The Beauty Blog’s Makeover
A Postfeminist Reading of Beauty Blogs
Name: Krista Teresa Agbayani Student number: 11631856
Thesis supervisor: Dr. Sabine Niederer Second reader: Dr. Niels van Doorn Date of submission: June 29, 2018 Institution: University of Amsterdam Department: Media Studies
Abstract
This thesis sought out to situate the practice of beauty blogging in the context of Web 2.0 and postfeminism, and uncover where they meet within beauty blogs. To determine where postfeminism and Web 2.0 intersect, the study aimed to uncover the technological characteristics and blog elements that transformed the beauty blog into a postfeminist digital site. As case study, I analyzed the top ten beauty blogs from blog aggregator, Bloglovin’, and examined them via a research protocol combining qualitative textual and visual content analysis, and the use of the Internet Archiving tool, The Wayback Machine, in order to compare the oldest and most recent front and about pages of the each blog. The findings show that the beauty blogs have adapted new blog elements and technologies that allowed them to become a postfeminist digital site. The discoveries were that the beauty bloggers were mostly white, Western, cisgendered women, confirming the stratification within blogging, and the absence of diverse voices. The increase in social media features was congruent to the rise in monetizing and marketing elements. Additionally, the marketability of the beauty blog aggravated the need for self-branding, and the standardization and aestheticization of the beauty blog. While beauty blogs became a women-centric public space, it is symptomatic of a volatile, neoliberalist market, and perpetuates that system even online.
Keywords: Beauty blog, Web 2.0, Postfeminism, Qualitative Content Analysis, Visual Analysis, Textual Analysis, The Wayback Machine
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 5
1.1 Blogging And Women’s Interests 7
1.2 The Rise of Beauty Blogs and Bloggers 8
2 Framework 10
2.1 What Is Web 2.0? 10
2.2 The Capabilities Of Web 2.0 11
2.3 Web 2.0 Critiques 13
2.4 Web 2.0 And Establishing Identities And Communities 16 2.5 The Introduction of Postfeminism In Mainstream Media 18
2.6 The Characteristics Of Postfeminism 19
2.6.1 Big Sister is Watching You: That Friendly, Female voice 22 2.7 How Femininity And Feminism Are Articulated In New Media 24
2.7.1 The Case Of “Mommy” Blogs 24
2.7.2 Beauty In Applications 25
2.8 Blogging And Feminine Labor 26
3 Methodology 29
3.1 Internet Archives Via The Wayback Machine 30
3.2 Qualitative Textual And Visual Content Analysis 30
3.3 The Top Ten Beauty Blogs As Case Study 31
3.4 Limitations 33
4 Results 34
4.1 The End of the Traditional Blog and the Dawn of the Social Blog 35
4.2 Beauty Blogs Turned Lifestyle Blogs 37
4.3 The Professionalization of the Beauty Blog 40 4.3.1 The Adaption of a Standard Beauty Blog Layout 42 4.4 Motivations: Personal Logs, Passion for Beauty, Sharing Information 45
4.4.1 Personal Logs 45
4.4.2 Passion for Beauty 45
4.4.3. Sharing Information 46
4.5 The Rise in Marketing and Monetization Elements 46 4.6 Disclaimers as a Beauty Blogging Practice and Promise 48
5 Discussion 49
5.1 The Ethics Of Studying Blogs 50
5.2 Beauty Blogs: Through a White, Western Lens 51 5.3 Because I Can: Blogging Out Of Free Will 53
5.4 “The Makeover Paradigm” 53
5.5 The Girlfriend Gaze in Beauty Blogs 54
5.7 Online Participation Leads To Content Generation And Monetization 56 5.8 Identities Turning Into Brands, And Vice Versa 58 5.9 Beauty Blogs As A Space And Market For Women By Women 59
6 Conclusion 60
6.1 Recommendations 62
7 Works Cited 63
Appendix A: List Of Blogs 67
Appendix B: Blog Screen Captures 68
1 Introduction
During an interview 1 with beauty blog Into The Gloss in 2013, professional makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury caused a stir when she said in her interview that her husband has never seen her without makeup on, and she sleeps with a bit of makeup on her face (“Charlotte Tilbury, Makeup Artist”). The comments section of that post exploded: several commenters noted it was strange and saddening that she feels the need to cover her bare face, even she is with her husband, with some even saying it is dishonest. Yet several commenters also supported her, saying that it is glamorous, she can do whatever she wants, and it is simply her choice. However, as anonymous commenter by the pseudonym “e” succinctly put it, “the fact that she sleeps with her make up on is fascinating in a weird way. actually, the whole woman is” [sic]. Tilbury concludes the piece by stating how makeup changed her life, and also changed how people treated her. Her final statement in the interview was: “Beauty is power, and makeup is something that really enhances that; it’s a woman’s secret weapon” (“Charlotte Tilbury, Makeup Artist”).
