Young people’s digitally-networked bodies: the changing possibilities of what a gendered body can be, do and become online

ABSTRACT

Drawing on data from creative and visual group interviews undertaken in 2018 with five LGBTQ+ young people aged 15–18 years old in the South Wales valleys, this paper explores the gendered experiences of the body online. In line with wider research, participants illustrated that commodified gendered and sexualized norms were intensified online through the everyday forceful intrusion of idealized bodies and abusive body-shaming comments. However, they also pointed to the role of food and pet content in experiences of embodied pleasure and feeling good online. Inspired by feminist posthuman and new materialist scholarship, this paper examines how food and pet photography plugs into masculinizing and feminizing bodily assemblages. In so doing, it not only makes an empirical contribution to the field of gender studies, but also offers a contribution to the methodological literature by developing a theoretically informed approach, which expands the boundaries of what a gendered body may be, do and become online.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• gender
• embodiment
• digital culture

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the reviewers and editors of this special issue for their insightful commentary and support with shaping this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Ethics

The research was approved by the ethics committee of Cardiff University’s School of Social Sciences. In line with institutional protocols around informed consent, all participants and settings involved were provided with an information sheet and consent form. Parental consent was required for participants under the age of 16.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The words ‘chav’ or ‘chavvy’ are typically used in a derogatory way to refer to the white working-class in Britain (Tyler 2008).

2. Luff is a cutesy slang term for love.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under DTC grant number E/J500197/1

Notes on contributors

Kate Marston

Kate Marston is an ESRC funded Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales. Their research sets out to foster creative, curious and imaginative ways of attending to how gender and sexuality comes to matter in young people’s everyday digitally networked lives.