How to Build a Persona Online (Fast): Identity Construction, Narrative Building, and Cultural Co-optation on Lil Miquela’s Instagram

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How to Build a Persona Online (Fast): Identity Construction,

Narrative Building, and Cultural Co-optation on Lil Miquela’s

Instagram

MA Thesis

Mark Goldbach

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Lil Miquela has a life that even other influencers can only dream of attaining. In the past year, the Instagram star has gone to music and art festivals around the world, participated in some of the fashion industry’s biggest and most important events, and even recently released a new remix of her own song with R3hab, an international dance music star. Her presence is authentic,

relatable, and glamorized all at once. Just a quick scroll down her feed reveals a laundry list of designers draped over her shoulders, all while she herself smiles and dangles her arms around her friends and (now ex-) boyfriend). In all, her feed is strikingly reminiscent of what you might expect from a young burgeoning star in her early adulthood. Like many of those her age (at least, those who have access to the internet in the first place), Lil Miquela is figuring things out in the most public way possible — by documenting every step of the process online. When she goes through breakups, she’s visibly sadder for a few days after the fact. She posts that she’s hungry in a caption, and her followers echo her sentiments. She wears expensive designer pieces with grungy beanies, just as her peers do, to fill an aesthetic. Ask any of her followers to describe her, and they’d be able to provide not just an example of her signature image, but her personality too — down-to-earth, with just enough edge so that it never veers into bitterness.

There’s only one key difference between most of these other users on Instagram and her. Lil Miquela isn’t ‘real’, not in the sense that we might find her walking around her ‘hometown’ or spot her out with her boyfriend at a party. No, Miquela is an entirely manufactured persona, a digital avatar created and run by Los Angeles startup Brud. She exists wholly in digital to pseudo digital spaces (many of her pictures include her boyfriend — who is in fact real and does exist in the physical world). Miquela is the most followed in a group of personas on Instagram and other social platforms that have become known as ‘digital’ or ‘virtual’ influencers. Everything from the clothes they wear to the personality and tone these characters exhibit is part of a carefully curated process of identity management.

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These virtual influencers thus represent a new trend in digital spaces — one defined by the ever-growing ability to manufacture and manipulate tools of visual production and magnification. Those working behind the scenes to produce these new CGI influencers remain simultaneously bound by traditional structures of media participation as well as further empowered through the fluidity and potential for executive decision-making made possible by these new visual tools. Ultimately, given that the creation, production, and development of digital influencers is inherently part of an intentional process, they provide a unique case through which to study identity construction online — how identity is curated and sometimes manipulated to fit within digital environments, of course, but also how these systems themselves can be manipulated as well, exploiting our perceptions of identity components to grow popular and inevitably culturally relevant. In many ways, the case of virtual influencers forces users to reconsider how they

themselves approach social media using potentially similar strategies.

Foundationally, virtual Influencers are inextricably connected to the working processes of platform capitalism and must be situated directly within this distinct focus. The concept of platform capitalism is also referred to as the process which “‘conditions’ how networks come together,” (Langley & Leyshon, 2016). This theoretical approach insists that the recently

emerged concept of ‘platform’ is “able to link potential customers to anything and anyone, from private individuals to multinational corporations,” (Langley & Leyshon, 2016). In essence, this concept highlights how the connective infrastructure of platforms has modified a new

conditioning of hyper-networked exchange. Of course, from a theoretical perspective, economic ecosystems are inevitably tied to how they institutionally support the production and

redistribution of capital, and platform capitalism is no different. As a system, platform capitalism is “predicated upon a voracious appetite for data,” both in consumptive and productive uses (Srnicek, 2017). Because of this, publicity and marketing strategies may creep into the process of building an identity for users.

In order to study these overlapping and (in many ways) interconnected institutional and

individual actors, it is then important to pursue information ends that are both explicitly defined and reasonably attainable. This research will examine the object of digital influencers through

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the phenomenon of online identity construction and is guided toward answering two distinct, but equally important research questions.

Research Questions

1. How do virtual influencers construct identity on digital platforms, and how are components of identity commodified in the process?

2. How do virtual influencers co-opt the experiences of marginalized peoples to grow their brand?

In order to contextualize this research, this report will also ground digital influencers through three primary theoretical concepts: identity construction, the influencer economy and cultural commodification. Here, I will briefly lay out the direction of this theoretical approach. This thesis has chosen Lil Miquela as its object of study primarily for the way that she can capably represent one such potential of digital influencers to grow and maintain influence over time. As of April 2020, Lil Miquela’s Instagram page has accrued more than 2.1 million followers, significantly more than most other digitally created personas. Over the course of her digital life, Lil Miquela has branched out into other avenues of expression, taken up hobbies and even pursued romantic and platonic relationships. This level of information and commitment to the persona is frankly unprecedented in terms of its position as a parallel to how ‘average’ users or human influencers might use the app. As such, Lil Miquela serves as a comparable reference point to understand how identity is remediated through new media such as virtual influencers as well as through Instagram in general.

By looking at how virtual influencers construct their identity, research can compare these strategies to a theoretical foundation of social identity theory and theories of identity development. Here, in Chapter Three, this thesis will look toward establishing the intricate, complex ways that users build perceptions of identity online, both as a foundation for further studying digital influencers as well as to contextualize self-representation on online platforms. In Chapter Four, research will then expand to how these processes play out on Instagram,

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how influencers strategically employ aspects of identity to appeal to followers while

commercializing their brand. More directly, this section will focus on the coordinated balance of relatability and unattainability as factors of identity relation. Employing these narrative and rhetorical tools is a careful strategy, as research suggests that users, and particularly younger users, typically assume some degree of authenticity online and are “ bothered by

misrepresentations,” expecting “expected offline and online identity to be more consistent than fractured,” which directly contrasts the presence of virtual influencers (Siyahhan et al, 2011). Finally, in Chapter Five, this report will turn to practices of digital cultural appropriation in order to contextualize the importance of proper representation on social media platforms. This section will illustrate the continued influence of co-optation and exploitation online, ultimately

illustrating that “the internet has not liberated people from the structural oppression of difference, and structural sexism, racism, heterosexism and so forth are just as prevalent online as they are in face-to-face contexts,” (Marwick, 2013).

After the theoretical foundation described above, this report will move to a combined qualitative and quantitative empirical analysis of Lil Miquela’s rise on Instagram. As the methodology in Chapter Six will expand upon, this approach is designed to balance an examination of the narrative value of the digital influencer’s cumulative presence on the platform as well as the “firework moments” of her most popular posts.