Feminist author and blogger Autumn Whitefield-Madrano mentions that the topic of beauty points out the differences in our thinking: the beauty standards may differ between women and men, how people look like versus what they wish to look like, and how we describe ourselves versus how we describe others (12). Historically, beauty has been a feminized concept; women are expected to possess it and to strive for it (Madrano 15). As a result, it has always attracted conflicting opinions, with much of those opinions being associated with negative connotations such as vanity and superficiality (Madrano 16). However, as the global beauty industry is currently worth US$ 440 Billion (Einhorn and Du), perhaps it is crucial to take beauty seriously, and acknowledge that its influence extends beyond the bathroom and boudoir. In her provocative book, “The Beauty Myth” (2002), feminist author Naomi Wolf addresses that the influence of beauty is much pervasive than one might think. Despite the legal and material gains the feminist movement has achieved over the years, she notes that the movement gradually lost momentum among younger women, with images of female beauty ideals being used against
1 The interview falls under the “Top Shelf” series of Into The Gloss, wherein beauty and fashion
them, which is symptomatically postfeminist (10). This also coincides with the rise in eating disorders and plastic surgery among women (11). Wolf reminds readers then that beauty constantly had an influence in society, and most especially on women as they are expected to work for it, likening it to currency (12). As Wolf also traces the various beauty ideas throughout history, she then realizes that beauty is not about a specific look, but it is about “prescribing behavior” (14).
This then creates a conundrum: what are the implications of beauty and how should society treat and view it? On one hand, scholars and feminists see it as an oppressive and retrograde idea, yet as mentioned previously, Tilbury is just one of many women that admit to enjoying makeup, and equating beauty with power. Nonetheless, the beauty industry has firmly set its roots in the global economy, and much of the business is conducted digitally (Einhorn and Du). In this particularly digitally mediated milieu, it is interesting to see how beauty, feminism, and commerce merge and unfold in this new media environment.
The aim of this study therefore is to critically situate and assess the practice of beauty blogging, in the context of postfeminism and Web 2.0, specifically in the latter wherein there is an emphasis on speed, ease, and functionalities of new media technologies. Through qualitative text and visual content analysis of the latest list of top ten beauty blogs, with the aid of Internet Archiving tool, The Wayback Machine, this research aims to analyze the areas where new media and postfeminism meet within beauty blogs. This thesis sets out to uncover what are the technological characteristics and blog elements that make the beauty blog a uniquely postfeminist digital site? How did those digital technologies change the beauty blog and transformed it into a site for self-commodification and commerce? Given the use of a postfeminist lens, what are also the historical and political implications of beauty blogs?
Thus far, this thesis has uncovered that the affordances of and improvements in blogging technologies, specifically the rise of social media inclusions and discreet online marketing and monetizing features, have aggravated the monetization and commodification capabilities of blogging. Ultimately, beauty blogging is a symptom of the rise in flexible creative and digital careers, due to the increasingly uneasy,
dissatisfactory, and competitive neoliberal labor market. These findings will be elaborated within the thesis further on.
1.1 Blogging And Women’s Interests
In a digital, hyper-connected and stimulated world, it is increasingly getting difficult to decide if whether new technologies are helping or sidetracking issues concerning women. Media, whether new or old, has always been held responsible for the representations shared on various platforms in mainstream media, and until now, there is still interest as to how media representations help women or not, or if they have any influence at all (Gill 9-10). However, women do find solace and solidarity in media, and more recently, women have begun to rely on personal blogs to express themselves, find like-minded people, and create a community they feel accepted in (Karlsson 148-149).
