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ABSTRACT
What is the power of social media in defining and policing sexual identities and bodily expressions, and what are their connections to understanding nation, power and self in authoritarian contexts? Through the study of popular Instagram accounts in Kazakhstan and Russia, I argue that these sites serve as spaces of visualization and re-creation of new forms of ‘acceptable’ behaviour and lifestyles, that on the one hand may lead to new globalized visions of sexual identity and the body while on the other promoting localized conflict and resentment online, triggered by online users’ fear of losing their ‘national culture’ in these global trends. While many resort to policing gender norms and heteronormative body images online, influencers and Instagrammers from Russia and Kazakhstan take an active part in resisting these frameworks and categories.
SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION CODES:
Acknowledgements
I want to thank the guest editors of this special issue, Judith Beyer and Peter Finke, for overseeing and making this collaboration possible. I thank Judith Beyer, Madeleine Reeves and the three anonymous reviewers for their comments, which helped me improve it.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 For an interview with Zere Asylbek, see Kate Herrington-Kobekpaeva, ‘Run the world: Zeré Asylbek called out gender disparity in Kyrgyzstan and she’s only getting started’, Calvert Journal, 2 October 2018, https://www.calvertjournal.com/articles/show/10689/zere-asylbek-feminist-pop-anthem-interview (accessed 24 June 2019).
2 For photos and further information see https://www.nur.kz/1072888-vozmutivshuyu-astanchan-statuyu-devushki.html (accessed 10 August 2017).
3 For further details see Aktan Rysaliev, ‘Drawing Out Kazakstan's Social Tensions’, Institute for War & Peace Reporting, 3 August 2016, https://iwpr.net/global-voices/drawing-out-kazakstans-social-tensions (accessed 5 November 2017).
4 A Pew Research (Citation2016) worldwide survey reported that
to a greater extent than the other social platforms measured in this survey, Instagram use is especially high among younger adults. Roughly six-in-ten online adults ages 18–29 (59%) use Instagram, nearly double the share among 30- to 49-year-olds (33%) and more than seven times the share among those 65 and older (8%).
5 Research on social media use in Russia by Russian Search Marketing. Statista’s report, ‘Leading Countries Based on Number of Instagram Users’, places Russia fifth in worldwide Instagram users, with more than 35 million.
6 Data from Amnesty International, ‘Think Before You Post: Closing Down Social Media Space in Kazakhstan’ (2017) and 2017 NapoleonCat data.
7 In November 2018, Madina Musina had 71,800 followers on Instagram, Diana Idris had 13,600, and Aadya (who had changed her accounts numerous times due to hacks and threats) had more than 20,000.
8 I decided to follow these two publics for a shorter period for two reasons. First, in a year I had collected enough evidence on ‘slut-shaming’, since both accounts widely shared this type of derogative data. Second, Koten-Insta ceased to exist and Labuten_vsemu_golova stopped posting due to many complaints, which got some of the content deleted almost as soon as it was published. The main editor/s who provided defaming of Instagram female beauty bloggers eventually resigned, and the new editors could not keep the public going or maintain its popularity. I searched and followed these and other similar publics throughout the five-year period, but my main focus remained with the three targeted bloggers mentioned above.
9 Instagram is similar to Twitter in that people need to start ‘following’ updates from any particular user or public. These followers then can express their appreciation and support by ‘liking’ any particular post or commenting on any given picture or video that has been shared by the user or the public.
10 The song’s lyrics asked the woman whether she earned her luxurious lifestyle, with expensive cars, fur coats and diamonds, via oral sex; a female voice replied, ‘No, it was a present.’
11 The deleted blogger’s account was traceable at first through her name and came up in the search as ‘deleted account’ until even her profile was removed from Instagram. Eventually, the editor(s) of Labuten_vsemu_golova were forced to take the video down, but the public was not banned, and they continued to expose other female beauty bloggers and call them sex workers. By the end of my digital ethnography for this project, Labuten_vsemu_golova had lost most of its audience; it was rumoured that the previous editor(s) had left the account, and it soon became less popular and less visible.