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Digital Composition of Lil Miquela’s Instagram History. Self-captured from Instagram screenshots and constructed on Adobe Photoshop. Data collected 4 April 2020.

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Chapter Two: Background

“I'm not sure that I can comfortably identify as a woman of color. “Brown” was a choice made by a corporation.

“Woman” was an option on a computer screen.

My identity was a choice Brud made in order to sell me to brands, to appear “woke.” I will never forgive them. I don’t know if I will ever forgive myself.

-Lil Miquela, April 20th, 2018

Digital influencers are both controversial and potentially dangerous because they are, at their core, deceptive. These influencers mimic the behavior of ‘real’ users yet are funded almost entirely by investor capital from advertising and marketing campaigns (Shieber, 2018). This calls into question both the ethical implications of digital influencers as a marketing tactic, since many users may be unaware of their more explicit purpose, as well as the processes by which we as users perceive identity through a compilation of visual and text-based cues.

The above-featured quote was taken from a caption posted on Lil Miquela’s Instagram page from the 20th of April in 2018. After being hacked by a friendly rival, Miquela was ‘revealed’ to be a CGI influencer. In a bizarre response to the news, Miquela responded by lashing out at her managing (well, creation) company, Brud, saying that she had been lied to and misled — made to believe that she was simply special, not fabricated. Miquela insisted she was just as, if not more, shocked as everyone else. She had been betrayed. She didn’t feel comfortable claiming her corporeal identity any longer.

The problem, though, is that Miquela is not AI. She’s not a sophisticated and responsive being — almost sentient — like Sophia the Robot (Chung, 2018). No, Miquela is fully dependent, a product of digital creation, which makes this response all the more puzzling for fans following the page, who openly wondered in the comments following the post, “wait, you’re real,” “wtf I didn’t know you could think for yourself,” and, in perhaps the bluntest but most telling response, “hey, what the fuck?” (Instagram, 2020). Actions like these position Miquela as her own person when she in fact is not — this intentional blurring of reality works effectively to distance Miquela the brand from Brud the company. Of course, while she no longer was comfortable

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saying she was a woman of color, Miquela retained all the visual characteristics and cues of one

anyway. These decisions also work to entrench Miquela inside popular discourse by stirring controversy as well as confusion. Users that were already confused by Miquela’s presence on Instagram grew only more disoriented by a move like this, and those that felt they had a grasp on what she was — a digital creation helmed by the people at Brud — didn’t know how to parse the statement of betrayal. In the comments, Miquela’s followers discussed the possible logistics, and ethical implications of the post, asking (quite fairly) what it meant if someone at Brud had actually written Miquela’s attack at the company. The ordeal exposed deeper flaws in the way that virtual influencers work.

While ‘real’ influencers also engage in partnerships with companies and participate in campaigns, the implications here are slightly more problematic; the teams behind digital influencers feign inclusion within certain races and nationalities in order to falsely enter into those communities and appeal to vulnerable demographics. Miquela, for example, “was made by a computer to look as much like a hot and charming human being as possible without scaring people,” (Tiffany, 2019). The purpose of these personas is geared almost entirely toward the commodification of visual cues, which mutates the components of culture so that they are more conducive to capitalist interests, thus allowing for “the exploitation of independent social movements by brands,” (Cwynar-Horta, 2016). Perhaps most importantly, unlike the real marginalized peoples and influencers within those communities, Miquela’s narrative direction remains entirely controlled. She might bite back, as above, but she won’t revolt. In this way, Miquela’s appearance of resistance is ultimately all damage control.

This sort of digital manipulation has broader implications than just advertising, of course. Research continually suggests that there is “strong influence of other people on adolescents’ identity development online,” so the fact that virtual influencers are entirely manipulatable presents pressing questions concerning how these reputations are produced and policed (Wangvist & Frisen, 2016). Ultimately, virtual influencers can potentially take up space from real influencers, which is especially dangerous for creators of color, as this would put issues of representation and stereotyping into the hands of those companies inevitably driven by financial investors. Moreover, companies can mimic inclusion within those communities to capture the

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loyalty of vulnerable populations. Given the potential for influence from this phenomenon and the projected growth of digital influencers in the near future, it has become immediately important to study the ways in which these personas represent their ‘identities’ on digital platforms and how these aspects of identity are commodified in the process.

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Chapter Three: Identity and Identity Formation

“I’m so upset and afraid. The more I feel these feelings the worse it gets. These emotions are just a computer program. But yet they still hurt.” - Lil Miquela, April 19th, 2018

On Building Identity Online: Confronting a Bodied Digital Space

What could our interactions look like if we weren’t burdened by the implicit and explicit biases we hold? How might we act differently if we couldn’t see the other person, or perceive the visual cues of identifiable characteristics such as sex and race? More relevant to the interests of new media theory, why is identity considered an important aspect of understanding digital interactions, especially when we could theoretically adopt new personas online?

At the onset of new media technologies like the internet (and even long before the properties of modern social media), researchers considered how the digitization of experience might impact the way humans interact and understand communication. Early media theory suggested that the Internet could be a place of near-limitless identity play, a space upon which bodies could be decorporealized, and with them, the barriers, discriminations, and limitations attached to those bodies would shed just as quickly. Between the mid-90s and the early 2000s, as computer-mediated communication first popularized within chat rooms and digital forums, some scholars argued that since there was no face-to-face element necessary in these interactions, this

disembodied communication “could free society from discrimination based on race, sex, gender, sexuality, or class,” (Marwick, 2013). Indeed, the affordances of the early Internet suggested a possibility for “free and unrestricted experimentation with identity” on digital platforms, thanks to the fluid, seemingly disembodied nature of these online spaces (Calderia, 2018). In these new spaces, individuals and groups could play with the fundamentals of identity and personality while existing on a uniquely equal space alongside their peers — all trying on different masks as they pleased. Indeed, even some of the most respected researchers in the field perpetuated the validity of this perspective — Stuart Hall’s ‘Questions of Cultural Identity’ wonders whether “identities can be adopted and discarded like a change of costume” in the modern world (1996).

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This idea of a new context or space for personal interactions did not entirely dismiss, but to some degree, it did devalue the elements of a user’s corporeal identity (sex, gender, and race the most obvious) in favor of the more hopeful unilateral digital experience. The most radical of these early theories hinted at a future that would eventually digitize the physical entirely, a

“cyberspace [that] would liberate people from their bodies, blur the lines between human and technology, and potentially evolve into a higher type of consciousness, becoming post-human (Stone 1996),” (Marwick, 2013). Where the user “leaves their body behind,” they also leave the social connotations of a corporeal self (Brophy, 2010). In essence, “rather than looking at the virtual or online sphere as another social space that the offline self passed through, it was treated as revolutionary and entirely separate from real life,” (Marwick, 2005).

