construction as an individual whose performances of truthfulness and authenticity are “consistent” with her offstage self. elliott positions the star musician as “constructing his personas in collaboration with the readerproducers who are his audience” (elliott 2019, p. 19): in considering dench’s attributed persona of virtue and authenticity, and the equally powerful narrative of her as ideally loveable friend and national treasure, i extend this paradigm to present dench “constructing her personas in collaboration” and occasional conflict “with the reader-producers” who include both her audiences and her colleagues. in performance, dench is rarely conceptualised as a “shape-shifter”. david hare notes that audiences “trust who [dench] is” (hare 2005, p. 180). dench is typically visually and audibly recognisable in her roles, eschewing prosthetics and rarely forsaking her own received pronunciation accent; at the time of writing, the trailer for the cats film sees dench, cross-cast as old deuteronomy, forswearing the (alarming) cgi and heavier make-up of her co-stars, and speaking in her own voice. dench’s intense reluctance to discuss her performance technique, or even to admit she has one, elides any distinction between her onand offstage presence, implying a “consistent […] self” and reifying hare’s claim. richard eyre argues that she has “technique to burn […] but her technique never shows” (eyre 2005 p. 41), while critics delineate a very sophisticated vocal technique (prince 2013): moreover, dench (alongside other royal shakespeare company colleagues) worked with director john barton on a series of live and televised demonstrations of classical acting techniques. dench’s reception stresses her stylistic emphases on vulnerability, emotional openness, and the vocal immanence of distress with a persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 25 “bluesy alto” that “can bend a note from joy to sob” (eyre 2005 p. 41), reflected in the title of miller’s 2005 biography, with a crack in her voice. moreover, ongoing emphasis (by dench and others) on her diminutive and supposedly plain appearance (as discussed below) is also key to her persona. at the same time, if dench’s physical “shape” and performance style have been consistent, in one respect she has been a “shape-shifter”. before, during, and after her marriage to actor michael williams, dench’s constructions of her personal life have shifted considerably. while many celebrities deploy silence as a strategy to conceal difficult aspects of their personal lives, dench’s retrospectives on her personal life use silence to displace both family and colleagues’ disruptive accounts of her persona, and her own earlier frankness about her sexuality and temper. by contrast, performing shakespeare’s countess of rousillon enabled “autobiographical performance” as dench constructed her new persona as a widow, reinscribing her attributed persona of honesty and authenticity. shakespearean personas since playing countess of roussillon, dench has performed in six further stage productions, half of them shakespearean: as judith bliss in hay fever (haymarket, 2006); mistress quickly in the merry wives of windsor (rsc, 2006); the marquise in madame de sade (wyndham’s, 2009); titania in a midsummer night’s dream (the rose, 2010); alice in peter and alice (noel coward, 2013); mother in the vote (donmar, 2015); and paulina in the winter’s tale (garrick, 2015). she has performed further scenes from shakespeare in televised galas: as cleopatra in national theatre live: 50 years on stage (2013) and as titania and (very briefly) hamlet in shakespeare live! from the rsc (2016). dench has also played an additional filmed shakespeare role: the duchess of york in richard iii (bbc, 2016). dench has repeatedly chosen roles which reinforce the ascription of honesty and virtue which colleagues identify as key to both her public persona and personal qualities. she plays women intent on moral justice, whether in paulina’s confrontation of the deluded leontes, or as mishima’s marquise, clinging to order as both her daughters succumb to the marquis de sade. the assistant director’s rehearsal script for all’s well consistently glosses dench’s characterisation in terms of a passion for truth: the countess wants helena to “cut the crap” and “calls h[elena’s] self deception” in act 1, scene 3 (rsc 2003). these notes stress the character’s obsession with “flushing” out honesty to a degree unusual in the play’s performance history (rsc 2003). the countess offers a prototype for dench’s “truth-telling paulina”, reviewed by billington as almost christ-like in her “deep compassion for wayward humanity” (billington 2015). as benedict nightingale notes, stage audiences have “never seen her embody evil”; she refused to play brutus on the grounds that she could not “believe in an absolute or motiveless evil”, and reportedly “hated playing regan”, finding “inexplicable […] the sheer awfulness of lear’s most callous daughter” and, in hamlet, gertrude’s behaviour “egregious” (nightingale 2005, p. 15). in disclaiming or disliking these roles, dench is adopting a persona both rooted in historical practice and contiguous with the construction of elliott’s “consistent […] self”. shakespearean actresses have recognised the value of moral roles in successful personabuilding for over a century: as madge kendal (1847–1935) put it, audiences want to believe that “when the curtain has fallen”, the performers “at home […] lea[d] […] the same kind of life the representation of which has moved an audience” (kendal 1884, p. 23), an impulse far less satisfactorily fulfilled by gertrude and regan than by paulina or the countess. the longevity and public happiness of dench’s marriage to actor michael williams, supported and perhaps also cued this elision of onand offstage personas: like kendal, dench frequently acted opposite her husband in romantic comedy roles, presenting their onstage (and in dench and william’s cases, onscreen) partnerships as an avatar of their private relationship. this emphasis on domesticity was almost as attractive to twentieth-century audiences as to their eighteenth and nineteenth-century forebears, provoking a journalistic emphasis on dench’s “domesticity” that inherited from the 1784 adulation of sarah siddons as one who duncan 26 “dignifies her state in private sphere” as “wife unblemished and the mother dear” (qtd mcdonald 2005, p. 10). dench’s collusion in ideal narratives about her life draws on paradigms inherited not just from kendal but from other nineteenthand twentieth-century actresses such as ellen terry (1847–1928). dench has been repeatedly named as terry’s “natural successor” (mcdonald 2005, p. 52), both in her uxorious interpretation of lady macbeth (nightingale 2005, p. 16) and for being “in public perceptions” comparably “loved and revered” (sherrin 2005, p. 137). more recently, dench delightedly announced a newly-discovered ancestor in the actress sarah siddons (mcdonald 2005, p. 104). dench’s biographer john miller also stresses her link with mary anderson (1859–1940), “the only other actress to have doubled hermione and perdita [in the winter’s tale]” who “was also married at the very same church during the run of the winter’s tale” as dench and her husband michael williams during dench’s own run in 1971 (miller 2013, p. 122). attributed personas critic michael billington describes dench as trying to offer audiences “spiritual solace” (billington 2005). accounts of her virtue are hyperbolic: actor ian richardson felt she had “no faults, either personally or professionally” (richardson 2005, p. 32). she is also mysticised as one who “make[s] visible the divine […] she manifests love” with “her brow kissed by god” (molloy 2005, p. 92), blessed because “[t]he gods of the theatre look after those who serve them well” (edmonds 2003, p. 14), and able to “emanate a spirit of something very good” (connolly 2005, p. 174). dench’s prominence as a quaker, reflected in smith’s glossing of her amenability as “the quaker […] com[ing] out”, is important here, but dench’s own discussion of her faith rests (perhaps predictably) more on the introspection, silence and stillness than on quakerism’s history of political dissent (as i will discuss later). dench describes her religion as both “real, christian faith”, and more prosaically “very quiet, which is what i am not […] time to get all the drawers organised inside my head” (appleyard 2013). in fact, the religious rituals dench has (anecdotally) undertaken tend towards her late husband’s catholicism: dench and michael williams, alongside catholic actress dearbhla molloy, undertook weekly fasts “for the best part of a year”, to coincide with operations on molloy’s sister (molloy 2005, pp. 90–1). as marvin carlson notes, performers and characters can accrue, or become “ghosted” by, reciprocal meanings (carlson 2003, pp. 52, 58, 103): accordingly, benedict nightingale describes dench as possessing “as much moral authority as any actor or actress in the world […] a moral centredness or a spiritual integrity” (nightingale 2005, p. 18). crucial to understanding dench’s reception is michael pennington’s description of her as “among the very few with that perceptible moral authority, the implicit virtue the public seeks from artists” (pennington 2005, p. 65). pennington’s use of “artists” is gender-neutral, but the “implicit virtue” is implicitly gendered: the public rarely “seeks” or expects virtue from male performers or artists. certainly, the desire to locate “moral authority” in dench reflects the manner in which declining theatre subsidies require theatres to justify their funding via their catalytic power as a “force for good”: at the same time, public faith in the “truth-telling” of other institutions has ebbed (bsa 2018). paulina’s determination to “trumpet” her “red-look’d anger” at leontes’ “tyranny” (ii.2.33–4; ii.3.119) is a metaphor for the relation theatre is expected to have to power. nevertheless, british culture continues to fetishise the virtuous actress. dench’s “implicit virtue” transcends any lingering anti-theatrical prejudice against the actress as immoral (i.e. unchaste). moreover, dench’s “moral authority” also counteracts the most troubling stereotype specifically of the older actress: the difficult, vain, deluded norma desmond figure, whose rapacity includes sexual predation. instead, colleagues and the press attribute almost hyperbolic amiability and virtue to dench. this persona is sufficiently entrenched to generate parody: comedian tracey ullman performs a recurring sketch in which a cackling dench evades punishment for nefarious crimes simply because nobody can believe she’s a felon (“dame judi dench causes havoc” 2016). similarly, dench’s colleague, friend, and peer dame maggie smith (whose international fame is, persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 27 if anything, greater following the harry potter and downton abbey franchises) wryly contrasted her famed “prickliness” with dench’s equally famous amenability, describing how she begins each job with the vow to “be like jude […] it will all be lovely, it will be merry and bright, the quaker will come out in me” but “it never works” (calkin 2015). other friends are hyperbolic: dench “makes time for everyone” (piggott-smith 2005, p. 135), is “generous and progressive” (pennington 2005, p. 64), both “radiates” and “manifests” love (molloy 2005, p. 97). she is a “generous, easy-going and gifted” colleague (guittard 2005, p. 152), who evinces “bravery and sheer guts” (leigh-hunt 2005, p. 26), “compassion” and “good manners” (eyre 2005, pp. 36–7). stanley wells, her daughter’s godfather, wrote that describing her inevitably becomes a “love letter” (wells 2005, p. 57); ian richardson felt she had “no faults, either personally or professionally” (richardson 2005, p. 32), and her biographer john miller describes “her ready sympathy, her alert sensitivity to the problems of others, her quick intelligence, her bubbling sense of humour, her astonishing generosity and thoughtfulness” (miller 2005, p. 1). dench’s popularity is such that playwright alan bennett claimed that britain’s most unacceptable t-shirt slogan would be “i hate judi dench” (eyre 2005, p. 35). from younger actors, such hagiographies could (understandably) be attributed to a desire to accrue professional capital through alliance with dench: while molloy (as i discuss later), certainly self-fashions as dench’s successor, this hardly applies to the actors above. what does emerge, however, is the desire to present the private dench as contiguous with her persona, exemplified by miller’s answer to the supposedly perennial question re: dench, “is she really as nice as she seems?” that she is “even nicer when you get to know her” (2005, p. 1), a remark that both invites audiences’ parasocial desire for greater intimacy with dench, and – simultaneously – assures them that they are able to “trust who she is”. physical appearance and persona if dench’s visual and stylistic consistency, her “recognisability” has earned her praise for her authenticity as a “consistent, layered self” (elliott 2019, p. 19) rather than a transformative and shapeshifting artist, her specific aesthetic of ostensible “ordinariness” has been vital to her mid and late-career persona. dench’s supposed physical “ordinariness” is also key to her persona: a mythopoeia of anti-glamour in which dench recounts being told by “a [nameless] hollywood producer” that she “had every single thing wrong with [her] face” (michell 2018). when peter hall offered her cleopatra, she asked him if he really wanted “a menopausal dwarf” in the role (michell 2018). dench’s vaunting of her ostensible lack of beauty is important for two reasons. first, it corroborates public perception of her virtue within a patriarchal society: patriarchy values not only female modesty, but also women who actively downplay or deny their physical attractiveness. the furore when in 2002 minnie driver described dench as “very small, round, [and] middle-aged”, juxtaposed with widespread media assessments of her as actually “a beautiful woman” (“dame judi dench: then and now” 2016), “a babe” and “beautiful” (smyth 2017, in an article with the slug “dame-judi-dench-has-been-hot-all-her-life”), “exud[ing] sexiness, elegance, and class” (qtd garnham 2016, p. 108) and colleagues’ appreciation of the “sexy” actress, indicates that dench’s “hollywood producer” took an anomalous view. simultaneously, self-fashioning as ordinary or unattractive also augments dench’s dramatic authority: there is no danger of critics inferring that she has been cast for her appearance. second, dench’s supposed ordinariness, and the fact that dench remains highly visible as an older actress is valuable to the myth of british performance culture’s uniquely inclusive attitude to age. in 2010, vanessa thorpe contrasted dench’s obviously ageing face with the cosmetic surgeries stereotypically associated with hollywood, where “surgical artifice” and “a frozen face will keep you in the running for female lead roles”. thorpe claimed that dench’s professional success, alongside a small group of colleagues, constituted a “golden age” for older british actresses (thorpe 2010). thorpe’s grouping of thirteen actresses as contemporaries when their ages range by twenty-three years elides the acting profession’s ageism. ageism duncan 28 disproportionately affects actresses, beginning, as juliet stevenson claims, at 35 (stadlen 2015). stevenson was part of the quintet of leading shakespearean actresses, then aged 32–42, interviewed by carol chillington rutter for her book clamorous voices (1988). by 2016, when the quintet was aged 60–70, only one, harriet walter, still regularly performed shakespeare (duncan 2016, pp. 224–5). the combination of ageism with the longevity gap between men and women (sanders 2018) means that not only do actresses become under-employed sooner, they spend longer later lives under-employed. dench, unlike glenda jackson and harriet walter, has continued to perform in shakespeare without choosing or requiring the counter-strategy of cross-gender performance, apart from her brief gala appearance as “hamlet the dame” in shakespeare live!. while dench is often invoked as an avatar of british theatrical distinctiveness, proving that “the only thing no other country has yet replicated are our theatre knights and dames” (gore-langton 2009), she resists this figleaf, recognising that britain is “no better” than america (tominey 2015). simultaneously, however, dench’s vaunted “down-to-earth”, “pleasingly normal” and “ordinary” persona should not be confused with an “ordinary” background: aside from being white and cisgender, dench comes from an affluent middle-class background with theatrical connections, and was privately-educated as well as able to afford to train in a pre-grant era (miller 2005, pp. 1–15). this is indeed “normal” for some of her peers: vanessa redgrave, maggie smith and harriet walter were all privately-educated though helen mirren was not. redgrave was from a theatrical dynasty and a debutante (queen’s gate 2019; hadley 2015; francis 2017; anthony 2010). privacy and persona: silence as strategy one strategy which contributes to dench’s persona as a “consistent self”, allowing the public to “trust who she is”, draws on both her quakerism and the strategies of her shakespearean forebears: silence. silence is key to the “retrospection” of dench’s late career (elliott 2019, p. 20), as dench deploys a revisionist silence on problematic personal experience, including those she previously discussed freely. dench has never revealed the identity of her grandson’s father, born after her unmarried daughter (the actress finty williams) concealed her pregnancy until shortly before the birth. michael williams, subsequently discussing his public support for “the sanctity of marriage”, thought it “understandable that [finty] was frightened. how could we, believing so strongly in marriage, accept an unmarried daughter?” (middlehurst 1998). dench offered no such discussion: her only comment in another interview, looking “bleak” and speaking “weakly” was “i don’t want to talk about it” (jardine 1997). dench has never acknowledged her multi-decade rift with her actor brother jeffery dench, occasioned (the latter believed) by the mental illness of jeffery’s wife betty, and betty’s feminism (hardy 2007). when the sunday times published diptych interviews with the siblings, jeffery also revealed that the 1970 death of rsc colleague charles thomas was a suicide preceded by the married actor falling in love with dench (mcferran 2006). the mail expanded on the story, with lurid corroboration from colleague donald sinden, citing “rumours that he and judi were in a relationship […] she was broken up completely” (day 2007). dench did not comment. most significantly, dench has, in widowhood, remained silent on the challenges of her marriage. while early interviews for women’s magazines lauded the “perfect pair[‘s]” marriage “founded on love and sweetened by romance” (penlow 1983), after williams’s death, finty’s description of him as “unbelievably strict” clarified that the family’s “dynamics”, despite their “cultivated closeness”, were “always more complex” than “either father, mother, or daughter has previously admitted”. williams was “controlling” and “a harsh critic” who “found [his wife’s] oscars difficult” (wark 2004). although during the 1990s, dench was frank about her own temper and having thrown boiling tea at williams (honan 1992), she has never criticised williams. the silence is at its most literal in the documentary nothing like a dame, when discussion of the difficulties of acting with spouses – from olivier’s capriciousness and robert stephens’s alcoholism leaving him “not a well man” – provokes a question about williams. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 29 dench stares out of the window, her right hand worrying at her throat, an eight-second silence stretching until smith breaks it (michell 2018). dench has euphemised her former frank avowals of an active sexuality. during the 1990s, she admitted to “a filthy mind” (summers 1994), telling one interviewer that before marriage she “had a high old time, played the field […] they all overlapped in my twenties. i was a fury, always in love with two at once” and experienced jealousy that made her “physically sick, it was like a cancer” (honan 1992). besides dench’s one long silence in the nothing like a dame documentary, she carefully rebuffs the other actresses’ discussion of sex. when eileen atkins responds to dench’s light-hearted remark that “perhaps we swung a bit early” (i.e. before the 1960s) with “we behaved pretty badly, actually, judi”, heavily implying their promiscuity, dench markedly does not comment. when discussing regrets, she (eventually) says she would advise her younger self to “try not to be so susceptible to falling in love quite so often” (michell 2018). dench’s silences allow her forcibly to control her image, historically minimising (her daughter, brother, and colleagues’) impact on the impression of “virtue” and “moral authority” pennington identifies as key to her persona. there are historical precedents for this: ellen terry’s public elision of her children’s illegitimacy allowed even queen victoria to watch mother and son onstage with lucrative impunity, while madge kendal’s selective silence on her own family difficulties allowed her to self-fashion as “mater afflicta” (duncan 2016, pp. 140; 27). while dench publicly rejects the attribution of “niceness”, “sweetness” or “national treasure status”, she is careful not to expose elements of her private life that might threaten this: the impression of this as a conservative strategy is evident from the fact dench says it is a practice she was taught by her husband. it is also perhaps unsurprising that dench has become so reticent about her sexual past: a mild comment on the pleasures of her new relationship created press hysteria, some of it ribald and prurient, rather than supportive (dougary 2017). shakespeare has helped dench navigate this shift, in an evolution away from the “tragic dowager” of the countess of rousillion (wolf 2003) towards merrier widows such as mistress quickly, or the dynamic, voluble paulina and duchess of york. persona and ageism the overwhelming narratives surrounding dench position her as an aspirational figure for the older woman: above all as someone who continues, willingly and enthusiastically, to work. dench directs more vehemence at retiring than at ageing: as with discussion of her sexuality, this contradicts an earlier, rebarbative frankness. in 1994, dench described her fear of becoming “kind of incontinent […] and leaking in public”, said she “mind[ed] passionately” about ageing because “nothing’s good about it” (fallowell 1994). now, however, dench’s angriest comments about age are in fact directed at ageism. in nothing like a dame, she grows incensed about people’s ageist assumptions (“if i can’t do it, i’ll tell you i can’t do it”) and the condescension of a paramedic who asked “what’s our name […] and have we got a carer?”. dench told him to “‘fuck off, […] i’ve just done eight weeks in the winter’s tale at the garrick theatre’ […] i was so angry” (michell 2018). her rejection of the term “national treasure” originates, at least in part, from perceived connotations of ageism, relating it to “alan bennett and i […] in some forgotten old cupboard” (cochrane 2009). dench’s diatribes about ageism position her at the culturally powerful intersection of two narratives. the first is the re-imagining of age via a social, rather than a medical, model. where previously ageing was seen through a medical lens as “a time of increasing deficiency, based on a biological decline model”, progressive views of ageing have for a generation argued that later-life negative experiences are based more on “environmental or experiential deficits” created by an ageist society, rather than by “intrinsic ageing phenomena” (bennett & ahammer 1977, p. 8); successful ageing rests on socialised, subjective well-being (kanning & schlicht 2008). accordingly, dench’s problem is less age itself than negative experience at the hands of ageist individuals. second, dench’s insistence on working and her fitness to work despite duncan 30 macular degeneration is (probably inadvertently) valuable to a conservative, late-capitalist agenda that seeks to cut welfare provision and thus requires older people to work for their sustenance and remain physically able. dench’s expression of anger, however, represents a fascinating faultline between her self-construction and the attribution of personality undertaken by her audience and colleagues as “co-producers” of her persona. dench insists she has become “more and more angry” (cochrane 2009), and that “the older i become the angrier i become” (pearce 2011). nevertheless, commentators rarely mention dench’s anger, describing her instead as “naughty” (see nunn 2005, p. 68; pigott-smith 2005, p. 126; dougary 2017). semantically, the word connotes a combination of childish misdemeanour, ironised flirtatious or sexually provocative behaviour, and mischievous disobedience. nunn certainly infantilises dench in his description of her as “the naughty little sister” within a theatre company (nunn 2005, p. 68), eliding her considerable artistic, financial, and hierarchical capital within that sphere. describing dench as “naughty” reduces her power and controls the implications of both her sexuality and her scatological language. journalists emphasise her habit of embroidering obscenities on cushions as “naughty”, foregrounding her swearing (still taboo for older women) as a “delight” as she parodies stereotypically quaint hobbies (huffpost 2013), rather than associating her with the best-known persona of the swearing older woman in british culture: catherine tate’s foulmouthed nan (white 2014, pp. 164–5). even the journalists most directly confronted by dench’s anger insist that she “wears [it] with twinkling pride” (cochrane 2009): in nothing like a dame, however, dench’s anger as she recounts her experience of ageism is anything but “twinkling” (michell 2018). national treasures and national poets although dench ostensibly rejects the persona of “national treasure”, she self-constructs as a “national” actress, starring in recent galas for the subsidised theatre sector, in both literally and metaphorically “national” theatres: in national theatre live: 50 years on stage (2013) and shakespeare live! from the rsc (2016). she describes shakespeare as britain’s “national poet” (dunn 2017). indeed, dench’s rejection of “f****** national treasure!” (wise 2017) only reifies her status: other beloved british celebrities including sir david attenborough (kendall 2009), alan bennett (lawson 2014), and the late sue townsend and victoria wood all object[ed] vehemently to the term (kellaway 2010; barber 2014). dench, unlike alan bennett, has accepted honours. of the nothing like a dame quartet, dench was, in 1988, the first to be made a dame, and in 2005 only the second actress in history to be made a companion of honour, the first being dame sybil thorndike in 1970 (billington 2001a, p. 327); smith followed in 2014. dench has also agreed to become patron of charities with a clear royal link, including friends of osborne house, the former royal residence of queen victoria. dench has also avoided overt political activity for most of her career. despite recalling attending 1960s protests (michell 2018), no images of dench survive, and she did not join sheila hancock and eileen atkins (among many other colleagues) in protesting the 1976 detention of actors john kani and winston nshona under apartheid laws (anti-apartheid movement 2019). her one known public act of protest was in opposition to the proposed 1989 redevelopment of the site of the rose theatre, kingston (itn 1989), a relatively uncontroversial cause relevant to her profession, respectively, and with cross-party appeal. although dench has been trustee or director of over 180 charities (mcdonald 2005, p. 113), this has involved patronage rather than performance: while dench and harriet walter are both patrons of feminist theatre company clean break, harriet walter ensured the casting of and performed alongside clean breaktrained actresses in the donmar’s shakespeare trilogy (curtis 2016). dench did perform alongside ian mckellen and ian charleson in a gala opposing section 28 (mckellen 1997), and undoubtedly has lgbt fans. nevertheless, she has never become a gay icon like maggie smith, the inspiration for drag performances on ru paul’s drag race (“rupaul’s drag race” 2014), and persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 31 who openly acknowledged kenneth williams’ “enormous influence” on her archly camp style (developed when they co-starred in share my lettuce, 1957) as early as 1965 (when homosexuality was still criminalised), describing her performance in black comedy as “a complete kenneth” (hartford 1998). dench’s recent, more overt political engagements have mainly been with conservation campaigns, which have markedly cross-party appeal. as satirists recognise, to be “green” can be both centre-left and “marvellously new tory”: conservation is highly compatible with an establishment affiliation, as individuals from organic farmer and soil association founder lady eve balfour (1898–1990) to the prince of wales indicate (mather & macartney-snape 2007, p. 18). dench’s political affiliations have tended to reiterate her closeness to national institutions rather than ideologically inflect her persona. dench’s persona of “moral authority” also seems divorced from her political and charitable affiliations. notably, more prominently politically active actors such as vanessa redgrave and ian mckellen are not credited with this same “moral authority”. this suggests two things: first, that “moral authority” in dench’s public persona is uncoupled from left-wing politics (despite the popular association between british theatre and the progressive left). second, dench’s distance from even mildly controversial political causes – characteristically, dench even refuses to “call [herself] a feminist at all” in favour of a supposed alternative that is in fact a watered-down gloss of its most basic concept: “i believe in women having a say” (cochrane 2009) – reinforces this apolitical persona. in terms of collaborations, dench has tended towards long-term creative relationships with a small number of white male directors and producers with classical repertories; david hare is a rare living playwright with whom she has repeatedly worked. dench’s performances for hare have been in his least overtly political work, including amy’s view (1997) and the breath of life (2002). dench’s collaborative choices privilege continuity over departure, consolidating her powerbase. some of these collaborators – harvey weinstein, kevin spacey, and franco zeffirelli – have recently been accused of sexual predation. although dench deemed allegations against weinstein “horrifying”, offering her “wholehearted support” to his accusers (ruby 2017), she has remained loyal to spacey. in september 2018, she still called spacey “a most wonderful actor […] and a good friend”, and decried his removal from films (“judi dench defends “good friend” kevin spacey” 2018). most recently, dench declared that to forget or “negate” spacey’s work in particular would be “agony” and that “you cannot deny someone a talent” (rouse 2019). dench also worked with franco zeffirelli (1923–2019) from hamlet (1960) to tea with mussolini (2009), but has never commented on the allegations he faced. the relative silence of most commentators could imply an acknowledgment of dench’s conflict when faced with allegations against friends from whose predation her status, age, and in the cases of zeffirelli and spacey, her gender shielded. equally, however, dench’s audience’s silence may reflect their investment in dench’s “saintly, sweet, and suburban” (cochrane 2009) persona, and their parasocial desire to sustain it. personas and shakespearean succession excluding a little-heard radio recording (renaissance theatre company 1994), the one iconic older shakespearean role for women that dench has completely rejected is the nurse in romeo and juliet, insisting: “the nurse! f--that for a game of marbles!” (wolf 2003). given her anxieties about ceasing to work or being ‘forgotten’, dench perhaps dreads the role’s careerfinishing place in the repertory. the nurse has frequently been star actresses’ final role, sometimes undertaken solely for financial reasons. mary anne stirling (1815–1885) played the nurse to both ellen terry and mary anderson from 1882–1884 (taylor 2008; marshall 2012, p. 387); in 1919, terry, now visually and cognitively disabled, played the nurse to doris keane’s juliet in her “last professional stage appearance” (lennox 2015, p. 164–5). the nurse was the last filmed shakespeare role for edna may oliver (1936), flora robson (1954), pat heywood (1968), and (to date) miriam margoyles (1996). another reason why dench might reject the duncan 32 nurse (mistress quickly is, after all, another bawdy older woman whom dench played for broad laughs) is her proximity to juliet, with connotations of theatrical succession. historically, the same has been true of the countess’s relation to helen in all’s well that ends well, epitomised by the rsc’s 1982 production starring dame peggy ashcroft and harriet walter. predictably, critics in 2003 indulged “sentimental fantasy” that claudie blakley, dench’s helena, would succeed her, positioning dench as “a great performer passing the baton on to another actress of glorious promise” (spencer 2003). director greg doran invited comparison by disclosing that by “a strange coincidence” (unlikely), blakley’s “pilgrim” costume had been dench’s lady macbeth dress: “a neat handing on of tradition” (doran 2005, p. 187). blakley, however, has appeared twice in shakespeare since 2003, and has never returned to the rsc. a second possibility, alexandra gilbreath was dubbed “the best juliet since judi dench” by michael billington (2001b), who repeated the comparison (billington 2003). gilbreath co-starred with dench in merry wives, appeared alongside her in shakespeare live! and was distinguished as the only younger actress invited to share the rsc’s dressing room 102 (the star female dressing room) with dench and fellow dame harriet walter; dame helen mirren, meanwhile, was in 105 with catherine tate, pippa nixon, and anne marie duff (‘dressing room list’ 2016). juliet stevenson was in 2000 “dubbed ‘the new judi dench’”, having also “got big roles with the big companies” then “diversified to both small and big screens” (‘the actresses’ 2000), but, as noted elsewhere, feels thwarted by ageism and no longer performs shakespeare. female performance genealogies in shakespeare are more disparate and less documented than their male equivalents, which typically centre on the performance histories of tragic heroes. female performers have no equivalent of the “red book” of hamlet passed between the greatest hamlet of successive generations: this book passed sequentially from johnston forbes-robertson to michael redgrave, peter o’toole, derek jacobi, and kenneth branagh (zenet maher 1992, p. 226). interestingly, dearbhla molloy’s 2005 essay on dench reprints a list of “judi dench’s rules of shakespeare”, supposedly dictated to molloy, which molloy claims “come down in a direct line from ellen terry” (i can find no evidence of this) and which molloy had to “promise to pass on in [her] turn” (molloy 2005, p. 92–3). molloy, despite deeming dench “impossible to emulate” (p. 98), is clearly self-fashioning as her successor. although russ mcdonald described dench as “well aware” of theatre’s “apostolic succession” (he designated samantha bond dench’s successor), she has eschewed any anointing of a successor comparable to the hamlet actors: in 2017, kenneth branagh presented tom hiddleston with forbes-robertson’s edition of hamlet (armstrong & straker 2019, p. 2). dench has, understandably, discouraged comparisons between herself and her daughter finty williams, who is also an actress, saying “i don’t think it’s kind” (tominey 2015). much more than “niceness” constitutes dench’s artistic, political and moral personas in twenty-first-century british theatre. nevertheless, nothing like a dame certainly showcases dench’s amenability, compassion, and diplomacy. maggie smith highlights, then mimics “how jude does it” when dench patiently poses for stills while the others joke, and asks incredulously “when have we ever sat like this?” when seated beside her for a staged conversation, while dench obediently assumes the position. when smith ultimately dismisses the photographer, dench looks deeply embarrassed. dench’s first sustained dialogue in the documentary establishes her as thoughtful and caring, explaining to the blind joan plowright that “i’m here, darling […] not far away, just around the corner”. in a debate about verse-speaking, when the pro-naturalistic smith disagrees with the traditionalist plowright, it is dench who advocates for a “middle ground”: “a way of using the poetry and being naturalistic” (michell 2018). dench typically takes evasive action to avoid outright conflict with directors: when asked to try something she finds difficult or objectionable, she announces “i’ll get it up at home” (mcdonald 2005, p. 123). this strategy serves three identifiable purposes for dench: first, it enables her to retain artistic control of her performance without overtly defiant or “difficult” behaviour. second, it locates dench’s persona in, and reiterates her connection to, the private domestic space over the more exposed rehearsal-room. third, by keeping her interpretative process private, dench also keeps it hidden: one reason dench’s technique ‘never shows’ even to persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 2 33 colleagues might be that when preparing a role becomes most technically challenging for her, she prefers to do so in private. michell’s 2018 documentary unquestionably presents dench as the most successful of her peers. one of dench’s few marked moments of displeasure in the documentary came when describing plowright’s american agent, who sought for his client “a nice little cameo that judi dench hasn’t got her paws on”. “it’s not rude at all”, smith countered, “it’s true” (michell 2018). the documentary consistently seats dench at the centre of the group, or on the extreme left of frame, regarded as an authoritative or principal position on screen, given viewers’ typical eyemovements (arnheim 1974, pp. 34–5). even when her pre-eminence is parodied or ironised, as when her conspicuously successful peers have to recite her name as a tongue-twisting vocal exercise, it is never really questioned. above all, however, shakespeare signals dench’s preeminence. michell ends the documentary with dench reciting prospero’s “our revels now are ended” speech (iv.1.148–58) over images of herself and her co-stars as children. this ostensibly jarring choice (given dench’s rejection of retirement) becomes unexpectedly revealing. dench’s performance of the tempest’s leading character reaffirms her as the documentary’s protagonist. it is also a definitive statement of shakespeare’s supreme importance to her persona and work, not only selecting her as shakespeare’s interpreter (out of a quartet of acclaimed shakespearean actresses) but also, given the (however dubious) popular identification of prospero with the playwright, as shakespeare. the speech acknowledges dench (and, given her delivery of it, sees dench’s self-acknowledgement) as “such stuff as dreams are made on”: the dreams of a nation who simultaneously produce and consume dench as “the jewel in the crown” of a supposed guarantee of british distinctiveness: “the only thing no other country has yet replicated are our theatre knights and dames” (gore-langton 2009). dench’s casting as prospero confirms her status as a co-producer of this persona, since prospero is not merely a “sprit” within his own play but the architect of his play’s plot. if the countess and subsequent merrier widows allowed dench to achieve “autobiographical performance” (elliott 2019, p. 19) and negotiate the persona of widowhood, this brief performance as prospero signals that dench is continuing to use prospero to reiterate her status as foremost interpreter of our “national poet”. mindful of michael dobson’s 2005 article on “the last shakespearian role dame judi would ever play” (p. 163), i argue that dench’s prospero should be read as a springboard not a coda. dench’s brief performance of prospero, above all, signals her continuing ability to use shakespeare to signal new directions for her career, with her late-career performance of yet another shakespeare persona signaling departure rather than culmination. her “revels” are not “ended”. works cited ‘the actresses’ 2000, unattributed cutting, 1 january, in shakespeare birthplace trust archive, gl5/83.6, stratford-upon-avon. anthony, a. 2010, ‘vanessa redgrave’, the 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dunn, c. 2017, ‘dame judi dench backs multi-million pound plan to build shakespearean theatre in merseyside’, liverpool echo, 14 january, retrieved 1 october 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2887115/national-treasure-one-joanna-lumley-s-got-gig-says-victoria-wood.html#ixzz46nwbvike https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2887115/national-treasure-one-joanna-lumley-s-got-gig-says-victoria-wood.html#ixzz46nwbvike https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2001/jan/20/theatre.artsfeatures https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/apr/11/theatre.artsfeatures2 https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/nov/08/the-winters-tale-review-kenneth-branagh-and-judi-dench-garrick https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/nov/08/the-winters-tale-review-kenneth-branagh-and-judi-dench-garrick https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/18/every-judi-dench-film-ranked https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/18/every-judi-dench-film-ranked 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<https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-was-a-week-ago-today-caitlin-moran-on-harrymeghan-and-the-royal-wedding-d0kqvmc7j> nightingale, b. 2005, ‘only playing?’ in j. miller (ed.), darling judi, orion, london, pp. 6–19. nunn, t. 2005, ‘on a roar’, in j. miller (ed.), darling judi, orion, london, pp. 68–74. pearce, g. 2011, ‘dame judi dench’, daily express, 16 june, retrieved 14 october 2019, <https://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/259189/dame-judi-dench-i-ve-turnedinto-mrs-angry>. penlow, m. 1983, ‘oh yes, this is a fine romance!’, woman’s realm, 22 january, in shakespeare birthplace trust archive, gl5/83.6, stratford-upon-avon. pennington, m. 2005, ‘a lass unparallel’d’, in j. miller (ed.), darling judi, orion, london, pp. 58– 67. pigott-smith, t. 2005, ‘circling like a plane’, in j. miller (ed.), darling judi, orion, london, pp. 125–136. prince, k. 2013, ‘judi dench’, in r. jackson (ed.), great shakespeareans, bloomsbury, london, pp. 157–90. pua, p. 2018, ‘iron lady to old lady: 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a multimodal learning experience. working from the interdisciplinary perspectives of media/games studies, pedagogy, and linguistic anthropology, we conceptualize inclass learning as the making and playing of games, reporting on game experiments and playful practices targeted at learning key theoretical concepts in our disciplines. game-based modifications to established educational practices involved: replacing lectures with educational live action role play (bowman 2014) sessions, using acting/performance games (flanagan 2009) to critically reflect on ideas of community and collective identity, and introducing twine (werning 2017; wilson & saklofske 2019) to defamiliarize the expected structures and media modalities of academia. based on evidence from participant reflections and classroom ethnographies, we argue that games can serve as a resource for extending the expressive spectrum of learner personas, for enabling embodied, participatory learning of theory, and for empowering students and educators to reflect on our internalized rules of the game of education. key words learner personas; playful identity performance; game-based learning; game-making; live action roleplay introduction in this article, we demonstrate approaches to teaching and learning theoretical concepts that invite participants to embody multiple personas while participating in the ‘game’ of education. in these approaches, learning occurs via explicitly playing and co-creating games followed by reflections on the epistemic implications of critical practice. we begin with a short narrative that articulates the important differences for our study between the traditional game of education and the games we introduced into our classes. this is followed by an overview of theoretical concepts that frame our teaching methods and analysis. we then describe three case studies in which we used games and game-making to teach common but often elusive concepts in the humanities, and help students achieve learning goals by expanding their persona repertoires through embodied in-game performance. