A mechanism or tactic · 1438 · Medieval
Binding
Performing a self until the self holds, where it can be witnessed. Margery Kempe in white clothes in a world where widows wore black, weeping loudly in public for years, having decided she was going to be a specific kind of person.
The founding document. It has three ingredients - a public, a performance, and witnesses who disapprove - and every parasocial dynamic since has those three. The neighbours thought she was unwell. The only thing that has changed is what the audience thinks about the person who is unwell.
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