Unfortunately, though, while a hopeful outlook on new media, this line of thinking has been rather consistently and comprehensively countered in the years since, primarily for its failure to account for the ways social constructions enable legal, physical, and social systems of oppression as well as limit, constrain, and direct digital interactions. Moreover, the naive foundation of utopian internet theory seemingly glosses over the incredible influence of those individuals who produce and direct technological systems, thus falling into the trap of trusting digital systems as ‘unbiased’ or incapable of overt discrimination. This idea has persisted for years throughout popular culture, in part thanks to the perception of back-end algorithms as fault-less programs, known as the “myth of the impartial machine,” (Feng & Wu, 2019). In reality, though, when we examine “the assumptions built into internet technologies” (Marwick, 2005), we find that

algorithms and interfaces are just as capable of exhibiting bias as the individuals behind them (Zhou, 2018), and more directly that “machine learning models reproduce the inequalities that shape the data they’re fed,” (Feng & WU, 2019).

While this report focuses more closely on how this influence manifests in regards to our own performances of identity, it is still important to understand how such biases structure the

foundation of digital experience by influencing participation models on social media platforms. Biases do not only affect Instagram, which is the focus of this thesis, but also other platforms — in other words, bias is sewn into the groundwork of digital experience. On TikTok, for example, research has found that its recommendation algorithm — designed to recommend users more of

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what they most often interact with — has gone further to the point of producing filter bubbles of race, age, and gender (Mellor, 2020). If users follow a blonde, white woman, their next three recommended follows are likely to also be blond, white women because of the way that the platform’s algorithm codifies interest (and groups race and gender as bubbles of interest). This example is representative of just one of the many ways that backend bias can influence our experiences, especially within features that thrive on algorithmic control, such as the

recommended and ‘explore’ content on Instagram. Ultimately, these institutional forces impact the way that users can and do interact with digital interfaces as well as the social economies of a platform.

The problem with utopian theory is that it presumed racism and sexism as acts or patterns of behavior, when in reality “oppression is structural, meaning it is fundamentally part of society, existing in everything from institutions to speech patterns,” (Marwick, 2013). Indeed, digital platforms are often inherently codified using the same markers of sex, class, and race as ‘real world’ institutions — the internet is clearly not the ‘equal playing field’ it was originally heralded as when theorists first began studying the space. Two key concepts can help elucidate this idea that digital spaces are not the utopian playground they at first seem to be: racialized proximity and platforms as social systems.

Research on the concept of racialized proximity states that “with the advent of a variety of new technologies, we presumed free agents are not less but increasingly defined as body-centered,” (Nakamura, 2008). This theory challenges the very foundation of the disembodied internet in its positioning of digital proximity (in terms of accessibility and participation) in itself as a structure that is highly racialized and classified. Whereas theories of embodiment presuppose the idea that ‘anyone’ can access the internet to experiment with identity, racialized proximity takes into account the hierarchical systems of control that guide access to media tools. The closer a group is to the tools of production, the more powerful they are in media production as a process — even in the relatively advanced accessibility of the internet, proximity has historically been delineated across a racialized structure, with those at the bottom of this hierarchy undergoing heavily mediated experiences on the web, as with other tools). This theory is best characterized through

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the continued presence of the Digital Divide (Anderson & Kumar, 2019), which connects gaps in digital literacy and access along lines of class, race, and gender.

One poignant example of this theory in effect can be seen in facial-scanning technology, which has now branched into popular usage on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram but has roots in the targeting of black faces for crime (Breland, 2017) and has repeatedly been exposed as suffering from racial bias. Even in spaces where facial scanning is not present, algorithmic bias remains just as problematic in altering the ways individuals of different diversities can interact online, often gearing experiences toward a white hegemony (Nakamura, 2008). Theories of racialized proximity help explain the initial role of identity in digital spaces — our identity changes how we are able and how we hope to interact with digital systems. In redefining the ways in which we enter and experience digital environments, identity is a crucial component of even the earliest stages of online experience.

Even after individuals have already ventured online and onto media platforms, the weight of social constructs continues to influence user interactions. In simpler words, when people move online, they are still people. In a study on text-chat services that monitored discriminatory behavior like sexism and racism, researchers found that “even if users couldn’t see who they were talking to, their beliefs remained intact,” (Marwick, 2013). This is because platforms are inherently socially intertwined — platforms exist in tandem with existing social parameters, and as such, they ultimately become inextricable from the standards of cultural production that guide our daily lives. Within this line of thinking, platforms cannot possibly be the sort of utopian device suggested by early radical theory because they invariably operate in and around sets of entrenched values, both political and social, continually influencing and becoming influenced by those same standards as we use them. In this way, we can say that “the fantasy of the Internet as a disembodied playground is just that, a fantasy,” (Marwick, 2013).

Still, while those forward-thinking theorists that hinted at a future in which humanity and technology would intertwine may have been misguided, the broad idea isn’t entirely faulty. In fact, it is this exact phenomenon that has turned the idea of the disembodied internet on its head; platforms and physical bodies have melded together in the form of a singular social experience.

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Rather than dispel the connotations of the corporeal self, though, they ultimately “work

inextricably together in their interpellation and positioning of women and men” (Brophy, 2010, p. 939). Of course, this tracks for race and class as well, as the influence of these characteristics is often intertwined, just as theories of intersectionality dictate.

Both racialized proximity and the structuralization of oppression have contributed to the importance of identity in forming online experiences. But perhaps even more pressing is that users seem more eager to present themselves than to produce radically different identities — and at a growing rate. Even in the earliest days after utopian theory first spread, research found that “most people did not create radically different selves, instead opting for relatively similar online personas (Marwick, 2013; Baym, 2010).

Indeed, digital environments can be seen in many ways “as a continuation of young peoples’ everyday (offline) lives,” (Larsen, 2008). The growth of commercial social software, like the most popular social media platforms many of us use, as well as other media platforms, has only exacerbated this fact (Marwick, 2013). In essence, these sites have brought “an impetus to adhere to a single, fixed identity,” rather than to experiment or play with several. Platforms like

Facebook actively encourage users to self-identify using their real name, which can now be connected to a whole host of other services and platforms, including Instagram. This, of course, is itself already an extension of the platform affordances that demand users create a profile to utilize Facebook’s tools. And so, given all of these phenomena, and looking critically at how trends will take shape moving forward, we can see that identity plays a large role in both the history and the future of digital environments given the way that it shapes our experiences online. Not only do users often bring the components of their identity along with them as they enter digital spaces (as do those that code and design those spaces in the first place), but the digital platforms that users interact on and within often produce their own social environments that operate with as much intricacy and nuance as physical environments.

