Performance: Paralinguistic Cues, Metadata, and Identity

Lanning's breakthrough into performance happens when he goes into concrete detail in order to contrast the primitive computers he used in elementary school with the sleeker computers common at the time the narrative was recorded in 2010. He tosses his head for emphasis when he recalls the "old Apple Macintosh computers" he used as a child in his elementary school’s computer lab and shakes his head more noticeably when he dismisses them as "old, ancient ones." More pointedly, Lanning emphasizes his final evaluation of the old Apple computers as "stone age," speaking these words louder and enunciating them more clearly than the other words in his narrative. This comment sets the stage for Lanning's concluding reflection about his current computer literacy and the connections he makes between his earlier use of computers and his current, tech-saturated life: he implies that his early experiences on the “computer bus” paved the way for “what I use [the computer to do] now, where I practically use the computer every day, whether it’s, you know, for school or email or anything, social networking.” It is the evaluative statement—especially his closing line, where he thanks the “computer bus lady” for giving him his start with computers—that allows Lanning to represent himself as a confident, competent user of the various digital technologies he deploys in the contemporary moment he depicts in the conclusion of his narrative.