Performance: Paralinguistic Cues, Metadata, and Identity

The different types of performances found in these narratives suggest different relationships between the narrators and the technologies they deploy. The instances where Musgrave and Lanning break through into performance suggest that they reflect on these memories fondly. They have pleasant memories associated with technology, and they position themselves as successful technology users for their viewing audiences. The introduction Dauterman uses for her narrative and her inclusion of visible signs of its production suggests connections she makes between her early memories of technology and the conventions of the contemporary vlog genre, pointing to continuity between her past and present uses of computers. Dauterman’s use of a vlog-style introductory technique to lead into a memory of her earliest experience with computers constructs a link—albeit one which may only hold within this narrative—between the vlog performer Dauterman is now and the Money Town-playing girl she was in her recollection.

On the other hand, the ways in which Anonymous and Johnston tell their stories suggest that they may want to distance themselves from technology, especially in Anonymous' case where she allows the dog to interrupt her narrative rather than re-recording it without interruption. In addition to demonstrating the narrators' familiarity with digital media production techniques and providing anecdotal evidence of these individuals' histories of technology use, cues found in the authors' performance and metadata speak to the subtle relationships the narrators establish between themselves and the technologies they use and again suggest the diversity found within this group of narratives contributed by individuals from the same birth-cohort.