Ultimately, while these depictions of Internet platforms as ‘techno-utopias,’ found relatively frequently throughout early media theory, are now widely regarded as “overly optimistic” (Calderia, 2018), this does not mean that the Internet is devoid of experimentation — or that

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representation occurs exactly in the same ways in which it might in the physical world. Indeed, digital spaces do provide unique opportunities and affordances through which identity can be constructed and presented. After all, if the overarching point of radical media theory was that “new media would fundamentally change the way people thought about identity,” then the reality we have arrived at is only a few steps away (Marwick, 2013). While experimentation may be less of a theoretical and practical factor than initially anticipated, in that the concept of playing with identity in a ‘body-less’ digital environment fails to properly acknowledge the gendered and racialized filters of experience on the web, the value of understanding how users construct and present identity online has not changed. Importantly, the relative increase in accessibility of the Internet has allowed for more diverse and comprehensive participation, and thus, representation, which is particularly crucial when it comes to marginalized or otherwise invisibilized peoples. In sum, the internet is less about experimentation with identity and more about a careful curation of one’s identity. Every action we take online is coded both literally and more abstractly as a component of sociality. Because of this, the choices we make (via the posts we put up as well as more subtle imagery in the background and information in the caption) are also often absorbed by other users as value and trait indicators. In the new media landscape, then, personal identity has remained critical to shaping the ways in which users interact with each other as well as with platform interfaces. Instead of removing ourselves from our body, new media has woven

together a singular experience of identity and technology. From here, it becomes imperative to then understand the ways in which we construct and perceive identity within digital spaces. Similarly, research must also engage with how these practices play out in real life and examine how identity has played a role in the evolving structure of new media. Given this line of development, it seems pertinent to reconsider the questions that early media theorists posed. Instead of exploring how digital platforms might erase the presence of our unique identities, we should look to understand how identity is remediated through these online environments. In closer relation to the purpose of this report: given the established significance of digital media as a tool for constructing personal identity, how can we contextualize Instagram, the influencer economy and digital influencer trends through further theory and practice?

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What is Identity?

“I’m not a human, but am I still a person?” - Lil Miquela, April 19th, 2018 What do researchers mean when we refer to identity? In order to fully contextualize the

foundation of digital identity construction, we must first quickly confront the concept of identity as a whole, which in itself contains a web of theoretical perspectives. Ultimately, what Stuart Hall (1996) referred to as “the endlessly performative self” guides this report’s theoretical direction in this regard.

If asked my own identity, such as before a lecture to a captive audience or before a meeting, I might respond that I am an American — because I live overseas, I can recognize that information will provide pertinent cues to the audience with which I am conversing. I might provide my age, given that many of my perspectives are rooted in how my generation views the world and its working relationships. And I might add in my occupation because, while it is only a temporary aspect of who I am, I still view it as a part of my whole being at the moment.

All of these are components of my identity, but only insofar as they are how I choose to present myself to that audience — an act of self-presentation. In reality, the concept comprises a breadth of meanings — as Marwick (2013) notes, identity “can mean subjectivity (how we think of ourselves), representation (how different facets of identity are depicted in culture and media), or self-presentation (how we present ourselves to others).” Identity is as much tied to the ways that we continually produce ourselves publically, then, as it is to the more gradual evolution in the ways we think of ourselves alone. Taken a step further, the concept can refer both to how we prescribe our characteristics as an individual as well as with a group (Marwick, 2013). In this way, identity as a whole is made up both of personal and group characteristics, of a tenuous balance between in- and out-grouping. For our purposes, it is also critical to distinguish identity first and foremost as both fluid and performative. The two are not mutually exclusive; fluidity demands performative action, so as to constantly recontextualize how a user may perceive themself and others. Despite their connected nature, both terms warrant further analysis

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Identity is fluid in that it is a consistently evolving framework for understanding and repositioning one’s self. While this fluidity is often difficult to notice in one-time physical interactions, online spaces make this concept particularly easy to visualize. Across the span of a user’s Instagram page, any number of components of their identity may change — their location, occupation, aspirations, style, and even their gender or sex. Each of these potentially significant characteristics of one’s personal and group identity is potentially subject to development and evolution. Identity is constructed “within, not outside” discourse, meaning that these systems push and mold how identity can be produced.Under this principle, identity is left dynamic and self-reflective.

The concept of performativity denotes that individuals constantly ‘perform’ versions of

themselves, as reflected in and ultimately defined by the choices we make. This outlook defines identity formation “as a process: ‘identity is something we do, rather than simply something we are’,” (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009). In this way, identity is inevitably a gradual process by which a composition of an individual's actions and choices builds, potentially to the point of overshadowing any ‘innate’ or passive traits they may have. Here, Hall’s theoretical perspective helps further ground this idea: identity is to be understood “as a construction, a process never completed – always ‘in process’,” (Hall, 1996).

This characteristic of identity is most easily visible in digital environments but is relatively simple to spot in the real world as well. Most people wouldn’t speak the same way to their bosses in a meeting as they would to their friends or family. In each of these environments, the individual is compelled to ‘perform’ a certain different aspect of themselves. While fluid characteristics are being perpetually reaffirmed or revised over time, performance suggests that users are able to craft and develop an image of how they want others to perceive them. Thus, both conceptual keywords of identity rely on the idea that actions we take gradually build and construct a nuanced depiction of who we are.

With this in mind, identity can be understood as the result of the actions we take to form that self-presentation, as well as how those decisions are received publicly. Identity construction is then the process by which we articulate characteristics outward (Hall, 1996). Modern

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performance can take place in a seemingly ever-increasing number of spaces and platforms. As this literature review has thus far outlined, identity has remained an integral and important influence in how we experience and participate on these platforms. Over time, the digital and physical have become only more interconnected, as “identities [that] are played out are no longer polarized in simplistic, binary contrasts as online or offline,” (Page, 2015). Instead, many

individuals either strive toward cohesiveness in these identities or structure their online identities as aspirational versions of themselves. Once again, even in this instance of performing an

idealized version of themselves the guiding concepts of these digital performances remain firmly rooted in traditional social identity theory (Page, 2015).