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 39 defining ‘playable’ learner personas students are socialised into the rules, requirements, and socially acceptable classroom personas1 for playing the ‘game’ of education starting in elementary school (phillips 1983). how we typically play the game of education limits the ways students and teachers can use their bodies in space, the range of acceptable interactional routines, text types, and modalities for communication, as well as the possibilities for performing voices, roles, or persona types (robinson & taylor 2007; cole & meadows 2013). the notion of persona in (higher) education has been primarily discussed in relation to teachers with a critical focus rather than using personas as tools to design better learning environments. for instance, kincheloe (2005) urges teachers to develop a more “reflective persona” (p.155) via autoethnographic inquiry. lang (2007) emphasises the importance of continuity between character archetype and day-to-day behaviour and the rhetorical implications of clothing and outward appearance in “crafting a teaching persona”. in contrast, learner personas have received considerably less scholarly attention (see lilley et al. 2012); a gap this article hopes to address. one reference point for our definition of ‘playable personas’ is werning (2017) on how game creators curate the personas they choose to express themselves through procedural rhetoric in autobiographical games. accordingly, the player characters in autobiographical games like depression quest2, represented by the (inter)actions they can and cannot perform, define a spectrum of potential interpretations of the creator’s in-game persona. simultaneously, by constraining the player’s potential actions within the game, they also act as ‘templates’ for players to act out their own identities towards the computer as these games are usually singleplayer affairs thereby requiring the player to reassess which personas they usually rely on are compatible with the procedural rhetoric of the game. this definition differs from the notion of “play-personas” (canossa & drachen 2009, p. 513), which are defined as tools for interaction design. it also differs from the more traditional understanding of persona as a character archetype or “part” as in goffman’s (1956, p. 10) notion of identity performance, which waskul and lust (2011) utilise in their analysis of negotiating identities in fantasy role-playing games. waskul and lust do not explicitly define their notion of persona, but they refer to the “personplayer-persona trinity”, specifically the “permeable boundaries between person, player, and persona” in fantasy role-play (2011, p. 340). this interdependence is particularly visible in fantasy contexts, since it is congruent with the “more general trinity of reality, imagination, and fantasy”, but according to the authors, the “same porous distinctions and active negotiations also occur in everyday life” (waskul & lust 2011, p. 340) such as educational situations. a second important reference point is richard bartle’s (2005) extended player typology, which differentiates between reasons and motivations for playing games.3 bartle’s original four types killers, achievers, explorers, and socialiser are primarily defined by the player’s orientation towards the game and other players. the types added in the extended model, including politicians, hackers, and scientists (bartle 2005 p.5), are more reminiscent of character archetypes and defined by a relatively consensual set of traits and idiosyncrasies. bartle’s player types refer to distinct motivations and ‘playing styles’, yet they are functionally comparable to personas, because they, explicitly or implicitly, act as frameworks according to which people interpret their ‘expression of self’ through play. in the case studies below, we will demonstrate how player personas allow for variation in learner experiences. furthermore, the cases show how “classroom ecolog[ies]” (morgan and martin 2014, p. 669) and game ecologies are co-dependent: games transform the experience of the classroom, and the spatial affordances of the classroom or, in one case, a theatre room inform the experience of the game and the performance of classroom personas. most importantly, we argue that games and game cocole, maragliano & werning 40 creation can afford the expression of multiple personas not typically ‘permitted’ in the classroom. when we enter a classroom ecology, which operates according to the familiar, internalised rules of traditional classrooms, we tend to take on familiar teacher or student personas. these personas are the social units in which we enact identities (cole and meadows 2013), moving in and out of different contexts and interacting with different people in our various communities of practice. in what follows we show that playing a game as a constitutive practice of the classroom promotes a sense of an alternative community among the players by producing shared experiences that lead to an emergent, consensual set of values, habitualised actions, and expanded persona repertoires. learner personas and embodied learning another notion needed to articulate our concept of persona is embodiment. actually involving the body in learning processes is still often considered experimental, and is rarely implemented as structured classroom practice, as educators perpetuate the discursive separation of theory and practice as well as body and mind (nelson 2006). thus, to facilitate learning, we habitually “sit quietly and concentrate on our ‘mental’ task(s)” (macedonia 2019, p. 2). even when we try to increase the body’s relevance in our teaching and learning practices, it is hard to let it even partially replace the symbolic system of words, as we cannot fully accept that in embodied teaching and learning “the outcomes might not be further articulated in another mode of cognition such as words, spoken or in writing” (nelson 2006, p. 106). despite extensive academic work on embracing “body knowledge” (maturana & varela 1984), current emerging interest in embodiment is due to the advent of neuroscientific studies. educational and neuropsychological research has shown that when knowledge is linked to emotion, we keep it in our memory longer and more meaningfully (erk et al. 2003). such studies have contributed to the “embodied cognition” idea, i.e. an incorporated mind or a mentalised body, wherein “the enactment of knowledge and concepts” happens “through the activity of our bodies” (lindgren & johnson-glenberg 2013, p. 445). they have also demonstrated how the body’s sensorimotor systems (mahon and hickok 2016) influence our neuronal processes, memory, and knowledge management. indeed, several studies have demonstrated how information is connected to words or emotions and also to space, music, faces, flavours, and scent (see, for example, pulvermüller 2005). when we teach or learn anything, our brains do not only represent and store information via words, but they create and store mind representation via ears, eyes, skin, nose, tongue, and motor acts. learning involves transforming ourselves, and by virtue of neuroplasticity, our body is constantly mapping new neurological pathways (blakeslee & blakeslee 2007 p. 11). education practices, however, are rarely multimodal or body-centred, generating a gap between how we acquire and store knowledge, and how we usually frame what we are doing when teaching and acquiring knowledge. thompson (2010) argues that body and mind are working together in learning, drawing on conceptual connections between science and art as well as reality and imagination. munro (2018) builds on this, proposing a list of key features that can be applied to embodied learning contexts, including personal uniqueness, organic congruences, sensory awareness, continuous change, habitual patterns, and re-patterning. such key features can be used to frame how we think about learning. for example, “organic congruences” which refers to the fact that despite many differences, human beings share similarities on all levels, entails the need to consider the organic and materialistic implications (including socio-cultural influences) in any teaching and learning process. embodied learning frameworks envision the learning experience as a process of “bodyminded consciousness” wherein “the personal inner environment (the sentient self) as persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 41 well as the multi-layered outer environment” work together “multimodally and often simultaneously” (munro 2018, p. 10). thus, embodied learning frameworks assume the learner persona as undergoing “continuous change”. teaching and learning are always multimodal processes made by shifting positions, paradigms, frames, and perspective points; this ‘shifting frames of references’ attitude is one of the key reasons why games can support educational purposes. being in a playful mode constantly entails enacting a persona, i.e. any game requires a specific body attitude, gesture movements, and physical interactions, be it a mouse click in a video game or a character posture in a live action role-playing game (larp). we show below how including games as multimodal practices in our curricula can support higher education by enabling embodied learning that facilitates students to play multiple personas in safe, exploratory, and communal learning spaces. case studies to illustrate how games and play may afford a broader range of learner personas in humanitiesbased classrooms, we have chosen an exploratory approach across three scenarios, which can be used as blueprints that can be adapted to other educational contexts. the various game exercises we used in our classes target different “multimodal perceptions, contributing to the embodied consciousness” (munro 2018, p. 10): scenario a focuses on speaking as an embodied activity, both individually and in various group constellations, scenario b on movement, and scenario c on writing and collaborative media-making. playing their game roles and interacting through these modalities, participants are given the opportunity and presented with the necessity to perform other personas within the ecology of the game. after emerging from the game’s ecology and back into the wider space of the classroom ecology, participants then reflect on their experiences and make connections to the rules and relevant concepts operating in the larger classroom ecology. here they return to interacting using their classroom personas, but with the shared, embodied knowledge of their game personas as reference points. scenario a: embodied theory, classroom communities, and expanded personas in a course on language and identity when seen through the lens of linguistic theory, personas are linked to the repertoires of voices students bring to class. these are characterised by different phonetic patterns, sentence structures, and vocabulary items used with different people in different social contexts. as speakers perform these voices in their day-to-day interactions with others, they inhabit different personas, or “characterological figures” that others recognise, or not, based on their own prior experiences with the persona types referenced by the performer’s linguistic choices (agha 2007). personas are thus inextricably tied to the physical embodiment of language in both its spoken and written forms, although other embodied manifestations of identity and affiliation (such as dress, makeup, demeanour, gesture, and objects in one’s possession or on one’s person) are, of course, crucial to being able to perform and read these personas successfully (mendoza-denton 2008; cole 2020). anthropological and linguistic studies of education have focused on voices and their related personas in the classroom as sites for investigating the various inequalities we perpetuate when we play by education’s traditional, institutionalised rules. these practices that enforce standardised and nationally-valued language varieties ignore or marginalise the rich range of voices and personas students typically use outside of educational contexts (denham and loebek 2010; juffermans and van der aa 2013; cole and meadows 2013). our course aims to help students become meta-cognitively aware of these practices, especially since some of them will become english teachers. cole, maragliano & werning 42 scenario a took place in an upper-level bachelor’s course called “language and identity: researching and writing who we are” as part of a sociolinguistic-focused specialization in an english language and culture degree program. the course’s six weekly contact hours are divided into a lecture session in a theatre space, a theory seminar, and a gameplay and practice workshop, each for two hours. the main course goal is that students will be able to articulate and apply theory in linguistic anthropology that explains how we perform, recognise, evaluate, and align our identities in interaction with others. the course culminates in a final performance, created and directed by the students for a larger audience in the theatre space. the other assessments are an oral exam over the key theoretical course concepts, an oral performance in which students perform in a voice other than their own and describe the phonetic differences between the two voices, a learning portfolio presented in the medium of their choice, and a classroom ethnography. much like the classroom described by loebenberg (2018) which focused on the use of board games in an anthropology course, this course uses games to provide students with an alternate performance of the classroom environment that, when viewed through an ethnographic lens, invites them to “to break ...from typical knowledge production models in their college classrooms". the range of activities in the course requires participants to shift roles and responsibilities constantly. students are invited to inhabit another classroom persona with every assessment and activity: they might choose to play the role of actor/performer, game player, game co-creator, explainer, idea pitcher, director, stage manager, linguist, ethnographer, etc. we play several games in the course (a card game, a role-playing game, acting games, movement games, language games), including werewolves, a role-playing game in which players are given a secret identity as a werewolf or a villager. many of the players are also given more specific roles within these broader categories, such as the seer, the witch, the mayor, the lovers, etc. over a series of “game days”, the players must decide as a group to kill off one player per day, the villagers aiming to rid the town of werewolves and the werewolves aiming to clear the town of villagers. players are never sure until their daily collective decision has been made whether they have killed one of their “own” or one of the “others”, and decisions about whom to kill proceed through a dialogue facilitated by the game narrator in which the players make the case that someone deserves or does not deserve to die. players thus have to perform their assigned personas convincingly to avoid being killed off themselves or to convince others that they do not have the identity they’ve been assigned and must ensure that the other players sharing their same identity category (werewolf or villager) survive. we play this game shortly before students take their oral exam on the key theoretical terms in linguistic anthropology for describing language and identity described by bucholtz and hall (2004). the game involves the students in a simulation in which they can see these terms at work and make those insights explicit in a post-game reflective discussion. the students are given the responsibility for explaining and running the game (some of them have played it before and others have not), as well as for organising the space to facilitate gameplay. the teacher joins the game as one of the players. after gameplay and throughout the rest of the course, the key theoretical concepts, which include power, agency, performance, and practice, authorisation, de-legitimization, authentication, and denaturalization, are used by the teacher and the students as shared vocabulary for classroom discussions as well as for analytical constructs in the rest of the course assessments and learning reflections. themes that emerged in student reflections include how games facilitated the learning of theory, how playing inspired community building and trust, and how play encouraged their willingness to take on new classroom personas. across the board, students were able to accurately and precisely articulate and apply core theoretical concepts, incorporating persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 43 disciplinary jargon naturally and un-self-consciously. in what follows, those instances where students used the theoretical concepts explicitly taught in the course in their own writing, are italicized.4 students articulated their experiences of the embodied, emotional aspects of learning that playing games in class made them aware of. one student, renske, wrote about how playing games made her “more open toward the information i was trying to learn, and it made it easier to remember''. she could “enjoy the games without worrying about learning” and then process what she learned later by talking it over with others. included in her portfolio is a photograph of the werewolf role cards, which served as boundary objects for the game, because they activated “fond memories playing werewolves with friends or family, so i really enjoyed playing it in class. it helped me be more at ease around my classmates, as well as helping me in understanding the theory.” here we can see an explicit awareness of the affective aspects of learning as well as the ability to articulate links across the classroom, game, and life space ecologies. students also realised how the games we played in class facilitated community building and used theoretical concepts to talk about this. bram wrote “werewolves proved an excellent showcase in roles and power relations within the game … moreover, there appeared to be a game-transcending trend of trust.” games-playing made students aware that they were taking on different roles in the ecology of the classroom. ward noted, “we are performing everything we have learnt during the course...on the basis of games and interacting... but we were all assigned (or chose) a role, where we had to act in a way we would not in a regular classroom setting…”. further, the communities of practice these mini-ecologies opened up allowed students to get comfortable taking on other personas within the classroom contexts, which in turn prepared them for taking on other more challenging personas outside of the games themselves. ymke makes this clear in the following extended passage: my masterpiece was the role i took during the final performance. it was the first time i had voluntarily taken such a public role. i also learned... how to, somewhat accurately, perform the voice of john mulaney... although you, as a reader, may not know this, presentations of any kind have always been the thing i dreaded most in my university career. this course changed that. although i will not claim that i no longer get nervous for presentations, i have found that i actually like speaking in front of an audience. this became clear when i actually volunteered to be one of the presentation hosts for the performance. it was the first time i voluntarily took a spotlight role. i am proud that i took this role and was able to perform the part of a presenter, because i never expected myself to do something like that. the final performance in the theatre was an important learning experience for many students who found performing a non-student persona for an audience of their peers and teachers to be a particularly challenging “hurdle”. emma, who stepped out of her comfort zone to take on a directing role writes, “the performance itself taught me how useful it is to use games and activities in order to showcase learning material.” tessa k. writes about how “changing the role of teacher and student” during the performance gave her confidence and taught her “that an examination can be a positive experience, namely one of sharing knowledge in order to teach others as opposed to getting judged for your knowledge or lack thereof.” students gained a meta-cognitive awareness that their habitual roles and practices within an educational context can be repatterned through the embodied experience of taking on other personas. roos articulates this by applying the theoretical concepts mentioned above in reflecting on her role as scriptwriter: “i noticed a clear development in my understanding of my own identity or, as i cole, maragliano & werning 44 should say, identities. i have learned that what feels like taking on different ‘roles’ is actually performing different identities. the fact that i did not struggle with taking on a leader ‘role’ as much as i used to indicates that performing an identity of a leader has become practice, and thereby one of my identities. performing an identity that feels unfamiliar, similar to performing a voice or accent that is not your own, can be familiarised and become practice.” figure 1. tessa k’s learning portfolio a clear example that itself embodies the connection between embodied practice and learning and performs connections across the lifeworld game, and classroom ecologies can be seen in tessa k’s learning portfolio (fig. 1) – a pop-up box she designed in which the learning reflection is pasted onto the screen of a paper laptop. tessa explains how sitting behind the screen was her preferred mode of learning when she arrived in the course and how she remembers discussing with a friend after the first week that she did not understand how playing games in a theatre could be learning. when you close the laptop, you find you are looking at paper cut-outs of human figures standing upright in a circle. this circle represents our weekly playful opening ritual in the theatre space of going around in a circle taking turns answering a question that anyone in the course could pose to the rest of us. many students cited this as being the key component in forging a sense of course community. tessa explains that “exercises that seem silly at first… get you to new experiences… through simply doing what i at first thought was not going to teach me anything, i learned the most.” scenario b: experiencing migrant life stories through an edu-live action roleplay (larp) hold the line is an educative live action role playing game (bowman 2014) about the italian refugee’s reception system, designed in collaboration with the italian red cross5. the game was first created for the social workers of red cross migrants and then further adapted to formal and non-formal education contexts: “meeter”, youth track camp (110 participants), “italian philosophy festival” (180 participants) and university of genoa & luiss university of rome students (50 participants). the game was based on real migrant life stories6 and co-designed with migrant social workers and lawyers. participants play a character who is seeking asylum in italy, and choose their life path by making narrative choices according to game mechanics inspired by choose-your-own-adventure (cyoa) books. the game choices have to respect the story and the dynamics described in the character sheet, but players have a wide range of persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 45 agency in acting in the game. the game setting comprises three rooms scattered with numbered game cards. participants follow their asylum-seeking story plot through cards, and for each card they have to make an “in character” choice. narrative choices concern: legality, health, work, community, reception system, and housing conditions. each decision on these topics brings participants to a specific numbered card which contains the continuation of their story, which constantly changes based on participants' decisions and actions. thus, participants find themselves compulsively looking for the next card, room by room, and choice by choice. occasionally, a choice might allow participants to reminisce, to interact with npcs (game facilitators in the role of border officers and moneylenders), to assume particular attitudes for a while, or to experience the passing of the time in the “time room” (fig. 2). figure 2: playing hold the line the fieldwork research conducted to design the game highlighted three recurring keywords, on which the edu-larp (educational live action role play) was designed: choosing, waiting, and barriers. the key concept “choosing” is related to how the institutionalised power structures in the reception system are perceived by migrants, who report constant agency deprivation. the game addresses this concept with the illusory freedom of cyoa game mechanics and the card search representing the migrant bureaucratic legal system. the second key concept, “waiting”, relates to how the system forces people to be stuck in limbo in which you can only wait for office appointments, paper permissions, court interviews, and other common requirements for migrants. hold the line represents this with the “time room” mechanic; whenever participants choose anything which makes them wait, or if they go to jail, they must go to the time room. once in the room, they have to kneel, wear a sleeping mask and use earplugs for sensory deprivation. depending on what they are waiting for, they have to set a timer and wait until the timer rings. meanwhile, participants cannot move, speak, or do anything. they have to wait, which seems more intense with the sensory reduction7. participants may visit the time room repeatedly throughout the game, depending on the story stream they create with their own choices. the last key game feature was the “barriers” experience. barriers represent the extensive set of privilege lacking and inequality experiences embedded in refugees’ life stories. participants have to face language, economic, and service access barriers throughout the game. each barrier is highlighted by an embodied experience. for example, when players interact with officers they have to deal with other languages (swahili and fulani language) and have to use body language to express what they want to say. to give players money, lenders will ask for some personal objects in return: an earring, a shoe, an object they had from their home-place, anything to let the players experience the sense of being forced to lose part of their persona to be accepted into the arrival society. if the player’s persona becomes unwell and cannot pay to cure themselves, they have to continue the game with ties around their legs to signify physical stress. the game leverages bodily sensations and interactive storytelling to combine the cole, maragliano & werning 46 cognitive knowledge we have of migrants’ experiences with the affective, bodily, and discursive knowledge in a multimodal way. the game lasts five hours including workshop and debriefing. at the end of the game, participants discover whether they were granted humanitarian protection. they can read the real ending of the real stories they played and a brief overview of the migrant law system schema and faqs to match what they experienced in the game with the real-life space. by playing hold the line, participants have to perform different personas, playing different roles in gender, cultural background, age, language, life-story, and more. players have to embody and act out their character in another fictional world that communicates with the daily life world, extending their own personal persona’s physical and non-physical repertoire. during the first game sessions, a research design was set to test the game’s effectiveness and receive feedback to improve the game itself. following an iterative critical design (flanagan 2009, p. 257), the game was play-tested with diverse stakeholders (students, migration workers, and refugees), and we invited people with different cultural or life backgrounds to play and offer adjustments. participants filled in a questionnaire before and after the game, and the debriefing report was also an important way to include participant voices (lankoski & bjork 2015) in the game process. despite research showing how games firmly influence participants' perspective-taking and ethnic prejudice (maragliano, 2019), scales or measures cannot describe how participant personas transform due to the game. this is why the game effect was discussed through the participants' own descriptions of their experience to try to interpret and highlight the transformative aspects of playing games (salen & zimmerman 2004). the reported findings are taken from the pre-post game survey and debriefing report. before and after players participated in the game, we collected their understanding of in-game topics through a free association word stimuli technique via a questionnaire. the word cloud on the left features participant representations before the game, while the one the right (figure 3) demonstrates their responses post-game. the words in the first cloud can be interpreted as a compassion-driven approach, which depicts migrants as resourceless and poor, thus perpetuating conventionalised and well-meaning but often harmful forms of representation (leonardo 2002). after the game, there is a clear shift of labelling. ‘the’ migrant is now characterised with words like understanding, reflection, people and courage. following the game, migrant personas are not primarily regarded as a ‘problem to solve’, but rather as people to understand, with experiences worthy of more nuanced reflection. figure 3. pre-game and post-game word clouds reflecting keywords associated with migrants further debriefing and a player survey demonstrated a willingness to change after the game experience. the following quotations provide an overview of player reflection in this regard: persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 47 s.19: “a game that makes you better understand what migrants have to face since they touch italian land. i would like to get even closer to this reality and bring my contribution, maybe do volunteer work in this field!”. s. 32: “from now on i'm going to try harder to look at people reflecting on their hands, their signs, their scars, their stories, their efforts”. the following excerpt is peculiar because it was from a student who worked in migrant rehabilitation, reflecting on knowledge and practice involved in her workplace. s.02: “i realized, in a role-reverse way, how the talk "bear with me" i always say to migrants i work with really makes me feel. when it comes to paperwork, lawyers, anything, i always tell them "be patient, come on." when in the game i was told to be patient after i had been in the time room 3 times i would have killed the npc.” finally, students reflect on their own multimodal experiences, such as perceptions of time, which they felt allowed them to more easily empathise with ‘the migrant’ as personas, incorporating the migrants’ stories more naturally into their own in-class identity performance. s: 08: “a really useful activity to make it clear that a migrants’ journey does not end when they arrive in italy. but it continues for years. i never expected to discover the waiting time they may have during the journey and the obstacles to overcome, and then maybe discover that they are not accepted. it should not be taken for granted that just because there are directives there are safe procedures with clear timescales.”. s. 13: “i thought about the difficulty with which foreigners on the run are welcomed in italy or not. the expectations and all the unforeseen events are nerve-wracking, and we have lived them only for three hours and i couldn't take it anymore, this is everyday life for some people.” s. 21: “i work in a shelter, and i always have to deal with these documents. but i had never filled the refugee application form all by myself before, it was hard for me too, and it is written in my language.” naturally, the above quotations are simply statements about intention, but it is particularly interesting that players link their character persona experienced throughout the game with their own real-life persona. their reflections reinforce the idea that embodying knowledge transformation more easily leads to a bodily action transformation. these quotations suggest that ‘knowing’ something and ‘experiencing’ it if only in the context of make-believe situations that exhibit the characteristic ambiguity (sutton-smith 2006) of play but are nonetheless informed by real migrants’ life stories produces different learning outcomes than purely rational approaches. scenario c: experimenting with learner personas through game-making the third scenario explores how the theory of embodying and expanding the expressive spectrum of learner personas can be fostered through game-making. the corresponding exercises took place in two advanced bachelor of art courses, the aforementioned “language and identity” and a media studies course called “speelse communicatie” [playful communication]. the latter group comprised of eleven teams of two to four students, each tasked with creating a small-scale persuasive game within four weeks. participants’ study backgrounds included media, communication, and culture studies, with different specialisations such as media history, media design, gender studies, or screen-based media like television and cole, maragliano & werning 48 cinema. due to the focus on persuasive communication and most students not possessing technical backgrounds, the authoring tool twine was chosen as a common basis for all student games. in previous research, twine has already been identified as a tool that affords selfreflexivity, especially in questions of identity politics. for instance, bragança et al. (2016) show how twine has been used to not only explore queer identities or, more broadly, the complications of non-binary identity formation through interactive narratives, but also allow the game creators an opportunity to reflect on and push against the limited spectrum of ‘acceptable’ creator personas within the digital games industry. in academic contexts, wilson and saklofske (2019) argue that twine has the potential to “challenge [the] often-exclusive scholarly methods and communication strategies” (p.4) that characterise both research and education. wilson and saklofske (2019) do not explicitly reference learner personas, but several of their key claims and examples suggest that the tool’s disruptive potential stems in part from expanding the notion of learner personas. academic use of twine allows for “constellating ideas, and anticipating narrative networks and multiple pathways through such ideas” (2019, p. 4); that is, due to its quick and iterative applicability, the tool allows users to experiment with multiple viewpoints and ‘roles’ rather than to claim and defend one. furthermore, wilson and saklofske (2019) argue that “twine creations occupy a liminal space between multiple media forms and the expectations of gaming, literary, and filmic cultures of production and consumption” (p. 4). thus, using twine encourages students to draw from a broader range of personal experiences than they would in more traditional classroom ecologies. for example, one student game studies “the relationship between william blake’s creative process, his biographical context, and his prophetic works” (wilson and saklofske 2019, p. 6). rather than presenting their findings as an ‘external’ observer, the student’s game characteristically emulates blake’s viewpoint, making the author the protagonist of the game. the game harnesses the “person-player-persona trinity” (waskul and lust 2004, p. 340) to afford both its creator and players an ‘embodied’ experience of william blake’s life and work as well as address historiographical ambiguities. the learning goals for the game-making exercise at hand were to a) understand how playful communication strategies are developed in a ‘dialogue’ with the tools and materials used; b), to explore the notion of bricolage in research (antonijevic and cahoy 2018); and c), to ‘translate’ a shared personal experience into an in-game persona. procedural rhetoric in selected student games was evaluated (colby 2014) based on the prototypes and corresponding reflection notes to identify patterns in the use and transformation of learner personas throughout the process. the student games covered a broad range of topics from the ecological footprint of tourism and ‘fast fashion’, and issues of inequality (e.g. concerning the situation of immigrants or the homeless in the netherlands), to personal experiences like connecting with relatives who have alzheimer’s disease or coping with the loss of loved ones. a central concern in all projects was the ‘creator’ persona; making media rather than ‘just’ reflecting on them was a novel experience for many students. the reflection notes indicate that many considered the creative task epistemically different from traditional notions of scholarly work. nelson emphasises that modes of scholarship like “writing or rhetorical debate [...] are themselves practices” (2006, p.108), which often appear counterintuitive within traditional classroom ecologies. at the beginning of the course, several students described their role as the ‘recipient’ of knowledge or skills; in comparison, learning by making a game much like playing a game is a process of testing hypotheses and determining ‘what works’. indeed, several reflection notes stated that students also applied this process, which they associate with a ‘designerly’ approach based on creating and iteratively ‘refining’ an artifact, to writing their final papers. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 49 marshall et al. (2015) briefly discuss game creator persona characteristics using minecraft creator marcus ‘notch’ persson as an example (p. 297). while notch, unlike the course participants, had adopted and committed to the creator persona early on, we observed the characteristic tension between making and playing one’s own game also applied to the group experience. like many independent developers, notch negotiated the discrepancy between the highly commodified idea of commercial games in mainstream culture (and the expectations coming with that idea), and the desire for self-expression, cultivating an “indie” attitude. similarly, many (early) designs and reflection notes exhibit concessions towards usability and ‘avoiding frustration’, reflecting the ‘professional developer’ persona’s perspective on gamemaking. demonstrating the games at a pitch session towards the end of the course provided a forum for ‘acting out’ different interpretations of the creator persona; in future iterations, this ‘stage’ for enacting personas should be expanded on. many students initially responded to the unfamiliar design exercise by ‘retreating’ into familiar, often gendered personas such as the programmer, the writer, the visual artist or the organiser/manager. by lowering the technical requirements of game-making, twine allows for gradually merging these otherwise rigid categories. for instance, due to the tool’s popularity, sample code for many routine scripting tasks like changing text or background colours upon certain triggers is available online. even the team’s writers could insert into the project without needing to fully understand it, which expanded the expressive qualities of their texts. on a related note, the retreat into familiar roles meant students would act out their primary “player types” (bartle 2005). for example, competitive-minded students initially approached the game-creation exercise as an opportunity to reassert their superior performance, while others appreciated the exercise as a catalyst to socialise with their peers. the ‘explorer’ type would manifest itself in the form of students experimenting with different techniques and re-framing their own experience to ‘translate’ it into the game. achievers would instead aim to combine scripting and formatting to achieve design effects that transcend what twine can do ‘out of the box’. one such technique that two teams explored was to use a variable, a value representing the player character’s physical or mental well-being, to change the background colour, reflecting the internal development of the in-game persona. even though the exercise took place over only four weeks, the pre-existing roles changed and even merged in some cases as students became more familiar with the tool or more immersed in the fictional ‘world’ they created. this change demonstrates the interdependence of personas in a classroom ecology; by learning twine together, dynamic configurations of individual learner personas gradually developed into more well-defined communities of practice. for example, as students realised that twine does not really afford a highly specialized programmer persona, a more accessible version of that archetype became available to others as well. the success of learning environments and performing group identity “is dependent on the emergence of a shared sense of purpose, capability or practice, a means for engagement, and a shared set of resources” (benn et al. 2013, p. 187). in that context, the acquisition of specialised knowledge, which distinguished the group from their cohort, and which many had deemed outside the scope of their habitual learner persona beforehand, contributed to the process. as suggested above, the authoring tool twine and the digital prototypes themselves constitute important “stage props” in a goffmanian (1956, p. 13) sense that students incorporated into their performance of learner personas. having to express themselves using twine’s limited technical features, but also being able to combine media modalities like typography, colour, images, film clips, maps and more, helped students develop an awareness of their own disciplinary boundaries but also find ways to move past them in order to create a coherent persuasive game. one way to harness this more systematically in future iterations of the exercise will be to have student teams recole, maragliano & werning 50 write earlier groups’ anonymised prototypes. this affords students an embodied engagement with the personas expressed by their peers not just through ‘reading’ but also ‘writing’. a distinct challenge in all projects was to write an in-game persona for the players to inhabit collectively. the game-maker-as-persona already requires epistemic flexibility because, to make a game, one needs to empathise with different viewpoints and provide meaningful choices for different player types (bartle 2005) rather than fully identifying with any one of them. during the creation of the prototypes, students needed to identify and negotiate different versions of the in-game persona they tried to create within the team. for example, the team behind the game road to happiness, which addresses the experience of a refugee in the netherlands, combined their personal anecdotal experiences into an in-game persona, e.g. by distributing them as micro-narratives across different branching paths or dialogue responses. figure 4. screenshot and story structure of the road to happiness prototype the game dress to impress, which critically engages with the moral quandaries surrounding fast fashion, implies but never explicates a male lower-middle-class student as the central player persona. however, it complicates this seemingly clear-cut persona by repeatedly and abruptly shifting the viewpoint, including a friend of the protagonist, an extra-diegetic narrator, and a girl working in a bangladeshi factory that produces fashion products. conclusion the game-creation exercises described here allow for educators to better understand and tentatively expand the spectrum of learner personas, and to make the classroom a ‘play space’ experienceable by the students. however, to deliver on its promise, a more long-term perspective is necessary. goffman (1956) already started his analysis of the presentation of self in everyday life, including higher education, by acknowledging the “belief in the part one is playing” (1956, p. 10), that is how (learner) personas are internalised over time. thus, it is necessary to provide multiple opportunities within a curriculum to actualise and flesh out these alternative performances of the self. despite referring to very different educational formats and media modalities, the three scenarios exhibit several thematic and conceptual similarities. all three describe social learning situations in which the appropriative quality of play (sicart 2014) gradually enabled students to experiment with different learner personas. more recently, teaching classes from home within the covid-19 pandemic restrictions since 2020 has been posing new challenges and opportunities in that regard. it makes education appear all the more game-like because, as mcluhan (1994) argues, "when the social rules change suddenly, then previously accepted social manners and rituals may suddenly assume the stark outlines and the arbitrary patterns of a game" (1994, p. 238-39). in that context, online education intensifies the hybridisation of classroom and everyday personas, which makes the identity politics inherent in playing the education game particularly evident. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 51 we conclude by briefly addressing two methodological considerations. first, to complement the exploratory approaches presented in this article, a more systematic ethnographic investigation of one particular group would be useful to unpack the highly idiosyncratic play experiences and motivations in the classroom. second, we urge educators to consider games as critical practices rather than ready-to-hand ‘tools’, choosing a timeframe appropriate for the learning goals and context. it takes time for a persona to become more than ‘playing a part’, and to widen the epistemic horizon of students, allowing them to draw on a broader range of personal experiences in the acquisition and processing of knowledge. end notes 1. the term “classroom persona” is not always consistently define, but usually refers to educators; for example, cook (2009) uses it (283) interchangeably with related terms like “teacher persona” (282). 2. see http://www.depressionquest.com/. 3. bartle’s is but one of many player typologies; see e.g. tuunanen, j & hamari, j 2012. for this study, however, it is the most relevant one due to its evocative categories and attention to players changing ‘types’ over time. 4. students in the course were asked for informed consent to use their course work in our research on play and learning and were consulted as to whether or not they wanted to be cited as the author of their work in published research. examples presented here are cited from their learning portfolios and reflection forms after the final performance. 5. the live and online versions of the game were designed by andrea maragliano, martina vertuccio, federica pinato, samuele nava, andsofia moriconi (italian red cross). 6. the playable roles are composed of 17 stories, for a total of 42 characters from: afghanistan, angola, bangladesh, cameroon, ivory coast, eritrea, gambia, rojava kurdistan-syria, nigeria, pakistan, senegal, syria, somalia, ukrainian/rpd, and venezuela. each character is given a “historical memory” explaining the historical context, current political situation, and migration factors; a "group memory" containing the character’s family context; and an "individual memory" that tells the story of the individual character. 7. players’ safety is always respected: the mechanic is explained during the game briefing and 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5-17. salen, k & zimmerman, e 2004, rules of play: game design fundamentals, cambridge, ma, mit press. sicart, m 2014. play matters, cambridge, ma, mit press. sutton-smith, b 2006. ‘play and ambiguity’, in k salen & e zimmerman (eds.) the game design reader: a rules of play anthology. cambridge, ma: mit press, pp. 296–313. waskul, d & lust, m 2004, ‘role-playing and playing roles: the person, player, and persona in fantasy role-playing’, symbolic interaction, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 333–356. thompson, e. 2010. mind in life. