Goffman’s concept of the presentation of self is the idea that interactions are a sort of theatrical performance, with each person being a performer either on stage or backstage where they prepare and act differently (Goffman 1959). What has been found in recent studies is that participants often attempt to re-create their offline selves online. However, embellishment and dividing the self still occur online, often with masking of the self also occurring (Bullingham and Vasconcelos 2013). Research done by Kilvington (2020) has found that the introduction of new media technologies has blurred the boundaries between front and backstages. These blurred lines can inspire hate online, where some actions that have recently been found to be purely backstage like blatant racism that was last seen heavily during the time of the Jim Crow laws have now moved onto the front stage where people can witness it, but sometimes cannot identify the author.
When forming online identities and accounts, there are five basic forms that users use to create and present their identities. These are the public diary, the influencer, the entertainer, job and education, and hobby (Josef and Merunková 2019). These definitions can help to assign commenters to a category and content creators to the influencer category to further see how they interact with one another. With these categories, research done by Choe (2019) can be used that has shown Goffman’s concept of footing, or alignment, to help address how mukbang viewers orient themselves toward and take part in the ritual of mukbang viewing. These past studies connect how users see themselves and how they portray themselves to others both in front of the camera and behind the screen.