‘Let me burst your bubble’: examining face-saving and face-threatening acts in Nons Miraj’s The Hunt Game Show

With digital matchmaking supplanting traditional practices, matchmaking and dating platforms online have become very popular shows for entertainment. These Dating Reality Shows (DRS) on social media platforms like YouTube have gained traction in Nigeria and across the world for their appeal and accessibility to a range of heterogeneous audience. DRS enables participants to explore a larger pool of potential partners while presenting their authentic selves. This study examines face-saving and face-threatening acts in Nons Miraj’s The Hunt Game Show (THGS), focusing on sociocultural factors that influence face-management. THGS stands out as a Nigerian-organized, managed and produced DRS for ‘single’ adults seeking romantic dates. The data consist of 30 purposively selected interactions from six episodes running into 12 cumulative hours. Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategies and Butler’s Gender Performativity theory are adopted as an analytical framework for inquiry into how face-threatening acts (FTA) and face‑saving acts (FSA) are performed by the participants, and the socio-gendered implications of these acts in wide interpersonal and social discourse. The findings reveal a prevalence of FTA as a predictor of individual genuineness, and that participants are influenced by such sociocultural factors as nurture environment, financial status and gendered behaviours, when managing their public face.