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. tuunanen, j & hamari, j 2012, ‘meta-synthesis of player typologies’, in proceedings of nordic digra 2012 conference: local and global games in culture and society, retrieved from <http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/12168.40312.pdf>. werning, s 2017, ‘the persona in autobiographical game-making as a playful performance of the self’, persona studies, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 28–42. wilson, r & saklofske, j 2019, ‘playful lenses: using twine to facilitate open social scholarship through game-based inquiry, research, and scholarly communication’, knowledge creation, dissemination, and preservation studies, vol. 3, no. 1, retrieved from <http://kula.uvic.ca/articles/10.5334/kula.11/>. deborah cole utrecht university, andrea maragliano university of genoa and stefan werning utrecht university abstract key words introduction defining ‘playable’ learner personas learner personas and embodied learning case studies scenario a: embodied theory, classroom communities, and expanded personas in a course on language and identity scenario b: experiencing migrant life stories through an edu-live action role-play (larp) scenario c: experimenting with learner personas through game-making conclusion end notes works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 101 coconuts, custom-play, & covid-19: social isolation, serious leisure, and personas in animal crossing: new horizons chr is com erf or d u n i v e r s i t y o f w o l l o n g o n g abstract this paper discusses animal crossing: new horizons’ (acnh) release during the covid-19 pandemic, and draws upon responses from nearly 2000 players to frame how the game acts as a platform for routine substitution and social connectivity in a disconnected physical world. a combination of the game’s elements, including its comforting aesthetic, participatory community, financial mechanics, and goal-setting, promotes the player’s construction of their sense of self and provides crucial stability. in contrast to other life simulator games such as the sims, the timing of acnh’s release makes its substitution efforts more adoptable by a wide spectrum of players between casual and hardcore sensibilities. moreover, the game substitutes some complex face-to-face interactions during selfisolation and it affords stability and routine through a simulacrum of real-life, however exaggerated and narrowed in scope. the gameplay provides player agency and self-determination of playstyle as well as routines that contrast with the intense disruption of the everyday by the pandemic. players’ shared affinities and engagement with the game function as a form of serious leisure which in turn creates personas from a diverse range of roles such as, the social player, the turnip trader, the gardener, the artisan. the persona roles enable players to adopt multiple recognisable specialisations within an expansive social environment. in essence, players of acnh create an array of malleable, interchangeable gaming personas that successfully embody the routine and social play forcibly absent from real life during the pandemic. key words animal crossing; covid-19; persona studies; serious leisure introduction this paper discusses the 2020 video game animal crossing: new horizons (acnh), and how it aided players as a method of routine substitution and self-expression during the covid-19 pandemic. in part, this substitution and self-expression has been accomplished through the emergence of specific player personas, arising through social and solitary play – much of it undertaken to a degree of serious leisure – and exemplified through in-game tasks. the game affords significant freedom to players through the means available to them to seek gratification, with guided objectives for the central gameplay path alongside options for further play that the comerford 102 player can choose to pursue. this freedom, coupled with the lack of any in-game condition for failure, has contributed to the game’s incredible popularity during the early stages of the pandemic, and the resultant lockdowns across the world, between march and july 2020. acnh allowed players to reinstall a sense of daily routine – thanks to the game’s timebound affordances – and social connection, through both the game’s multiplayer modes and the expansive social media communities surrounding it, during a period of mandatory social distancing. i come to this research as both an observer and a player, having played the game since shortly after its release and for much of the lockdown period under study. my initial interest in exploring the game’s uses during the pandemic arose from finding it personally useful as a substitute for many of my lost daily routines, its appeal further bolstered by the game’s charming, brightly-coloured aesthetic. heartened by the positive effect the game has had on me during the disruption of covid-19, i seek to unpack the reasons behind this by examining other players’ experiences. in doing so, a sample of international players (n=1898) gave me their perspectives on their experiences playing acnh during the covid-19 lockdown period from march to july 2020. the players provided insight into how the game works as a stabilising agent for upended routines, and as a place for players to assume a variety of roles – both of which intersect through analysing the personas crafted by the players’ respective game experiences. to analyse acnh, its use as substitution for everyday routines, and the resultant personas emerging from this substitution, players were asked to discuss their experiences in these terms. many of their responses illustrate how the open-ended nature of the game’s playstyles and the participatory communities surrounding the game afforded both comfort and reliability during the social upheaval of the pandemic. these responses also highlight how the creation and malleability of acnh personas allow players to choose their roles – and, potentially, move between roles when mood and circumstances elicit. in contrast to richard bartle’s taxonomy of player categories (1996), this study is interested in the roles players create for themselves, rather than those that the game’s design elicits and facilitates. this paper involves two key areas of inquiry: the routine substitution for players enabled through serious leisure, and the resultant emergence of acnh gameplay personas. my study recruited its respondents from twitter (including via the #animalcrossing and #animalcrossingnewhorizons hashtags), reddit (through the r/animalcrossing and r/animalcrossingnewhorizons subreddits) and facebook (through public and private groups including “animal crossing: new horizons over 25’s club”, “animal crossing new horizons: cottage core” and “acnh island life”, among others). other respondents approached the research via word-of-mouth by fellow respondents, and i also ran an occasional blog (www.animalcrossingresearchproject.wordpress.com) that provided insight into key areas of the project and invited prospective respondents to fill out the survey. respondents were asked to answer a quantitative and qualitative survey regarding their experiences playing acnh during lockdown. to maintain ethical integrity given the sensitive nature of the pandemic and its impact on mental health, respondents were given a chance to exit the survey prior to completing it, and no questions (besides the confirmation of being over 18 years old) required mandatory answers. players were asked questions such as the length of time they had spent with the game thus far, how often they had played during the pandemic, whether they preferred solitary or social play, and what roles they most enjoyed embodying. the latter could include any number of selections, incorporating the in-game activities (such as fishing, bug-hunting, and fruit and flower growing) and roles primarily associated with them (such as a fisher, a collector, and a gardener, respectively). players were also prompted to qualitatively unpack their experiences: what they had found most valuable about the game during the lockdown, would persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 103 they still have played if it were not for the lockdown, and whether there were instances where the game provided them with the ability to substitute their daily routines – disrupted by the pandemic – with in-game activities. the survey was influenced by previous studies of gamer social behavior such as oskar milik’s exploration of persona construction through multiplayer gaming (2017), and ji soo lim’s study of gamers’ prosocial and empathic in-game behaviours (2019). time spent playing number of players percentage less than 50 hours 15 0.79% between 51 and 100 hours 65 3.43% between 101 and 150 hours 96 5.06% between 151 and 200 hours 155 8.18% between 201 and 300 hours 328 17.30% between 301 and 400 hours 329 17.35% between 401 and 500 hours 273 14.40% more than 500 hours 635 33.49% total number of question respondents 1896 100% figure 1. amount of time respondents had spent playing acnh. a total of 2 players did not answer this question. how frequently acnh was played during the lockdown number of players percentage i have rarely played acnh, if ever, during lockdown 0 0% i have played acnh infrequently during lockdown 24 1.27% i have played acnh at least two or three times a week during lockdown 79 4.16% comerford 104 i have played acnh most days each week during lockdown 353 18.61% i have played acnh almost every day during lockdown 1441 75.96% total number of question respondents 1897 100% figure 2. frequency that respondents had spent playing acnh during lockdown. only 1 player did not answer this question. as noted in figure 1, the vast majority of this study’s 1898 respondent players have spent hundreds of hours with the game: 1565 players played more than 200 hours and 635 went beyond 500 hours. by contrast, 331 players played for fewer than 200 hours, and only 15 played less than 50 hours. the time played factor demonstrates that the results represent a heavilyinvested player base, rather than a predominantly casual one, an observation which is corroborated by many of the qualitative responses i garnered. while the experiences of occasional play during periods of covid-19-enforced lockdown is an aspect that was of interest to this research and did garner a few responses, the overwhelming number of respondents who noted having played almost or every day during the early lockdown of march to july 2020 – totaling 1794 players – (figure 2), means this study focuses on players who integrated acnh into their daily routines. the release of animal crossing: new horizons and the covid-19 lockdown animal crossing: new horizons (acnh) was released worldwide for the nintendo switch gaming system on march 20, 2020, and is the fifth “main” video game title of the animal crossing series. the franchise, which began in 2001 with its eponymous first game on the nintendo gamecube, encompasses seven additional games: four more in the “main series” and three spin-offs. an immediate boon of animal crossing is its predominantly portable nature, with four games released on nintendo handheld consoles – the ds, 3ds and switch – and a fifth released on the iphone and android app stores, allowing most of the animal crossing games to transcend the restrictions of fixed locations as part of the franchise’s multiplayer experience. acnh is a real-time life simulator, set on a deserted island where the player character is tasked with turning the island into a beautiful, thriving community for its in-game residents and for other players to visit. there are specific questlines given by the island’s owner, anthropomorphised racoon tom nook, that enable the player to understand the essential elements of the game through paying off an immense debt, owed to nook, for the player’s home. otherwise, it is largely left to the player to determine self-set goals for gameplay gratification and feedback loops, including the aesthetics and material goods that will be deployed on the island, and the location of the island’s shops and homes. in terms of day-to-day gameplay, acnh affords significant freedom, allowing the player to choose their preferred activities to aestheticise the island and earn the in-game currency – bells – needed to support it. examples of such activities include cleaning up seashells, planting and harvesting fruit trees and flowers, buying and selling items and clothing at the in-game stores, and depositing saved bells in an in-game bank account periodically accruing modest interest payments. beyond the central goal of developing the island, acnh’s flexible gameplay persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 105 allows players to choose their own pathways towards gratification. if a player wished, they could forestall the island development quest indefinitely in favour of a range of other activities, including cross-breeding flowers to create new colour arrangements, fishing, bug-catching, fossil collecting, and clothing design. some of these activities can aid the financial aspect of the game’s central island goal, thereby contributing to animal crossing’s ongoing focuses on materialism and consumption that have been key parts of the franchise (bogost 2007, pp. 267275). by contrast, many other activities can be freely pursued as pastimes with yet more playerset goals within the game. the majority of these activities are mundane, and show successful gamification of otherwise laborious tasks, representing “game-labour dialectics” that each player enters into as a condition of play to garner “immaterial satisfaction…by material activities” (kim 2014, p. 363). upon release, the game received acclaim for balancing game-based objectives and player agency. given the existing positive reception to the franchise, acnh likely would have still succeeded if it had been released at any other time. however, many critics and players assert that its specific release during the covid-19 pandemic is the driving force for its immense popularity. the game arrived as lockdowns were in preparation or full effect in many countries, keeping players at home and physically distanced. the nintendo switch’s portability gave the game a potent vector for being materially successful; the game could be played anywhere, helping to facilitate easier, ongoing engagement, especially for those living in houses with multiple switch consoles or limited access to screens. with its social focus, cute aesthetic, and provision of both guided objectives and player-set goals (reminiscent of other successful life simulator games, such as harvest moon, the sims and stardew valley), acnh quickly became a game to be played during a homebound lockdown, a facet brought up in many critical reviews and subsequent publications: nintendo could not possibly have picked a better time than during a global pandemic to release this latest entry [where] your biggest decision is whether to go fishing or bug hunting. (biggs 2020). …there is something about the particular escapism of [acnh]’s simple life that feels particularly vital at a time when death tolls and infection rates are rising, whole cities are shutting down, the global economy is fumbling to a halt and millions of people are choosing to spend their days indoors, alone. (thier2020). similar sentiments are echoed in reviews from ign (plagge 2020), game informer (cork 2020), ars technica (machkovech 2020), polygon (frushtick 2020) and the guardian (macdonald 2020). the new york times’ imad khan (2020) called acnh “the game for the coronavirus moment”, citing its open-ended gameplay and lack of deadlines as crucial to its success, asserting: with the world in the grip of a pandemic, [this is] exactly the sort of escape that has captivated so many… animal crossing doesn’t have an end and can be played indefinitely – which is especially prescient when there’s no deadline to the current crisis. this pace bestows on the game a level of calmness, one that gives the player total control over progression. the game’s freedom of progression is routinely cited as an advantage by respondents. many of them discuss how that freedom prompts them towards enacting their agency of play, rather than being predominantly guided by the game. one participant encapsulates this when they say that, for them, “it was the ability to have control over the aspects of my in-game life comerford 106 when i didn't have control over my actual life during lockdown.” another participant cites the game as “a world of positivity and serenity in a time where things are frightening, violent, and uncertain” and that they “take solace in the small escape when i want to unwind after working long hours.” connected to this freedom is the game’s distinct lack of rules-imposed fail states. unlike other games that encourage learning through failure and negative feedback loops (koster 2004), acnh is largely devoid of this. there is no way to play the game incorrectly from the perspective of its embedded rules. characters do not die or lose lives, as in first-person shooters or platform games; no challenges need to be completed in a certain timeframe – although there are optional timed social events for occasions such as easter and mother’s day; and there is no failure that resets part of the game or sends the player to the beginning of a challenge or puzzle. the only sense of “failure” is self-imposed, particularly if a player has set themselves a challenge involving daily mechanics. for example, in-game residents can be spoken to by the player’s character for a friendship boost once per day and should there be a resident with whom the player is keen on maintaining a good friendship, missing their daily appointment could constitute a “failure” in this way. by contrast, the ur-example of the life simulator genre, the sims, is a more realistic game that can have player characters lose their jobs, their romantic relationships, and in drastic cases, even their lives. no equivalent fail-state or negative feedback loop exists in acnh. the game’s leisurely pace, lack of failure, and ability to choose gratification pathways have created an immersive gaming experience. most of this study’s respondents’ experiences aligns with laura ermi and frans mäyrä’s definitions of sensory and imaginative immersion (2011, pp. 101-102). the game’s aesthetic, able to attract players of all ages, provides a colourful, innocent audiovisual tableau that envelops many players by providing an appealing alternative to the harsh realities of the pandemic, allowing the player to “[become] entirely focused on the game world and its stimuli” (p. 101). concurrently, the emphases on social play, escapism, self-determination, and connection with in-game residents creates empathic bonds within the game, prompting the player towards “[using] their imagination, [empathizing] with the characters, or just [enjoying] the fantasy of the game” (p. 102). acnh is a soothing, welcome experience, bereft of failure and replete with opportunities for stability, comfort, and leisurely play. key theories: serious leisure and the persona this paper examines the enacting of social practices and the simulacra of real life in acnh, both of which are enabled by players’ serious leisure habits. first coined in 1982 by sociologist robert stebbins, serious leisure refers to leisure activities undertaken by passionate practitioners who engage in pursuits that are appealing for their “complexity and many challenges”, while simultaneously receiving usually “no remuneration at all” for their expertise (stebbins 2001, p. 54). those who engage in a serious leisure habit approach their activity usually for no greater reward than “fulfilling one’s human potential, expressing one’s skills and knowledge, having cherished experiences, and developing a valued identity” (stebbins 2001, p. 54). stebbins also contends serious leisure serves as a good stopgap for those lacking the routine provided by working life, “an appealing feature [for those] who must endure severely shortened workweeks or no work at all” (2001, p. 56). those who adhere to a serious leisure practice can find the absence of routine sated by that practice: to apply stebbins’ overall contention to acnh, many of its serious leisure practitioners who “miss the routine of the full-time job…can find satisfying equivalents in a great variety of serious leisure pursuits” (2001, p. 56). persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 107 in discussing such pursuits, we can also use the persona, an analytical tool that best encapsulates acnh’s serious leisure nexus of player-set goals, choice of gameplay styles, and role assumption. according to milik, the persona can be used for “analysis of the region of social interaction that lies between the character and the player, but includes the actions of both” (2017, p. 67). the modern conceptualisation of the persona relies on the interconnection between the player and technology as a “technologically mediated but naturalised identity that we inhabit individually and collectively” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.2). as a flexible term, we can understand the persona in the context of video gaming as a collection of elements regarding the player’s navigation both within the game itself, and within communities of play that surround the game. in their definition of the term, p. david marshall, christopher moore, and kim barbour (2020) note that the persona is “a projection and performance of individuality [and] a way to negotiate one’s self into various collectives” (p. 3). using personas to understand gaming specifically is also quite apposite, given the understanding of many player-character interactions involving an interplay of values, goals, and embodiment that bridge the character’s virtual game-world and the player’s physical reality (gee 2008). a persona analysis of acnh thus incorporates the perspectives engendered for and by the player and the character they create, discerning the interconnection between both frames of reference, and maps the ways that players have negotiated the game through assuming roles on individual and collective levels. an understanding of acnh play through persona goes beyond seeing the player’s character as a simple avatar that “conjures presence” within the game (coleman 2011, p. 117), and more as an extension of the player that “exists and persists external to those individual game instances” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 158). both serious leisure and the persona will be explored in this research as concomitant: the habits and activities developed by acnh players lead to identity formations that move between the in-game and out-of-game experiences of those players during the pandemic. substitution and stability the key aspect initially drawing me to both the game and this project, is acnh’s functionas a substitute for routine during the upheaval of the pandemic, especially during the time many players have spent in periods of lockdown. what appealed most to me as a player was implementing routine based on the game’s mechanics, because my daily patterns – take the train to work, leave the office for lunch, swing by for groceries on the way home – were eroded by the lockdown. acnh has several features built into its real-time functions encouraging a sense of routine: for example, each day, only a certain number of fossils can be dug up, the clothing and general stores open and close at respective times, and the purchase of certain items and clothing elicits the player waiting until the next day for them to arrive via in-game mail. given this focus on time and the routine of its features, acnh became, for me, an ideal stopgap for the loss of my daily cycles. i instilled a ritual of logging on before starting my work day at home, visiting the stores for new items, and taking a quick tour around my island to find fossils and harvest my fruit trees on every second or third day. i followed this with a similar routine after work, where i took the time to speak with my in-game residents, tidy up my beach, make any last-minute purchases before the stores close, and perhaps craft items and resources to continue aestheticising my island. the ritual of acnh’s timebound mechanics gives an ongoing sense of regularity and stability that was significantly effective during lockdown, and a key motivation for me to continue playing. comerford 108 motivation primary motivation (number of players) secondary motivation (number of players) primary motivation (percentage of players) secondary motivation (percentage of players) the ability to express myself 356 400 18.85% 21.13% the daily routine of tasks and maintenance 624 438 33.03% 23.14% the social play aspects (including engaging with players through social media) 293 460 15.51% 24.30% the cute aesthetic 432 449 22.87% 23.72% gameplay loops 21 63 1.11% 3.33% playing the turnip market 5 13 0.26% 0.69% other 158 70 8.36% 3.70% total number of question respondents 1889 1893 100% 100% figure 3. motivation factors for gameplay. a total of 9 players did not provide their primary motivation, while 5 players did not provide their secondary motivation. many respondents had a similar experience. when asked what their primary motivation for play was, a majority response from 624 players – roughly one-third of the sample – stated it was “the daily routine of tasks and maintenance”, while a further 438 players listed this as their secondary motivation for play (figure 3). almost every player detailed having an in-game routine of some kind, usually related to similar activities that my routine entailed, and some even noted the game’s routines provided more stability during lockdown than the regular routines of their work lives. despite these routines largely involving animal crossing’s gamified mundane activities, such as flower-picking and cleaning (kim 2014, p. 363), and thus contrasting with stebbins’ contention that serious leisure is largely embraced for its complexity (stebbins 2001, p. 54), those routines reinforced ongoing stability for players. judging by respondents, this stability proved crucial, especially to those who suffered hardship during the lockdown, whether it be losing their job, experiencing anxiety and adverse mental health, or someone they knew being afflicted with covid-19. one respondent summed this up neatly in saying that, for them, the best part of the game is “the ability to have control over the aspect of my in game life when i didn't have control over my actual life during lockdown,” while another persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 109 explained in detail on how the game’s routine replacement had a profoundly positive effect on their mental health: i struggle without a routine and suffer with anxiety and depression. during lockdown, i've had something to do because i threw myself into maintaining my island, and designing various aspects. we had a short period where i couldn't play due to my switch breaking, and during that week-long period i had the worst bout of depression i’ve experienced to date. with the cycle of routine, either virtual or real, i've found i can cope more easily with anxiety triggers social interaction being a huge one. i've not been as conscious [of my anxiety] when i've had people visit the island, and have actually spoken more to people through the game than i do in reality. in similar veins, many other respondents noted the escapist benefits of the game and the thriving community that surrounds it: i have anxiety and depression, and one of the most important parts of [acnh] for me is interacting with the villagers. if i don't have the mental energy to talk to people or if they're stressing me out, it's nice to have your villagers come up and compliment you and what not. you get "social" interaction without having to socialize. i also have a super high stress job (deputy director of a rape crisis/domestic violence organization), so after a day of dealing with the absolute worst the world has to offer, it is so helpful to be able to get lost in a little fictional paradise. i have heard the same from other professionals. during lockdown, [acnh] was a means of escape. the best we could do is go outside in our own yards, so this game helped with a sense of escapism. it also helped once all of our protests in the us started to take my mind off my anxiety about friends and family getting injured or killed during them. i consider myself not a very social person and quite introverted but during lockdown i did feel isolated and sad because i lost my job but [acnh] made me happy and really helped me through quarantine. having the social interaction with others through trading and exploring their island for design ideas for my own island was so much fun to me. the game also provided an alternative location for traditional rituals that have taken or were supposed to take place during lockdown, with some respondents noting their firstand secondhand experiences: i’ve seen other players make memorials for loved ones they’ve lost due to covid-19 when they have been unable to have a proper funeral. it’s heartbreaking. my fiancé and i were due to get married at the end of may, but our wedding was sadly postponed until 2021 due to covid-19. on what should have been our wedding day, we hosted an acnh wedding instead. our friends attended as guests and one friend acted as minister, and read vows (via chat) that we repeated. it was a nice little touch on a day that was really tough to get through. we even had a random person from an acnh facebook group attend to take pictures! on our anniversary during lockdown we bought new clothes and got dressed up, went to the museum and the cafe and exchanged presents in game. comerford 110 serious leisure immediately explains some of the most ardent sectors of acnh’s fandom, with players, including many of the participants of this research, devoting upwards of 500 hours of play, clearly embodying much of the passionate enthusiasm stebbins describes. however, as noted by david scott, there can be gradations of seriousness within recreational specialisations, demonstrating a “continuum of involvement [with] several different types of casual and serious participants” that are nonetheless united by social drivers keeping them all motivated together, at different levels of involvement, in pursuit of their serious leisure activity (2012, p. 369). this means that even those who could be said to be more “casual” acnh players, compared to 500+ hours players, can still have their activities articulated by serious leisure explanations, particularly through stebbins’ contentions of rewards that included cherished experiences and developing an identity. perceiving acnh through a serious leisure lens frames the game as an intimate, personal, and social space where varying degrees of enthusiastic play – and, in this case, play that occurs during a pandemic lockdown – enable self-given in-game goals to provide the player ongoing gratification. acnh’s activities can grant positive mental health benefits, a factor endemic in gaming as a whole (granic, lobel & engels, 2014), which are compounded by the psychologically-constructive and empowering qualities gained through immersion in serious leisure activities (dieser, christenson and davis-gage, 2015). both aspects result in improved mental health for many players. the absence of physical social interaction due to the lockdown encourages social players to seek alternatives for connection with other players through the game and its attendant social media communities, whilst the more solitary players are provided with in-game tasks that provide fulfilling activities for them to pursue on their own. both motivations fulfill stebbins’ contention that serious leisure can, in part, be seen as “behavioural expressions of [the practitioner’s] central life interests” (2001, p. 56). acnh player identity through activities, roles, collaboration arising during covid-19’s social upheaval, the gameplay personas of acnh – reliant on their serious leisure activities both inand out-of-game – emerge as a confluence of player and character enacting tasks to serve the empathic needs of both. james paul gee discusses the overlap between character and player in gaming as an important hybridised relationship, where players imbue the character with personal values and goals while assuming the in-game values and goals given to them by the character (2008, pp. 258-260). in acnh, this relationship is in full effect. the character in-game must establish the island as attractive for tourists and cozy for residents, while the player implements structure in undertaking the tasks that, in order to maintain play, must result in emotional satisfaction. concurrently, social activities outside the game include interactions on social media, creation of fan-made content (such as artwork), and development of fan-made player aids (such as guides to the turnip market, acnh’s equivalent of a weekly stock exchange, and the fashion creation minigame) are integral to understanding various acnh player personas’ experiences. the social dimensions of acnh play necessitate a degree of empathy, especially with so many players connecting during an emotionally turbulent time. this kind of prosocial behaviour is an important effect of social gaming, similar to the positive effects gained through those who play massively multiplayer online (mmo) games for social connection (halbrook, o’donnell and msetfi 2019, p. 1098). that connection is bolstered through acnh’s emphasis on player-toplayer interactions, a factor that garners more player engagement with a video game than one favouring player-to-computer interactions (ravaja et al. 2006). although not every acnh player is empathetic or prosocial, judging from respondents there is a propensity towards this persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 111 behaviour in the majority of the acnh fandom. in discussing the switching between perceptual frames of player and character in video games, lim (2019) analyses prosocial behaviour and empathy as important in determining how both frames affect gameplay and the connection between players-as-players and players-as-characters. lim determines that certain games can “work as [effective agents] in teaching prosocial behaviors specifically motivated by emotional empathy or altruistic behavior” (2019, p. 15). examining this overlap between player and character provides insight into acnh gameplay preferences, and contextualising this through the lens of the persona allows us to better understand the relationship between players and gameplay “in terms of the subjective and objective properties of the relationship between the human and the nonhuman” (moore 2020). moreover, the serious leisure practices of acnh players form a fundamental element of the personas that emerge: per stebbins, “every serious leisure activity offers a major lifestyle and identity for its enthusiasts”, and that lifestyle and identity “can serve as solid substitutes for the ones they once knew in their work” (2001, p. 56). whereas a player’s work or social identity may have been impinged or otherwise completely altered by the pandemic, acnh offers identity formation through a serious leisure activity that can help mitigate, if not entirely replace, that impinging of identity. the main tasks of the game – both those given by the game and chosen by the player – are seen in figure 4 below: activity number of players percentage of players total number of question respondents 1898 100% island maintenance (including cleaning the beach, weeds, adjusting island terrain) 1742 91.70% shopping at in-game stores 1676 88.30% engaging with in-game characters visiting the island 1624 85.56% collecting fossils and creatures for the in-game museum 1589 83.71% giving gifts/friendship boosts to in-game residents 1390 73.23% fishing 1267 66.75% visiting or being visited by real world players 1257 66.22% flower-growing 1211 63.80% building and creating items from in-game recipes (including furniture, tools and clothing) 1197 63.06% visiting randomized in-game islands through nook miles tickets 1170 61.64% activities that earn bells outside of the turnip market 1146 60.37% paying off housing and construction debts to tom nook 1142 60.16% designing the interior of the player’s house 1048 55.21% comerford 112 giving gifts to real world players 933 49.15% attempting to attract specific in-game residents to the island through prioritizing friendship boosts and gift-giving 901 47.47% buying/selling on the turnip market 745 39.25% growing and harvesting fruit trees 741 39.04% designing clothing 244 12.85% other 118 6.21% figure 4. main tasks of the game, and the number of players who undertake them regularly. respondents were permitted to choose multiple options. the prolific number of tasks offers a range of roles for players, and several ways players can specialise their serious leisure practices. there is overlap between all of the activities, and none are considered mutually-exclusive for particular playstyles: someone preferring to grow flowers can, at any time, decide to design clothing or go fishing. i asked my respondents to consider what one kind of in-game role or identity, if any, they would align with predominantly. the results in figure 5 detail these roles: role number of players percentage of players a gardener 147 7.76% a designer 222 11.72% a builder 108 5.70% a collector 550 29.04% a curator 87 4.59% an explorer 208 10.98% a decorator 366 19.32% an economist 53 2.80% a consumer 112 5.91% other 41 2.16% total 1894 100% figure 5. main roles in the game. 4 players did not answer this question. an interesting factor emerged for the respondents who chose “other”. some of them clarified existing roles they could have chosen: for example, a “collector” could instead be “a fisher” or “a bug-catcher”. other respondents cited niche roles involving several tasks: for example, a “landlord” tasked with overall care of properties and tenants, or “a diplomat/ambassador” maintaining good relations with villagers while aestheticising their island. the remainder of “other” respondents listed themselves as a “mix” of several playstyles. one of the benefits of acnh personas is their malleability, given that the game does not lock you into one preferred mode of play. such malleability allows significant overlap and portability persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 113 between roles and tasks, promoting an easy “diversity among participants involved in the same leisure activity” (scott 2012, p. 370, original emphasis). another kind of overlap exists between the personas emerging from gameplay habits and engaging with social media communities. many respondents reported their in-game tasks aided in deciding which sectors of the acnh fandom they participated in beyond their own immediate friend groups. for example, one respondent set up a discord server specifically to talk with fellow flower-growers, while another found a facebook group that specifically creates social play opportunities. the reverse also occurred with survey participants joining community groups that then helped them discover what tasks they most enjoyed doing. players found the agency of creating their own pathway for play satisfying and then tailored their communal experience around that satisfaction. this social aspect occurred within immediate communities of friends and family, and encompassed broader social media communities. acnh personas within both broad and immediate communities also demonstrate many prosocial qualities, relying upon players’ shared affinities to encourage the sharing of information, skills, and resources for common purposes (ito et al. 2019). participants also used their persona as a certain type of acnh player to navigate their communities as “members of a category of humankind who recognize each other” (stebbins 2001, p. 56). respondents reported the allure of gift-giving and donating to other players as holding significant appeal for them. for example, one player discussed searching in-game islands for a villager they desired, and upon mentioning this in passing in an acnh facebook group, they found that “random facebook people gave [them] 50 nook miles tickets so [they] could find the villager [they] wanted.” other players have had similar prosocial experiences of their own as both recipient and instigator: i visited this nice lady’s island and she had riches as far as i could see. she told me to fill my pockets with whatever i wanted. it was really fun. i’ve also very much enjoyed leaving gifts on my kids’ and husband’s door steps for them to find in the morning. i stumbled into a small discord group that formed early on (15-20 people) and we helped each other out with everything bells, items, nook miles tickets, whatever. we threw each other birthday parties and even supported each other with real life stuff family issues, heading back to work, etc. a little acnh family. i needed about nine more flowers to finish having every flower type, so i made a post on a facebook [acnh] page asking for help. three girls came over and brought me a ton of flowers! they did it all without wanting anything in return! additionally, the collaborative nature of acnh players leads to a kind of “co-creative labour” enacting “co-creativity” (banks & deuze 2009) through the exchanging of resources and information via players’ shared affinities. the animal crossing series has a history of encouraging player collaboration, interactivity, and creativity, embodied both inside and outside the game by players and player communities (kim 2014). several participants noted their interactions with other players led to fruitful in-game gains, such as brainstorming their island’s aesthetic design, and mutually assisting navigation of the turnip market. there were also gratifying real world effects that encouraged them to play more: having the chance to do an island tour on a popular facebook gaming stream has really been the highlight for me….it was amazing to be able to show people what i've done and of course to interact more directly with the streamer and comerford 114 audience. in general, the mutual sharing of design ideas, resources, tips & tricks, and design codes on social media has improved my 'quality of life' in the game and my ability to enjoy it as a player. i had my nooks cranny shop buying turnips for [530 bells]…so i posted the dodo code to twitter and i had a flood of people come over who were so kind about my island in the comments… many people also left me very generous tips, i made about as much in tips that day as my own turnip earnings. i had a huge smile and feeling of elation for the rest of that day. though this study does not encapsulate the entirety of the acnh player base, it does capture a sector of that player base whose experiences demonstrate the game as prosocial and communal, an environment that is welcoming, accessible, and, compared to reality, far more stable during the covid-19 lockdown. these acnh players demonstrate social gaming’s capacity for helpful behaviours that translate into the real world through in-game collaboration and cooperation (granic, lobel & engels 2014, p. 73). this communal environment exists as both a factor of play and a tangible, real world effect. one respondent summed it up appropriately: the acnh community is full of very kind, generous people. always willing to help and give advice. it's a nice escape from the not-so-nice people irl (in real life). i feel like acnh, having the ability to choose who you interact with, being able to pay off your loans easily, having the ability to decorate your island and home as you please, is such a nice way to forget about how you can't do all of those things right now. it's the stability we all crave. conclusion and further research we can perceive several acnh personas emerging from play during the covid-19 pandemic based on the participant survey examined in this article. the analysis has provided a prosopographic perspective: “a study of the personal” that encompasses “the various ways dress, documents, comportment and objects [establish] the relations of power and influence within a particular community” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p. 7). through this approach and based on the interactions highlighted here, we can see particular acnh personas as prosocial, communally-minded, and agentic, performed by players who assist one another through material, virtual, and social means. the plethora of in-game activities impact the kinds of goals and communities with which players engage, shifting the way their public representation of play is understood through their islands, their playstyles, and their interactions with fellow players through social media. the strictures of the lockdown curtailing the daily physical routines of work and social life have necessitated that players inflect their characters with more of their real selves, to mitigate these losses through the game’s affordances. milik characterises these as interactions where the player and character are a unified social construct that “projects certain identity features through language and behaviour” in an environment where “the character and the player occupy the same social space” (2017, p. 73). the players of acnh understand one another through shared affinities, and the characters are seen as extensions of the players’ selves rather than ones that are alternative to them. moreover, acnh personas compound some of the bleed-through effect of the player into the character: milik analyses this in his use of erving goffman’s dramaturgical understanding of the presentation of self (1959). per milik: persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 115 identity theory argues…that regardless of how many identities we may have active as social beings, there is still seep-through between different identities, as they always present themselves in varying levels in an interaction. even when an action may only happen in the virtual world, its consequences can impact the individual in the offline world as well… as the relationships created in an online setting, which are often based on anonymity, gradually become more intimate, more player identity features (i.e. motherhood, employment, abuse history) will become part of the character-identity conveyed to their online friends. as more of the player leaks into the character’s interactions, the character becomes a social actor with a real person behind them. (2017, pp. 7273, emphasis my own) this last aspect of milik’s contention is paramount to understanding acnh’s personas. in effect, the personas use the game as a conduit for navigating the pandemic, with the character being an extension of the player’s self under lockdown – a social actor virtually interacting through means that the player is physically, and usually geographically, prohibited from emulating, and doing so via serious leisure practices that accentuate these personas as active, connected, and committed. though still popular, acnh was prominent with its players during the initial lockdown period from march to july 2020, the time this research covers. judging by the wealth of responses i received from these 1898 respondents – many of which could not be included within the scope of this paper – there is more to discuss in terms of acnh’s specific personas that emerged due to the pandemic (in contrast to personas potentially emerging from the game outside of the pandemic), the enormous fan communities and practices that surround them, and the impact that fans have had on the game outside of it (see moreno 2020 for an example of this). the unique phenomenon of acnh’s particular popularity during lockdown is also a burgeoning area of scholarship worthy of further exploration (examples include zhu 2020; lin & su 2020;and vuong et al. 2021). more broadly, there is scope to further investigate personas in gaming as specifically responsive to social and cultural impetuses like the pandemic: understanding how player-character identities emerge during moments of significant social and cultural upheaval, particularly from an autoethnographic perspective. milik urges ongoing persona research as “an increasingly valuable tool [as] we become more invested in our online social networks and digital games” (2017, p. 76). as a means of stymying some of the loss inflicted by the pandemic, the personas emerging from playing acnh provide methods of navigating the digital game and its resultant communities, whilst the game itself provides invaluable remedies for players deprived of connection, routine and stability. acknowledgements i would like to thank all research respondents for volunteering their time and thoughts for this project. i also wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of nicky cayless, lonie comerford, david & sussan desi, and chelsea taylor. works cited animal crossing: new horizons, 2020, nintendo entertainment planning & development, kyoto. banks, j. & deuze, m. 2009, “co-creative labour”, international journal of cultural studies vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 419-431. comerford 116 bartle, r. 1996, “hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: players who suit muds”, journal of mud research, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/richard_bartle/publication/247190693_hearts_ clubs_diamonds_spades_players_who_suit_muds/links/540058700cf2194bc29ac4f2.pd f biggs, t. 2020, animal crossing is the perfect antidote to a life indoors, the sydney morning herald, retrieved 1 september 2020, https://www.smh.com.au/technology/videogames/animal-crossing-is-the-perfect-antidote-to-a-life-indoors-20200407p54huz.html. bogost, i. 2007, persuasive games: the expressive power of videogames. mit press, cambridge. coleman, b. 2011, hello avatar: rise of the networked generation. mit press, cambridge. cork, j. 2020, animal crossing: new horizons – a wholesome island oasis, game informer, retrieved 28 august 2020, https://www.gameinformer.com/index.php/review/animalcrossing-new-horizons/a-wholesome-island-oasis-animal-crossing-new-horizonsreview. dieser, r.b., christenson, j. & davis-gage, d. 2015, “integrating flow theory and the serious leisure perspective into mental health counselling”, counselling psychology quarterly vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 97-111. ermi, l. & mäyrä, f. 2011, “fundamental components of the gameplay experience: analysing immersion.” in gunzel, s., liebe, m. & mersch, d. 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ho, m., nguyen, m., pham, t., vuong, t., khuc, q., ho, h., & la, v. 2021, “on the environment-destructive probabilistic trends: a perceptual and behavioral study on video game players,” technology in society, vol. 65. doi: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101530. zhu, l. 2020, “the psychology behind video games during covid-19 pandemic: a case study of animal crossing: new horizons,” human behavior and emerging technologies, 2020 vol., pp. 1-3. doi: 10.1002/hbe2.221. 