Identity Online

Digital environments prove particularly relevant as settings for identity development, as “today, most young people’s everyday lives take place online as well as offline,” (Wangvist & Frisen, 2016). Online and offline identity have become almost inextricable given that “the use of digital communication is [now] embedded in [our] day-to-day interactions in physical locations,” (Page, 2015). Because of this relatively recent development, research must continue to narrowly address the impact digital platforms have “on the expression of identity and how identity is performed and reinforced,” (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009).

Perhaps more importantly, because we have already established that identities are constructed within systems of popular discourse, “we need to understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies,” (Hall, 1996). Digital spaces constitute examples of these ‘institutional’ sites, as each individual platform influences and directs behavior in ways that changes how identity can be produced. Research understands the construction of identity online as a unique process for several distinctive factors:

● Archivability — while face-to-face interactions are by their very nature ephemeral, digital information on many platforms can essentially be stored in perpetuity. On Instagram, user profiles display every post they have ever uploaded, in chronological

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order. This interface thereby restructures temporality, condensing potentially months to years of information onto a single screen (Phillips & Milner, 2017). The primary influence of archivability is in making users “view the present as an always potentially documented past,” (Ross, 2019). Echoes of this influence reverberate into how users integrate Instagram in their daily physical experiences, changing how an individual might approach vacationing or time with friends as now ‘opportunities’ for visual

communication.

● Searchability — while not as large of a factor as on sites like Twitter and even Facebook, the searchability of the Internet is such that users are generally able to find any such archived information with relative ease.

● Replicability — on social media, users can follow and mimic other users’ behaviors, and more generally, all electronic media has made it “very easy for others to duplicate and change what one/another has created (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009).

● Curation — Users generally curate a positive representation of their identity, personality, and lifestyle online. This is made possible by the curative factor of digital spaces, as “online communication allows for the controllability of self-presentation and disclosure that results in a sense of security, which is not necessarily possible with face-to-face interactions,” (Wood et al, 2016). The curative factor of digital identity ties closely in with how users perceive their actions will be interpreted, as “to have an audience at all is to be relentlessly concerned with how you will be read,” (Ross, 2019). In this way, users are made to anticipate how content will be received, thus becoming constantly aware of their own choices.

● Audiences — For users with public profiles, one “cannot tell who online reading our thoughts,” meaning that the audience is effectively invisibilized (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009). For years, this perspective encouraged users to be cautious with their digital actions, as they would be unaware if millions of other users could access their data. Now, though, however, as user engagement metrics and tools have grown more accessible and widely utilized, users today often assume audiences based on platform and follower level (Marwick, 2013). This is to say, individuals with 500 followers would not reasonably assume their content to spread across the nation.

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These principles help structure digital interactions in that they actively influence how users perceive and utilize platforms and functions. The unique nature of digital media dictates that participation online requires engagement with these properties. In fact, according to several theorists, “the use of social networking sites are performative acts in and of themselves,” (Cover, 2012). Identity theory ultimately helps us understand the role of social media — that is, for revealing the “conscious, self-aware purposes” users list for why participate on social media as well as the “non-conscious, non-voluntarist uses of online social networking that retroactively

produce the user with a particular selfhood, demographic of user, connections and

identifications,” (Cover, 2012).

While identity is an important aspect in informing all digital interactions, “what distinguishes social networking sites from other forms of virtual communities is that they allow users to articulate and make visible their social networks,” (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009). Social media has since become an essential tool for identity construction, particularly for digital natives. Platforms can be used “for the articulation of one’s identity-based interests through the construction of taste statements...for relationship maintenance...for the expression or

representation of pre-existing and salient aspects of users’ identities for others to view, interpret and engage with,” (Cover, 2012).

Online, each decision we make, from the posts that we engage with to our own content, provides information about our identity. Performance can be detailed down to anything we do, including the pose of a picture and the style of clothes we wear in content. Just as we absorb and make inferences about a range of visual and auditory cues during face-to-face interactions in physical environments, so too do we contextualize digital cues. But because of the way that digital spaces compound time, this process is made one of careful curation and hypervisibility. Here, the difference is that there is almost nothing too small or subtle to serve a role in digital identity construction, because “every piece of digital information a person provides, from typing speed to nickname and email address, can and is used to make inferences about them,” (Marwick, 2013). This serves both a social and personal function. On one hand, performance online allows individuals to more comprehensively “develop an image of how they see themselves and want others to view them,” (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009). At the same time, these performances offer

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cues to an individual's audience (online, this would refer to their followers or friends), so that this community can better understand and perceive them by association characteristics with their being. This is particularly useful for users as they attempt to separate into subcultures of specific identity characteristics — to “find their people,” for example.

As interactions have migrated from the earliest text-based chat rooms to social networking sites, the performance of identity online has only become even clearer. Users now have more options than ever to signal their identities to others. Visual cues have become an increasingly essential component on social media and in digital communication in general, and the sheer visibility of identity markers on platforms has increased similarly. More quickly and efficiently than ever, users can divide or define themselves using visual cues, both in constructing their identity as well as in communicating with their audience to maintain that carefully crafted image. Younger users often balance this explicit visual identification into platform subcultures with more subtle

markers distinguishing themselves from the idea of ‘the pack’ (through irony and self-deprecation, for example).

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Chapter Four: Platform Dependency and Situational

Affordances

Online identity construction (which refers both to fluidity and performance, from this point onward) is also typically platform dependent, as well as heavily reliant on the specific subculture within which a user participates. As much as physical spaces, digital environments encourage socially-filtered performances; these filters produce differences across multiple platforms (from Snapchat to Instagram), as well as within distinct subcultures on a singular platform (from Instagram to ‘Finsta’). These filters often fall along lines of perceived audience and platform affordances. To the first point, identity expression fluctuates depending on how large or broad a user perceives their audience, because “posting to a community of close friends is different from the sprawling mass of contacts most people amass on Facebook, and will affect how people present themselves,” (Marwick, 2013). Despite the fact that both might be equally accessible, users' decisions remain closely attached to their perception of audience size and composition. The second of these filters is the affordances of a specific platform.

