“The Painted Skin,” Face Changing, Digital Coliseums, and the Circular Theater: On Digital Existence in Social Media and WeChat Moments

This article delves into the strategies utilized within our digital lives on social media, with a specific reference to the "Moments" feature on the Chinese social media app WeChat. It begins with an analysis of how we, with our masks composed of avatars and "likes," painstakingly craft our image through adaptive "face changing" to secure our place within Moments. Social media is then likened to a digital coliseum where the warmth of group affiliation fosters both noxious primal emotions and noble pursuits of loftier societal values, such as justice. Finally, it views social media, Moments in particular, as a transparent circular theater where the power dynamics play out much as they do in reality. In this arena, alongside others with similar ambitions, we engage in rituals of submission and celebration, seeking recognition of power and identity in an unending spectacle devoid of closure.