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101530. zhu, l. 2020, “the psychology behind video games during covid-19 pandemic: a case study of animal crossing: new horizons,” human behavior and emerging technologies, 2020 vol., pp. 1-3. doi: 10.1002/hbe2.221. chris comerford university of wollongong abstract key words introduction the release of animal crossing: new horizons and the covid-19 lockdown key theories: serious leisure and the persona substitution and stability acnh player identity through activities, roles, collaboration conclusion and further research acknowledgements i would like to thank all research respondents for volunteering their time and thoughts for this project. i also wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of nicky cayless, lonie comerford, david & sussan desi, and chelsea taylor. works cited persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 75 behind the covers of australian rolling stone: negotiating the persona of a female music magazine editor reb ec ca joh in ke abstract singers, songwriters and musicians create personas and perform the (gendered) role of rock star, punk, heart-throb, crooner, diva, or rock chick. we expect performers to put on a show, but do we expect music magazine editors to adopt a gendered celebrity persona and a public self too? this article examines the persona of the music magazine editor and the construction of music celebrity in rolling stone magazine, with a particular focus on the now defunct australian rolling stone magazine. interviews with kathy bail and elissa blake, the first two women to edit the title in magazine format, provide insights into the history of the magazine and the role of the magazine cover in the success of any title. their career narratives underscore the self-fashioning of cultural intermediaries and the challenges to women in leadership roles in australian media workplaces, as the two women negotiate personas embodying authority, authenticity, and a rock and roll edge. key words rolling stone; magazine editors; music; persona; women and leadership introduction “rock and roll is not just another form of mass communication and rolling stone is not just any magazine” (pompper, lee and lerner 2009, p. 287). as this special issue recognises, the relationship between music and public identity is complex and dynamic and it evolves as we age. robert l. root’s (1986) “a listener’s guide to the rhetoric of popular music” remains central to discussions about music and persona, despite being published more than 30 years ago. root’s contribution to the way we think about music as an act of communication and identity-formation draws on aristotelian rhetoric. root posits that: “ethos is attention to the persona of the speaker, the character he projects, his personality” (p. 16). we might think of aristotle’s “ethos” here as not only the personality of the speaker but their authority and authenticity – their reputation. root calls attention to the persona that the songwriter creates in a musical composition and the persona of the singer who conveys a persona via the performance of the music (p. 16). further, root argues that the world of the fan and the audience’s connection with the song or the singer is at the core of “the fantasy life inspired by pop music” (p. 19). music magazines like rolling stone play a key role in generating that fantasy life and in creating celebrity culture. the music magazine is an integral part of fan culture, given that johinke 76 magazine covers and accompanying features convey and construct a singer or band’s persona and can turn musicians into stars. this article argues that although technically not “cover girls” themselves, female music magazine editors of titles like rolling stone are expected to perform a rock and roll “fantasy life” of the “rock chick” persona. their age, gender, and other facets of their identity, such as race, education, socio-economic background, and sexuality, also intersect to form part of that persona. this article investigates how two female journalists negotiate the construction of a rock and roll persona while at the same time negotiating a sexist workplace and barriers to advancement in the australian media. music and identity sociologists and popular music scholars have long argued that popular music offers an accessible and recognisable means for young people to negotiate and construct their identity as part of a cultural community that has its own history, codes and uniforms. we might think here of how hip-hop, punk, ska, heavy metal, dance or trance music communities are articulated and authenticated in fan culture and perhaps even drive music tourism (johinke 2018, p. 321). as lashua, spracklen, and long explain: music articulates identities, rebellion, conformity, performance, status, product, community, subculture, high culture, distinction, place, space and more. in the construction of distinctive spaces, styles and genres, music reproduces the inequalities and struggles of the late modern world (2014, p. 3). many studies, by scholars such as hebdige (1979), adorno (1994), hall and jefferson (1976), pottie (1993), grossberg (1984), frith (1983), and fryer (1986), have investigated the way that popular music binds listeners and fans together into communities. as i will argue, music magazines like rolling stone act as agents of socialisation within these fan communities and the editor plays a pivotal role in constructing that community. but what “inequalities and struggles” are reproduced on their covers and pages and who is welcome in the community? the editor magazines are aspirational. they sell readers the promise of membership to a fashionable ingroup of people who are “in the know” about what is new, on trend, and desirable. in the case of a music magazine, the magazine’s function, or its service to its readers, is to inform them about the hottest new bands, new music trends, essential music trivia, and provide insight into the musicians themselves. purchasing commodities (records, cds, t-shirts, books, concert tickets) to obtain this cultural cachet and cultural capital is part of the negotiated identity of a committed reader. it is the magazine editor’s job to welcome readers into a readership community, but it is also their commercial responsibility to court advertisers to facilitate this commercial interaction with the reader. internationally, the best-known study of female magazine editors is still marjorie ferguson’s classic forever feminine (1983), which focuses on the individual power and personality of the editor and how women’s magazines construct femininity and indeed a “cult” of femininity. the editor, ferguson states, carries “creative, ethical and legal responsibility for every word or illustration that appears in ‘her’ magazine” (ferguson 1983, p. 126). like many others, ferguson suggests that editors are “gatekeepers” and she goes as far as to liken them to “priestesses” who shape cultural norms (ferguson 1983, p. 10). building on ferguson’s work, anna gough-yates’ (2003) understanding women’s magazines provides further insights into the role of the editor. more recently, susan l greenberg (2018) has argued that the central tenets of editing are selecting, shaping and linking material, and her broader thesis is that editing can persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 77 productively be categorised via a rhetorical lens as poetics – making texts. ben crewe’s representing men (2003), about men’s magazines and male editors of british lad magazines in the 1990s, is perhaps the most relevant in relation to rolling stone. crewe likens editors to “rock stars” and his case studies demonstrate that some lad magazine editors in the uk in the 1990s confused their own role with that of the celebrities upon which they were reporting (2003, pp. 83–151). locally, mark dapin’s memoir sex & money (2004), about his time editing lad magazine ralph, provides a valuable insight into the role and responsibilities of the male editor.1 editors are certainly the public face of the magazine, whether they seek celebrity status or not, and the two women that are the focus of this case study, kathy bail and elissa blake, discussed their experience of inhabiting the persona of “cool” music magazine editor in the interviews i conducted. others, like former vogue editor kirstie clements, have written about the pressure to inhabit the persona of the editor (2013, p. 208). she was bemused and slightly irritated that she was perceived to be “terrifying” and states “but that was the persona they wanted me to play” (p 208). despite their own feelings about the “celebritization” of the role, or their politics and tastes, at the end of the day it is the editor’s responsibility to sell magazines and to improve circulation.2 in reality, editors perform a difficult dance as they try to please advertisers, readers, publishers, and media bosses. how we define a magazine in an age when the magazine is supposedly “dead” has become a complex debate and many now argue that the typical modern editor is now a brand manager and influencer managing content across multiple platforms (abrahamson 2009). the rolling stone brand internationally, the most famous music magazine in the west is rolling stone magazine and its distinctive red nameplate is still instantly recognisable. emerging from the politically conscious underground press of the 1960s, rolling stone was founded by jann wenner and ralph j. gleason in 1967 in san francisco as a counterculture newspaper aimed at young music fans (frontani 2002; pompper et al. 2009). it quickly distinguished itself from other more radical underground press titles and became “the voice of a generation” (frontani 2002, p. 39). of course, that generation is the baby boomer generation and that group remains a core readership segment of this “youth” magazine. the magazine’s early success was based on its reporting on the beatles, the rolling stones and alternative lifestyles (frontani 2002) but it soon became an authoritative, and eventually iconic, magazine that defined american popular culture (as it was constructed by the magazine). it was immortalised in the 1973 hit song cover of the rolling stone by dr hook and the medicine show and in the 2000 film almost famous, which fictionalises cameron crowe’s early years on the road as a journalist for the magazine. although always centred on music journalism, it has consistently also prioritised political reporting, most famously the gonzo-style journalism of hunter s. thompson. as many have argued, and as jenkins and tandoc note: “the magazine has achieved a ‘mythical power’ in american popular culture, thanks not only to its in-depth and investigative journalistic work but also to its ‘star-making abilities’ for performers and others still seeking fame” (2017, p. 282). as frontani observes, the title that was defiantly counterculture and anticonsumerism in the 1960s became increasingly commercial in the 1970s and, in 1977, moved its headquarters to new york (2002, p. 56). it was criticised for becoming too focused on celebrities and “light” entertainment in the 1990s and early 2000s and, as will be discussed, this is all played out in the australian arm of the title and posed particular challenges to the australian editors. rolling stone is frequently criticised for, on the one hand, its conservative music coverage that caters to the tastes of aging white baby boomers and, on the other hand, for its liberal politics, which also reflect the politics of aging white male baby boomers and, one johinke 78 imagines, those of founder jann wenner (rosen 2006; pompper et al. 2009; fitzgerald 2018). supposedly a magazine about youth culture, it now has an aging readership, which, of course, makes it less attractive to the young people who are the target demographic. the 2019 media kit for american rolling stone illustrates that the readers are predominantly male (60%), and that the readership is aging (54% of readers 35+ with a significant number 55+). as adams and harmon observe: “however inaccurate the descriptions of baby boomers being uniformly counter-cultural are, there is no disputing that they made rock ‘n’ roll their music, did not grow out of it as they were expected to do, and still consume it…” (2018, p. 339). as they observe, “for baby boomers, then, musical taste and participation in a relevant fan community is sometimes a serious matter …for some baby boomers, their collective music fan identities have remained important to them throughout their life course” (2018, p. 340). reading their favourite music magazine is therefore an important way for them to keep up to date with the cultural zeitgeist. as this special issue flags, “contemporary capitalism demands and facilitates the pervasive experience of musician personas as brands”. as already noted, readers buy into the community as part of a commercial transaction. to that end, muniz and o’guinn argue that “brand communities” arise when consumers of a brand form social relationships that share a consciousness of kind, shared rituals and moral responsibility (2001, p. 413). these brand communities – in this case, readers – are “quite self-aware and self-reflexive about issues of authenticity and identity” (muniz and o’guinn 2001, p. 415). indeed, this has previously been argued in relation to readers of fitness magazines, but it is equally pertinent in relation to readers of rolling stone (johinke 2014). as jenkins and tandoc illustrate, regular readers of rolling stone identify very strongly as “real readers”: controversies like the decision to feature boston bomber dzhokhar tsarnaev on the cover act as a critical incident in journalism where there is debate within an interpretive community about the “proper” way to read a cover in the context of the magazine’s history (jenkins and tandoc 2017, p. 289). it is in these debates, i would argue, that a reader’s identification with the rolling stone brand and what they believe it stands for is so central to identity and persona construction. as this special issue acknowledges, brands help shape identities around pastimes, lifestyles, places and events and music shapes our public selves. consumption of magazines and the knowledge they contain contribute to readers’ cultural capital and social constructions of meaning and selfhood (bourdieu 1993). ellen gruber garvey has likened magazine-reading communities to benedict anderson’s “imagined communities”, who share an imagined link with fellow readers they will likely never meet (2004, p. xii). community interaction occurs in places like letters to the editor and, in a web 2.0 environment, on magazine websites and social media platforms. australian rolling stone the australian edition of rolling stone was first published by phillip frazer in 1970 as a supplement to revolution magazine and then as a fully-fledged magazine in 1972 (cock 1979, p. 43; kent 2002).3 frazer and geoff watson launched australian rolling stone in 1972 as a fortnightly newspaper-style publication. they sold the licence to paul gardiner, jane mathieson, and paul comrie thomson in 1975, and the title moved from melbourne to a new base in sydney. the title changed to a monthly circulation in 1982 and it was during this period that contributors like clinton walker and toby creswell joined the magazine, with creswell becoming editor in 1986. paul gardiner and jane mathieson sold the licence to creswell, philip keir and lesa-belle furhagen in 1987 (boots 2007). in 1992, there was a falling out between keir, furhagen and creswell. keir took control of rolling stone while furhagen and creswell formed terraplane press and launched juice magazine in direct competition with rolling stone (boots 2007). soon after this transformation in early 1993, kathy bail became editor of rolling persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 79 stone. elissa blake followed in her footsteps as editor during 1999–2004. it is this period, when the magazine was distributed by next media, that will be discussed further in this article. in 2008, next media was purchased by worsely media and rolling stone was acquired by acp (later acquired by bauer media), in 2013, matthew coyte’s paper riot purchased the title from bauer media, but it folded in january 2018 and ceased publication after 46 years (fitzgerald 2018; wise 2018; wallbank 2018). the licence for rolling stone reverted back to its american owner at that time. like so many popular and successful magazines published in australia, including cosmopolitan, instyle, vogue, harper’s bazaar, marie claire and many others, rolling stone was always an american product (with all of the suggestions of colonisation and cultural imperialism that implies). these iconic or legacy titles are licensed internationally by publishing companies for national editors and journalists to tailor to local tastes. good-quality local journalism content is not cheap to produce (hence the closure of dolly, cleo, ralph, the bulletin and others in recent years) and so part of the editor’s role is to balance international and local content. more often than not, covers are imported from the international masthead, as it is more economically viable to use that image rather than style and shoot a local cover. moreover, the international offices have greater access to major celebrities who make the most bankable cover stars. for local editors, this means there is a constant tension for them to make their publications relevant and “authentic” for their devoted readers in a manner that cannot come at the expense of profitability and circulation. choosing the right cover is critical. while the magazine cover has to capture the attention of an impulse buyer, it also acts as the “face of the publication” and ideally conveys a consistent image and message (jenkins and tandoc 2017, p. 282). covers function as “cultural symbols” that are “frequently discussed, reprinted, exhibited, and immortalized in displays, books, and other magazines” (jenkins and tandoc 2017, pp. 282–283). this is also true of australian rolling stone; for example, an exhibition of australian rolling stone covers from 1972 to 2010 was held at the yarra ranges regional museum in lilydale in 2013. the exhibition’s curator, kristen fitzpatrick, declared at the time that “this exhibition chronicles the evolution of our cultural landscape” (ore 2013). she went on to say that “the influence of rolling stone extends beyond music – this magazine has been the birthplace of some the greatest careers in photography, journalism, and design” (ore 2013). the famed annie leibovitz, for example, was chief photographer of the american edition for much of the 1970s and early 1980s and locally, eminent photographer lorrie graham contributed to australian rolling stone. matthew coyte, the 2013 editor-in-chief of australian rolling stone, declared of the exhibition: rolling stone is much more than a music magazine – it’s about everything that makes music matter, from the political to the personal to the profound. with wit, originality and flair, rolling stone covers everything that’s important to the leading thinkers among today’s young adults. (ore 2013) despite its cultural legacy, by 2018 a print magazine such as australian rolling stone was not sufficiently appealing to “young” adults to generate a profit because, as had already been noted, the readership was aging and so it became commercially unviable in an age of digital disruption. the glory days of print magazines are now in the past but their covers remain important cultural artefacts. johinke 80 kathy bail (editor australian rolling stone 1993–1997) australians have a reputation for being the highest consumers of magazines per capita in the world (bonner, 1997, p. 112). the 1990s were very good times for australian print magazines as, pre-internet, magazines were the main source of popular culture journalism, where young people could read what was new and fashionable in music, fashion, and the broader cultural scene of films, art, and books. at that time, newspapers and television news bulletins did not report on popular culture and celebrities, so magazine editors had enormous influence over the cultural zeitgeist. editing a print magazine was an achievable goal for talented and ambitious female journalists. while a university student, kathy bail was one of the editors of the university of melbourne’s student paper farrago, after graduating she became deputy editor of cinema papers, a columnist at the australian, and then the independent monthly. she was headhunted to become the first female editor of australian rolling stone in late 1992, a role she held for nearly five years, from 1993 to 1997. in her mid-thirties she began working for magazine giant acp, where she went on to edit hq magazine, the bulletin and newsweek, and the australian financial review magazine before moving into book publishing. she is now ceo of unsw press. clearly, her tenure as editor of rolling stone is of most interest here. as her work history attests, although bail had solid experience writing about arts and culture – cinema, education, and political affairs – before joining rolling stone she did not have specific experience as a rock journalist. bail was familiar with the american edition of rolling stone and the fact that “it was a magazine that was at the intersection of music, culture, fashion, ideas and politics -it brought all of those elements together. and so my reticence about not being a top music critic was probably balanced by the sense that i had the skills to produce a contemporary magazine about a wide range of subjects”. given the success of the title under her editorship, bail’s confidence that she could traverse the content was justified. when questioned about the attraction of the title, bail admits that “one of the appeals about editing the australian issue of rolling stone was that it connected me to rolling stone in new york and to jann wenner and the editors there. he employed brilliant writers, many of them women, and so i got to know them as well”. although none of the other senior editors at the time were women, bail felt that “there were other women making a contribution in the commercial area of the organisation”. in addition, the kudos of being the editor of the rolling stone magazine opened doors locally and internationally. as she explains, people take your calls if you are editor of rolling stone. as editor, bail took on the ethos and persona of the brand and she enjoyed playing up the persona in interviews: for example, for a story by chip rolley that appeared in the sydney morning herald, she posed strumming a giant paper-maché guitar (rolley 1993, p. 176). she recalls it being a “performance” where she playfully embodied the rock god persona and in doing so deconstructed some of the gendered assumptions that came with that persona. again, this persona plays into the “fantasy life inspired by pop music” that root foreshadowed so long ago (1986, p.19). an editor’s age is important in constructing a relationship with readers. bail believes that titles where she worked during the early 1990s, such as independent monthly and rolling stone, covered youth culture and matters of great importance to young people that were largely glossed over by mainstream media (like the suicide of kurt cobain). as she was just 30 years old when she became editor, bail understood that younger readers were interested in grunge, social issues – suicide, mental health, drugs – and popular culture and she believed that the responsibility of the alternative media editor was to produce or locate quality journalism about those topics. the agency to include content about these important social issues, exemplifies the power that ferguson (1983), gough-yates (2003) and others have argued give magazine editors enormous influence. clearly, bail’s persona as editor of rolling stone was cultivated as a persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 81 journalist who was serious about political and social issues and how they might intersect with music culture. exemplifying the common argument that a key element of editing is to act as a gatekeeper, bail observes: “i think magazines are a filter – an editor needs that ability to sift, select, filter, and understand what is going to appeal and to matter to your readers. if you are not close to your readers it is very difficult to edit a successful magazine. there has to be that connection with the people featured in the magazine and the people who are reading the magazine. it is a community and the editor plays a significant role in constructing that sense of community”. bail’s tenure as editor was launched with lorrie graham’s now iconic image of politician paul keating wearing ray ban sunglasses on the cover. the issue sold extremely well and attracted significant media attention and bail was invited to speak about the cover on radio, television and in other print publications. keating, of course, was delighted. bail admits: the timing in the lead-up to the 1993 federal election was brilliant. this cover story was also a way of signalling that this was a magazine that was engaged in politics and culture and a magazine aimed at a younger readership, and a magazine not just for the boys but for a much broader readership. from the beginning, there was intense interest in the fact that bail, a female, was editing a rock and roll magazine and as a feminist bail was reluctant to draw further attention to her gender.4 she remembers: i think there was a lot of pressure to perform but i don’t think i ever wanted to talk about that publicly as i just wanted to get on and do the job and so i didn’t really want to dwell on it. at the same time, i was proud to be there as a woman and a feminist. and why not? i’d grown up being told that i could do anything. bail’s attempt to minimise attention to her gender, while at the same time “own” her success and support other women, is typical of the difficult position that high-profile female editors and journalists occupy. de-identified surveys and studies of female journalists (where respondents can answer truthfully without fear of reprisal) reveal a deeply sexist “blokes club” in the media, as louise north’s (2016) scholarship reveals. given the persistence of this culture, women have been advised to “lean in” (as sheryl sandberg famously advised) and to adopt more “masculine” personas. however, this emphasis on “fixing women” (as catherine fox (2017) puts it) places responsibility for cultural change on the shoulders of women rather than men. whether she liked it or not, bail’s gender attracted attention from her journalist peers and from readers. bail explains that she understood that as editor it was a critical part of her role to interact with her readers and advertisers and respond to their mail. she describes receiving many entertaining letters but also a number of abusive, threatening, and misogynistic missives. bail concedes that because of her profile as editor she attracted this unwelcome attention, but she resolved to ignore the abuse as she wanted to steer attention away from her gender. bail kept her persona and ethos centred on her reputation as a journalist with expertise and authority and tried to take the focus off her gender while at the same time promoting women in music. this required skill and diplomacy. bail’s editorship gave her significant cultural cachet and power that she was able to employ to promote other women. the mid-90s witnessed the birth of the internet, geek girls, and grrrl bands and bail was at the centre of the action given her editorship and her feminist sensibilities. she put together a book entitled diy feminism (bail 1996) as a passion project she worked on after hours. in that collection, she writes: johinke 82 i was appointed editor of rolling stone in late 1992. while there was interest in my editorial plans, most of the excitement centred on my gender, which i always tried to play down. i wanted to prove myself as an editor first. it wasn’t always easy because there was a lot of discussion in the media about sexism in the music industry and there was pressure for me to speak “for women”. i felt more comfortable doing that when i started to meet some diy-style women in the australian music industry who were leading by example (p. 12). diy feminism drew attention to the issues that women active in music and the arts were engaging with and bail became increasingly passionate about encouraging and facilitating girls and young women to engage with technology. on the back of that publication, she was invited to give the annual pamela denoon lecture in canberra in 1998. the title of her speech was, “log on or drop out: women in a wired world”. this was remarkably prescient as few back in 1998 could foresee the way that technology would transform workplaces.5 when asked about the possibility of advancement, not just at rolling stone but in publishing and the media in australia generally, bail reflects that “editors are chosen because of their cultural fit”, as are editors-in-chief, publishers and ceos. she continues diplomatically: publishers and proprietors tend to employ editors in their own image. they are not actively seeking diverse views and they are not identifying people who will challenge them in a more overt way at this senior level. this observation is supported by fox’s research into recruitment in the media (2017, p.68). bail’s discreet observations about sexism in the music industry and in the media are echoed candidly by her successor, elissa blake. both women’s experiences illustrate exactly what feminist media scholars like anne o’brien (2017), carolyn m byerly (2013), and karen ross (2014) have argued: “women continue to be under-represented in the decision-making structures of major media organisations” and this has been “clearly established at global, european, and national levels” (o’brien 2017, p. 836). the situation in australia mirrors global trends (north 2013 & 2016). these studies back up their claims with solid empirical data about the paucity of women in senior management roles, ceo roles, sitting on board and the gender pay gap. happily, bail is now a ceo and board member of several prestigious institutions. elissa blake (deputy editor 1997–1999 and editor 1999–2004). given bail’s success as editor of rolling stone, she served as a role model for up-and-coming female journalists aspiring to adopt the responsibilities and persona of rock and roll editor. after serving as deputy editor from 1997 to 1999, elissa blake was the second woman to take on the role as editor of australian rolling stone (1999–2004). like bail, blake completed a degree, majoring in literature before moving into journalism. when i spoke with blake about how she came to edit rolling stone, she explained that she moved into magazines very early after some time as a newspaper journalist at the age showed her there was no avenue of advancement for women there. she said that in looking around the newsroom, it was clear that capable women were not being promoted and that they were stuck in relatively low-level roles for up to a decade. for women who left to start families, most returned to more junior or diminished roles. understandably, as a long-term career trajectory, this was unappealing. blake went on to explain that: being the editor of the age or the sydney morning herald was unthinkable for a woman in the 90s – even being the deputy editor or the news editor. i felt that women were able to be the tv guide editor, the lifestyle editor. there was even a women’s editor, which was considered important at the time, and maybe a persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 83 features editor or arts editor if you are lucky – so those sorts of mid-level section editing roles were what women could strive towards. they were never going to be the state politics editor or the foreign affairs editor or the news editor: they were all considered roles for men. that was never said out loud, but it was demonstrated in the office. blake’s observations are supported by feminist research on women and leadership in the media, and in gendered newsrooms in particular. north, for example, states that: “women journalists in the australian news media are typically located en masse in lower-paid, lower-status positions than their male colleagues” (north 2013, p. 333). moreover, studies by van zoonen (1988, 1989), melin-higgins (2004) and o’brien (2017) all report that newsrooms are particularly hostile work environments for women. van zoonen reports that women who work in newsrooms are less likely than their male counterparts to have children (1988, p. 37). van zoonen’s research also confirms that women are relegated to “soft” news and men to “hard” news (1988, p. 38), which blake’s experience confirms. more recent studies that are global in scope, like marjan de bruin and karen ross’s (2004) gender and newsroom cultures and carolyn bryerly’s (2013) the palgrave international handbook of women and journalism report that despite increased numbers of female journalists, women continue to be marginalised into “soft” news and women’s magazines. even more recently, o’brien’s 2017 research into media in ireland was similarly pessimistic about the number of leadership roles for women. there is a tradition of women editing women’s magazines but, as bail and blake’s experience proves, it remains difficult for even the most talented women to reach roles above the level of editor in news or general interest magazines. blake explains that she saw a move into magazines as a way to pivot her newspaper knowledge and experience into a different area of journalism and that: “rolling stone was a very unique magazine and the bulletin was another one … a kind of generalist magazine that wasn’t about gossip or baking cakes”. blake started writing freelance pieces for kathy bail while still working full-time at the age and she eventually relocated to sydney and to full-time employment at rolling stone. she served as deputy editor under andrew humphreys, before assuming the editor role, aged 27. blake feels that bail paved the way for her and that it was not such an issue that a woman was the editor, but she does reveal that there was “still a lot of everyday sexism in terms of men casually talking down to you” and the “small stuff” that every woman endures in the workplace. as previously noted, lashua, spracklen and long argue that “music reproduces the inequalities and struggles of the late modern world” (2014, p. 3) and this casual sexism is a case in point. rock stars, she admits, sometimes treated her like a fan or veered off topic and so her priority was always to remind them that she was conducting a professional interview and to maintain respect and authority in the exchange. like bail, blake was focused on cultivating a journalistic persona that was authentic and had gravitas. on the scarcity of female editors, blake explains: internationally, i think kathy and i were the only female editors and jancee dunn as a writer and there were a couple of other freelance writers and so they had some female writers who were really well regarded in america. but it was interesting that there were no female rolling stone editors in the states. there were plenty of female support staff in all different areas, but it is those decisionmaking roles that are difficult to get into. again, blake’s experience is reinforced by the previously cited feminist media studies research that confirms this disparity. johinke 84 editing australian rolling stone clearly did not come with the same perks that editing the american edition provided. in a 2007 interview with the sydney morning herald, blake spoke candidly about the challenges of working at rolling stone: long hours, no overtime, impossible budgets, and pressure to improve profits by featuring bikini-clad young women on the covers (boots 2007). in 2019, she recounts that “both news and rock and roll are very male dominated at the highest levels and so i didn’t ever have a feeling of comfort or entitlement”. she expects she probably would have been paid more if male and this is supported by north’s findings about the gender pay gap for australian journalists (2013, p. 338). catherine fox’s stop fixing women (2017) and women kind (2018) co-authored with kirstin ferguson also provide evidence about the persistence of the gender pay gap in australia. the 2017 high-profile australian case of former magazine editor and now television presenter lisa wilkinson accusing her employer, channel nine, of underpaying her in relation to her male co-host is a case in point (fitzsimmons 2017). despite some challenges, there were, obviously, many positives aspects of being the editor of rolling stone and blake clearly enjoyed her time at the title. she explains that there was a “fantasy” element: in the world of rolling stone: in the music world all of the record companies and the film companies and the entertainment business area, it was very high status. the rolling stone editor would have priority over many of the other smaller fan publications because it was such a big name. to be fair, that very big name was coming from america as australian rolling stone was tiny but no one knew that! budgets were modest and most travel to events, awards, or tours (if it happened at all) was paid by record companies seeking publicity for their artists. blake took annual leave and paid her own fares to visit rolling stone colleagues in new york, madrid and berlin. however, as blake told a journalist from the age, broad support from advertisers at the time ensured that they could write authentic content in the style that made rolling stone famous (mangan 2002). ethos for a rolling stone editor is equated with “clout” and being “cool”, “heavyweight”, and having a “massive reputation”, all of which add to an editor’s authority. blake explains: “rolling stone also had some clout with politics because people like kathy had put paul keating on the cover and so people of a certain age (baby boomers) felt that rolling stone as a brand was cool and heavyweight, which was an unusual combination. and so, politicians who were in their 40s at the time would take a phone call from rolling stone”. blake explains that they were also considered more heavyweight than titles like smash hits because rolling stone covered politics and social affairs (drugs, homelessness, mental health, suicide). younger readers would read the title for the music coverage and older readers (baby boomers) also expected news and current affairs. within the industry, she believes that they were accorded the same status as publications like cleo and cosmopolitan who dwarfed their sales but, she believes, that “as a brand it [rolling stone] punched above its weight. if you look at it in australia at the time it was a small publication with a massive reputation”. blake recalls being very proud of the content that she produced for the title, particularly in the 1990s when she was writing a substantial volume of material about youth social affairs. however, as she explains, the quest for higher circulation in the early 2000s was a challenging one for a female editor as the american title increasingly featured more lightweight content that sexualised young women. this was particularly the case after british lad magazine editor ed needham was recruited as editor in the usa in 2002 (he left in 2004 to head the lad magazine maxim). needham was replaced by james kaminsky, a former playboy editorial director, and so the editorial focus of the title internationally continued a shift from serious music, political and persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 85 social affairs reporting to content previously the domain of lad magazines (lambiase 2005, p. 2). blake admits, with a young male readership in australia, “when you do the figures on what gives you higher circulation the covers tend to be half-naked women and i think, unfortunately for me, while i was there rolling stone america moved to doing popstars and film stars that were in their underwear. i was always very against those covers but they did do well and so i tended to be shouted down”. she explains that they were competing with lad magazines like fhm, maxim, and ralph and “they were all putting bikini-dressed popstars or film stars on the cover and so we started to compete in that market”. dapin’s observations about editing ralph during this period echo blake’s. listed in his “ten immutable rules of magazine publishing” were number one “beautiful women sell magazines” and number three “celebrity nudes sell out magazines” (2004, p. 236). however, these techniques only sold magazines effectively before celebrity sites and internet pornography became widely available in the 2000s. as crewe’s (2003) research documents, these lad magazines were hugely popular in the 1990s but just as quickly as they rose, they disappeared when pornography became widely available on the internet and on personal devices like smart phones and tablets.6 blake’s experience of the changes occurring at that time are verified by at least two comprehensive longitudinal studies of covers of rolling stone. a study by hatton and trautner (2011), analysed 931 rolling stone covers from 1967 to 2009 to investigate whether western popular culture had become more “sexualized” or “pornified” and whether women, in particular, were increasingly hypersexualised on magazine covers. their study proves that “sexualized images of men and women have increased, though women continue to be more frequently sexualized than men” and that “women are increasingly likely to be ‘hypersexualized’ but men are not” (hatton and trautner 2011, p. 256). hatton and trautner claim that factors such as “body position, extent of nudity, textual cues” (2011, p. 257) and other related elements “point to a narrowing of the culturally acceptable ways for ‘doing’ femininity as presented in popular media” (p. 256). they found that by the 2000s “just 17% of women were nonsexualized” (hatton and trautner 2011, p. 270) and that there were “more than 10 times the number of hypersexualized images of women than men” (hatton and trautner 2011, p. 273). britney spears and christina aguilera are mentioned as specific case studies and regular covers of those artists along with those featuring jennifer aniston in the 2000s loomed large in blake’s memory. a second study of rolling stone covers conducted by pompper, lee and lerner (2009) found the same result. they found that “males appeared three times more often than females on the rolling stone magazine covers, that females were nude twice as often as males, and that ethnic minorities featured … infrequently” (p. 286). as blake remembers it in australia: for about five years during the lad mags period there was not much we could do to compete; but britney spears in a bikini was very hot and christina aguilera and jennifer aniston were very hot. we had jennifer aniston on the cover three times a year and this was during the friends period. i think that the staff could just about tolerate britney or christina in a bikini because they were still recording artists and so there was a fit, but jennifer aniston was a tv star and putting a tv star on the cover of rolling stone made no sense to us. it did not make sense to some letter-writing readers either who, as a form of epideictic rhetoric, wrote to the american magazine to praise or blame the editor for the choice of covers. jacqueline lambiase conducted a rhetorical analysis of 51 letters sent to us rolling stone between 1996 and 2001 in relation to sexualised and revealing cover images (lambiase 2005, p. 5). her study revealed a predictable schism between male and female readers, with women typically complaining about sexism and objectification and young male readers expressing gratitude to the publication for offering up images of their fantasy figures in swimsuits or johinke 86 underwear. some readers, regardless of their gender, failed to see the relevance of a television star gracing the cover of a rolling stone magazine. blake explains that it was a “tricky time” and that as licensees of the rolling stone franchise they were not obliged to run the same covers but, perhaps frustratingly, aniston sold a lot of magazines and so blake improvised and ran with the aniston image but included smaller photos of australian bands down the side of the cover. this, i suggest is a powerful metaphor for the hierarchical relationship of american popular culture, which relegates australian culture to the margins. blake remembers being particularly disturbed by the sexualised way that young women were described in terms that infantilised them and sexualised them at the same time. happily, for blake, just as lambiase (2005) reports about the american title, there was some pushback from readers locally who objected to that content and blake did her best to ensure that the journalism produced locally did not have superficial content about relationships, beauty routines and make-up and instead focused on the artists’ work. notwithstanding the pressure to entice readers with celebrity covers and the pressure to attract advertisers, blake worked hard behind the scenes to ensure that the magazine had credibility despite what the cover images might suggest. as milkie observes, and as blake’s experience demonstrates: editors are operating within and are a key part of both organizational, market, and institutional constraints and symbolic constraints as they negotiate the multiple voices and demands about the portrayal of femininity. the cultural gatekeepers’ role involves a complex weaving of the input from the audience, including critical feedback of the images they produce, with the practices of the organization and the larger industry connected to it. they must balance all of this with their own career and job demands and with rigid deadlines. it is not easy. (milkie 2002, p. 855) the lad-magazine era of the 1990s was clearly an especially challenging one for female editors. for bail and blake their visibility as women in a male domain was a key factor that they had to negotiate while working at rolling stone. not only do female editors need to negotiate portrayals of femininity on their pages but they also need to negotiate how they themselves will perform femininity on the job. when editing a rock and roll magazine like rolling stone, there is an expectation that female editors will embody the wardrobe and persona of a “rock chick”. blake explained that it was a casual workplace and so she wore jeans and t-shirt like her male colleagues. she was, however “aware of that rock chick vibe” and as much as she liked dressing casually she felt that “as a female editor being called a rock chick was somehow diminishing”. as she notes, the men were not called “rock boys”. she recalls, “i think there was an expectation that the editor of rolling stone would be rock and roll and not be a serious journalist. so, the serious journalist in you was a little bit suppressed and you might have worn a bit more eyeliner or a leather jacket and looking back on that i think that was kind of silly”. she is grateful, however, that she was not editor of a major glossy women’s magazine as “the level of grooming that they had to do was incredible: i think they had to look photo ready at all times”. she says, “i think those expectations were less for me, but they were still there”. she admits: i never felt that i lived up to what the editor of rolling stone was meant to be …when people found out they would be oh my god! and there was a look on their face like maybe i wasn’t old enough or cool enough or i didn’t wear leather trousers. i think there is a really big expectation of what the editor of rolling stone should be and whatever that idea that people had in their heads wasn’t me and probably wasn’t kathy either. i think that there is the confusion that you are persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 87 meant to be a little bit rock and roll yourself even though you are actually a publishing professional. it would almost be like dress-ups or make believe if you started acting