February 2026

I sometimes wear a mask in social situations. It's lowbrow and poorly made, which is a little embarrassing.

But it gives me power to cope with fear of judgment, rejection, and embarrassment.  It's ironic that through this admission, I feel a sense of power. The mask gives me that power. 

Wild Suburb plays with this tension of concealing and revealing as a metaphor for vulnerability and power. It uses irony and paradox to simultaneously reveal and conceal. 

The deer is a fitting symbol of this power; he makes me stronger, more cunning, with a thicker skin and improved sense of smell and vision, but he's a benign force. Insofar as he's endlessly commodified and reified in popular culture, universally accepted as kitsch, he's a blunt instrument. 

I am fully aware of this contradiction of ineffectuality and I find it funny. It helps me to push through an awkward social situation with humour, but sometimes I fail. Maybe this is why people sometimes tell me he looks more haunting than humorous. 

I don't need him every day. Sometimes weeks go by without him. But when I do need him he's there. There's that rush of power again. 

Although looked down upon in many social contexts as an act of deception, social masking isn't necessarily unethical when committed without malice, particularly when used to protect from harm. In many institutional settings; academia, professional workplaces, the military, it's implicitly relied upon as a marker of maturity and competence.

"It is probably no mere historical accident that the word person, in it's first meaning, is a mask. It is rather a recognition of the fact that everyone is always and everywhere, more or less consciously playing a role... It is in these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves." (1)

I know the deer is too ridiculous to be taken seriously, but I want him to be taken seriously; perhaps it's unfair to ask this of my audience. It's ironic how he helps me fit in, while also making me stand out. 

Goffman proposed a dramaturgical metaphor for social interactions as having a main stage and a back stage. On the main stage we reveal parts of ourselves we want others to see, while on the back stage we keep other parts of ourselves hidden, primarily to avoid embarrassment. (2)

By bringing my embarrassment forward to the main stage I embrace it, and in so doing, try to disarm it. Over time this process has allowed me some success in adopting a new figure: the jackalope. 

As a creature even more deeply rooted in folklore and satire, he may be an even more effective vehicle for simultaneous self-protection and social engagement. His metal helmet functions as both protective armour and scaffolding, supporting the rabbit ears so essential to the allure of his mythos. 

While revealing my face doesn't necessarily come without risk, it's a step I'm willing to take. 

1. Robert Ezra Park, Race and Culture, The Free Press, 1950

2. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Doubleday, 1959