A reflexive performance of caution in a cryptocurrency fraud encounter

Abstract

I became both lens and landscape when I encountered a fraudster. I draw from a real-time encounter with a cryptocurrency fraudster. Using Goffman’s dramaturgical theory, I conceptualise the crypto fraudster as a performing subject who crafts trust through staged authenticity, emotional modulation, and aesthetic precision. I argue that scams are not merely deceptive acts, but performative events co-produced through platform affordances and affective labour. Methodologically, I offer a participant-situated lens, emphasising emotional reflexivity and positionality as sources of criminological insight. I reframe it as a symbolic performance embedded in the sociotechnical architectures, and call for a more situated, experiential, and attuned understanding of life online.