like a rock star. along with her gender, blake’s relative youth was clearly a factor that was noticed, but typically the editors of other magazines published at the time, such as dolly, girlfriend, countdown magazine, cleo and cosmopolitan, were all edited by young women in their twenties. in separate interviews with the editors of those magazines the former editors all looked back with wonder at the budgets and responsibilities they were entrusted with at that age.7, 8 youth is valued in the media and it becomes increasingly challenging for women, in particular, to argue their worth as they age. this complex ageism is backed up by memoirs, including tracey spicer’s (2017) the good girl stripped bare, and scholarship about female journalists working in the australian media where there is significant evidence that ageism is rife (north 2014, 2016). blake was clearly astute as she realised that for a brief time her relative youth as commented on before she was very quickly deemed too old for the job. if we tie blake’s experiences back to music and persona, then root’s (1986, p. 16) advice about ethos, character, and reputation are useful here in relation to the seriousness with which blake and her colleagues reflect upon and negotiate their role as media professionals and journalists. blake says: we would have discussions in our office where we would remind each other that we work in the publishing industry and not the music industry and so let’s behave like proper journalists and not behave like baby rock stars. i didn’t really want to be famous myself. we tried to keep our distance and we tried to be respected and respectable and so we weren’t acting like a rock star. the contrast with male editors like james brown (editor of uk lad magazines loaded and gq) in the 1990s in the uk could not be more stark. indeed, ben crewe’s representing men includes many anecdotes about brown’s career and celebrity status, including brown’s statement to the guardian: “i don’t know about the others … but i’m a fucking star” (2003, 118). blake left rolling stone when she was 34 and pregnant with her first child and she now works in media at a university as she knew it would be “utterly incompatible to be editor of rolling stone and be pregnant and have children”. apart from the practical considerations of maternity and childcare, presumably a married woman with children would not possess the “cool enough” factor that informed the rock chick editor persona. there was no likelihood of getting maternity leave and no provision for carer’s leave and any absences would put impossible pressure on what was already skeleton staffing. as north’s research demonstrates, “a journalist must give ‘unlimited time to the job’. it’s a response understood through a neoliberal discourse, where the ideal worker is free, autonomous and flexible” (2016, 320). that flexibility includes being able to drink and socialise with clients and colleagues after hours. blake makes it clear that there was no overt discrimination but rather that the editor of rolling stone was expected to be out seven nights a week at events, movie screenings, and gigs and there was a drinking culture associated with the music and entertainment industry. therefore, the culture itself was discriminatory. again, the persona of music magazine editor is conflated with that of the swaggering (and potentially staggering) rock performer rather than that of observer and reporter. motherhood and the editorship were incompatible but, blake reflects, “how radical would it have been if i had pushed for maternity leave, and demanded flexibility and more days off?” since 2011, paid maternity leave is now a right in australian workplaces but in small organisations it is still extremely challenging for women to claim the benefits and flexibility to which they are entitled. as other studies about women in leadership in the media have demonstrated, many of the women in more senior roles do not have children (and often they are paid less than their male counterparts; north 2013, p. 338). in an article addressing the johinke 88 “motherhood dilemma in journalism” in australia, north concludes that newsrooms remain a “boys club” (2016, 315). in an attempt to ensure that another woman could break into the “boys club”, blake made sure that rachel newman (then a casual staff member), had the training necessary to take the editorial reins in the future. conclusion the period that kathy bail and elissa blake spent as editors of australian rolling stone in the 1990s and early 2000s was an important time for rolling stone magazine internationally, but also for the magazine industry in general. as we have seen, the 1990s heralded the era of lad magazines, and hypersexualised images of young female celebrities became the norm given that, as this special issue recognises, “contemporary capitalism demands and facilitates the pervasive experience of musician personas as brands”. young female musicians and entertainers recognised that in order to sell themselves in this marketplace as personas or brands, performing as a cover girl was expected. for female editors and feminists making decisions about covers and cover lines, this made the job challenging and required a form of diy feminism. while some compromise was required on covers, bail and blake focused on music journalism and political and social reporting to ensure that their magazines and their characters and reputations had substance. they had no ambition to become rock stars, rock chicks or celebrities themselves. as so many studies about sexism in the media and its impact on leadership positions for women have demonstrated, working life in the media is difficult when female journalists are also judged on their appearance and the persona they perform in the workplace. the magazine climate since the global financial crisis of 2007 (with reverberations felt long after the initial collapse), the launch of the iphone in 2007, and the subsequent introduction of tablets like ipads in 2010 (along with the rise of instagram and other social media platforms) has placed enormous pressure on traditional music and popular culture magazines like rolling stone. magazines are now much more than print publications: they are multi-platform content providers operating around the clock rather than with, what now seem like “quaint”, monthly deadlines. news about music and musicians is expected on a 24-hour news cycle and this puts even more pressure on editors, who as bail predicted back in 1998, would be required to “log on or drop out”. technological change and digital disruptions mean that musicians and bands can now sculpt their own personas online and control their own media (to a large extent) and so they are less reliant on the goodwill and the gatekeeping role of magazine editors. as marshall and barbour signal with the launch of this journal, “something quite extraordinary has shifted over the last twenty years that has led to this intensive focus on constructing strategic masks of identity” (2015, p. 1). in the age of the selfie, musicians are still preening for a camera and posing provocatively but they have more control over the persona that is being constructed. rolling stone australia was one of the casualties of the enormous changes that have swept the publishing landscape in the last decade and magazines and magazine editors reinvent themselves in what could be called the era of diy publishing. acknowledgements my thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback. thanks also to kathy bail and elissa blake for agreeing to be interviewed and to discuss my research. ethics approval was obtained to conduct these interviews, which took place on 27 february and 15 march 2019. thanks also to the university of sydney for funding my research leave in 2019. persona studies 2019, vol. 5, no. 1 89 1 interestingly, in that memoir dapin states that at one time one of his goals was to be the editor of australian rolling stone (p. 107). 2 the interviews with bail and blake were conducted as part of a broader project relating to the role of the australian magazine editor. the interviews were in-depth interviews of approximately one hour, with open-ended questions about one topic and so they were a type of qualitative research that could loosely be called ‘oral history’ (see patricia leavy’s oral history, oxford university press, 2011, pp. 9–13). 3 a comprehensive history of the early years of the magazine and its relationship with frazer’s revolution, go get, core, high times and the digger in the years 1966–1974 is available in a 2002 thesis by university of canberra student david martin kent. 4 this strategy to ignore or 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http://a2noise.com/rolling-stone-australia-close/ https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/australian-exhibit-to-showcase-40-years-of-rolling-stone-covers/ https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/australian-exhibit-to-showcase-40-years-of-rolling-stone-covers/ https://slate.com/culture/2006/05/does-hating-rock-make-you-a-music-critic.html https://slate.com/culture/2006/05/does-hating-rock-make-you-a-music-critic.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/12/02/rolling-stone-whiffs-in-reporting-on-alleged-rape/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fb069cb3a820 https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/12/02/rolling-stone-whiffs-in-reporting-on-alleged-rape/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fb069cb3a820 rebecca johinke abstract key words introduction music and identity the editor the rolling stone brand australian rolling stone kathy bail (editor australian rolling stone 1993–1997) elissa blake (deputy editor 1997–1999 and editor 1999–2004). conclusion acknowledgements works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 69 understanding memetic media and collective identity through streamer persona on twitch.tv natha n j. ja c ks on u n i v e r s i t y o f n e w s o u t h w a l e s abstract video game livestreamers on the leading platform twitch.tv present a carefully curated version of themselves negotiated in part via interactions with their viewers resulting in collectively performed personas centred around individual streamers. these collective personas emerge from a combination of live performance, platform features including streamer-specific emoticons and audiovisual overlays, the games that streamers play, and how they play them. in this paper, i interrogate how these elements culminate in a feedback loop between individual streamers and non-streamer participants, specifically how platform features mediate and facilitate interactions between users. i also examine streaming persona as both a product and expression of this dynamic and the subsequent emergence of streamer-based social arrangement and collective value systems. i do this with particular attention to how memes operate uniquely within the livestreaming mode. key words livestreaming; persona; mimetic media; collective identity; performance; video games introduction in this paper, i define memesis1 – not to be confused with mimesis – as the performative process by which internet users draw upon existing memes to create new memetic media. by examining memesis through two contrasting twitch streamer case studies – raynarvaezjr and paladinamber – i address the impact of different users on the formation of the streaming persona and stream collective through questions of user agency. further, i demonstrate how memes appear within games and emerge from them during streams, thereby mediating gamespectator dynamics. finally, i introduce a temporal layer by linking memesis with the memetic histories of stream collectives. this analysis is rooted in streamers’ performances of persona, interactions with their viewers, and the resulting collective identities that emerge through streams. by understanding the creation of memes as a cultural process linked to collective identity formulation, a new framework for examining digital persona arises. this paper demonstrates how multiple phenomena that occur all over the internet intersect: memes are built into our online interactions; the sharing of video game content online has developed and sustained enormous followings over the past fifteen years; and online identity – both collective and individual – is constructed and performed online. the arguments i present here generalise well beyond this jackson 70 context to illuminate dynamics within digital culture around identity construction and content circulation. twitch, persona, and collective identity online persona can be best understood by recontextualising pre-digital notions of the concept. marshall (2010) begins this work by mobilising jung’s (1928) and goffman’s (1956) understandings of persona as a product of interactions with an external collective in everyday life. on twitch, the streaming persona emerges and is reflexively defined through the interactions between the streamer and spectators. otherwise, also known as impression management, this constitutes a particular form of micro-celebrity (senft 2008). as scholarly interest in twitch grows, studies emphasise that sociality is one of the primary motivations for continued use (ask et al. 2019; hilvert-bruce et al. 2018; sȷöblom and hamari 2017; sȷöblom et al. 2017). twitch operates as a social space through a combination of the relationship between active spectators and the streamer-spectator relationship (bingham 2020; chen and lin 2018). as such, participatory communities emerge with the streaming persona at their core (hamilton et al. 2014). the values presented by the streaming persona are thus reflected in the behaviours of members of chat (consalvo 2018), and i argue that this leads to a collective variation of the streaming persona that is embodied by the streamer but enacted by the entire collective. twitch’s features enable spectators to perform elements of the streaming persona. among the most prominent of these are subscriber emotes. emotes are emoticons specific to twitch. streamers can design/commission emotes for their subscribers, who in exchange pay a monthly subscription fee to support the streamer. emotes form a core component of both the streaming persona and collective vernacular on twitch (consalvo 2017; ford et al. 2017). when spectators communicate using subscriber emotes, they mobilise the streaming persona to create a collective identity. persona’s collective dimension (moore et al. 2017) emphasises that the performer is not necessarily the sole contributor to the performed persona (marshall et al. 2020). the synchronous nature of twitch strengthens the perception of intimacy between users (johnson and woodcock 2019), affording streamers a better sense of how content resonates with their audience and enabling them to adjust their performance accordingly. in this way, spectator agency is stronger in livestreaming than in asynchronous digital modes (scully-blaker et al. 2017), and so collective identity and persona become negotiations between spectator and streamer agency. moore et al. (2017) name the performative as a key dimension underpinning online persona, a conceptualisation that foregrounds the balance between truth and fiction as a performer communicates with their audience. an illusion of authenticity typically accompanies the performance of micro-celebrity (marwick 2013), although the liveness and long-form nature of livestreams present challenges to a sustained and consistent persona. despite this, twitch streamers must still tailor elements of their persona to appeal to their audience (woodcock and johnson 2019). memes, agency, and identity the influence of collective agency on streaming personas and the personas’ subsequent fluidity bears a striking resemblance to the transformative nature of memes. the transformations that memes undergo subject to collective agency instil memes with an inherent plurality. shifman captures this plurality in her definition of an internet meme as “(a) a group of digital items persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 71 sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which (b) were created with awareness of each other and (c) were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the internet by many users” (shifman 2014, p.41). to clarify what constitutes ‘many users’ in this definition, milner (2016) notes that media may be considered memetic if it is “consistently shared and innovatively applied”, even among only a small group (p.38). a number of memes discussed in this chapter resonate most strongly within a single streamer collective (in fact, may even be understood completely differently across different groups), so i will rely upon shifman’s definition with the caveat that there may be limitations on spread. memes carry inherited social and political values that can contradict the intention of individual manifestations (glitsos and hall 2019; shifman 2019). these inherited values can be mobilised by streamers to destabilise the existing values of the meme and evoke questions of agency. agency is essential to the success of a meme and underscores the distinction between an internet meme and dawkins’ (2006) original “meme” (milner 2016; shifman 2013). wiggins and bowers (2015) discuss agency in this context as “characterised by an innate ability to imagine different outcomes”(p.1894). from this emerges their duality of memetic structures, whereby an actor enacts their agency to create a new manifestation of a meme whilst preserving the essence of that meme. this recursive process allows users to encode their contribution with meaning relative to previous contributions and forms a basis for future contributions. phillips and milner (2018) refer to this uniqueness-connectivity duality as fixity and novelty, as discussed by tannen (2007), and via toelken’s (1996) twin laws of conservatism and dynamism. this ambivalence is central to my account of memetic behaviours and memesis. the creation of memetic media is thus a complex practice of layered intertextuality that contributes to an individual’s identity within their social group (shifman 2012). shifman’s (2014) social logic of participation names the simultaneous active construction of a unique identity and shaping of social networks through memes. this logic applies directly to social interactions on twitch. accordingly, a streamer can use memes to define their persona in a way that is unique and relatable, and encourages greater collective participation. there is a growing body of literature demonstrating how memes can be mobilised to construct collective identity and perform boundary work that fluidly informs normative behaviour (ask and abidin 2018; gal et al. 2016; literat and van den berg 2019; phillips and milner 2018). alternatively, memes can act as gatekeepers, permitting membership to and hence validating the agency of – only individuals who demonstrate knowledge of unspoken rules (nissenbaum and shifman 2017). adhering to normative behaviour through memes – that is, using the ‘correct’ memes in the ‘correct’ ways – lends users credibility. as such, memes become tools for accruing social capital. streamers operate slightly differently to non-streamer participants here, as the latter generates this social capital within the stream collective while the former sets the standard for the stream collective. however, the streamer also demonstrates their social capital through memes as signals of broader social and cultural awareness. method this paper stems from an ongoing ethnographic project examining the construction and performance of streaming personas on twitch. i draw upon two case studies – raynarvaezjr (ray) and paladinamber (amber) – who together demonstrate the diverse ways in which memes are mobilised to reinforce and redefine aspects of streaming personas and the associated collective identities. i draw attention to how these streamers curate their streams, particularly how memes are integrated into streams and emerge from them. the elements of interest include emotes, the stream screen layout, streamer choices in twitch alerts and jackson 72 overlays, and the games that they play and how they play them. taylor refers to much of this as the “set design” of the stream (2018, p.73) and it culminates in streamers’ presentations of persona (sȷöblom et al. 2019). i extend this to more broadly consider memetic decisions that affect the interactions between members of each stream collective and the subsequent collective identity. raynarvaerjr january 2019. texas-based raynarvaezjr (ray) is a little way into his stream of the new kingdom hearts iii (2019). his facecam sits in the bottom left of the screen, a green screen sets only his body, his chair, and his microphone visible. on the top left of the screen is an event tracker, listing the usernames of his most recent four subscribers and donors. above this sits his ‘sub train’ and timer, respectively the number of subscriptions that have occurred within five minutes of each other and a countdown until the train resets lest someone else subscribes. ray is fighting a boss the rock titan from disney’s hercules (1997). ‘oh, we up here now, okay’, ray says as the protagonist sora, who is dwarfed by the titan boss, momentarily hovers above the titan’s twin heads before landing between them. after a few seconds of attacking one of the heads, ray activates an ability. ‘wait, what does this one say?’ a bright, multi-coloured train of neons and fairy lights appears along rails made of the same. as sora jumps on board, ray’s jaw drops and his eyebrows rise in surprise. ‘what?! we’re in a train!’ his voice hits some higher notes as he fires projectiles at the titan and the train chuffs along its rails of light. ‘oh, hold on!’ he pauses the game. chat is quickly filling with ‘choo choo’s and ‘woo woo’s as viewers get in on the locomotive action. ‘gotta do it for the bit’, ray makes momentary eye contact with the camera as he pulls out a wooden train whistle. as he puts it to his mouth, ready to blow, he looks briefly at it before turning it around, ‘wrong side of the whistle. i’m excited.’ ‘we good?’ he says with a nod, left hand holding the whistle to his mouth, right hand on the controller. he unpauses the game. sora continues to fire projectiles at the titan from the train, the screen filled with bright lights and firework-esque explosions, and ray blows into the whistle. chat fills with ray’s browntrain emote a small image of the driver’s car of a brown steam train. he blows the whistle three times, each for four or five seconds. the fourth blow is cut short as he puts the whistle down with a curt ‘that’s the end of that.’ it’s not quite the end, however, as the browntrains continue to chug their way through chat. * * * persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 73 figure 1. a typical layout of ray’s stream. he blows his train whistle while chat uses the browntrain emote (2019). ray2 streams a variety of games, and his streaming persona has naturally emerged from his time with achievement hunter3. while working there, he produced gameplay videos for distribution on youtube. marijuana memes have followed ray, stemming from his insistence that he would never smoke weed. five years on from his start as a full-time twitch streamer, these memes still circulate on his channel. he engages with relevant memes through twitch alerts – streamer-specific audiovisual clips that play over the stream video to signify events like subscriptions and donations – which allow spectators to enact their agency by directly influencing the timing of these memes. paladinamber eight months later, paladinamber (amber) streaming from adelaide, australia has titled her stream “lessons on ‘how not to be an idiot on the internet’ starting now”. her stream screen consists of pinks, purples, and soft blues with the appearance of a windows 98 set up. her facecam sits inside a paint window, with the game in a small notepad window in the upper right-hand corner, and her chat in a slightly larger notepad window stretched across the lower and mid righthand side of the screen. her pink headset with attached cat ears and pink-purple neons lining the floor behind her reinforce the colour scheme. her camera has been angled to include a large grey totoro plush (from the 1988 film my neighbor totoro). her microphone reaches in from the right, sitting in frame. ‘if you need rules on the internet,’ amber speaks over an audio clip of the curb your enthusiasm end credits, ‘chances are you probably shouldn’t be on the internet at all. number one to number ten is “don’t be a fucking idiot”.’ the stream cuts to black on the word ‘fucking’. the curb your enthusiasm credits roll for nearly fifteen seconds. ‘holy shit...i’m in a mood. i’m in a mood today.’ in chat, someone expresses the belief that anyone should be able to say anything without restriction, amber immediately responds ‘nope. i think that there are fucking restrictions. i think jackson 74 that you should most definitely, absolutely have restrictions,’ she begins using her fingers to count the following as entries on a list. ‘if it’s harmful, if it’s hateful, and if it’s not helpful, don’t fucking say it. absolutely don’t say it. absolutely don’t say it.’ as this comes to an end, she triggers another audiovisual clip meant to emulate the ‘confused math lady’ meme. though typically an image-based meme used to connote confusion (sometimes ironically), amber has added the sound cue of a dial-up tone while mathematical text and images float in front of her face. as the conversation moves on a few chat members support her comments. they say that it’s her stream and she can restrict whatever she wants. but they’ve missed the point. ‘it goes beyond the stream. we’ve gotta stop doing this to people who are in public eyes. “he was comparing your hair”,’ she reads a comment, ‘yeah but this is the thing though, out of everyone he chose, he chose [to compare me to] weird al yankovic, who is not the necessarily the most attractive looking male i’ve ever seen in my life, and he didn’t say “hey, your hair is giving me weird al yankovic vibes”, he was most certainly talking about my whole physical appearance, and if you think i’m wrong...’ the math lady meme has been playing for the second half of this. as it continues, she pulls her microphone close to her mouth. ‘i have some fuckin’ news for you: you’re absolutely wrong. you’re absolutely wrong. do you want to know how i know this? i’m a woman, and i have suffered through years and years of males telling me things and thinking that it’s appropriate, and it most certainly is fucking not. alright.’ ‘just don’t do it. stop comparing people to people, it’s weird,’ after reading a few comments. a new beat, and amber is dancing in her chair and speaking quite quickly. the stream feels upbeat, but amber doesn’t call upon any memes to make her point. ‘i, honestly, at this point, i just...i love creating content, but here’s the thing,’ she moves the backs of her hands together and takes a deep breath, interrupts herself reading some comments, and finally says ‘i’m a very strong individual, and i’m like my tolerance level my tolerance level is like -’ she brings her index finger and thumb together, signifying her dwindling tolerance. ‘ever so thin at the moment with social medias.’ * * * amber4 became a twitch partner following a series of viral tweets in 2019. these tweets consisted of short stream clips, within which she would confront misogynistic messages from viewers, including questions like ‘are you straight? bi? single?’ or fetishistic requests to show her feet for donations. the popularity of these clips stemmed from her use of memes and generally humorous approach towards calling out the behaviour. her relationship with memes extends to producing merchandise proclaiming herself as ‘a meme queen’, and this appears primarily through carefully selected audiovisual clips that amber manually triggers in response to stream events, including in-game occurrence and messages from viewers. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 75 figure 2. a typical layout of a ‘just chatting’ segment of amber’s stream (2019). through these two case studies, it becomes clear how deeply intertwined streaming personas and memetic media can be. the case studies reveal how shared stream culture and associated social practices facilitated by memes contribute towards the sociality that encourages continued stream participation. from this active participation emerges the collective persona, giving streaming personas themselves a memetic quality. subsequently, questions of agency within streams arise. streaming personas are negotiations of streamer and spectator agencies, although the balance between the two is not fixed. while the streamer appears to maintain control, their memetic offers must be accepted by other members of the collective in order to maintain their audience. this paper is structured around a discussion of this fluid collective agency, beginning by separately examining moments when spectator agency is prioritised and then when streamer agency is prioritised. the final two sections emphasise the truly collective nature of streams by focusing on instances when agency is more balanced, by explicitly considering the significance of video games and temporality to memetic practices. memesis in the previous section, i described moments from ray’s and amber’s streams that may seem unrelated at first. however, these moments resonated with each streamer’s audience for a reason deeper than a call to memes. memes simultaneously become signals of the streamer’s digital literacy and the values associated with the streaming persona. these memetic moments are simultaneously serendipitous and planned-for, unique and repeated. this ambivalence motivates my definition of the term memesis, a term designed to capture the unique aspects of identity formation and sociality performances arising from the use of memes. memes are loaded with meaning and values, and when called upon, these blend with the context under which the meme appears to create new meanings. in livestreams this process – memesis – is rendered visible, as the liveness and interactive nature of twitch streams deny the time required to create new memetic media. further, the text-based chat (where links are often jackson 76 prohibited) discourages common meme formats. thus, memes propagate differently within livestreams to other settings. any prepared content, like alerts or emotes, must be versatile enough to maintain relevance in a variety of scenarios. by focusing on the subsequently visible process of selecting and employing particular memes, i use memesis to decentre the meme as a product. this also serves to highlight memes’ social functions as virtual signals of social capital, and contributors towards collective identity and values. a portmanteau of ‘meme’ and ‘mimesis’, memesis is the act of creating something memetic. the conceptual and linguistic relationship here begins with the birth of the word “meme”, which dawkins derived from “mimeme” (2006, p. 192). in the context of internet memes, shifman emphasises memes as mimetic through the memetic practice of remixing (2014, p. 22). memes are “concrete speech acts” (nissenbaum and shifman 2017, p.498), and therefore their creation is a performative act. as such, i coin memesis here to name the performativity engaged by drawing upon existing memes in order to create new memetic media, either through new manifestations of existing memes or entirely new memes. figure 3. a collection of ray’s twitch emotes.5 through the remainder of this paper, i demonstrate how memesis operates through ray’s and amber’s streaming practices. these streamers have been chosen as illustrative examples of practices that occur across the platform, and this paper acts as an introduction to a persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 77 wider conceptual project. in this section, i examine memesis as it defines ray’s and amber’s streaming personas and the associated collective identities, as well as how memes function as generators of social capital within their collectives. in both cases, i refer to memesis within livestreams as a two-step process – preparation and execution – and compare how it shifts in nature based on whether either streamer or spectator agency is prioritised. the execution can be enacted by either the streamer or spectators, and while most streams – including ray’s and amber’s – see a combination of both, the discussion that follows highlights the contrasting dynamics underpinning memesis in this second stage. ray and memesis performed by spectators one of the core tenets of the production of memetic media is the potential for many people to engage with and produce their iterations of a meme. memesis that spectators perform prioritises spectator agency over streamer agency. this type of memesis is prominent in ray’s streams and is most clear when he makes a memetic offer in response to a stream or game occurrence, which is taken up by chat members. in terms of the two steps of memesis, preparation is performed by the streamer, but execution is in the hands of the collective audience. this social acceptance is an essential component of memetic diffusion (spitzberg 2014), and feeds into memes as social capital. in the occurrence described earlier in this paper, ray responds to the in-game appearance of a train by pulling out and blowing on a wooden train whistle (figure 3). while he uses this whistle when trains appear in games, its primary use is when the sub train5 becomes large. not only is the sub train a memetic stream feature, being incorporated into many popular streams, but trains are also associated with the ‘hype train’ meme – a phrase for collective anticipation and excitement. so, when ray blows on this whistle, he makes a memetic offer, which is accepted by the collective when they respond with browntrains (figure 3) in chat. this chat reaction becomes an indication of collective hype. given that subscriptions require payment (of at least us$5) and browntrain is an emote accessible only to ray’s subscribers, the hype is simultaneously a celebration of collective growth and ray’s economic success on the platform, as well as the contribution of his viewers to that success. the sub train becomes a cooperative effort where viewers time their subscriptions to keep the train going for as long as possible. consequently, a strengthened sense of community is facilitated by the streaming persona and expressed through that persona using the browntrain emote. the emote becomes a signal of collective membership and a memetic expression of the streaming persona. the ever-present timer on ray’s stream capitalises twitch’s liveness, which is already tied closely to the economics of the platform (johnson and woodcock 2019; partin 2019). going a step further, in 2020 twitch introduced a feature called the hype train undoubtedly named memetically. upon receipt of a variable number of bits6 and subscriptions within a particular timeframe, the hype train begins. viewers ‘build hype’ by donating and subscribing while a timer ticks down. despite demonstrating disdain for hype trains (referring to them as ‘scam trains’), ray has crafted a specific overlay for hype trains. this overlay includes vengaboys’ “we like to party!” on loop and a cartoon graphic of ray and his wife riding a train across the screen. memesis here again links the economics of the platform to performances of persona as members of the collective collaborate to trigger and maximise the hype train. the choices that ray makes in how he performs the hype train are important, considering ‘scam train’ discourse. to fully engage in a practice transparently designed to control users’ spending patterns without acknowledging his own complicity would be in poor taste. however, the exaggerated over-commitment reads as a memetic parody, which generates jackson 78 social capital. hype trains explicitly raise questions around financially gatekeeping participation and elicit a sense of how users perform in exchange for capital, and how memes relate to social and economic capital. another meme-theme that has become part of ray’s streaming persona, and that will be revisited in more detail, involves weed. one of ray’s emotes, brownblaze (figure 3), depicts ray pretending to smoke a joint the pretence being central to ray’s engagement with weed memes, which originated from the claim that it was something he would never do. memes are dually concrete speech acts and vernacular (nissenbaum and shifman 2017) and emotes echo this social function. gestural emotes like brownblaze are virtual speech acts, allowing subscribers to participate by virtually performing the gesture in response to other weed memes appearing within ray’s stream. when streamers bring memes into the live(streamed) setting of twitch, and they are taken up by the collective viewership, the memes become part of the streaming persona expressible by both the streamer and the viewers. the streaming persona operates as a negotiation between streamer and spectator agencies. this is, in part, inherited from that same negotiation that occurs through memesis. thus, the streaming persona becomes a product of collective agency. in fact, scully-blaker et al. (2017) observe this tendency when they identify twitch as a site of “tandem play” (p. 2026) between the streamer and spectators. by merely being, the audience contributes to the stream, and as spectators become more active, this impact becomes greater. through memesis, the streamer and the collective work in tandem to produce a memetic streaming persona, as is the case with ray and his use of trains and weed. amber and memesis led by the streamer amber exemplified streamer-led memesis by focusing heavily upon a range of memetic overlays. many of these overlays are mobilised to promote desirable values among the stream collective by addressing and correcting undesirable behaviour. in this way, amber’s memesis operates as an instructive tool for moderation that ultimately leads to a self-moderating collective. she employs new memes and existing memes, some of which occur uniquely in response to messages from members of chat, while others are employed in response to game occurrences or things that she says herself. memes punctuate amber’s stream, producing a persona that resists hegemonic masculinity and misogyny on the platform (and within game culture more generally), whilst also performing femininity in ways that operate both within and against stereotypical models of gender performance. the moment presented in this paper’s methodology is one of many instances of amber’s integration of memesis into her streaming practice. amber has used memes to respond to viewers questioning her sexuality and relationship status and to men warning her that she ought to start a family before her eggs ‘dry up’. these moments share memesis as moderation and collective value setting. the general strategy of education as moderation is effective (cai and wohn 2019), with reactive bans being short-term deterrents (seering et al. 2017). through an education-first approach, amber allows offenders to amend their behaviour before she removes them, in the process creating entertaining content out of breaches and building social capital among viewers through a willingness to give second chances. there is an ambivalence surrounding the boundary work that amber’s overlays perform. namely, the undesirable behaviour must continue to provide stimulus for the memetic performances that discourage it. in other words, the boundary work itself is visible only because the undesirable behaviour that it explicitly rejects persists. on the other hand, since amber maintains control over the preparation and the execution steps of memesis, her agency is persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 79 prioritised, and she can opt to attend to whichever comments she chooses. looking again at the introductory example, chat comments both supported amber and contradicted her. this marks an important separation between ray and amber, as in amber’s stream the values of the collective (and streaming persona) are being demarcated both through the roles of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ within the collective. in the introductory example, amber uses two of her memetic overlays. the first involves about ten seconds of the curb your enthusiasm theme song, after which the screen cuts from her facecam to the credits of the show. this meme trades on the show’s awkward tone to emphasise similarly awkward or cringe-worthy moments. she uses this overlay to address cringe-worthy comments from viewers, as well as particularly bad failures in games. the second is a manifestation of the confused math lady meme (usually a reaction meme of a woman surrounded by mathematical text used to convey confusion) and amber has created a live version of this meme with mathematical text moving over a close-up (figure 4). these manifestations are strongly rooted in the referent meme, clearly communicating amber’s intended tone when memesis is performed. what is particularly striking about amber’s use of these memes is how they have become part of her stream vernacular. she integrates them seamlessly into the stream, and they become part of her persona. however, she is also selective about their use. they punctuate the stream, providing a rhythm for viewers to follow. when she finds a point that she wants to hit home, amber speaks without drawing upon these memes. removing the intertextuality of memes, as well as their function as punctuation that increases the pace of the stream, creates the impression of more direct and meaningful streamer-spectator communication. this happens at the end of my example introducing amber, where the lack of memesis implies greater authenticity. not only does the use of memes inform the streamer-collective relationship, but the lack thereof also bears significance. in her work on race and digital gaming spaces, kishonna l. gray has identified that the mere presence of people of colour in these spaces is read as an act of deviance in the face of their hegemonic whiteness (gray 2014, 2017). this deviant status can be extended to anyone falling outside of the default (white and male) user category in online gaming spaces (chess 2017; taylor 2018). in this case, amber’s status as a woman immediately categorises her as deviant, and she is doubly so when she explicitly mobilises memes to reject the platform’s hegemonic masculinity. this use of memes as stream vernacular is also significant as it relates to the distribution of social capital within the livestreaming format more broadly. although the preparation stage of memesis occurs asynchronously, the execution must be synchronous. this separates the mode from others such as youtube videos, or posts on platforms like twitter and instagram. there is an improvisational quality to memesis within livestreams, and so a streamer must be sensitive towards what resonates with their audience and what does not. while most viewers are unlikely to notice an occasional memetic misfire – accidentally triggering the wrong audiovisual overlay can receive a positive response – a pattern can damage the social capital that successful memesis has accrued. another example of amber’s memesis demonstrating her deviance is her use of ‘simping’. simping, one of many examples of misogyny on the internet, is a pejorative term describing a man (simp) going out of his way to accommodate the (emotional) needs of women purely for the sake of sex or a relationship. amber has co-opted the term, maintaining the core meaning but altering the connotations. she uses the term positively as a way of sharing platonic love and admiration. this represents her work as a streamer, albeit on a smaller scale: she identifies problematic terms and gestures, and attempts to reframe them more positively. here, jackson 80 this means changing the diminutive interpretation of simping to an uplifting one. as of december 2020, twitch has banned the word “simp”, however amber’s subversive approach still bears significance to the culture of the platform. by prioritising her agency in the execution of memesis like this, amber can explicitly perform her persona and produce an associated collective that rejects the dominant (cis-hetero white male) values of the platform. figure 4. an example of the confused lady (top) and a screenshot of amber’s variation (bottom). memesis and video games with the strong focus on video game livestreaming on twitch, videogame play is deeply embedded in the persona of the streamer and the associated collective identity. during play, memesis occurs both when memes are integrated into game play and when they emerge from game content, both reflecting and contributing towards the streaming persona. as the game provides stimulus external to all users, memesis here allows both streamer and spectators to enact their agency at different times. w33dgod (pronounced weedgod) is a recurring avatar of ray’s that demonstrates how the integration of weed memes into his persona has sprouted new memes. in january 2016, ray played pokémon red version (1996) on stream. as part of this game, the player collects a team of pokémon to accompany them along their journey. when ray caught the plant pokémon vileplume, he nicknamed it ‘weedgod!!!’ as recommended by a member of the chat. two months later, when creating his customisable character in stardew valley, ray named him ‘w33dgod!!!’ and ended up with a template for w33dgod: a green afro, sunglasses, a tuxedo top, and red pants. these elements culminate in a unique memetic expression of ray’s persona. the visual dissonance signifies ray’s sense of humour, and the green hair and name allude to persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 81 weed memes. the tuxedo is a throwback to an avatar he used in minecraft videos with achievement hunter, and the red pants are based on a pair that he physically owns (as he states when first creating the character). this meme is a communication tool intrinsically bound to ray and as it spreads, so does his persona. this character has since appeared in many different games ray has played (figure 5) and has spread beyond twitch. ray’s fans have produced w33dgod fanart, an example of memetic diffusion (figure 6). through this fanart, ray’s followers signal their identification with ray’s streaming persona and collective. figure 5. appearances of w33dgod in pokémon red version (2016), stardew valley (2016), dream daddy (2017), and south park: the stick of truth (2016). figure 6. fanmade appearances of w33dgod on deviantart8 and twitter9 jackson 82 while ray has created a new meme, amber has integrated existing memes from her stream into her playthrough of animal crossing: new horizons (2020). in this game, the player is tasked with inhabiting a deserted island, eventually developing it into a bustling neighbourhood. it is highly customisable, and amber has regularly enacted memesis through the choices that she made. she named her island ‘simptopia’, a haven for simps under her alternative connotations of the term. further, when tasked with creating an island tune an eight-beat sound clip that plays when speaking to villagers she recreated the curb your enthusiasm theme by ear (figure 7). by incorporating these elements of her streaming persona into her play, the gameplay becomes a more collective experience, even if just one person is playing. simping made another appearance in amber’s stream when she played among us (2018) with viewers. the game’s premise is straightforward: players are crewmates on a (space)ship and must move around the ship performing simple tasks to keep it running. a designated number of players are randomly chosen to be imposters who kill crewmates. once a body is found, the players have a conversation to deduce who is an imposter. a vote then takes place, and if one person is voted for by the majority, they are ejected into the vacuum of space. during one round, a viewer followed amber around the ship. this spooked her, so she called an emergency meeting and had the rest of the crew vote this person off the ship. it turned out that this player was not an imposter, and so amber apologised profusely to them, saying that they were ‘just simping’. memesis is naturally incorporated into amber’s streaming persona and it strengthens the streamer-spectator bond. however, this instance unveils a potential issue with this kind of memesis. if a viewer was not familiar with the recontextualisation of the term within this collective, the reading of this moment would shift substantially. under this alternate reading, the joke’s subject goes from amber’s misreading of the viewer’s play to this viewer’s ‘simp’ status. this indicates that the collective identity is also defined by familiarity with the streaming persona, and fluency in the stream vernacular. figure 7. amber finalising her island theme in animal crossing: new horizons (2020). persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 83 memetic histories as seen from the array of examples of memes used by amber and ray, memesis is highly influential in the creation and evolution of collective identity on twitch. some of the memes in this paper have been consistently present for a year or longer, others see fewer references, and others have disappeared entirely from the consciousness of the stream collective from which they emerged. this temporality echoes the general behaviour of internet memes, varying drastically from the longevity associated with dawkins’ original conception (2006). this leads to the concept of memetic history. the memetic history of a stream is the history of memesis within an individual stream collective’s memory. this became significant to me when i was present for a reference to a joke that appeared in a couple of streams months earlier. i understood the joke because not only had i been present for its initial telling in the stream, but also witnessed its retelling in subsequent streams. my membership to that stream collective felt solidified by that sense of shared history between myself and the other members who shared in the joke. the notion of memetic history adds an important temporal layer to memesis as a method of active participation and collective identity. it suggests that intensities of viewing and membership duration contribute to a connectedness within the collective. twitch viewers that engage more frequently and over a longer period develop a richer sense of the values at the community’s core. conversely, this complicates the nature of stream collectives, as it can often mean that any period of absence creates a disconnect between viewer and collective. examining a streamer’s memetic history can give a sense of the trajectory of the streaming persona identifying how it has evolved and how this evolution is a product of interactions between members of the collective. by looking beyond the memes that appear within streams to their longevity within the collective, the streaming persona’s characterisation emerges. for instance, amber’s memetic history suggests a collective centred on her identity as a female streamer, as well as an overarching feminist agenda that supports women’s right to exist on the internet without harassment or sexualisation. on the other hand, ray’s memesis tends to emerge through game content. there is a level of serendipity to memesis through gameplay, which creates a higher turnover and echoes ray’s content as a variety streamer. this contrasts with his more constant memes such as w33dgod and his alerts. these produce a fixed core identity, anchoring an otherwise fluid streaming persona. memetic histories also elicit a rhythm of change if this fluidity is traced over time. for example, following a viewing of bee movie (2007), amber latched on to the memetic phrase “do you like jazz?”, used by the bee protagonist as a hypothetical ice breaker. she integrated this into stream titles and spoke the line during streams. this memesis became most apparent during an overhaul of her twitch alerts in early 2020, replacing several alerts with audio clips from or related to the movie. the relationship between amber’s stream collective and memesis is challenged here, as although she prepares the alerts, members of the collective are required to initiate them. however, this has significantly contributed to the collective identity of the stream through its multiplicity and the ability for all members to control its appearance. in august 2020, amber changed these alerts for the third time that year, moving from bee movie (2007) to finding nemo (2003), and then to monsters inc (2001). when she launched the newest alerts, she emphasised that she was always looking for alerts that everyone could participate in – usually through a single-word message like ‘bees’ – but would also continue to rotate them to keep things fresh. in this way, amber has initiated a transition from memesis solely initiated by the streamer to a combination of both streamerand spectator-initiated memesis tied to the same source material. it has also created a cycle that demarcates periods in the memetic history jackson 84 of the stream. ultimately, memetic histories emphasise the experimental and ever-changing nature of the internet. content creators are caught in the paradox of keeping their work fresh whilst maintaining the core elements that have drawn their audience to them. some experiments fail, social capital is lost, and the collective identity is destabilised. others succeed, accruing social capital, and solidifying the collective identity. conclusion in this paper, i have examined how memes are mobilised on the livestreaming platform twitch to facilitate the construction and performance of a curated streaming persona and the associated collective identity. through my concept of memesis and a close analysis of two case studies, i have developed a framework for this examination tied to negotiations of user agencies, the video game in question, and the notion of memetic history. my analysis draws out how livestream spectators connect through memetic media, a central facet of contemporary digital culture. i found that memes provide excellent avenues for decentring the streamer and thus allowing active participation from spectators. at the same time, memes can also operate as tools for moderation and expressions of collective values. although a novel concept, memesis and the associated digital identity construction provide insights into livestreaming and internet culture more broadly. i have demonstrated how livestreaming’s unique features render memesis visible, however memesis occurs whenever memes are created. as a cultural process, memesis can be mobilised to understand how values are purposefully spread through memes online. further, it provides insights into how internet users understand themselves in relation to others that they share virtual space with. other forms of digital persona, such as micro-celebrity and influencer culture, can be understood through this lens. in the broader context of game studies, memesis can be carried over to asynchronous modes of game-centric sociality. examinations of memes embedded into recorded gameplay videos (on for example youtube), or shared through virtual community settings like discord, would benefit from an analysis through memesis. while discussed here through twitch, the trifold link between memes, collective identity, and digital persona is everpresent, and this paper is one step towards better understanding this arrangement. end notes 1. other definitions do exist, for example https://digicult.it/internet/memesiscommunity-and-self-definition-in-the-age-of-memes/#_ftn1, however these have not gained much traction. 2. https://www.twitch.tv/raynarvaezjr 3. https://www.youtube.com/user/achievementhunter 4. https://www.twitch.tv/paladinamber 5. current as of march 2019. image from https://twitchemotes.com/channels/85875635 6. the number of consecutive subscriptions within five minutes of each other. 7. twitch currency used for donating. 8. 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and identity method raynarvaerjr paladinamber memesis ray and memesis performed by spectators amber and memesis led by the streamer memesis and video games memetic histories conclusion end notes acknowledgements works cited toniolo 54 evolution of the youtube personas related to survival horror games fra nce sc o toni ol o c a t h o l i c u n i v e r s i t y o f m i l a n abstract the indie survival horror game genre has given rise to some of the most famous game streamers on youtube, especially titles likes amnesia: the dark descent (frictional games 2010), slender: the eight pages (parsec productions 2012), and five nights at freddy’s (scott cawthon 2014). the games are strongly focused on horror tropes including jump scares and defenceless protagonists, which lend them to displays of overemphasised emotional reactions by youtubers, who use them to build their online personas in a certain way. this paper retraces the evolution of the relationship between horror games and youtube personas, with attention to in-game characters and gameplay mechanics on the one hand and the practices of prominent youtube personas on the other. it will show how the horror game genre and related media, including “let’s play” videos, animated fanvids, and “creepypasta” stories have influenced prominent youtuber personas and resulted in some changes in the common processes of persona formation on the platform. key words survival horror; video game; youtube; creepypasta; fanvid; let’s play introduction marshall & barbour (2015, p. 7) argue that “game culture consciously moves the individual into a zone of production and constitution of public identity”. similarly, scholars have studied – with different foci and levels of analysis – the relationships between gamers and avatars in digital worlds or in tabletop games by using the concept of “persona” (mcmahan 2003; waskul & lust 2004; isbister 2006; frank 2012). often, these scholars were concerned with online video games such as world of warcraft (filiciak 2003; milik 2017) or famous video game icons like lara croft from the tomb raider series (mcmahan 2008). the list can be extended by including those scholars who have studied similar issues yet without relying on the concept of persona (such as nephew 2006; lebowitz & klug 2011; burn 2013; papale and fazio 2018). with some exceptions (such as milik 2017; werning 2017), the notion of persona appears vague (zagal and deterding 2018), due to the complexity of its conceptual origin (marshall et al. 2019). moreover, the relationship between youtubers or streamers and video games has been sometimes analysed in performative terms (glas 2015; newman 2016; nguyen 2016; burwell and miller 2016) or included into broader analyses of online personas and micro-celebrities (cocker and cronin 2017). nonetheless, ample space is still available for investigating the construction of youtubers’ and streamers’ personas in relation to the video games they play. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 55 even the most followed youtubers remain micro-celebrities with micro-publics: personas can tap into a potentially massive audience and can feature tens, hundreds, thousands and even millions of individual followers, who are all nodes in a massively personal network. micro-publics are micro, not in terms of scale, but with regards to the nature of the network that is regularly and privately updated by a central identity. (moore et al. 2017) micro-celebrities are still celebrities, and an important object of analysis for studies about personas: …how we read celebrity from the position of persona studies is that celebrity represents a powerfully visible exemplification of persona: celebrities are public presentations of the self and they inhabit the active negotiation of the individual defined and reconfigured as social phenomenon. (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 9) gaming youtubers are among the most followed micro-celebrities on the platform and, therefore, it is useful to study the evolution of their online personas with particular attention to the evolution of their personas’ narrations (holler and klepper 2013) diachronically and in three different types of youtube video categories: the “let’s play”, animated fanvids, and “creepypastas”. these types of videos, which feature survival horror games, show different connections between gameplay, in-game avatars, and youtuber’s persona narration. the diachronic approach employed in this article allows us to see how the perception of authenticity has changed over time: “as emerging genres develop enough to have their own norms, tropes, and dedicated followers who become ‘genre experts,’ some kinds of posts become so familiar that they appear unoriginal or inauthentic” (mcrae 2017, p. 14). by drawing research into the evolutionary history of youtube, the article examines how popular youtube personas became linked to horror video games and the survival subgenre in particular. as rune klevjer (2006) pointed out, in video game studies there has been a clear disconnection between investigations of video games in general and studies on specific games genres. almost fifteen years later, the quantitative disparity is still clearly present although the situation appears to be much more multifaceted. however, when reporting the described lack of studies on video game genres, klevjer indicated horror as an exception. bernard perron's works on horror games, still embryonic at the time (perron 2005), contributed to the expansion of the topic (perron 2009, 2018) and was accompanied by studies including ewan kirkland (2009, 2010, 2011) and tanya krzwinska (2009 and 2013). there is a wider tradition of video game studies on horror than on other genres, therefore it is easier to retrace how changes in this tradition have influenced youtuber persona narration by observing how the analysis of survival horror streaming and related media has developed over time. the research phase behind this work followed the principles put forward by pertti alasuutari (1995, p.165) concerning the need to observe a phenomenon as a whole, from different angles and perspectives, without dwelling on what is considered useful a priori only. with regard to the more ethnographic components of the research, the general recommendations of hine (2000) were taken into account as well. a qualitative approach was adopted, based on moderate participatory observation (dewalt & dewalt 2010). such observation, however, was conducted on a group that was sufficiently extensive and varied to provide an exhaustive image of the phenomenon. the videos were collected and viewed from the beginning of 2016 to april 2018: notes of varying lengths were taken on almost 2200 (precisely 2173) of these videos. around that number, a point of data saturation and theoretical toniolo 56 saturation was reached (fusch & ness 2015; saunders et al. 2018): further videos would not have opened new research perspectives, nor would it have added significant elements to perspectives already identified. in the case of live streaming, since most often performances were impossible to follow live, they were retrieved later when available. however, an attempt was made, at least for short periods, to follow that daily or periodic ritualism offered by certain channels, which influence the temporality of the viewers (newman 2016, p.286). the results are presented through a sampling methodology, divided into three main time periods. the first one, spanning from the birth of the platform (2006) to 2009, constitutes the embryonic stage of gaming on youtube that was not fully developed and the first systematic studies dedicated to this platform (burgess & green 2009) hardly mention it. a second phase, between 2010 and approximately 2014, witnesses the establishment of many well-known youtuber gamer personas and the systematisation of the various types of horror genre content. finally, the third phase features a process of naturalisation and institutionalisation, in addition to the growth of streaming practices, especially alongside twitch.tv, which in some cases replaces youtube. in this article, this diachronic partition constitutes the starting point and remains as a common thread but is not explicit in the subdivision of the remainder of the article. instead, the structure of the following looks instead to the three categories of horror game related content, including let’s plays, animated fanvids, and creepypastas. for the emotional description of the youtuber persona’s reactions, the emotion categories of chen et al. (2017) were adopted as a general basis for analysis and were combined with more theoretical and video game based approaches (isbister 2016). survival horror “let’s play” videos in the years immediately preceding the success of the youtube platform, horror video games witnessed a progressive turn towards action, especially in western productions (pruett 2012). despite abandoning the action component, these video games obtained a great success and became a constant presence on youtube. three of the most famous are amnesia: the dark descent (frictional games 2010), slender: the eight pages (parsec productions 2012) and five nights at freddy’s (scott cawthon 2014). these games were released in a period of growth of gaming on the youtube platform, and several youtubers achieved notoriety thanks to one or more of them. amnesia: the dark descent, in particular, is closely linked to the career of pewdiepie (smith et al. 2013), markiplier, and favij (one of the most famous italian youtubers; for the gaming scene of youtube in italy see toniolo 2020). amnesia: the dark descent is not the first survival horror created by frictional games, as it follows the trilogy penumbra: overture (frictional games 2007), penumbra: black plague (frictional games 2008), and penumbra: requiem (frictional games 2009). during the penumbra trilogy release period, gaming on youtube was still at an embryonic stage. channels specifically dedicated to “let’s play” were emerging and videos on the topic were growing. nevertheless, critical mass had not yet been reached, and the platform was dominated by other types of videos, such as vlogging (burgess & green 2009). a diachronic retrospective of the videos related to penumbra shows hints of the change that would come shortly afterwards with amnesia: the dark descent. in addition to trailers, in 2007 some videos belonging to the "how to" category (such as jazzkomp 2007 and kpiqa 2007) appeared, alongside videos of trolling (kirmiz 2007) and short videos on certain parts of the game (such as l3ks1 2007 and altraum 2007). apart from a low visual quality, what can be detected immediately is a complete absence of vocal commentaries: whenever the youtuber inserted thoughts and opinions, these were in the form of superimposed words or text boxes. two years later, the situation was already very different and videos from 2009 related not only to the two subsequent chapters of the saga but persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 57 also to the first penumbra are much more numerous and differentiated. there still were short videos aimed at showing specific elements (such as easter eggs), accompanied by episodic gameplay with an audio commentary by the youtuber horror game personas including thescarlettears 2009, coldtrix8 2009, and helloween4545 2009. these first vocal commentaries sound more surprised than frightened, repeating sentences like “what the hell is that?”, in a puzzled tone of voice when monsters appear. however, in other videos, comments remained textual or absent (such as captain perfect 2009). however, the majority of gameplay videos dedicated to penumbra followed the release of amnesia: the dark descent. markiplier's 2012 gameplay video, for example, features a more energetic and varied audio commentary, in which the youtuber reacts to the first appearance of the monster in a defiant tone of voice (2012a), then keeps screaming in a frightened way while the monster chases him (2012b). in a gameplay video from the following year, the youtuber favijtv (2013), showed his live reactions in the corner of the screen via webcam. at the beginning of the video, favij said that he already knew the initial part of penumbra: black plague, because the previous year he had played it on another channel (nikybox 2012, in which his reactions were not visible) to start his series “giochi nel buio” (games in the dark). therefore, he said that he expected not to experience “exaggeratedly incredible heart attacks during this first episode” (favijtv 2013, minute 1:42). at the monster’s first appearance, he has a moderate reaction, and he says he did not remember that moment. however, at the second appearance, despite being prepared, he begins to cry out. comparing this performance with his previous gameplay of the same game (nikybox 2012), his reactions are louder and more blatant. it can also be noted that, in line with the most frequent curses of italian youtubers (kurpiel 2016), he often uses the expression “cazzo!” and other forms of swearing (fägersten 2017). literally, “cazzo” is a swear word for “penis”, but it can also be used similarly to the english “fuck!”. following another recurrent practice (kurpiel 2017), he also assigns a nickname to the monster, calling it “piff”. as this example shows, reactions to horror video games tend to be increasingly spectacularised over time. horror genre youtuber personas look for the most frightening video games and record their first playthrough on video to capture what they call “natural” reactions. amnesia: the dark descent, which helped the development of this horror desire on youtube, is part of this evolutionary phase. as the game’s creators pointed out, the relationship between youtube and amnesia: the dark descent has been particularly beneficial for both sides: not only did the game contribute to the birth of many successful youtubers and increase its sales thanks to them, but also contributed to the evolution of the survival horror genre and the “let’s play” video format: “i think amnesia got a lot of free pr because of “let’s play” videos, but i also think that amnesia opened people to a new style of ‘let's play,’” frictional games creative director thomas grip told me. “normally, games are very skillbased. you need to be concentrated and play a certain way to play ‘properly.’ but with horror games, the aim is not to win, but rather to get immersed. that gives a lot more space for ‘let's players’ to put on a show, either by being very scared or just fooling about. on top of that it is really fun to see someone scared for some reason. (maiberg 2015; see also suvilay 2018:88 for the focus on narrative immersive elements in amnesia: the dark descent). and: speaking to vice gaming in october 2014, the dark descent’s creative director, thomas grip, explained that there’s ‘a lot to be done in making horror more personal and thought-provoking’, and that ‘a game could be toniolo 58 terrifying with a bare minimum of features’. and that’s something indies have been doing while the more publicized, more predictable alternatives take their turns at being the open-world game of the moment: maximizing impact while maintaining modest budgets, development mirroring the gameplay of survival-horror games themselves in using few resources but delivering chills aplenty. […] the popularity of horror in the indie-games field owes much to youtube, to gamers posting footage of themselves getting terrified in the company of these low-budget, one dare say more intimate experiences the first-person perspective certainly encourages a deeper bond between player and protagonist. (diver 2016, pp. 56-57) other commentators, however, would see this fruitful relationship between youtuber and horror video games as harmful for the genre: everyone and their mother wanted to craft a masterful horror game that would catch the attention of the likes of pewdiepie or markiplier (and possibly get them rich in the process!). this led to the quality of these games deteriorating rapidly as desperation and saturation set in, coupled with the fact that these designers knew nothing about horror game design except that “jumpscares get views on youtube, and views on youtube get me popular!” it became rare to see horror games that were genuinely well-crafted and gave you an unsettling feeling that something was wrong. (mathur 2016) a few years after amnesia: the dark descent, another horror video game had a strong impact on the youtubers’ performances, five nights at freddy’s (scott cawthon, 2014). this video game was born practically by chance from the encounter between a video game for children and a youtuber, and, thanks to youtube, spread very quickly. in may 2014, the critic and youtuber jim sterling published a video in which he analysed the trailer for chipper & sons lumber co. (scott cawthon 2013), a children’s video game starring a beaver. sterling (2014) harshly criticised the character design, which appeared uncanny and disturbing instead of being cute and attractive. in the beginning, apart from this video, nobody paid much attention to this video game. however, in the august of the same year, scott cawthon published five nights at freddy’s. the video game, which obtained a wide and immediate success, presented some frightening animatronics as enemies. these iconic figures constitute one of the most interesting elements of the video game, thanks to the youtubers' reactions to the unexpected assaults of the creatures. in an interview, when asked about the origin of these scary animatronics, scott cawthon answered: i’d made a family friendly game about a beaver before this, but when i tried to put it online it got torn apart by a few prominent reviewers. people said that the main character looked like a scary animatronic animal. i was heartbroken and was ready to give up on game-making. then one night something just snapped in me, and i thought to myselfi bet i can make something a lot scarier than that. (couture 2014) from the beginning, five nights at freddy's “let’s play” videos gained a large number of views. markiplier’s first gameplay dedicated to this video game (markiplier 2014) was published just four days after the release of the first version of five nights at freddy’s on august 12th, 2014. in his gameplay “he screams 94 times in a 17-minute-long video, not articulating words properly, and he often gets perplexed, verbalizing 10 no's [sic] in a row, when most startled” (pietruszka 2016:64). the youtuber highlights from the title how scary five nights at freddy’s is (“warning: scariest game in years”, all in capital letters). persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 59 pewdiepie's video (2014), published a few days later (on august 22nd), shares several traits with the one by markiplier (including the title in capital letters). during a particular jump scare (at minute 5:20), the youtuber abandons english for a moment and expresses a swedish curse. for a moment he seems to break character, returning to being felix kjellberg, because a few days before he had declared (kjellberg 2014) that his use of english was closely linked to his online persona, pewdiepie. so, the use of swedish appears as a sort of guarantee of the authenticity of his fear. authenticity is particularly important for youtubers because they and other micro-celebrities sometimes struggle to appear authentic in their formats (jerslev 2016; mcrae 2017; cunningham & craig 2017). however, jumpscares become predictable quickly, and at the second or third video on the same game, youtubers tend not to react as much as before, shifting attention to other elements, if possible. in this perspective, five nights at freddy’s does not rely entirely on jumpscares and has proved to be popular in the long run. the game hides several secrets and suggestions about events that have never been fully clarified and are discussed by its fans in articulated theories on the lore. the youtube channel, the game theorist, has made numerous videos in which the mysteries of five nights at freddy’s are analysed and discussed. moreover, the lore of five nights at freddy’s returns in the other two categories presented here: fanvids and creepypastas. the existence of another phenomenon is also noted: some video games directly mention youtubers, either with internal references1 or by referring directly to them on the product description page2. although these direct references are not necessarily much effective, some video games continue to use these kind of elements. animated fanvids between 2006 and 2008, several youtube channels were born that made music videos and animated parodies featuring the characters from resident evil as protagonists: not only the heroes of the saga but also – and sometimes above all – their antagonists. among those first channels was shadowleggy, by an american youtuber and animator. her first videos (shadowleggy 2006, 2007) combined popular songs – such as the english version of dragostea din tei (o-zone 2003) or i’m so excited (the pointers sisters 1982) – and animated drawings depicting resident evil characters performing actions according to the lyrics of the song or simply dancing and singing. the characters followed the joyful atmosphere of the songs, while maintaining their role, at least in part: zombies tore apart the living and heroes shot monsters, but blood could be used to draw hearts on a wall and calls to secret agents were declarations of love. progressively, other content creators emerged who made similar videos, combining characters from resident evil (and sometimes other series, such as silent hill) and popular songs. in some cases, for example, the characters reinterpreted famous disney songs (like in directorben92 2007), in others there were bizarre pairings (like the dutch version of the song barbie girl in jeanetteryokux 2007) or popular memes of that year (shadowleggy 2009). there were also choral videos such as heeminhyman (2008), in which several people animated different parts of a story in which leon kennedy from resident evil was the protagonist of “weird al” yankovic’s song albuquerque (1999). resident evil was an established series long before the creation of youtube. however, many of the most successful horror video games of the following years – like those mentioned above – were also used in a similar way by some youtubers, who also included themselves as characters in their animated videos. the most popular animated videos dedicated to amnesia: the dark descent contain the character of pewdiepie and constitute a sort of expansion of his “let’s play” videos. similar patterns are equally traceable in the period that preceded the rise of toniolo 60 the most successful gamers’ channels. since those years, several creators, such as shadowleggy and directorben92, had been including their drawn alter egos as short cameos in several videos. their videos showed new connections between the characters of a series (like protagonists and antagonists from resident evil), and between those characters and the youtuber’s personas. moreover, unlike “let’s play” players, these content creators neither show themselves nor speak in their videos: it is through the animated versions that they build and perform their online personas on youtube. the relationship between their youtube personas and villains in animated videos seems to have anticipated a trend (of connections with survival horror enemies) that grew later with video games like five nights at freddy’s. the evil animatronics in five nights at freddy’s are numerous, all different in appearance and personality, immediately recognisable and distinguishable from each other, as iconic as many famous cinematic monsters (bycer 2015). their uncanny appearance places them somewhere between scary and friendly, either of which can be easily developed. sexualised versions of animatronics are also easy to find, even on platforms such as youtube or deviantart. this fact, however, seems hardly surprising. several other characters from products for children or teenagers have also been sexualised in online communities, and the animatronics of five nights at freddy's, as robotic animals, are easily linked to “furry” fandom and the erotic aspects of that animal costume play. analysis of “friendly” videos, many of them (animated in two or three dimensions) with millions of views, show animatronics as kind and welcoming (for example typhoon cinema 2015 and furr animations fnaf school of animatronics 2015). in some cases, new formats were born from the idea of a particular channel, which set a standard imitated by others. an example of a new format is the series of videos “my dear friend” (such as blu’s studio 2018; smoke the bear 2018; jaze cinema 2018). many videos tell a story of friendship between an animatronic and a little girl (more rarely a boy), often linked to a temporal element: sometimes, the child finds the animatronic damaged and, remembering the happy days spent together, tries to fix it; in other cases, it is the animatronic who remembers the child and driven by those memories, goes to look for her, bring her a gift or save her from some danger. even when these robots are presented as dangerous, they do not harm the children who have been their friends. similar videos existed prior to the games release, however, their popularity increased over the following four years. returning to “let’s play” players, in many cases they start developing their relationships with the enemies in their “let’s play” videos: they assign nicknames to monsters, talk directly to them (asking them to be good, to go away, to try to be friends) and they perform a series of other in-game actions to familiarise themselves with these opponents. later on, if their interest for one of the video games persists, the youtubers tend to upload other types of content including animations and music videos in which they develop a different relationship with the monsters. for example, youtuber jacksepticeye (2015) confronts a sexy version of the animatronic toy chica, game grumps (2018) appear as characters in doki doki literature club! (team salvato 2017) and pewdiepie (2016) takes a selfie with a dead body in outlast 2 (red barrels 2017). this pattern repeats for many horror video games and games with horror elements, including doki doki literature club! to granny (dvloper, 2017), baldi's basics in education and learning (micah mcgonigal 2018), hello neighbor (dynamic pixels 2017), spooky's jump scare mansion (lag studios 2014), and bendy and the ink machine (themeatly games 2017). persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 61 creepypastas and video games creepypastas are horror-related stories that are spread via the internet and are combined with survival horror video games by youtuber personas in two ways: video games as creepypastas and video games about creepypastas. video games as creepypastas are disturbing stories based on pre-existing video games. a famous example is ben drowned (also known as majora's mask creepypasta), a scary story behind a particular rom cartridge of the legend of zelda: majora's mask (nintendo 2000). the story of this “corrupted” copy was originally posted on 4chan’s /x/ (a message board dedicated to the paranormal) and included links to youtube videos (the first of which is alex hall 2010) to support the claim of truthfulness of the story, and a text about the disturbing repercussions that the game was said to be having on the real life of its player. creepypastas of this kind, including the nes godzilla creepypasta (based on the video game godzilla, monster of monsters, compile 1988) and the slender man case, use different media to provide ‘evidence’ of their authenticity such as screenshots and youtube videos. the youtuber personas that make use of this form of creepypasta are often built using voice-overs that narrate the events in a slow and theatrical manner many youtubers have made videos dedicated to preexisting horror-themed stories, sometimes also translating the original text into other languages. in other cases, the creepypastas appeared directly on youtube. however, many of these stories talk about video games that are not actually playable. playable creepypastas are video games about creepypastas and accompanied by an external narrative. video games about slender man, for example, and other characters such as jeff the killer were created by pre-existing horror stories. slender man is a popular usergenerated internet phenomenon from 2009 when a something awful (2009) user posted two modified images in response to a “create paranormal images” contest. in these black and white images depicting a group of children, a silhouette of a tall, thin, and faceless man had been inserted in the background. the creature, called “slender man”, spread via 4chan’s /x/ and then other sites and platforms (see chess 2012, 2015; freitas and amaro 2016; smith 2017; and peck 2017). these playable creeypastas, such as the slender man video game, are included under the label of “indie games”, which is a type of video game development that is linked to experiential design practices (marshall et al. 2019, p.167-168), which leads to another group of youtube videos. over the years, a large number of youtubers have talked about creepypastas through “let’s play” videos, stories, theories, and crossovers. for example, the first traces of sad satan (anonymous 2015) appeared on youtube in 2015 as a “let’s play” video (in a channel named obscure horror corner), and presented a new way to exploit the potential of gaming videos for creepypastas and horror stories in general (peters 2018). according to the (no longer present) description of the video, this video game would have been downloaded from the deep web via an onion link that was reported there. the video lacks voice-over commentary, and the game is almost incomprehensible. in a first-person view, the player moves along several almost completely dark corridors in which sometimes images appear, including the japanese serial killer tsutomu miyazaki, margaret thatcher, and a statue of lady justice. the musical soundtrack is intermittent, sometimes interrupted by footsteps, and where present, it is made up of repetitive and disturbing sounds, alternating with dialogue played backwards. in a few days, news of the game spread, and the onion link (a deep web url) provided proved to be a fake. a 4chan’s anonymous user posted on /x/ a link to download what he/she defined as the “real sad satan”, different from the one shown on obscure horror corner. however, the “real sad satan” proved to contain gore, child pornography, and malware.3 the obscure horror corner video about sad satan was a silent creepypasta on youtube, which relied on external elements (like its onion link) to build an aura of its own. however, it soon evolved into a more toniolo 62 accessible experience, as a new version of the game spread first through 4chan and then reddit. along with the “real sad satan” came more traditional “let’s play” videos, in which a youtuber would try the video game, comment about it, and show his reactions. however, the result differed from many other “let’s play” videos and creepypastas. sad satan hinders the activity of the player and the commentator in every way: it is an experience of emptiness and nothingness (rodríguez serrano 2017). after sad satan, youtube-related creepypastas returned to more narrative forms. perhaps, the most relevant case that emerged after sad satan is petscop, a game specifically made for a series of videos. the first video of petscop was uploaded on a channel with the same name (petscop 2017) by “paul”, who was the voice of the “let’s play” videos. the persona created by paul was not the typical youtuber who addresses an audience at large, but someone speaking directly to a single person, a friend, to whom he intended to show the strange video game he had found. in so doing, paul generated a different kind of intimacy where audience can enjoy overhearing a conversation and have to perform further interpretative work to decipher paul’s references to facts likely to be known to his alleged interlocutor only (peters 2018). these videos were born as a source of information about petscop, an unfinished playstation video game from 1997 made by a fictional company called garalina. petscop’s narrator, “paul” hides himself to fake authenticity, to convey the idea that he has no interest in showing himself, because he is making those videos for a friend only. the preparatory work of the anonymous creator to make petscop is remarkable; after all, fabrication can be considered a form of work (marwick 2013). building on and surpassing the lesson of sad satan, petscop is one of the most peculiar examples of revolutionising and revitalising a youtube format centred on one kind of persona. the vitality of the creepypasta model is also shown by the success achieved by video games that recover the modus operandi of these stories such as undertale (toby fox 2015), doki doki literature club!, and pony island (daniel mullins games 2016). these games depict horror linked to technology, the suffering or death inflicted on friendly and innocent characters, the corruption of the code (and of the graphic), the insertion of photorealistic elements, the direct interaction with the player, and the general idea of an obscure truth beneath the surface. conclusion the role played by youtuber personas in the evolution process of horror games emerges from a series of elements that have been examined in the diachronic investigation of this article. to summarise, we first examined the link between the construction of the youtuber personas and the survival horror video games genre. in general, survival horror and youtubers can constitute a combination capable of generating good performances even outside the cases of instantaneous and explosive success. the creator of emily wants to play (shawn hitchcock 2015), for example, has publicly acknowledged the contribution made by youtubers and streamers to the success of his video game: “they played a major role in the success of emily wants to play and it’s a “win-win” situation. emily brings new viewers, a larger view count, and more “likes” to their channel and it brings new fans to emily” (tisdale 2016). in addition to the direct increase in sales, the popularity has allowed the game to see numerous ports made on consoles in a short time. the youtuber’s activity is a creative work, linked more to performance than representation (lee 2015), and is a form of the gâmeur’s practices of exploring and presenting indie games (marshall et al. 2019, p. 171-172). their activity leads to a continuous negotiation for the search for authenticity (jerslev 2016; mcrae 2017; cunningham and craig 2017) in persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 63 which the desire is to offer the most advantageous representation of the youtube persona. their practices are characterised by a very strong spreadability (jenkins, ford, and green 2013): they are adaptable and reconfigurable according to the needs of various users. they structure a co-creative, participatory persona who is actively promoting themselves and the video game: a synergistic spreadability, therefore, in which developers, youtubers, and players / spectators can participate. this synergy is not always realised, and sometimes is hardly achievable, but rhetorically is often presented through youtubers strategies and discourses. acknowledgements parts of this article are updated, expanded, and translated excerpts from my phd thesis. end notes 1. for example: one night (rinat mirzasalikhov 2014) contains a collage of youtubers including the russian kuplinov, and epsilon corp. 