Looking at Facebook as a socio-technical infrastructure can help us gain a broader perspective
on the performed sociality in Yangon. Infrastructure works on many different levels at the
same time and functions through activation, limitations, and circulation of goods and ideas.
We can then approach these activations, limitations, and circulations as part of the
structuration of social frames, the social context in which we perform. Following Goffman´s
view that every version of the self is to some degree performed and based on specific frames
of expectations, and that “We play a variety of roles in life with different degrees of
attachment and distance” (Daniel Miller, 2011, p. 177), it would validate the chapters
argument of performed sociality, and creation of social frames. The degrees of attachment and
distance can be seen in the relation the given person, in the given moment, have to the
particular three different levels, and which expectation and then performance is acted out in
the created context, frames, and norms. This variety of roles and relations can then be
reflected in how the social expectation of a “perfect” Facebook profile should be. That would
be not to suggest that life is a straight line with only good things happening, but a line with
waves, a life with ups and downs. Avoiding being labeled as a popper, Facebook posts
somewhat mimics social and cultural notions of what a “normal life” would be, somehow
reflecting this online.
In the same way that infrastructures are crafted onto an already existing world and are a part
of an accretion process, how one is presented online is crafted from already existing frames
and expectations and need to be maintained too (Appel, 2015). This is not something static
but a process that encourages maintenance through continued posting and interaction. Miller
suggests that in the Trinidadian context, Facebook works as a virtual place where you can
discover whom you are by being presented a visible objectification of yourself (Daniel Miller,
2011, p. 179). Dedan, during one of our conversations, said something similar as Mimi and
Pemala. He as well stated that “the real feelings is on Facebook”, and continued to explain
that:
“If you really want to know someone, don´t talk with him or her. Just stalk Facebook profile
and you will see their ego´s – there is no difference between Facebook and real life [when it
comes to the ego]”.
Dedan uses the words ego and personality as synonyms in this conversation, and he is,
therefore, talking about people’s real personalities while using the word ego. Facebook is then
looked upon as a virtual place that can, to some extent, tell the truth of a person, without
86