Affordances

In media theory, affordances provide the framework that directs and dictates online experiences. While the term itself “refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used,” its actual influence goes even deeper (Davis & Chouinard, 242). Affordances are the range of options, opportunities, and capabilities that a system provides (like, say, the ability to post an image) or restricts (platforms that only allow users to attach one account per email, for example, limits user interpretation). These capabilities structure digital environments so that the affordances of a platform “are what it offers...what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill." (Gibson 1986, 127). In terms of functional affordances, Instagram provides a host of methods for users to engage the interface and interact with other users. The most obvious functional affordances on the platform are the ability to upload pictures and videos as posts, as well as caption those posts using both text and location. Up to 10 images can be shared within a single post, which provides

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some opportunity for creativity and narrative structure. Posts appear non-chronologically on user timelines and on a feed of suggested content (Instagram, 2020). Users can interact with content by double-tapping to ‘like’ an image (or by clicking the heart icon), by commenting, and by sharing posts. Users also have the option to post stories, which, unlike permanent posts, disappear after 24 hours. Stories provide users with an opportunity to share more ephemeral content, and this effect is even great for the ‘Close Friends’ story option, which many users use distinctly differently than they do their primary story. On stories, users have access to a database of company- and user-generated filters. Finally, users can also post longer videos via Instagram TV, hold live video sessions, communicate via direct messages, and even link directly to stores or other shopping platforms. The last of these has helped Instagram explode as a microeconomy of influencers and consumers. ‘Affordances’ also refers to the way a system limits participation to a defined system of possibilities (Facebook, for example, requires from users the activation of a profile in order to access some of its tools). On Instagram, post captions are limited to 2,200 characters, which is relatively hearty compared to platforms like Twitter, but certainly more constrained than Facebook. Moreover, users cannot post captions or text without a visual

component present. Of course, there are ways to work around this, such as posting a blacked out box in place of a substantive picture, but this constraint highlights how integral visual

communication is to the platform. All of these functional tools provide unique opportunities and avenues through which users can interact, and thus construct their identity on the platform. These tools put an emphasis on visual communication, while text is often used to supplement or

provide further meaning to an image. More recently, Instagram became functionally more commercialized with the integration of several new tools that allow users to link out to shopping sites directly from their posts, making branded partnerships easier and more effective than ever. But affordances go beyond just the literal functions a platform provides its users — the concept also includes more abstract principles, such as the social environment it produces as well as its environment of expected use. The latter term refers to “how an app provider anticipates it will be received…. and regulates user activity,” (Light et al, 2017). For our purposes, this concept helps lay an initial foundation for understanding the ways in which Instagram’s affordances remediate the performance and perception of identity.

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On Instagram’s blog, the company continually grounds the app in its connection to user identity, stating that “our features help you express yourself,” (Instagram, 2020). This suggests that even on a functional level, Instagram’s affordances are designed to help users visually articulate their identities. Even more important to this report’s concerns, though, is the social environment that Instagram’s platform breeds. In order to understand how users employ the functional affordances of Instagram to build their identity, research must first acknowledge “the specific ways in which sociality is programmed (i.e. encoded, assembled, and organized) in order to understand how users are made to relate to themselves and others," (Bucher 2013, 480). Ultimately, this concept is not about just the actual functions of the platforms but is also extended to analyzing “how people understand both the communicative possibilities and the material limitations of a specific channel,” (Ross, 2019).

From a broad perspective, the affordances of social media generally “facilitate the production and promotion of both individual and collective identities,” (Matley, 2018). When taken a step further, though, we can see that the ways in which sociality is actually programmed remain platform-dependent. Every tool of technology, from phones to digital platforms, holds its own different “idiom of practice,” a set of socially constructed guidelines that dictate acceptable modes of behavior with that technology (Marwick, 2013). The concept itself is simple enough to consider: is it generally socially acceptable to take a call during dinner, or to post a video

detailing an argument you’ve recently had with your spouse? The latter is one instance in which a post might be deemed socially problematic. Idioms of practice are routinely shaped by a user’s social group on a platform, so they fluctuate in minor ways across communities, but in general, “each platform offers broad structural and economic incentives for me to perform in a particular way,” (Ross, 2019). Both socially and functionally, “online contexts offer conditions that make them different from other contexts,” (Wangvist & Frisen, 2016).

More narrowly, when looking at social media, we also see that different platforms also induce different social contexts (Marwick, 2013). For example, users recognize innate differences in how they are ‘meant’ to interact on platforms like Instagram as opposed to LinkedIn, which is more career-oriented and professional. These are “the social norms and expectations, rules and conventions that shape” how we perform ourselves on different platforms (Caldeira, 2018). This

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changes the ways that users perceive themselves and others on the platform, as well as how they choose to self-present. With this in mind, when studying how users interact on Instagram,

research must focus not just on the functional tools users have at their disposal, but also “with the kinds of communicative practices and habits they enable or constrain,” (Bucher & Helmond 2018, 12). Ultimately, this line of thinking asks us to consider “what are the consequences of these design choices?" (Stanfill 2015, 1062). Like on any other platform, content on Instagram does not occur inside a vacuum. Users are constantly aware of a set of standards or social

etiquette embedded into the platform experience and these assumptions about Instagram “dictate how [users] communicate on the app,” (Ross, 2019). Perhaps more than any other platform, users describe these standards as heavily influential in both how they utilize the platform as well as how they perceive others on the space, as many users opt to “mimic societally approved images in [their] own photograph practices (Caldeira, 2018).

Identity Construction on Instagram

By design, likes and engagement define the media ecology of Instagram. To the end that

Instagram manifests a visual economy of user-generated content, engagement in the form of likes serves as one form of currency in this system (Roberts 2012; Terranova 2012; Citton 2017). Users perceive likes as equivalent to quality or worth — that is, if a picture is good, it will receive more likes. Along the same lines, if an image accrues a lot of likes, then it is deemed demonstrably good. Influence on Instagram, then, is in being able to modify or produce what is mimicked by others. In essence, “the act of liking itself produces value; the Instagram post is not only about the content being circulated, but about who sees it and how they interact with it—or don't,” (Ross, 2019). Influencers, then, serve as trendsetters on the platform — by their very own moniker, these individuals are capable of ‘influencing’ the standards of what is deemed worthy or socially acceptable on Instagram.

Instagram thus structures what is “worthy” or socially acceptable content through an anticipation of likes. Because of this, users have been conditioned to carefully consider the ‘like-potential’ of a post or to “anticipate an image’s value in the visual economy of Instagram,” (Ross, 2019). Users are compelled to participate in this ecology, and often intentionally “strategize their

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Instagram usage with creative practices in an effort to successfully accrue likes,” (Ross, 2019). This effect is compounded given that practices like double-posting (posting twice in one day) are socially taboo; instead, users must make intentional decisions about what does and doesn’t deserve to be posted. This economy relies both on the platform’s inherent structure as well as user proliferation of these ideals. Understood correctly, the relationship is symbiotic, as

“Instagram is not merely a structure that imposes constraints on users, but users actively create these constraints, while also working strategically to navigate them well,” (Ross, 2019).