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yankovic, wa 1999, albuquerque, running with scissors, volcano. zagal, j.p & deterding, s 2018 (eds.), role-playing game studies. transmedia foundation, routledge, london – new york.references presented in reference style. hanging format. single spaced. no space after each entry. duplicate names marked with m-dash. follow referencing guide on ps website. francesco toniolo catholic university of milan abstract key words introduction survival horror “let’s play” videos animated fanvids creepypastas and video games conclusion acknowledgements end notes works cited persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 15 a typology of persona as suggested by jungian theory and the evolving persona studies literature davi d c. giles u n i v e r s i t y o f w i n c h e s t e r abstract what is persona? is there a single definition that all persona scholars agree on? are persona scholars all using it in the same way? these are questions that i set out to answer in this paper, exploring both the contemporary persona studies literature and the jungian concept of persona that is frequently cited as the intellectual root of the discipline. i begin by looking at the definition of persona in core persona studies texts, move on to jung’s writings on the topic, and then examining the definition and construction of persona in the early volumes of the persona studies journal. on the basis of this literature i draw together a typology of persona that reflects the interests and perspectives of authors who have contributed to the development of this discipline. it comprises four categories: 1) persona in the jungian tradition, a continuous performance pertaining to an individual; 2) generic persona that relates to a particular group of individuals, such as professional personas; 3) fictitious persona that is created in order to serve a specific purpose as art or entertainment, or to inform product design and marketing; and 4) attributed persona, where the characteristics of human persona are applied to a nonhuman entity such as a product or institution. i conclude with a number of suggested directions for research that builds on the jungian foundations of persona but that draws on other relevant theory from psychology. key words persona theory; jung; psychology what is persona? is there a single definition that all persona scholars agree on? are persona scholars all using it in the same way? these are questions that i set out to answer in this paper, exploring both the contemporary persona studies literature and the jungian concept of persona that is frequently cited as the intellectual root of the discipline (notwithstanding its origins in classical theatre). does it matter if persona scholars are importing their own discipline-focused definitions of persona into the field? a new multidisciplinary field succeeds partly because it opens up an academic space for interests that are not adequately addressed in its parent disciplines, but arguably it will only succeed if scholars from those disciplines identify common goals and interests. in part, this exercise is intended to frame a set of core assumptions that authors contributing to the field have made about what persona is. to address this end, i begin by looking at the definition of persona in core persona studies texts, move on to jung’s writings on the topic, and then examining the definition and construction of persona in the early volumes of the persona studies journal. i conclude by drawing together a typology of persona that i giles 16 believe reflects the interests and perspectives of authors who have contributed to the development of the field. the theoretical roots of persona studies persona studies is a multidisciplinary field with diverse influences, but its fulcrum is the work of p. david marshall and colleagues based in media and communication departments in various australian universities. persona studies is hosted by marshall’s own deakin university: its editorial board is exclusively australian, although this is supplemented by an international board of media, communication and cultural studies scholars, mainly from english-speaking countries. along with the journal’s opening position piece (marshall & barbour 2015), marshall and colleagues have authored articles situating persona studies in other publications (notably, marshall 2014, and marshall, moore & barbour 2015). these, along with the publication of the first major book in the field, persona studies: an introduction (marshall, moore and barbour 2020), can be regarded as constituting the intellectual foundation of the discipline. in terms of its latent historical roots, persona studies derives from the similarly multidisciplinary field of celebrity studies, where marshall’s (1997) work celebrity and power: fame in contemporary culture is a seminal text. in many respects, persona studies has arisen as an alternative way of conceptualising the impact of digital culture on celebrity, as well as a way of resolving some of the contradictions inherent in celebrity culture. marshall’s semiotic construction of celebrity (as a ‘sign construction’ housing, somewhere, a ‘real person’) left open the matter of agency, an issue not quite as problematic in the broadcast era of celebrity (at least in the disciplines of media and communication) as in the contemporary environment. he began to develop the ideas that eventually constellated into persona studies in the first issue of the celebrity studies journal (marshall 2010) as the challenge posed by ‘presentational media’. the new means of self-presentation in social media required an intellectual framework that went beyond celebrity, beyond technological affordances, and which can allow us to examine the ‘interface’ between the ‘real person’ and the ‘public self’: as initially defined, “persona studies is an investigation of the presentation of the self” (marshall 2014, p. 166). gradually, the theoretical development of persona studies explored the genealogy of persona as it relates to self-presentation, first through goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical approach (marshall 2010), then back to jung (1986) and the classical practice of dramatic masks that informed his use of the term. although it would be wrong to claim that persona studies is founded upon a jungian conception of persona, his work is quoted at some length, particularly in marshall and barbour (2015) and marshall et al (2020), and so i think it is important to evaluate the existing literature from this particular position. in marshall and barbour (2015), the authors explain that they privilege the psychological perspective of jung over freud because jung’s definition of persona as “an arbitrary segment of the collective psyche” (jung 1966, p. 157) matches more closely their interest in the predominantly digital persona encountered in contemporary society. it allows them to conceptualise persona as a deliberately “strategic form of communication”, of “presentation and performance” (marshall & barbour 2015, p. 2), rather than synonymous with the individual self. to the jungian foundation, then, are added the performance theory of goffman and performativity theory of butler to build a case for studying online presentations of self as distinct from the individuals that co-ordinate them. persona, then, is a “performance of individuality” (marshall et al 2020, p.3), but it is not the individual itself. later on in marshall and barbour (2015, p.5), effectively the starting point for the persona studies journal, a second definition of persona is proposed: as an “identity for various persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 17 individuals to inhabit”. while the first definition, drawing from jung, seems to attach persona to a specific individual – so we might talk about stefani germanotta performing the persona of lady gaga, for example – this alternative concept envisages persona more as a kind of generic social role, or template, that individuals could use in order to fashion their own specific personas. this is evident in several of the case studies of persona that the authors go on to present in marshall et al (2020), such as “the artist persona”, “the academic persona”, and so on. this is a treatment of persona that we do not find in jung, as i will go on to discuss in the next section. these two approaches to persona would seem to lend themselves to forms of research that explore persona as largely a discursive phenomenon: how an individual uses language/discourse to construct a version of themselves to interact in a specific medium. however, the authors use a variety of methodological approaches, including interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa), a largely interview-based method devised by the psychologist jonathan smith (smith, flowers & larkin 2009), which has been used extensively in health and clinical psychology as an alternative to the ‘suspicious’ modes of enquiry such as discourse analysis, precisely because it does not try to frame individual accounts of experience as subjective accounts of reality. this fits with jungian psychology in that it allows access to an agentic self ‘behind the mask’ who is performing the persona and it enables the researcher to explore the ways that those individuals construct their (largely online) personas (barbour, lee & moore 2017; marshall et al 2020). at the same time, the ‘interpretative’ aspect of ipa allows researchers to acknowledge their own analytic input into the meaning-making process (rather than taking interview accounts, at face value, as undisputed ‘truth’). in a broader sense, persona research is guided by five dimensions outlined in marshall et al (2020) that connect the individual to the collective: the public-facing self (lady gaga as celebrity); the mediatised dimension (the persona as dependent, to an extent, on the affordances of specific media); the performative “routines” or patterns displayed by the persona; the collective dimension (its interaction with a ‘micropublic’); and a kind of evaluative dimension that links together “value, agency, reputation, and prestige” (varp). this model might not have much obvious connection to jungian theory, even if there is some common ground between the basic ideas, and ties persona studies very firmly to digital culture. for this reason, it is clear that a literal application of jungian theory will not work for persona in contemporary culture. however, marshall et al (2020) do conclude by calling for the consideration of “ordinary or everyday personas” (p. 213), to deflect some of the attention away from the more predictable investigations of celebrities and other elite figures. this, and the willingness of researchers to explore ‘behind the mask’, to examine persona in the making, suggest that a reappraisal of jung’s writing on persona is beneficial at this point, before going on to survey the treatment of persona in the persona studies literature more widely. persona according to jung the first thing to emphasise about jungian theory is that his concept of self does not quite align with the social constructionist approach adopted by most persona studies authors. while the mask analogy may allow marshall and barbour (2015) to construct persona as ‘strategic’ and ‘agentic’, it simultaneously invites us to remove the mask and peer behind. who is this individual performing the “labour” of “persona work”? while the performative approach to persona might allow us to discuss lady gaga as a social construct, the idea that the persona is “nothing real…a compromise between the individual and society… a secondary reality” (jung 1966, p. 157) begs the question as to what the primary reality might be. who is the archgiles 18 strategist stefani germanotta, who has fabricated, and profited from, this phenomenally successful persona? these questions may, of course, be more pertinent to a psychologist than to a cultural scholar. yet if we are going to probe behind the mask, interview the string-pullers, and analyse their subjective experiences using ipa, it behoves persona scholars to engage a little with the psychological. and in jungian terms (and, indeed, most versions of psychoanalytic theory), this means engaging with a “self” that is believed to be “true” or “real”1 as distinct from the unreal, fabricated persona. to ascribe agency or strategy to the individual who fashions the persona is to call into being this “true self” as a locus of action, perhaps a seat of consciousness. to what extent is persona construction deliberate, though, and to what extent is it under the control of this conscious self? jung’s writings on what lies beneath the mask, or persona, are somewhat obscure. in his ‘definitions’ section of psychological types (jung 1921/1986, p. 99) he refers to “the real individuality” as “the subject”, but he also equates this with the unconscious. the subject comprises “all of those vague, dim stirrings, feelings, thoughts and sensations…[welling up] from the dark inner depths”, and includes “inhibitions, fancies, moods, vague feelings and scraps of fantasy”. we might, then, conclude that personas do not fantasise or dream: this is some kind of interior experience, elsewhere referred to as “private life”. the persona is the vehicle that connects this locus of experience to “objects”, effectively other people or society. so the persona as social media profile does not quite map on to the jungian persona. clearly there is much more going on behind the twitter mask than “dim stirrings” and “vague feelings”, and the artists interviewed in kim barbour’s research (marshall et al. 2020, chapter 6) report using careful strategies to craft their online personas, likewise christopher moore’s gâmeurs (game-playing and creating personas), and the various professionals discussed in chapter 8. the artists and other individuals here correspond more closely with what jung calls “the self”, which comprises “my whole being”, and is “the goal of psychic development” (jung 1962/1986, p. 234). of course, this notion of individual self has been sharply criticised in recent decades by psychologists working in traditions such as social constructionism, post-structuralism, and discursive psychology: for these authors, it is a western fiction arising from historical economic conditions and ideology, ultimately a convenient tool of capitalism and patriarchy (sampson 1989). a more flexible approach is the tripartite model of self suggested by rom harré (harré 1998, pp. 4-5), which distinguishes “self 1” –the “i”, “the point of view from which one perceives the material environment and acts upon it”– from self 2 and self 3 (“the totalities of personal impressions we make on other people”). while self 3 is probably closest to the online persona, and self 1 probably captures the “dim stirrings”, self 2 is a more conscious structure that calibrates, on the one hand, the unconscious impulses, and on the other, the active management of social negotiations. but all this is getting us away from jung. if persona is the object-facing part of the individual, adapted for social interaction, some fundamental questions are raised. is the persona a continuous performance across time and place and social context? how close is it to what social psychologists and others might understand as ‘identity’? these are important questions for those of us studying celebrity, social media, and other forms of what we used to think of as media-audience interaction. here again, though, jung is mysterious. much of his writing on the topic (notably jung 1929/1986, p. 95) suggests that persona is a more or less permanent structure, so one mustn’t create a persona one can’t live up to; one mustn’t over-identify with the persona (this being “a very fruitful source of neuroses”); one must fit one’s persona to the persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 19 role expected by society. “each must stand at his post, here a cobbler, there a poet. no man is expected to be both” (jung 1929/1986, p. 94). this last comment appears to impose some rather stringent conditions upon persona construction, and may relate back to the professional personas discussed in marshall et al. (2020). clearly, for those individuals that wish to fashion a professional or generic persona (doctors, academics, lawyers), there is some kind of ‘template’ or model that the persona is expected to conform to. but does social media not allow the same individual to be simultaneously a fashion influencer specialising in designer footwear (to update jung’s cobbler example) while sharing their poems in a different medium? without any damage to the credibility of either? the possibility of performing more than one persona did occur to jung, however. in his attempts to separate such terms as “soul”, “personality” and “psyche” (jung 1921/1986)2, he concedes that there may be individuals who do not always perform the same role in different social environments. “it frequently happens that men who in public life are extremely energetic, spirited, obstinate, wilful and ruthless appear good-natured, mild, compliant, even weak, when at home and in the bosom of their family” (jung 1921/1986, p. 98). he goes on to say that such instances “represent two collective personalities, which may be summed up quite simply under the name ‘personae’” (jung 1921/1986, p. 99). so it seems that, consistent with jungian theory, the individual may perform more than one persona at any given time, and by implication, modify or entirely change their persona(s) over time to adapt to changing circumstances. this would seem to fit well with goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical model of self-presentation and with the adoption of generic personas for professional interaction that can play alongside other personas for intimate or informal environments (which will obviously change more than once across the lifespan). i will now return to the persona studies literature more generally, and explore the way that other authors have responded to marshall and colleagues’ call for multidisciplinary work in the field, and to what extent these different perspectives on persona correspond to the jungian model. persona according to the persona studies literature in this section my focus is directed mainly to the virtual pages of the persona studies journal, but occasionally in other publications where authors have explicitly anchored their work within the persona studies literature (e.g. polaschek 2018). persona studies has published several special issues in its first five years that showcase work being done in different disciplines that are pertinent to the field. of course, this information is a mere click away for those of you reading on a suitable device, but to summarise, these have taken in: professional (or “working”) personas (volume 1, issue 2); political personas (2,2); online personas (3,2); scientific/historical personas (4,1); design personas (4,2); music (5,1); and theatre (5,2). at the time of writing there is a call for papers for a special issue on games (6,2). the increasing trend towards specialisation may reflect the diversity of perspectives that are being brought to the field, and it is quite clear from a quick overview of the contents of these issues that authors in different disciplines are further stretching marshall et al’s (2020) already quite broad definition of persona. i have grouped these perspectives into four specific categories that could be held to represent persona studies as it currently stands. giles 20 persona type 1: the jungian model i am beginning with the treatments of persona that most closely map on to jung’s descriptions of persona as outlined in the previous section, and in general, these are the treatments that correspond with the model outlined in marshall et al (2020) and in the earlier writings of the field’s founders: namely, that persona is a continuous performance by a single individual. it must be noted at this point that none of these authors draws on jungian theory as such in their work, so the application here is my own interpretation of their analyses. a good example of this type of persona is van der wal’s (2018) study of the british historian eileen power, who in the 1920s and 30s developed a reputation for outstanding scholarship (as lse professor) as well as being a successful broadcaster in the early years of bbc radio. van der wal’s analysis of her correspondence and diaries leading up to this period reveals the strategies she used to fabricate her persona from various models on offer, whether in the domains of academic history, high society, intellectual pursuits, or feminism. from the same issue, erman’s (2018) study of belgian botanist joséphine schoutedenwéry takes as its case an individual with conflicting identities – as teacher, scholar, and wife (of an already famous botanist) – who has to perform more than one social role in order to maintain a “multifaceted self”. erman describes this as a “hybrid persona”, although, as discussed in the previous section, jungian theory allows for these different roles to be conceived as discrete personas in their own right, all pertaining to the same individual who manages and performs them. like van der wal (2018), deflem’s (2019) analysis of the lady gaga persona is more concerned with the maintenance of the continuous performance of the same persona. unlike eileen power, however, lady gaga is more obviously a public performance, and deflem’s sources are not intimate writings and correspondence but her highly visible media presence (which, of course, includes social media, arguably the modern equivalent of letter-writing, but enacted, in lady gaga’s case at least, in front of a huge watching audience). deflem attaches much significance to the name lady gaga, and the point at which stefani germanotta began using it professionally. as with eileen power, there is a sense here of persona being an accomplishment, a status that the individual has worked towards, rather than a temporary ‘mask’. indeed, deflem concludes that “lady gaga is now always lady gaga, there is no more private self that is not gaga” (p. 42). we might argue that this is the conclusion one reaches when so much persona analysis is invested in names. it might, alternatively, reflect the contemporary social media situation where, in goffmanian terms, frontstage and backstage are melded together in one continuous performance. if all that lies behind persona is the unconscious “subject”, consisting of “vague stirrings”, this might be consistent with jungian theory. but that same theory would not predict a happy outcome, regarding this as a clear case of over-identification with persona. so could a persona construct other, secondary personas, to perform other interpersonal work? deflem specifically resists the notion of multiple personas, arguing that it is “conceptually sounder to adopt the notion of a [single] persona…that is multi-dimensional and versatile” (p. 42). but then lady gaga is reduced to a persona just like any other. a more promising line of enquiry may be that adopted by an author in the same issue. elliott’s (2019) study of bruce springsteen examines his performance across his career of many different personas, informed by the author’s previous research on the ‘late voice’ of other popular singers and the way they have adapted to the ageing self towards the end of their careers. his sources, like van der wal’s, are autobiographical, and seem to catch the ‘i’ of the persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 21 narrator distancing himself from other first-person positions in his songwriting and public statements earlier in his career. again, this author does not draw directly on jung’s work, but unlike the other studies mentioned thus far, he does explicitly reference marshall and barbour (2015) and adopts their definition of persona as “the relative and strategic posture of different versions of the self” (ibid, p.4). this is important, because it grounds the research clearly in the intellectual tradition of the field. it also allows us to see the individual who is bruce springsteen performing clearly delineated roles, whether in his persona as “the boss”, or as autobiographical narrator, as “regular person like us”, or “rock’n’roll preacher”. some of these may resemble generic personas, but as the case of eileen power demonstrates, these are the cultural material available to us for persona construction, and the success of the persona may depend on how unique and original a creation we (and the public) make it. you will notice, perhaps, that i have deliberately avoided creating a separate category for the online persona. this is because i think it is important for persona studies not to tie itself irrevocably to the twenty-first century, and it is quite plain from the journal’s contents thus far that such a restricted definition would discourage many contributors. furthermore, marshall et al. (2020) explicitly call for work on “everyday personas” (i.e., persona that goes beyond its technological manifestation). for these reasons, i think it is important to accommodate the online within a more general model of persona, within which the online persona is, in theory, part of a wider performance, and at the same time is capable of containing other personas (so we might see bruce springsteen, on twitter, switching between “the boss” and “regular person” depending on the intended addressee (marshall 2010) and others have already discussed the different forms of address that celebrities can use on social media). within this category then, i include several of the studies that have specifically focused on the online presentation of self, especially where individuals whose offline persona are already well-established (either from the pre-digital era, or through continuing forms of legacy or broadcast media), then go on to launch specifically digital personas for strategic purposes. usher’s (2016) analysis of political party leaders’ twitter profiles during the 2015 uk general election campaign is a good example. here again we see individuals negotiating the demands of different social contexts by performing, often at the same time, a persona that is seemingly sincere (since politicians want potential voters to believe their promises), but is consistent with party strategy and principles (which may inevitably differ from personal opinion). like some of the other authors in this category, usher’s work is informed more by goffman than jung, although with explicit ties to the early persona studies literature, and the personas themselves are clearly tied to individuals even if they are carefully co-ordinated productions. while her focus is on the techniques used in order to create the most engaging online profile (which would of course have involved a whole campaign team so can scarcely be considered a personal project), these can all be regarded as performances of the self, and at an individual level one could argue that they are good examples of the cultivation of different personas to be performed by the same individual (the strong, consistent leader one minute and the ordinary person in touch with the electorate’s concerns the next). in an example taken from other literature, polaschek (2018) draws on the persona studies work as well as star studies (e.g. dyer 1979) to explore the persona construction of amy winehouse, specifically in response to a posthumous documentary film about the singer. here, the author is explicit in her reference to the different personas performed by winehouse during her career, created from public performance (records, concerts), public utterances (especially in interviews) and her “choice of clothing, hairstyle and body adornment” (polaschek 2018). this giles 22 last element of persona construction is often overlooked by researchers but is of crucial importance for highly visible performers. analysing her appearances on a tv panel show two years apart, polaschek contrasts the (relatively) “demure”, accommodating persona allied to the frank lp of 2003 with the aggressive, confrontational persona created following the release of back to black in 2006. her visual appearance, as well as her verbal behaviour, was strikingly different on the two occasions, prompting the show’s host (in 2006) to yearn for “the old amy winehouse”. winehouse’s reply was simply: “she’s dead”. at the same time, polaschek examines the amy winehouse persona as constructed, not by winehouse the individual but by the director of the film amy in 2015, four years after her death. here, she argues, the radical, “subversive” persona constructed by winehouse is “displaced by a conventional persona” (polaschek 2018, p. 17) that draws, albeit sympathetically, on the stereotype of the psychologically damaged ‘victim’. in this way, posthumous persona creation becomes a negotiation between contemporary culture and historical (or archival) materials. in the ‘theatre’ special issue of persona studies (5,2) a similar point is made about contemporary representations of shakespeare, trading in the “genius” persona constructed across previous centuries for a more ironic, comic persona to suit a more irreverent cultural zeitgeist (luckhurst & mayer 2019). at this point, we begin to move away from the jungian persona to consider personas more as cultural constructs than performances by specific individuals, as outlined in the three remaining categories of persona research. persona type 2: the generic persona if our interest in persona is more about practice than about person, more about general techniques than about specific performances, we might be more interested in the range of models available than in the unique expression of the individual actor. this certainly seems to be the case for many articles in persona studies, and has been a major consideration at the heart of the persona studies core literature from the outset. what kind of techniques do artists use to fashion an artist persona? what kind of considerations do lawyers, doctors and other professionals need to take into account when fabricating theirs (lee 2015, marshall et al. 2020)? while this might seem to take us away from jungian theory, the appeal of jung to marshall and barbour (2015) lies in his locating persona within the “collective unconscious” and the use of masks to represent different roles that individuals can adopt (strategically or otherwise). as mentioned previously, the authors offer a second definition of persona as an “identity for various individuals to inhabit” (marshall & barbour 2015, p.5). in this way, persona comes closer to the theatrical mask where, in various traditions from ancient greece to japanese nô theatre, masks were used as a way to signify generic types (e.g., young man, old man, slave) as opposed to unique ‘characters’ (coldiron 2007). these theatrical masks might be better understood, in the jungian sense, as cultural archetypes, symbols that represent “the ancestral heritage of possibilities of representation” (jung 1927/1986, p. 67) that are fashioned from cultural material, or “deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity” (p. 70). likewise, the generic persona – the artist persona, for example – is a recognisable type, about which people have certain expectations, which impose constraints on performance but also allow for imaginative possibilities. working with these types allows successful performers to subvert expectations and thereby shape future manifestations of the genre. in this way eileen power (discussed by van der wal 2018), as a successful woman in an era where the expected historian persona was almost exclusively male, helped to break down gendered constraints for future generations of female historians. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 23 dahlberg (2018) defines the generic persona very succinctly, as “an ideal-type or model of abilities, attitudes, and dispositions that on a collective level are regarded as crucial for the pursuit of a specific social activity with a corresponding social role” (p. 61). this understanding of persona comes, not from the same roots as the foundation persona studies literature (jung, goffman, etc.), but from the historian herman paul, who has defined persona as an “ideal-typical model” (paul 2014, p. 348), himself following earlier attempts to characterise the “scientific persona”, “philosopher persona”, and so on (see condren & hunter 2008; veit-brause 2002). here, too, persona carries a performative quality: these are the attributes that a scientist or philosopher is expected to possess, so persona cultivation is a strategic matter of an individual acquiring them. crucially, paul (2014) and other authors studying scholarly and scientific personas have cautioned against the ‘mask’ analogy of persona, arguing that these personas are more deeply ingrained in the individual self and colour the individual’s interactions away from the professional audience or context. one does not stop being a scholar in the domestic sphere. this is quite different to the jungian model where a different persona is adopted as one moves from one context to another. paul argues that the scholar persona may conflict with other idealtypical personas (such as “mother”) and this may be a source of tension in the self. negotiating the boundaries between these generic personas is clearly a fruitful source of persona studies research and studies like van der wal (2018) are exemplary in this area. in marshall et al. (2020), the artist persona is traced back to historical myths surrounding painters in particular that form a set of typical biographical elements (e.g. overcoming parental disapproval of seeking an artistic career) and, together with other artist representations (appearance, social class, mental health), continue to frame expectations of “artistness” that can act as a deterrent for some aspiring artists while offering opportunities to others. examining persona construction in a highly diverse sample of creative individuals (including tattoo artists and street artists), barbour’s research documented how contemporary artists both exploited and subverted these mythical representations to fashion (online) personas that were recognisable as artistic even though they work within non-traditional practices (barbour, lee & moore 2017). in terms of research, examining professional or conventional personas like those of artists and academics is a simple matter of identifying individuals from simple criteria: an artist is a creative individual, an academic someone affiliated with a university. on social media these criteria will usually be evident from their profiles. the interpretative work here is more about the manner in which the generic persona is performed: unless one sets out deliberately to explore borders, or compromised professional personas, the attribution of persona to individual is relatively uncontroversial. a more contentious treatment of generic persona is the character type, where the category of persona is based on the researcher’s own interests and perspective. fairchild and marshall (2019, p.12) refer to the “ageing rock star” persona as relatively “straightforward”, but at what point can a rock star be said to start “ageing”? recognising a type, or pattern, in what jung calls “humanity’s constantly repeated experiences” is clearly a matter of interpretation, but doing so may be an important task for persona researchers. persona type 3: the fictitious persona the third type of persona addressed in the literature thus far is not a persona associated with a specific individual, or even a group of categorisable individuals. it is a persona that is fabricated out of nothing for a particular purpose – as art or entertainment (novels, drama, film), as a target consumer or user to inform the design of a product or marketing strategy, or as a participant in a game (an avatar, often representing the player). this kind of persona comes giles 24 closest to one of the oldest uses of the term, the list of ‘dramatis personae’ appearing in the opening pages of a playscript3. notably, in the special “theatre” issue of persona studies this type of persona was not referenced at all, the papers instead focusing on the individual (type 1) personas4 of playwrights and actors (including dead ones, mainly shakespeare) and stage performers in general (mainly stand-up comedians), along with one notable exception to be discussed in the next section (type 4). indeed, the persona as a fictional construction in art and entertainment has not really been touched on in the persona studies literature to date. instead, authors have discussed the creation of personas in areas like marketing and design, tracing the concept back to the work of software designer alan cooper, who recommended the use of carefully crafted fictional personas to drive the design process. this was part of cooper’s broad aim to wrest the development of high tech from the quirks of programmers and adopt a more business-oriented approach. personas needed to be psychologically convincing for developers to use them as imaginary users of their products. “we don’t just say that emilee uses business software. we say that emilee uses wordperfect version 5.1 to write letters to gramma” (cooper 1998, p. 138). a special issue (or section) was devoted to this kind of persona in volume 4, issue 2 of persona studies, considering the use of personas in architectural design as well as it (nielsen, 2018), and was also the subject of an earlier paper that discussed the use of persona to inform the design of twitter (humphrey 2017). although these strategic fictional personas are designed from data collected through extensive research (analytics and user interviews, typically), both humphrey (2017) and salminen et al (2018) argue that, in practice, they are usually derived more from analytics and design company’s assumptions than from the richer, more in-depth qualitative data, and as a result are often not representative of many potential product users. humphrey (2017) suggests that persona studies’ focus on digital personas is highly appropriate, since all twitter users are effectively modelling themselves on the principles of persona construction used in software design. this opens up the question as to how fictitious online personas might be considered, although it is generally agreed, and consistent with jungian theory, that all personas, offand online, are necessarily derived in part from one’s interaction with other people and often based on models or prototypes that can be generic or individual. a more explicit type of fictionalised persona comes from the world of gaming, where fictional characters are often built into the narrative structure of the game and players have the potential to modify them in order to create bespoke characters (as discussed in marshall & barbour 2015). the process by which ‘avatars’ become personalised is somewhat complex, as described in an article by milik (2017), where it is difficult to separate out the various layers of (text-based) character, personalised avatar, and individual player. ultimately, for milik, taking a dramaturgical approach, it is the last of these that emerges as the persona – the gamer who enacts a continuous performance across games, game characters, and other online interactions within the gaming community. as mentioned previously in relation to theatre studies, the traditional form of fictional persona does not seem to have influenced the persona studies field so far, perhaps because the study of character creation for novels, plays and films has already been accomplished in literary fields. it may also be the case that this work – the creation of characters that inhabit specific texts – is regarded as a separate concept from the construction of fictional personas in other areas. marshall et al (2020, pp. 20-21) rather gloss over the distinction, other than a brief persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 25 suggestion that fictional characters reflect the traditional literary sense of “dramatic personae” and that this is somehow distinct from persona in the present context. i have no particular reason to see why this should be the case, however, and i would imagine there is some mileage in examining how literary characters can be treated as personas, sometimes escaping their textual moorings to become almost generic in nature (one thinks of characters like james bond or even hamlet as having a life beyond their original context). indeed, marshall et al. (2020) do consider odysseus in this sense, adopted as a persona in the sense of a voice (or location of the “i”) in ezra pound’s cantos. (incidentally, poetry in general is a potential goldmine for persona research, with writers frequently adopting alter-egos from which to speak, from byron’s “childe harold” to the multiple heteronyms of fernando pessoa.) persona type 4: attributed persona the final category in this model contains studies where persona is not attached to an individual, class of individual, or fictional character, but to an inanimate object or concept. this type of persona is not really considered in the foundational persona studies literature. indeed, when discussing professional persona in marshall et al. (2020), it is mentioned that the legal profession has a recent tradition of using ‘persona’ to describe “corporations and commercial entities” such as legal firms who assume the guise of a persona as an explicit marketing strategy. this is referred to as a “markedly different” (marshall et al. 2020, p. 191) treatment of persona to that considered in persona studies, perhaps better understood as identity rather than persona. however, the persona concept – complete with nods to jungian theory and the identification of archetypes – has taken root in the academic marketing literature, where it is applied specifically to branding. one example here is the way that celebrity chefs have used their media personas to launch distinctive restaurant chains (dion & arnoud 2015). indeed, we can find a parallel treatment even within marshall et al. (2020) itself, where the authors discuss the way in which games can acquire their own personas, especially those which are visually represented by a specific character (and may be named after it, like cuphead and mugman), whose attributes then shape the game as a whole to an extent that the game takes on the persona of its protagonist. in fairchild and marshall’s (2019) introduction to the special issue on music, similar uses of persona are alluded to in relation to music acquiring certain persona-like characteristics that either foreground the idiosyncratic nature of the composer or express human qualities. in effect, this is an anthropomorphic application of persona. the most explicit example of this treatment of persona is found in sedgman’s (2019) analysis of the uk theatre company, the bristol old vic. sedgman grounds her concept of persona in the architectural literature, where buildings or organisations come to acquire an “institutional persona”. this persona embodies all the characteristics of the institution’s history, its reputation, its corporate philosophy, and the collective of individual personas that constitute its workforce and the community it serves. so the bristol old vic’s persona is more than just a corporate identity: it presents itself as “historic and forward looking, as theatre building and performance event – a public presentation of self that requires constant redefinition” (sedgman 2019, p. 107). of course, we have left jung far behind with this category. the mask analogy, despite its theatrical origin, seems hard to apply to an institution, especially if we associate it with agency and strategy. hard as the marketing team might strive to engineer a persona for their organisation, they can do little about its history or reputation (and it must be conceded that the bristol old vic is a relatively recent persona, at least as regards the theatre itself and its long giles 26 history). nevertheless, the application of persona studies ideas to other disciplines is a potentially fruitful point of connection for the field. mapping her analysis of the bristol old vic on to marshall et al.’s (2020) five dimensions of persona, notably the fifth (varp), sedgman sets up a comparative framework whereby other theatrical institutions might be compared and understood. this framework might also be extended to compare institutional personas in other fields of the performing arts and beyond. where now for persona studies? in this paper i have tried to represent the state of the field of persona studies by identifying four broad categories of persona type that i believe capture the vast majority of studies conducted so far in the field. i may have overlooked some; there are clearly some grey areas between the categories, but in each case they are defined by the object that the persona attaches to: individual, genre, fictional creation, and non-human entity. i have argued that the first category is the one that most closely resembles the model of persona advanced by jung (and goffman) because the object in question is a specific individual. some readers might wonder why i have taken a jungian perspective at all, when clearly so few persona studies contributors have cited his work. almost invariably goffman is the touchstone in these studies. aside from disciplinary preference (as a psychologist), it is notable that jung is frequently cited in the foundational persona studies literature and it seems that marshall and colleagues view the lineage as important. certainly, if persona is best understood in a contemporary (online) context we need to have some sense of what is actually going on “backstage” and this is where psychological theory can make a valuable contribution to the field. as yet, it seems that contribution is fairly thin on the ground, so this would seem to be an area for future development in the field. while jung’s work is important, there are many aspects of jungian theory that may cause contemporary researchers problems (not least the rigid gendering of concepts like animus/anima, which is bound tightly into some of his writing on the persona). as with freud, it seems sensible to retain the ideas that have survived social and political change, and to disregard the rest. there are more recent developments in psychology that can also enrich the field, such as the tripartite self of harré (1998, as discussed briefly earlier), and the postmodern “saturated self” of kenneth gergen (gergen 1991; also discussed by marshall et al. 2020). more generally, there is the field of discursive psychology, which has taken traditional psychological topics such as memory, self, and attitude and reconstituted them as fundamentally discursive or interactional in nature (edwards & potter 1992). here, the performance of persona might be reconfigured as primarily a discursive phenomenon, especially in the online environment where we perform, much of the time, via intertextual exchanges with others. it would benefit from taking a wider understanding of the discursive, embracing the foucauldian notion of discourse as practice, so that persona construction is understood as a ‘technology of the self’ (foucault 1988). indeed, the ethical and moral dimensions of self-care that this practice is nested within can be easily mapped on to the jungian model of persona. there is no reason, it seems to me, why jung’s idea of the collective unconscious cannot be incorporated into a discursive understanding of persona. kelsey’s (2017) application of jungian theory to mythological storytelling in the media explicitly combines the concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes with discourse analysis in order to explore the public impact of narrative construction. an important dimension here is the affective work performed persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 27 by such mythologies on their audiences, and, consistent with marshall’s (1997) semiotic theory of celebrity, persona might appear to function in a similar way. clearly the value of any new multidisciplinary field lies in the needs that it serves for its contributors, and it is wise of the field’s founders that they have cast the net sufficiently wide to embrace a variety of perspectives on what personas are, and what intellectual purposes they address. the only risk that such an approach runs is the prospect of fragmentation, whereby researchers from different traditions and disciplines find themselves in conflict because they disagree over what persona should be and how the associated concepts apply to their fields of interest. this is why a framework such as this one might be useful, to enable researchers to specify the treatment of persona they are applying. it could even serve as a springboard for special interest groups within the field over years to come. 1 the idea that something lies ‘behind’ or ‘underneath’ the social actor is prevalent across psychoanalytic theories. while the relationship between ego, id, and superego is somewhat more complex, the ‘id’ is nevertheless submerged beneath the more socially-acceptable psychic structures. winnicott (1965/2018) and laing (1960/1965) both propose the existence of a “false self” that the individual adopts during early childhood as a compromise to their “true self” in social activity. 2 don’t expect any greater clarity here, either: in his ‘definitions’ section of psychological types (jung, 1921/1986, p. 97), he calls psyche “the totality of all psychic processes, conscious as well as unconscious”, which suggests, then, that the persona, as the conscious part of the individual (i.e. as distinct from the “subject” as discussed earlier), is subsumed within the psyche. soul is “a clearly demarcated functional complex that can best be described as a ‘personality’”. but the two “personalities” in his example he then describes as “personae”. so is the soul, after all, a persona? at this point, i would urge the reader not to give up on jung. not entirely. 3 according to pangallo (2015), the earliest instance of this was thomas dekker’s satiromastix (1602). in the early days the dramatis personae sometimes appeared at the end of the script. 