key idea in Goffman’s work was that people collaborate in each everyday situation to keep it going, to define what is going on, to keep up appearances. We “save each other’s faces” by avoiding topics or withholding comments, we ignore small mishaps even if everyone noticed them, we stretch our backs and put on a face before we enter a friend’s house, we conceal our nose picking and stained underwear, we find ways to subtly neutralize and diminish painfully obvious differences of class and status.