12 In February 2018, a public scandal including Russia’s deputy prime minister and a famous Russian oligarch developed quickly, creating a precedent of legally obliging Instagram users to delete photos, information and mentions of certain public names from their Instagram accounts. The scandal developed after the leader of the opposition, Alexey Navalny, discovered that the deputy PM and a famous oligarch had travelled together to Norway on a private yacht and discussed politically important matters in the company of sex workers. One of these sex workers, then a popular Russian Instagrammer, Nastya Rybka, published photos, information and even audio and video information from the yacht in her book and widely on her numerous Instagram accounts. I had been following the group related to Rybka and other ‘huntresses’ – sexually liberated women who promote free sex and the use of oligarchs (whom they ‘hunt’) for a year when the scandal broke in the beginning of 2018. Their nude photos, numerous accounts, public sex videos and threats to reveal more information about oligarchs were often deleted, but the story involving the deputy PM and the oligarch finally created a legal precedent in Russia over defamatory and harmful public images of people whose names or pictures are used on Instagram without their consent. Instagram’s privacy policy to date has loose ends concerning public damage to one’s image or the use of photos. On 25 Feburary 2018, just two weeks after Russia’s oppositional leader Alexey Navalny published the video about the oligarch affair with Rybka online, Nastya Rybka and her group were imprisoned in Thailand for providing sexual services. When they were returned to Russia in mid-January 2019, they were briefly imprisoned there. Nastya Rybka, a Belarusian citizen, was released from a Moscow prison at the end of January 2019, when she gave a number of interviews, mainly for YouTube bloggers, but soon after that she disappeared from the popular media.
13 See http://expertonline.kz/a14855/ for a review of the book. http://www.ratel.kz/outlook/opus_mady with book details has been blocked.
14 ‘Influencers generally have large social media followings and are assumed to be trusted voices that can reach large audiences’ (Carter Citation2016, 2).
15 Interview with Diana Idris for Buro 24/7 Kazakhstan, http://www.buro247.kz/buro-choise/opinion/diana-idris-eto-bylo-by-smeshno-esli-by-ne-bylo-tak-grustno.html, accessed 10 August 2017.
16 Most of the local LGBTQ bloggers I followed tried to hide their identities and sexuality for security reasons. I also received a number of videos and stories of police abusing LGBTQ people.
17 See also Beyer and Kojobekova in this special issue. For more on the anti-uyat campaign, see the recent incident with topless Instagram blogger Shirin Narchayeva in Kazakhstan, “Hundreds of men protest against Shirin Narchayeva's naked photos”, https://365info.kz/2019/01/sotni-muzhchin-ustroili-miting-protiv-shirin-narchaevoj/ (accessed 9 January 2019). In winter 2019 a scandal broke out after 18-year-old Shirin Narchaeva posted her topless photos in a saukele, the national Kazakh headpiece, on Instagram.
18 In her study of suicides among girls and female teenagers (ages 15–19) in Kazakhstan, Bagayeva (Citation2012) mentions the moral pressures of premarital sex, early pregnancies and immoral behaviour in general as important factors in suicide in Kazakhstan, which is a country that occupies one of the leading places in teenage suicide rates.
19 NBC report on protests in Russia to free Meduza news portal investigative journalist Ivan Golunov: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/russia-s-decision-free-ivan-golunov-shows-protests-against-kremlin-ncna1018696.
20 Joanna Lillis report on Kazakhstan’s protest movements in June 2019: https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-waking-up-to-reform.
21 For details on the ‘Free Ivan Golunov’ protests and how these were discussed on social media, see https://www.rferl.org/a/demonstrators-gather-for-march-to-support-russian-journalist-despite-his-release/29995113.html; and for the Reuters report on Kazakhstan’s post-2019 presidential elections protests, also reporting on social media use, see https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-kazakhstan-election-protests/kazakh-activists-call-for-more-protests-over-presidential-vote-idUKKCN1TC0GA.
22 Netblocks.org has reported that blocking the Internet and various social media in Kazakhstan cost the country more than USD 7 million per hour.