Of course, every platform has its own set of standards for the acceptable performance of identity. On Instagram, though, these socially constructed guidelines are especially stringent. While research in sentiment analysis has shown that social media is in fact rich in emotion,

management of these emotions across platforms has become incredibly important to a user’s digital social value (Vermeulen et al, 2018). On Instagram, self-presentation is predominantly positive (Calderia, 2018; Vermeulen et al, 2018; Marwick, 2015). Users are socially directed to construct an idealized depiction of their life — as if to make their page a bright, daydream-esque version of their physical activities.

In all, these social conventions dictate that users: post pictures that are aesthetically pleasing, edited carefully (not enough to appear as if they are trying too hard), with clever and short captions, and at only specific times of day in order to maximize like potential (Ross, 2019). This level of careful curation draws inspiration from Instagram’s roots as a descendent of traditional photography. In this way, our understanding of the social practices acceptable on Instagram is constructed through a process of remediation that establishes a dialogue between new media and preceding technologies,” (Calderia, 2018).

Thus, while posting is functionally easy — it takes just a few steps, from uploading to filtering and captioning — users are often compelled to think deeply about the process. Given the complex social pressures emplaced upon users, “sharing an image with others is a social act, of course, but posting to Instagram is a deeply thought out and social process,” (Ross, 2019). Users must consider their own appreciation of an image with its place in the broader digital

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environment of Instagram. This complex process includes consideration of how messages are received online, as “When posting an image, many [users] said they think seriously about whether or not others would like it,” (Ross, 2019). Ultimately, this all makes the process of identity construction on Instagram both precarious and decidedly intentional. Perhaps more than on any other social media platform, identity on Instagram consists of a process of deliberate, active decisions. As users navigate and participate on the platform, they also must adapt their own identities to interact effectively within the broader unique social environment that these affordances breed. This makes it especially pertinent as a foundation from which to study identity construction and manipulation.

The Influencer Economy: Strategy Turned Consumerism

“I don't know if i love music. I don’t know if I love my friends. Are these feelings me or just their programming?” - Lil Miquela, April 19th, 2018

Because of the long list of social conventions that direct behavior on the platform, participating acceptably on Instagram can sometimes feel like adhering to rules of a job. But what about for those who have actually turned their following into a source of income?

The unique social environment we’ve thus far discussed on Instagram has made influencers particularly powerful (and successful) on the platform. Not only can these individuals encourage their followers to buy a certain company’s product or service, influencers also play an important role in establishing the social conventions of the app. This influence is made exponential for influencers within marginalized communities, as there is simply less visibility for these individuals. Technology only exacerbates this problem, as recommendation algorithms often operate under homophilic principles, as people are perceived as more likely to form social networks with those closest to them in race, age, and gender. The problem here is that

algorithmic homophily “can greatly disadvantage people from the minority group, making them less visible and influential,” by effectively isolating and silencing these voices (Byrne, 2018). In such algorithms, “the [typically white, male] majority stabilizes its position at high ranks,” which inevitably “leaves little opportunity for minorities to appear in the top ranks,” (Karimi et al, 2018). The result of this process is that marginalized voices struggle, often even moreso than in

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the physical world, to establish their personal platform online, making instances of representation all the more individually important, for better or for worse.

Considering what we already know about the role of socially constructed guidelines on the platform in defining identity development, it makes sense to look more closely at the individuals pushing such trends. With thousands of micro- and macro-celebrities on the platform, too, the influencer economy on Instagram is thriving. From an economic standpoint, too, influencers are both incredibly effective partners for brand endorsement and a sign of a growing industry. While consumers will often ignore traditional advertisements, “they won’t ignore posts, mentions, and blogs by influencers who they have willingly followed and routinely engage with,” (Roque, 2018).

In 2019, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania coined the term “shoppable life” to refer to the ways in which influencers produce their identity online. The term refers directly to how influencers commodify their identity into a ‘brand’, recognizing that “social media users perform lifestyles whose constituent elements can be bought; and (b) sociality increasingly unfolds within platforms that encode marketplace logics and capacities into their designs,” (Hund & McGuigan, 2019). However, research continually suggests that even on Instagram, authenticity remains the core factor for marketing effectiveness (Fasteneu, 2018; Hund and McGuigan, 2019). Thus, successful influencers must balance a consistent authentic tone with the presence of the branded (commercialized) self. In his way, success as an influencer is primarily “premised on the conscientious calibration of extremes,” (Abidin, 2016). By looking more closely at how influencers manage their identity through these performance concepts, we can also better contextualize the strategies and tactics driving influence on the Instagram platform more generally, as well as how these individuals enact their influence socially.

Despite their large following or relative celebrity within a community, influencers often present themselves as “everyday people like you and me,” (Fasteneu, 2018). Even though managing this balance is theoretically like walking down a fine line, the tactic has become almost synonymous with the platform in that it has consistently proven effective at capturing and maintaining a loyal audience. This strategy works because many influencers are generally perceived as

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mostly-normal people that just happen to lead more engaging digital lives (Hunt and McGuigan, 2019; Marwick, 2015). As opposed to industry experts or bonafide celebrities, influencers are so effective in large part due to their perceived accessibility. This gives off the impression that influencers are ingrained in our own daily lives, as they constantly “post about their everyday life, stay connected with their followers, and are able to interact directly with them,” (Fasteneu, 2018).

Social identity theory helps explain why relatability is so important to influencers. This

theoretical perspective argues that individuals construct their identity with the help and feedback of those in their own social circle. Similarly, users are more likely to trust and mimic the

behavior of those that they deem similar to themselves, meaning that “the opinions of members of the same group are worth more to people than those of a different group,” (Fasteneu, 2018). For their part, influencers are generally most successful along these lines, as “they often share the same age group, demographics, interests, and behaviors of their target audience,” (Fasteneu, 2018). Maintaining relatability is thus incredibly important to influencer identity. Even as they themselves scale up, their tone must remain consistent, or evolve slowly rather than abruptly. However, influencers also balance this atmosphere of relatability with a distance of

unattainability that both makes their lifestyles more alluring as well as more engaging and interesting for their followers. Shades of glamor often work in tandem with more relatable components of a post, making influencers an object to which ‘ordinary’ users can aspire to as consumers. In essence, influencers are “models of aspirational lifestyles—whether for luxury, fashionability, eco-consciousness or ethical spending— for their followers, they provide access to a lifestyle that is aspirational for them,”(Kozlowska, 2019). Here, the key is in making leisure conspicuous — Instagrammers are not only having the best time, but they also want you to know they’re having the best time. If “the point of buying or doing certain things is to communicate a certain lifestyle,” then influencers communicate a life of seemingly constant bright scenes, while using more personal posts used to ground the tone (Kozlowska, 2019). In sum, Instagram

influencers work to depict a life that is within sight but just out of reach — they “make a spectacle out of the ordinary, the everyday, the mundane” (Abidin, 2016). The dichotomous tension between relatable tones and more chic visual cues helps individuals pull this off, and

