The need for a digitally touched-up ‘public face’ has become constant and commonplace
Once predominantly
the reserve of long-distance catch-ups with family and friends, online video communication has been thoroughly subsumed into white-collar professional settings. This has led to an increased awareness of our digital self-image. In contrast to the selfies we post on social media, which respond to social pressures but are not mandatory, video communication in this new world – necessitated by capitalism under the duress of a pandemic – demands that we constantly represent ourselves online. While it might initially have felt less stressful to be on video calls at home – and there certainly are advantages, such as avoiding the drudgery of a rush-hour commute – the inability to speak to colleagues informally, say while on a coffee break, has led to online meetings becoming a back-to-back affair.
Outside Flying Tiger, the international mecca of low-priced and futile design, there is a lot of people waiting in line. It’s a recurring scene that happens all over the world on Saturday afternoons. But here on Götgatan, Stockholm’s long shopping street, something is different. Because no one inside the shop is wearing a mask. And no one outside the shops is wearing a mask either. Not even the passers-by, except for an elderly lady, all alone, walking with a walker in this unusually snowless December. And no one is wearing a mask inside any other shops in the Swedish capital, at the supermarket or the post office, or in any other part of the city, in the boutiques in Ostermalm or in the alleys that climb up and down Gamla Stan, the old town, or on the buses or in the metro cars. That’s because here in Sweden no one has to wear a mask, and there has never been a lockdown.