4 luckhurst and mayer (2019) insist on retaining the latin plural personae over the persona studies preferred anglicised plural, arguing that it reflects better the tradition of theatre studies that they are working within. given that the personae they discuss are not of the dramatis variety, they are effectively breaking with tradition in both fields. end notes works cited barbour, k, lee, k & moore c 2017, ‘online persona research: an instagram case study’, persona studies vol. 3 no. 2, pp. 1-12. coldiron, m 2007, ‘cross-cultural connections, confluences and contradictions in masked performance’, didaskalia vol. 7, no. 1, retrieved from <https://www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol7no1/contents.html> condren, c & hunter, i 2008, ‘introduction: the persona of the philosopher in the eighteenth 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j, kwak h & jung s 2018, ‘are personas done? evaluating their usefulness in the age of digital analytics’, persona studies vol. 4 no. 2, pp. 47-65. sampson, ee 1989, ‘the challenge of social change for psychology: globalization and psychology’s theory of the person’, american psychologist vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 914-921. sedgman, k 2019, ‘the institutional persona: when theatres become personas and the case of bristol old vic’, persona studies vol. 5 no. 2, pp. 98-110. smith, j, flowers p & larkin m, 2009, interpretative phenomenological analysis. london, sage. persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 1 29 usher, b 2016, ‘me, you and us: constructing political persona on social networks during the 2015 uk general election’, persona studies vol. 2 no. 2, pp. 19-41. van der wal, b 2018, ‘constructing the persona of a professional historian: on eileen power’s early career persona formation and her year in paris, 1910-1911’, persona studies vol. 4 no. 1, pp. 32-44. veit-brause, i 2002, ‘the making of modern scientific personae: the scientist as a moral person? emil du bois-reymond and his friends’, history of the human sciences vol. 15 no. 4, pp. 19-49. winnicott dw 1965/2018, the maturational process and the facilitating environment: studies in the theory of emotional development. abingdon, routledge. david c. giles university of winchester abstract key words the theoretical roots of persona studies persona according to jung persona according to the persona studies literature persona type 1: the jungian model persona type 2: the generic persona persona type 3: the fictitious persona persona type 4: attributed persona where now for persona studies? works cited tomkinson & elliott 22 hype source: g fuel’s contemporary gamer persona and its navigation of prestige and diversity sia n tom ki ns on t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f w e s t e r n a u s t r a l i a a n d jor da n a ell i ott t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f w e s t e r n a u s t r a l i a abstract g fuel, an energy drink marketed towards gamers, performs a ‘contemporary’ gamer persona to interact with its audience, drawing upon an array of gaming influencers to appeal to fans of these figures. specifically, this contemporary gamer persona builds upon the ‘geeky’ male gamer identity that has been constructed by marketers and adopted by players, utilising elements of esport such as skilfulness and focus. however, this persona also reimagines the gamer identity in alternative ways, such as gaming as an athletic activity – one that requires much mental and physical energy—and as an activity that connects players to others, and is exciting and glamourous, evocative of the lifestyles of gaming influencers. thus, the contemporary gamer persona signals that there has been a shift in the popular discourses surrounding the ‘gamer’ identity in specific gaming micro-publics. the energy drink company g-fuel is aware of this shift and strengthens this persona by forming partnerships with gamer microcelebrities and influencers. in this article, we find that in g fuel’s construction and maintenance of the contemporary gamer persona, they seek to appeal to the wider gaming audience, but must constantly negotiate a balance between popular but controversial influencers and a commitment to diversity. key words g fuel; persona; gamer; video games; esports; influencer introduction and background g fuel is an energy and hydration drink brand, first released by new-york based company gamma labs in 2012. g fuel products are available in a powder, liquid, and “energy crystals” (candies also known as ‘pop rocks’). while other energy drinks have been marketed towards gamers, such as monster and red bull, g fuel is a prominent case for two main reasons. first, it has trademarked the slogan “the official energy drink of esports”, suggesting that gamma labs sees itself as a leading brand in the industry. second, g fuel has established partnerships with sixty influencers, gamers, and athletes, and others, dubbed ‘team gamma’. the most notable member, pewdiepie, is (to date) the most popular gaming influencer of all time, having broken numerous subscriber and views records on youtube. in these respects, g fuel is successful in persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 23 no small part due to how gamma labs constructs its persona in relation to some of the most significant gaming figures. the ‘gamer’ is one of the most controversial and pervasive public identities in internet culture, and there has been a considerable amount of scholarly investigation into what constitutes the identity and how players perform and challenge it. in short, the ‘gamer’ label is one associated with certain cultural and social capital (so-called ‘hardcore’ styles of play which are often competitive, challenging, and violent), aggressive behaviour, investment of significant time and money, as well as being young, heterosexual, white, and male (shaw 2012; de grove, courtois & van looy 2015). there has been much scholarly work exploring on the gendering of the gamer identity and ill-treatment of women (paaßen, morgenroth & stratemeyer 2017; dewinter & kocurek 2017). it is also important to note that, as well as being produced through representational media industries, the gamer identity is, in part, produced through and circulated within the game industry in terms of the kinds of games developed and worker’s attitudes and behaviours regarding the legitimacy of certain genres and styles of play (kerr 2019; dymek 2012, p.51; johnson 2013). in the context of this paper, we are interested in what aspects of the gamer identity that g fuel recognises as aspirational for their intended audiences and thus draws from in creating its persona. video gaming is no longer seen just as an obscure, violent hobby played by antisocial basement-dwelling teenage boys, and the traditional ‘hardcore’ gamer stereotype does not represent the majority of players because, as noted during the events of gamergate in 20141, such “gamers are dead” (alexander 2014). game communities are experiencing significant change, and gamergater’s outpouring of vitriol towards women occurred in no small part due to certain gamers feeling that their collective identity, community, and culture was under threat, and their interests were becoming less relevant. such feelings led to the gamergate’s outpouring of vitriol and overt sense of entitlement, and can be traced back to the historic persecution of video games and players as unhealthy and antisocial, and geeks as bullied outsiders (king & borland 2003, p.174). indeed, in the us, uk, and australia, women comprise around half of all players, and the average age of gamers is increasing (esa 2020; brand et al. 2020; borowiecki & bakhshi 2017). further, the availability of indie tools has made game development more accessible resulting in a greater variety of games created by a more diverse range of developers2. while such negative characterisations of geeks or gamers still exist (and still significantly impact the industry and players), the gamer identity is in flux. the gamer identity is also transforming with the rise of social media and streaming. as taylor describes, the development of streaming service twitch has led to two significant shifts. first, esports is now not only a sports product but also a media entertainment outlet (2018, p.4). second, players can now “transform their private play into entertainment” (taylor 2018). esports and streaming share many traits that have ramifications for the gamer identity as publicly performed. both are characterised by a culture where hard work, networking, and selfmarketing are thought to lead to fame and success, and while many aspire to this, in reality only a few can realise such ambitions (johnson, carrigan & brock 2019). despite the belief that such spaces are equalisers and meritocracies, most esports players and enthusiasts are men aged 2135 (newzoo 2014, p.5), and most twitch users are men aged 18-34 (twitch 2018). in esports younger players are favoured due to physical deterioration, while in streaming women are pressured to appeal to the majority-male audience by presenting an attractive and sexualised appearance (and are often subsequently denigrated for this) (zolides 2015, pp.42–43). in both industries, women face discrimination (darvin, vooris & mahoney 2020, p.43; ruberg, cullen & brewster 2019) and a lack of monetary compensation compared to their male counterparts (kaser 2018; ricchiuto 2018). esports and streaming are highly competitive industries where tomkinson & elliott 24 the aspiring celebrity is constantly working to produce a persona that will help them attain fame and success. the esport industry’s growth has been accompanied by a proliferation of performanceenhancing vitamins and energy drinks specifically targeted towards ‘gamers’, such as g fuel. while little research has been conducted on consumer products aimed towards gamers, there is a growing interest in the advertising of consumer products such as energy drinks on digital platforms such as twitch. lopez frias (2020), for instance, explores the ethics of energy drink promotion through digital platforms, and pollack et al. (2020) found that energy and caffeinated drinks were the most common food and beverage advertisements on streamer profiles and titles. they state that “[e]nergy drink marketing was largely driven by mentions of g fuel” (p.7), indicating that g fuel is currently a prevalent brand on twitch. we believe that persona studies provides an insightful lens to explore the gamer identity as publicly performed through gamer influencers and g fuel. persona studies examines “how the individual moves into…social spaces and presents the self” (marshall & barbour 2015, p.8). it focuses on “how the individual ‘publicises’, ‘presents’ and strategically ‘enacts’ their persona” (2015, p.290). however, not all work in persona studies focuses on individuals. fairchild (2019) examines how museums construct stardom as a process generated between artists and audiences. further, herskovitz and crystal (2010) note that an essential component to product branding is persona-focused storytelling, through which the persona becomes a recognisable, memorable, relatable, and consistent emotional connection with the audience. such brand personas try to emulate human traits and draw from archetypes to do so. gamma labs’ use of influencers allows the g fuel brand to seemingly possess human traits and be embodied through actual humans, aiding their brand’s recognisability and relatability. where g fuel is particularity interesting is in gamma labs’ use of various brand ambassadors, including twitch streamers, professional esports players, and youtube celebrities. while these influencers share traits and perform common elements of the gamer identity, they also vary, drawing from their specific audiences in their individual persona construction. energy drinks such as g fuel are of interest because of their alignments and tensions with the traditional gamer stereotype: on the one hand they affirm that players are dedicated to intense, high-performance games, but such products are typically associated with more physical sports and activities. we are therefore interested in how such companies produce a persona that players connect with and aspire to when consuming their products. this persona could signal a resurgence of the ‘gamer’ identity with new connotations – we refer to this public identity from herein as the contemporary gamer persona. to explore this persona, we first provide a brief overview of g fuel’s persona construction on its website. second, we outline how g fuel uses social media platforms to perform this gamer persona. third, we consider g fuel’s use of influencers in two dimensions: prestige and diversity. we find that g fuel works to appeal to the broader gaming audience in its persona construction and performance but must constantly negotiate a balance between controversial influencers and a commitment to (or at least the perception of) diversity. g fuel’s website our first entry point into g fuel’s persona is its official website. unlike g fuel’s social media presence which focuses on promoting flavours, sponsored influencers, and competitive tournaments, the website has a strong focus on health. on the website’s faq and accompanying what is g fuel? video, g fuel is advertised as “natural”, “clean and healthy”, and “sugar-free, gluten-free, and packed with tons of antioxidants and b-vitamins”. in comparison, g fuel claims persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 25 that other energy drinks such as red bull have “unknown chemicals” and are “sugar-loaded” with a risk of side effects (g fuel 2017a; gamma labs 2020a). using the discourses of health and applying these discourses to the construction of g fuel’s brand and image makes sense considering that energy drinks have somewhat of a stigma for containing caffeine and taurine, as well as being associated with various physical and mental health problems (seifert et al. 2011; richards & smith 2016). there have been concerns about these ingredients and their effects on children and adolescents, who comprise a large audience to the influencers advertising g fuel (zwibel et al. 2019; stout 2015). to counter these concerns, g fuel’s website frames the product in opposition to other energy drinks, performing a “search for novelty or innovation” persona (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.65). a second notable pattern of representation on g fuel’s website is the depiction and targeting of people with “active and hectic lifestyles” (gamma labs 2020a), a descriptor used to refer to traditional athletes, as well as non-traditional athletes such as esports players. video gaming is still a key feature on the website. the our story page explains that g fuel was invented by a group of “guys” after they suffered an energy drink crash while “playing cod, eating pizza, listening to t-pain…you know…gaming and grinding!” (gamma labs 2020b). further, the faq claims that gamma labs’ first customer was a “professional esports athlete who wanted an immediate increase in energy, focus, and endurance”. yet there is a clear attempt to broaden g fuel’s market to more conventionally energetic lifestyles, with “ufc fighters, esports athletes, bodybuilders, skateboarders, youtube stars, fitness models, and even nfl players” listed as key consumers. the introductory video what is g fuel further diversifies the consumer audience, depicting both ordinary and fitness-oriented people with no specific connection to gaming (g fuel 2017a). another video, what is g fuel energy?, features upbeat music and represents numerous young consumers, showcasing various ethnicities (g fuel 2017b). these consumers include a woman in business attire and sneakers, two men gaming together with a woman spectating, a man playing a video game wearing a headset, a female boxer, and a male breakdancer. g fuel’s website mostly addresses a broad public, one that may play games or be interested in esports, but also in fitness and health in general. however, as will become evident throughout the paper, g fuel’s other branding strategies (the use of social media and influencers) target a general gaming audience – one that aspires to the ‘contemporary’ gamer persona. this contradiction suggests that g fuel is targeting two kinds of audiences: first, broadly anyone who would consume an energy drink, game player or not, and second, gamers specifically. the core demographic appears to be gamers, and as will be discussed, this is who the bulk of their advertising targets, but everybody is invited to purchase the product. social media platforms and influencers social media platforms are key to g fuel’s branding strategy, allowing gamma labs to capitalise on the transformation of the gamer persona from geeky, violent, and antisocial to aspirational, performative, and trendy. g fuel utilises facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube, snapchat and tik tok, and advertises through various influencers on their social media accounts. to discuss how g fuel attempts to influence, reconfigure, and utilise this contemporary gamer persona, we employ the collective and mediatised dimensions of persona. by collective, we refer to the way online personas “produce some collective or public activity”, typically connections and networks made on social media (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.71). by mediatised, we refer to how g fuel uses various media technologies to produce its brand persona, noting that digital platforms are regulated, perceived as a commercial asset, and utilise elements of popular culture. as a result, the mediatised persona “is constantly undergoing transformation, revision, tomkinson & elliott 26 remediation, and recirculation” on various platforms (2020, p.69). in this sense, the brand is not just one node in a network, but “part of an evolving and changing arrangement of multiple overlapping organizations, communities, and micro-publics” (2020, p.171). g fuel not only harnesses its respective networks, connections, and ‘micro-publics’ as part of their branding agenda but also seeks to permeate those of microcelebrity content creators. as the brand actively appeals to gamers, an audience that is entrenched in popular culture, gamma labs must constantly tweak g fuel’s presence to engage with the zeitgeist. the g fuel persona is performed through various ‘microcelebrity’ figures (senft 2008). microcelebrity can be defined as the strategic cultivation of celebrity online through various production, distribution, and social practices (and performance) focused on fostering popularity with specific audiences, and is intertwined with self-branding, the commoditisation of the self (senft 2008; marwick 2013; khamis, ang & welling 2017; usher 2020). many microcelebrities can be described as ‘influencers’, emphasising the use of influence to achieve commercial agendas and establish strong social engagement with followers (abidin 2015). many of g fuel’s microcelebrities are gaming influencers. in the online gaming sphere, influencers are not necessarily expected to share their personal lives with followers to the same extent that a ‘lifestyle’ blogger or social media influencer is, as their value instead derives from their perceived skill, displayed consumer products, and ‘gaming capital’– a demonstrated knowledge of games (consalvo 2007). one way that gamer influencers strengthen their authenticity with audiences is by utilising nicknames that double as gamertags, a practice which “is important beyond self-expression, as it becomes intrinsically tied to the gamer and part of a much larger branding practice” (zolides 2015, p. 48). this persona also seemingly distances itself from the ‘geeky’ aspects of the classic gamer. gamma labs approaches influencers with significant followerships across their social media platforms to promote g fuel. these influencers comprise ‘team gamma’, which has 60 members: twenty-two twitch streamers; thirteen esports organisations, representatives, or players; and seven youtube celebrities or vloggers. although g fuel has connections with many microcelebrities, its facebook page features less influencer content than their other social media accounts. the page is mostly used for advertising new flavours and influencer collaborations and address customer issues. while g fuel’s website mostly takes on the professional register of performativity, their facebook account takes on the personal element, “the performance of rebellion against established norms and systems” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.65). some posts reference meme culture, such as one that features an image of faze clan member, choosymk, surrounded by g fuel products, accompanied by “when that #gfuel shipment finally comes in…stonks ” (g fuel 2020a). when engaging with customers, g fuel’s persona is somewhat playful and does not adopt a customer service attitude: instead, it directly calls out unreasonable complaints. for instance, in response to a customer’s complaint that a sale began just after they had made an order, a g fuel spokesperson responded with “sales can’t be adjusted to accommodate for your personal schedule for your own convenience – that’s not how life works lol…” (g fuel 2020b). such a statement illustrates the performance of rebellion, not being a typical company, but one that adopts the sarcastic attitude of an internet commenter. in this sense, the g fuel facebook page performs a rebellious and confident gamer persona – traits that they also seek in the personas of influencers they collaborate with. gamma labs’ commitment to partnership and collaboration in promoting g fuel is most apparent on video platforms such as twitch, twitter, and youtube, where influencers with substantial audiences are more likely to seek out and be receptive to brands as sponsors. g fuel’s use of such platforms illustrates their brand persona's mediated nature, as the content is created and shared across all accounts. most of the videos on their youtube account are short persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 27 advertisements for new flavours, merchandise, and influencer collaborations. there are also longer videos featuring autograph and behind-the-scenes content from esports tournaments, collated in their “experience esports” playlist. the g fuel twitter accounts, @gfuelenergy and @gfuelesports, also feature gaming and esports-heavy content, the former featuring similar content to the facebook account as well as competitions to win merchandise, advertisements for esport tournaments, and the like. the latter mostly consists of the same esports content, but also gifs, videos, and links to influencers who have partnerships with the brand. the presence of influencer content provides a personal element to g fuel’s advertisements. it provides a sense of intimacy, a “performance of emotional sensitivity and intensity” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.65). in the following section, we discuss how microcelebrities in the online gaming sphere perform the ‘contemporary’ gamer persona in their promotion of g fuel. prestige and controversy g fuel’s collaborations with influencers establish a two-way relationship where prestige is shared amongst both parties. in the context of persona studies, prestige refers to “the capacity for an individual to gain widespread respect and admiration through the development and use of a persona” (marshall, moore & barbour 2020, p.78). prestige is developed through agency, value, and reputation: that is, the gamer persona is strategically performed in a space where gaming skills, knowledge, and product consumption establishes and reaffirms one’s reputation as a gamer. as well as the scale and number of friends and followers one has, prestige can be impacted by interpersonal connections, such as liking, sharing, and favouriting by other users. such actions “demonstrate the respect and admiration other users have for the content and substance of a persona” (2020, p.78). the partnership relationship between g fuel and an influencer, then, in the creation and maintenance of the persona, is a dialectical. g fuel as a brand accumulates fame and recognition from its association with exceptionally famous gaming influencers. in turn, influencers extend their collective network reach and may receive attention from the g fuel consumer base. here we examine three of g fuel’s major ‘partnerships’3— faze clan, pewdiepie, and keemstar—and consider the extent to which they provide prestige to the brand through the performance and expression of the contemporary ‘gamer’ persona. faze clan faze clan is an esports organisation that boasts some of the most competitive gaming teams globally and has a long-term partnership arrangement with gamma labs. faze team members arguably present the most desirable persona sought by g fuel – the ‘contemporary’ gamer. this gamer identity values the cognitive skills required to play competitively; is interested in athleticism and dedicated to appearance, such as having a robust pc setup, rgb lighting, and gaming chairs; is interested in broader internet and popular culture; and desires to play games for a living, feeding into neoliberal ideologies concerning individual employment. still, this persona maintains elements of the classic gamer in the sense that those who are male and highly dedicated to the hobby more easily gain legitimacy compared to women and minorities, as well as those who have a more relaxed attitude to gaming, play less often, or play so-called “casual” games. of course many women are highly dedicated and many men play more ‘casually’, but the perceived correlation between maleness and dedications remains common. the contemporary gamer persona is more of a cool, competitive, prankster who happens to enjoy gaming and related products, as opposed to an awkward, enthusiastic hobbyist. faze clan is able to perform this contemporary gamer persona – they express the qualities valued by their collective and individual micro-publics, the agency to skilfully construct this persona, and the reputation to legitimise it. further, some members of faze clan live together. referred to as tomkinson & elliott 28 ‘content houses’, this is a recent phenomenon where microcelebrities of similar content genres live and collaborate with one another to increase their content output, to access and connect with external micro-publics and networks, and to reinforce their persona’s prestige through group membership. faze clan has utilised this strategy to construct their gamer personas, accumulating and maintaining prestige through faze membership, house presence, and collaborations. as of 2020 faze clan has seven official flavours with g fuel. in contrast to other major g fuel influencers, faze clan produces significant amounts of promotional material, with notable members hosting g fuel videos on their respective youtube channels, many of which have millions of followers. g fuel’s youtube channel also contains numerous videos featuring faze clan, including interviews with members and teams, and behind-the-scenes footage from competitive tournaments. g fuel often tweet about faze clan’s participation in tournaments, special events such as recruitment challenges, and their g fuel flavours and merchandise, many of which are accompanied by the catchphrase “faze up!”. in their partnership with faze, g fuel capitalises on the organisation’s prestige in competitive gaming, and their consequent need to perform well. for example, their video fuel your life – faze censor sees former faze clan member censor at a park, creating a g fuel drink, consuming it, and then cuts to fast-paced clips of him working out at the gym, gaming, playing basketball, studying, swimming, and very briefly, relaxing. the advertisement ends with censor walking out of the frame, the words “fuel your life” appearing on-screen (g fuel 2015). this advertisement presents the value associated with faze clan as aspirational figures (strong, motivated gaming athletes), fitting neatly into their reputation for success. consequently, g fuel and faze clan have accrued significant amounts of prestige through their eight-year partnership. in sponsoring faze clan, gamma labs achieves the persona that it wishes to graft to the g fuel brand – competitive, high-performing, dedicated, and stylish gamers that distance themselves from geekery. pewdiepie another key collaboration is between g fuel and pewdiepie (felix arvid ulf kjellberg). pewdiepie is one of the most recognisable figures in online gaming culture, having the secondmost subscribed to channel on youtube, and a significant amount of value, agency, and reputation within his micro-public that has helped him to maintain prestige. the partnership between pewdiepie and g fuel mostly features on youtube, where g fuel promotes its collaboration through numerous quirky promotional videos that reference pewdiepie’s content. since these videos are on g fuel’s channel instead of his own, pewdiepie is promoted to g fuel’s micro-public on youtube and their other social media channels. such sharing of micro-publics is further bolstered by pewdiepie’s interaction with this channel. for instance, on the g fuel pewdiepie | ready-to-drink can! comment section, he writes: “i can finally share my latest addiction, we made a drink thats [sic] too good! im [sic] scared help” (kjellberg 2020). this comment currently has 14k likes, demonstrating pewdiepie’s prestige as a microcelebrity, and approval from g fuel’s micro-public concerning their collaboration. although pewdiepie’s video content is not based on competitive play, in partnering with g fuel he is able to associate with the clout of competitive gaming to maintain his gamer persona within his micro-publics. for example, in his announcement that he had signed g fuel as a sponsor, presented mid-way through one of his meme-focused ‘reddit review’ videos, he states: i don’t know about you guys but i used to drink energy drinks, and i tested out g fuel, and like genuinely, i was sceptic to it, but i find it to be a healthier solution to just drink a g fuel instead. it also doesn’t make me — i mean i don’t persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 29 know if this is true or not — but generally my experience, when you drink when i drink an energy drink i get hyped for like ten minutes and then it goes away, but with g fuel, i generally don’t feel that, i just feel like i get more energy and it boosts me throughout the day. wow, epic! (kjellberg 2019) pewdiepie’s comments paint g fuel as a way of providing energy throughout his day, as opposed to improving his skills during gaming. he also focuses on its taste, describing his favourite flavours. while a focus on taste is common among sponsored influencers, pewdiepie’s emphasis on product quality, trust, and (somewhat vaguely) ‘healthiness’ differs to that of competitive gamers such as members of faze clan. it is also interesting to note that pewdiepie repeatedly mentions “sceptic/al” throughout his announcement, indicating that he is wary of alienating the part of his micro-public that may be concerned about energy drinks’ impact on health. pewdiepie is afforded the opportunity to gain further prestige through connection to g fuel’s micro-publics and networks, and therefore, he is still aware of his reputation within his audience and the need to maintain his gamer persona and the values associated with it. overall, pewdiepie performs a more relaxed, internet-culture orientated, and quirky persona in contrast to faze’s cool and competitive persona, but still conforms to most elements of the contemporary gamer persona (such as gaming frequently). in scoring a partnership with pewdiepie, g fuel as a brand increases its value and reputation among the wider gaming community who are not competitive players, and presents itself as a quality product consumed by microcelebrities, a product that is potentially necessary to their success. this establishes and reinforces their prestige with micro-publics. keemstar prestige, however, goes both ways – a company can suffer when a connected influencer becomes embroiled in controversy and vice versa. an example of this is the breakdown of g fuel’s collaboration with youtuber keemstar (daniel keem). keemstar is known for making inflammatory videos about internet celebrities on his dramaalert channel, as well as his gaming content that includes coverage of online tournaments that feature popular microcelebrities. keemstar maintains a contemporary gamer persona that is expanded by a negative reputation for emphasising aggressive social interaction and spreading gossip. his persona, despite the controversy, or perhaps because of it, has experienced exceptional success and associated prestige. in may 2020, another youtuber, h3h3productions (ethan klein) published a video connecting keemstar to the suicide of gaming youtuber, etika (desmond amofah) (klein 2020a; tenbarge 2020). in the video, h3h3productions discusses g fuel’s ongoing collaboration with keemstar despite his numerous transgressions which include falsely accusing a streamer of being a paedophile: “g fuel, brought to you by false paedophilia accusations! chug a g fuel! get it now at gfuel.com…” (klein 2020a). following this, g fuel was heavily criticised for collaborating with keemstar. one upset customer posted on g fuel’s facebook page: “hey gfuel, how can you sponsor someone who has had a known video of themselves saying the n word over and over.... that video has been around for a while now, yet you still sponsored him” (g fuel 2020c). this audience outcry resulted in keemstar terminating his contract with g fuel (he claims)4 (tenbarge 2020). subsequently h3h3productions stated on twitter: keemstar wears g in every video & has gfuel on his desk in every video, its [sic] as much a part of him as his beard, its [sic] part of his identity. i didnt [sic] go after any of his other sponsors but this one is part of who he is. if gfuel dropped keemstar it's keemstars fault. (klein 2020b) h3h3production’s observation can be supported. g fuel and keemstar actively engaged in each other’s networks and micro-publics, with keemstar maximizing his “meta-collective complex” tomkinson & elliott 30 (moore, barbour & lee 2017, p.6). it is also important to note that g fuel was aware of keemstar’s polarising reputation, once promoting keemstar merchandise with a tweet: “introducing…the ‘keemstar karnival’ shaker! time to take your mouth on a roller coaster of internet drama!” (g fuel 2019). thus, it appears that gamma labs forgives certain transgressions, or at least that keemstar’s persona conformed to g fuel’s expectations. however, following the release of h3h3production’s video, keemstar’s reputation had been damaged to the extent that even networks and publics beyond his had begun to feel the impact, and therefore experienced a significant decrease in prestige. if gamma labs had remained associated with keemstar, they could have risked their other influencer’s reputations, impacting the strength of the networks and publics that had been created around this shared gamer persona. however, g fuel did not release a statement on the termination of keemstar’s partnership, only removing his products and merchandise from their store. content that includes keemstar remains on g fuel’s youtube channel, signalling that g fuel still benefits from keemstar’s collaboration. similarly, while keemstar has experienced significant controversy throughout his career, these controversies have seemingly not had a negative longterm impact on his prestige. it is possible that if h3h3productions had not criticised g fuel directly in his video, the short-term nature of internet outrage and prestige loss, as well as keemstar’s seeming ability to avoid the major consequences of ‘cancel culture’, would have seen keemstar remain in team gamma. although it is unknown whether g fuel intended to end their partnership with keemstar, the termination was the result of lost prestige. in comparison to keemstar, it seems that pewdiepie’s relentless popularity, particularly amongst young men, outweighs his personal controversies. pewdiepie has engaged in anti-semitism, relying on a kind of anti-political correctness ‘trolling’ attitude to defend himself as ‘just joking’ (hokka 2020). it appears that his level of prestige is high enough to mitigate any potential damage g fuel’s reputation might experience by partnering with him. additionally, faze clan has experienced a number of controversies, both collectively (restrictive contracts, gambling) and individually (game bans, drug abuse, sexism). a possible explanation for why pewdiepie and faze clan are able to get away with controversy is their respective levels of prestige. while the dramaalert youtube channel has 5.6 million subscribers, pewdiepie’s channel currently sits at over 100 million. the faze clan youtube channel currently has 8.3 million subscribers, but this number becomes far more significant when the youtube channels of popular members of the group are included (rug, for example, currently has 16.6 million). another explanation for why pewdiepie and faze clan can mitigate reputational damage to g fuel comes from the specifics of the controversies. pewdiepie has made numerous racist, antisemitic, and sexist comments, and has a few somewhat tenuous connections to alt-right figures (roose 2019). however, it seems his actions have yet to be received (by his own micropublics, as well as the internet's greater sphere) as inflicting overt and explicit harm upon others to the extent of drama content creators such as keemstar or at least, pewdiepie’s controversies and ‘cancellations’ have not significantly impacted his prestige as a creator, as he continuously enters into new partnerships. faze clan’s long-term relationship with g fuel and their status as an institution allow them to distance individual members’ behaviour from the greater team. these influencers share similar values associated with the contemporary gamer persona, and have moved on from gaming-only content. however, pewdiepie and faze clan still closely perform the gamer persona desired by gamma labs for the branding of g fuel and its associated persona. in high-profile partnerships such as those gamma labs has with faze clan, pewdiepie and (formerly) keemstar, it is evident that it is not only g fuel as a product that receives increased prestige in a competitive market. influencers are able to maintain their accumulated prestige by performing a form of a contemporary gamer persona – one that is specifically persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 31 gendered male, dedicated to creating (at least initially) gaming-related content distanced from traditional depictions of geekery, and has the potential to be involved in controversial situations. further, in viewing the higher echelons of g fuel’s squad, which include the hyperpopular youtuber ksi and live streamer dr disrespect, it becomes apparent that it is strategically better for gamma labs to take on risk and engage in relationships with controversial figures if they have high prestige. as this gamer persona currently dominates on popular online platforms and their communities, gamma labs is able to take risks with these creators, as they are routinely legitimised by their massive, gaming-enthusiast audiences – audiences that gamma labs eagerly wishes to bring into their micro-publics. diversity a final important aspect of g fuel’s gamer persona is its negotiation and representation of gender. gamma labs presents itself as being aware of women’s underrepresentation and poor treatment in multiplayer spaces, esports, game development and publishing, journalism, and content creation. g fuel’s website contains a blog section that regularly publishes a “women of g fuel” series, consisting of interviews with female content creators. these interviews offer insightful details into the history and lives of women streamers, specifically how and when they started gaming, and what obstacles linked to their gender they have faced in their journey. for example, in their interview with variety twitch streamer cahlaflour, the interviewer notes “cahla has also learned to brush off haters who question her legitimacy as a gamer due to her gender—a disappointingly common occurrence for the horror-game streamer” (lee 2019). similarly, in their interview with fighting game streamer aruuu (alanya hikaru alisha), the interviewer states that “[t]hough she had played tekken for years before evo 2018 [a fighting game tournament], some haters openly questioned how genuine her interest in fighting games was” (lee 2020). in these examples, gamma labs is eager to highlight the issues women face in competitive and community gaming spaces. it is clear that gamma labs is attempting to diversify the types of creators it collaborates with and frame itself as a brand that champions diversity. however, it is difficult for women to become cultural intermediaries for gaming culture. the power dynamics and cultural norms created and maintained within and alongside the game industry radically deplete the value, agency, and reputation that women have in establishing persona in these spaces. consequently, there are few female creators in the online gaming space that have managed to attain similar levels of prestige as the likes of pewdiepie, and so 1) there are fewer female influencers to choose from to promote g fuel and to help it establish its persona, and 2) these influencers have less prestige to offer (although it does indicate some recognition of female players). consequently, only ten of g fuel’s sixty sponsors are women, and only one currently inhabits the role of major brand ambassador at g fuel – variety streamer noisybutters. noisybutters in july 2020, g fuel announced that noisybutters (hannah bryan) would be releasing her own official g fuel flavour, ‘star fruit’, and a branded shaker. this was the first time a female sponsor had received an official flavour, and the accompanying press release legitimised her higher-level partnership by noting the number of her social media followers and views on youtube – her prestige. what makes noisybutters particularly interesting is that, in comparison to pewdiepie, keemstar and other male influencers partnered with gamma labs, her persona is in direct contrast to their ‘troll-like’ or otherwise controversial personas. gamma labs’ press release on noisybutters’ flavour states that “[w]hether she's gaming, streaming, building pcs, giving her fans a tour of her gaming setup, or spending time with her family, hannah lives by tomkinson & elliott 32 and promotes positivity and happiness, an integral part of her personal brand” (pr newswire 2020, emphasis added). by establishing a partnership with noisybutters, g fuel’s persona can take on some of her positive brand traits. further, noisybutters appears to present a representation of a female gamer persona that is publicly unaffected by attention to her gender. for example, in a video posted to her youtube channel, “girl gamer” stereotype | soar butters, she shares a situation where she was categorised as a ‘girl gamer’ (in this context a girl who is not interested in video games, but performs a gamer persona in order to accrue male attention): but just to clarify, this whole ‘girl gamer’ stereotype doesn’t really bother me at all, i’ve been told that i’m a girl gamer ever since i was like, what, fourteen, so it literally just goes right over my head ‘cuz i don’t give a damn. i will say having it happen to me in person was really…interesting? i had never really been defined by my gender that much in the gaming realm in person but hey, you know, whatever, i thought it was hilarious… (bryan 2018) yet noisybutters also commented on the discrimination she has experienced as a woman in an interview with tech brand republic of gamers: “bryan never let the discrimination bring her down because she knew she was skilled at the game, and she stood strong in the belief that everyone should be there for the same reason—to have fun” (republic of gamers 2019). noisybutters has not experienced the types of mass controversy that other popular women content creators such as pokimane (imane anys) and kaceytron (kacey kaviness) have experienced due to their gender. further, noisybutters has an interest in competitive gaming – she is a member of esports team atlanta faze – but her persona is organised around content creation as a player and not an esports competitor. by avoiding stigma and controversy, noisybutters creates value for her persona through playing mainstream titles such as call of duty with great attention to game mechanics, and establishing a strong reputation through her consistent affirmance of personal values such as “positivity” and “happiness”. noisybutters performs a gamer persona that exudes positivity and enjoyment, with her content almost exclusively focused on playing games. as a member of team gamma, her persona appears to exist as a tempering force alongside the sometimes-controversial gamer personas performed by keemstar, pewdiepie, and the faze clan, rather than directly challenging them. in comparison to these other figures, her persona aligns more closely and exclusively with the dedication to games aspect that the contemporary gamer persona preserves from its classic iteration, rather than courting controversy. gender plays a complex role here. though noisybutters has shared her experiences with discrimination as a woman in games, she does not configure gender as part of her persona, or at least, she attempts to avoid doing so. at the same time, her focus on positivity is a sound approach for a female content creator, who would be hard-pressed to perform a similar persona to, for example, pewdiepie, without backlash when appealing to broader gaming audiences. the gamer identity is in flux, and this has afforded creators such as noisybutters a greater ability to successfully construct, maintain, and perform a gamer persona, despite gender discourses that constrict what performances of persona are seen as legitimate by gamer audiences. however, in having to constantly manage the structural and cultural conditions that seek to oppose them, it is unsurprising that female gaming microcelebrities are disadvantaged compared to male creators, who are able to manage their personas to further their careers without strong pushback. female content creators can exercise decision-making and hold agency over their gaming personas, which are highly defined by their expression of femininity (whether intentionally expressed or not). as a result, while they can perform aspects of the persona studies 2020, vol. 6, no. 2 33 contemporary gamer persona, this persona is still highly associated with, and legitimised publicly by male figures. the few major partnerships gamma labs has with female gaming microcelebrities, for example, strongly suggests that famous women are not afforded the same opportunities to grow their careers as men with similar personas and followerships online. until this occurs, it is likely that the perception of the gaming persona, as supported by g fuel, is likely to be perceived as inherently masculine. as a significant gaming product, g fuel has the ability to make meaningful change in the wider gaming industry by signing female influencers with high levels of prestige. conclusion this paper provides a snapshot of some of the ways that g fuel constructs and performs a contemporary gamer persona, which has a reciprocal relationship with their chosen sponsees, and, in turn, is impacted by the sponsees’ audiences. on its website gamma labs does not solely focus on gaming, instead emphasising an exciting, busy life for anyone consuming g fuel, which is offered as a healthy alternative to other energy drinks. it is in g fuel’s social media pages where a collective and mediatised gamer persona is evident, fuelled by engagement with a variety of gaming influencers. our investigation brought forward two themes relating to these influencers: the balancing of prestige and risk, and the inclusion of diverse influencers. the gamer identity, while in a sense being ‘dead’, is undergoing a resurgence. gamers, in the context of g fuel, are no longer conceptualised as antisocial and lazy, but cool, energetic, and constantly engaging with media such as esports and popular culture. they are still, however, seen as predominantly young men dedicated to gaming. consequently, female streamers and esports players remain much less prominent in terms of microcelebrity and prestige. overall, the g fuel persona illustrates that while there have been significant cultural shifts, trends, and patterns in the gaming industry, there is still space for improvement when it comes not only to increasing diversity, but also in deciding who receives attention, and therefore, can foster prestige and benefit financially. keemstar, pewdiepie, and faze clan are considered some of the key faces of contemporary gaming, and their inflammatory content as well as promotion of g fuel is popular amongst younger viewers. considering the sometimescontroversial nature of their content and the health concerns regarding energy drinks, brands, microcelebrities, and platforms must consider the impact that such content (and the way it is presented) has on consumers and, more broadly, the impact it has on the gaming sphere. future research into product marketing towards gamers, as well as gamer personas, would further benefit our understanding of how popularity, prestige, and influence are formed and utilised by individuals within the online gaming space. end notes 1. in 2014 eron gjoni accused his game developer ex-partner zoë quinn of having affairs with numerous games journalists in order to obtain positive reviews of their game depression quest. after posting these accusations on a blog and numerous forums, quinn became a target of intense vitriolic bullying. this developed into a chaotic harassment campaign targeting mostly women in gaming. 2. crowdfunding platforms such as kickstarter and patreon, as well as social media, have enabled developers to become more visible to their audiences. further, many tools such as unity and blender are free or offer scaled pricing, enabling individuals and small studios to engage in game development with lower barriers to entry. tomkinson & elliott 34 3. g fuel’s advertising material refers to such arrangements as ‘partnerships’, however, it’s worth noting that g fuel appears to ‘sponsor’ content creators also. throughout this paper we have chosen the term ‘partnership’ to describe the relationship g fuel has with gamer influencers, although each arrangement may have its own particular conditions. 4. following criticism sparked by hshsproduction’s video, keemstar stated that he ”walked away” from his contract with g fuel due 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