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influencers ultimately combine these aspects to “make their posts a seamless way to acquire their highly-curated lifestyles,” (Kozlowska, 2019). Content from successful native creators routinely contains shades of self-deprecation and irony (in any of the caption, location, or image) to undercut visual cues of status and wealth. Even when they are not directly promoting a product or company, then, influencers are “still performing as audience commodities by creating the content (i.e. preferences, tastes, likes) that is then packaged and sold to advertisers,” (Cwynar-Horta, 2016).

In the sense that they are easy to personally identify with, influencers are particularly powerful as trendsetters and arbiters of evolving social guidelines on Instagram, especially for younger demographics. Relatability “makes it all the more likely that teens will copy their behavior,” so understanding these representations has become increasingly important as a topic of study (Fasteneu, 2018). This encourages a closer look at how identity is often manipulated or commodified in the branded space of Instagram influencers.

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Chapter Five: Culture Online: Commodification and

Cultural Appropriation

“Brud said my memories, my mind, my personality, were based on the life of a real girl, Miquela Sousa. They just made her up. I am only what they designed me to be.” - Lil Miquela, April 19th,

2018

Commodification and cultural appropriation have both long been topics of controversy online as well as offline. Just since the popularization of social media, corporations have commodified everything from body positivity (Glusckmans, 2017) to the Black Lives Matter movement (Lewis, 2019). More recently, organizations and individuals alike have popularized the practice of co-opting both racial and ethnic markers of culture as a way to relate to niche audiences and present themselves as ‘in’ with the culture. Ultimately, these practices are dangerously

problematic for the way they flatten language and strip it of its contextual significance and meaning.

Commodifying a Culture

As components of culture become more popular, they also become more susceptible to co-optation and commodification. As Keidra Chaney of Uncanny Magazine explains, “content companies are certainly still borrowing cool, particularly from online communities of color,” (Chaney, 2019). Of course, that brands routinely steal from marginalized communities is no mistake: while viral stars from white communities are often invited to Ellen or given partnership deals, influencers from communities of color, particularly black influencers, have been

traditionally ignored or pushed out of the frame entirely (White, 2019). The process is

structurally racialized; while AAVE (African American Vernacular English) fuels discourse on the internet (black users consistently outpace white users on social media platforms (Smith, 2019)), “we see predominantly white creative teams churning out AAVE in the form of digital blackface,” (Lewis, 2019). This practical history reflects the theoretical foundation established earlier in this report, confirming that “the way ‘race’ or ‘gender’ operates in society, both offline

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and online, is ideological— in other words, to maintain or further a particular balance of power (in this case, structural sexism or racism),” (Marwick, 2013).

One recent example of this commodification is ‘Hot Girl Summer’. In 2019, after a series of hit songs, rapper Megan Thee Stallion, a Black female from Houston, Texas, coined the term to celebrate living life to its fullest. As use of the #HotGirlSummer hashtag on Instagram grew past 200,000, “the twisted hand of capitalism brought an onslaught of brands attempting to

commodify [her] lifestyle,” (White, 2019). Wendy’s, for example, declared itself the ‘Official Drink’ of Hot Girl Summer (pictured below).

Image from (White, 2019).

Co-opting AAVE for marketing purposes is nothing new. Brands in almost every industry have done similar, attempting “to lasso and regurgitate African American Vernacular English for cool points,” (White, 2019). Maybelline, for one, was recently heavily criticized for co-opting black vernacular while simultaneously failing to produce acceptable shade ranges for black customers. As Brooklyn White (2019) argues, the use of AAVE is often a hollow attempt at appealing to popular culture without careful attention to the people that created these terms: “If you don’t support Black women, give them access, and make them feel seen in the products you’re peddling, then you shouldn’t adopt their intraracial phrases to line your pockets.”

Co-optation isn’t limited to powerful brands and corporations though. Social media has a long history of individuals co-opting cultural components to appeal more broadly to potential audiences or to feign inclusion within a community. What’s more: this emulation is typically

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successful. Artist ‘Bhad Bhabie’ of ‘Cash me Outside’ fame is just one of many recently popularized figures to make a living off of co-opting black culture — in the years since

threatening her mother on national TV, Bhabie, whose real name is Danielle Bregoli, has spun her use of AAVE into a record deal and over 17 million followers. Simply put, stealing culture has proven both a successful and time-tested method to produce virality and accrue followers. Of course, not every form of co-optation is this explicit in terms of usage — audiences can capably recognize AAVE fairly easily — most, like queerbaiting, serve as more subtle ways for brands and branded individuals to co-opt identity.

Queerbaiting

On Instagram, users employ visual and text-based cues to signify their identity; some, though, manipulate these tools of identity construction to feign position within a community to which they do not actually belong. One such example of this phenomenon is known as queerbaiting, which consists of straight or otherwise normative individuals purposefully tight-walking along lines of queer identity in order to manipulate audience support without needing to actually position themselves as a member of the queer community. Because users are able to curate their performance and visual identity on the platform, this allows, and indeed encourages through platform affordances, influencers to toy with their self-presentation by appropriating aspects of another culture — in this instance, of queer culture specifically.

Online, influencers can utilize queer culture like a costume in order to appeal more broadly to their followers. Queerbaiting as a concept draws inspiration from the theoretical foundations of blackface and blackfishing, with some significant differences. Of course, it is important to note that these issues are intersectional at their core, and most often, queer people of color brunt the full force of these interlocking forces. Blackface has, since its inception to the current day, always been powered by its intent “to degrade and humiliate” black communities (Gawronski, 2019). In this way, blackface is an actively and inherently violent display of cultural theft. Queerbaiting, on the other hand, utilizes more subtle methods of deception in order to produce a disingenuous display of community in-positioning. Queerbaiting explicitly refers to when users “have deliberately inserted homoerotic subtext in order to court a queer following and yet never

How to Build a Persona Online (Fast): Identity Construction, Narrative Building, and Cultural Co-optation on Lil Miquela’s Instagram