Self-Presentation
Even though the video conferencing room is open to everyone, there is a clandestine feeling about watching the faces of others as each sentence’s impact reverberates from speaker to listener.
An interesting thing about the proliferation of Zoom, Google Meets, WebEx, Microsoft Teams (how on earth did Skype drop the ball on this one?), is that as we speak, we are reflected back digitally to ourselves. A friend complained to me, early on in the lockdown, of how video-conferencing made him aware of his ugliness, which bewildered me, for I find him very handsome. But far be it from me to interfere with another person’s self-perception; since I was young, I’ve found it useless to respond to comments of this type with “You’re so good looking” or “No, you’re not fat at all” or “Don’t be silly, gap teeth are on trend now.” If sincere about their initial expression, these comments only serve to inform them that their feelings can find no validation in you, they do not inspire actual transformative change. If insincere, they trigger a feeling of contempt, or irritation - for nothing is as transparent as fishing for compliments, even if the speaker thinks they do a good job of hiding it. That’s not to say that I’ve always successfully steered away from the reflexive reach towards comfort, but more often than not, it conjures questions within me pertaining to the source of these comments, or the circumstances that enable their creation.
After that conversation with my friend, I began to stare at myself more seriously in video conferences, which at the time took up 80% of my waking hours. All the more discomfiting when I realized that Zoom mirror-imaged my face as a default setting, which gives off a more pleasing impression. I un-did the setting and watched as the asymmetry of my face bloomed across the screen; I couldn’t help flinching, it was horrific. I’d been complacent about digital self-consciousness before that: in my day job, I worked as an onscreen host and presenter, which meant that I was familiar with the grimaces, quirks, and unflattering angles that often crop up in the middle of my speech. But those images were delivered to me delayed, after going through rounds on the cutting floor of the video editor’s room, and I assume, being culled of the more unfavorable frames, or replaced with a cutaway to a close-up on another person, or object. In a video conferencing room, my face was broadcasted and reflected in real-time, and here I was, with the opportunity to immediately remedy the flat hair, the double chin, the snorts that I’d previously brushed off with a flicker of regret. I found my eyes drifting to my own face, seeking myself out in a screen full of rectangles, and as the speaker’s voice dimmed in my consciousness, I found myself spending time and attention adjusting my face, my posture, my hair, all the while maintaining a genial expression indicating presence of mind.
What a colossal waste of time! Only when I logged off one evening to realize the notes I made corresponded to empty air in my memory, did I become aware of the disproportionate amount of time I’d spent staring at myself. And for what? High likelihood that no one else was paying attention to my rectangle, and even if they were, who was I preening for? I made a deliberate effort to rip my gaze away from myself, which necessitated looking at others more carefully, more fixedly. What met my eyes was a sense of voyeurism: the amused pretense of attention while a person checked their phones just off-screen, the glazed-over-ness of the daydreamer, the barely concealed mirth of two people smiling in sync, probably sending messages to each other via the private chat function. None of these observations were verifiable as rooted in truth — of course participant A and B may not have been engaging in the early stages of flirtation (they were). But, as an inevitable casualty of being a writer, I invented fictions about these rectangles, and as time went by, understood a little bit more about how we present ourselves, when these selves are simultaneously peeled away and revealed to the rest of the room, through a dinky internet connection, and digitally arranged pixels on a screen.
In the past, it would be considered rude, this staring. In fact, you could get into fights in Singapore for being too attentive to a person at another table; even if you didn’t mean to be intrusive or judgemental, perhaps the little quirks of your face present a different story to others. Out come the beer bottles, the confrontation. But in our new video-conferencing world, it’s a different story. Here, you can stare all you want, pay attention, take notes. The generalities of all our screens act as mirrored sunglasses, disguising your gaze. At any time, you could be staring at someone, and they could be staring back at you, too. There is only one person who knows the specifics of your stare: you. How many connections are missed that way, grazing over each other, never met with acknowledgement from the other end? How many phantom friendships, formed over the coinciding of eyes, the exchange of a small, quick smile, have gone unformed? Pointless, maybe, to make a grocery list of all the pros and cons, all the haves and have-nots of this strange new world. After all, participation in a pandemically informed life is not optional. Instead of saying “this is better”, or crying how much we long for “old days”, it’s better to be aware of the full realities of both sides — so when the time comes where we can comfortably and safely switch between the two, we know exactly what we are getting ourselves into, and how.