Because of the ease of creating a blog, its potential to become a platform for meaningful public discourse has been anticipated by media scholars, however, Mia Lövheim, a New Media and Religion scholar, states that it is “personal blogs” that have become the most popular type of blogs, with personal bloggers being primarily women who share and muse about their lives and insights (338), and she also observes that the rise of the personal blog have vexed the academia, who see the phenomena as a sign of the growing shallowness and vanity in public discourse. Lövheim also notes that much of the existing studies done on personal blogs focus on the identity construction and self-expression aspect, but there is not much existing research on the capacity of personal blogs to become a platform for collective deliberation on the changing standards and values in society (339), and she also notes that personal blogs written by women are some of the most popular on the web, with such blogs being frequently visited and receiving a lot of comments.
A quick glance at blog aggregator Bloglovin’, one of the biggest blog aggregators online, shows you that many of the most popular blogs on the Internet cater to women’s interest. “Discover what’s popular in fashion, beauty, interior design, food & more” (“What is Bloglovin”) is one of its key selling points on its introduction page, with the premise of organizing and reading numerous content in
one site. Among the many blog categories it features on its “Explore” page, two out of the ten categories are dedicated to beauty, with the categories being “Beauty” and “Beauty VLoggers” (beauty video bloggers) [sic]. Even within its “Top Posts” tab, which amalgamates the current top posts, much of the posts are related to beauty, some of which are product reviews and makeup tutorials.
Women’s pursuits and opinions have been undervalued and dismissed, and interests such as beauty and fashion, are often relegated as fluff and female-only interests. Thus it would be of great importance to focus on how new media, especially within the realm of blogs, have come to create a new space, and if this space is also reflective of new cultural and societal values and ideals.
1.2 The Rise Of Beauty Blogs And Bloggers
In an interview with Time Magazine in 2017, professional makeup artist Pat McGrath, whose illustrious career began before the boom of online beauty tutorials and blogs, has embraced the changes in the beauty industry brought upon by makeup bloggers and Instagram (Lang). McGrath gushes how Instagram has changed the beauty game, especially how “every minute,” one can see unique ways of makeup application, and in the case of bloggers, she finds that it is the documentation process that changed; rather than doing makeup in front of mirrors, more makeup artists are doing it in front of cameras now, and despite that change, she validates and acknowledges them as “young makeup artists” nonetheless (Lang).
In terms of business and branding acumen, one of the currently successful beauty blogs is Into The Gloss (ITG), which subsequently became the editorial leg of beauty brand Glossier [Note: ITG is analyzed in the thesis and will be discussed later]. In an interview with The New Yorker’s The Cut, ITG founder Emily Weiss acknowledges that she was not a “visionary,” but she merely realized that “social media was transforming the way beauty products were talked about and bought” and thus she only took advantage of this pivotal moment in which beauty and digital technologies intersected and harnessed its power (Larocca). In the same interview with, she also realized that her being a woman in charge of a beauty company is not
dedicated to glamour and luxury, but rather it is “about power” and reclaiming one’s identity and being in control of her own routines (Larocca).
Weiss is not the only woman reclaiming and appreciating the power and the capacity of beauty products and routines to make them feel good about themselves. Feminist author and activist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2 said in an interview with
Allure.com, she says that she likes makeup, simply because she likes it, and finds it problematic that there is a belief that liking traditionally feminine things like beauty cannot co-exist with being serious, smart, or feminist (Panych). Autumn Whitefield-Madrano also divulges in her book that she relishes in her daily morning beauty routine (9-10), and muses that there is a projected disparity between beauty and feminism because the male gaze has fueled beauty culture to propagate extensively, thus beauty is always framed within the patriarchy (315; 327).
Furthermore, a trend cropping up among beauty bloggers is starting their own beauty line or partnering with established beauty companies to create a line of products. Two known beauty bloggers, Michelle Phan and Huda Kattan launched their own lines, called Em Cosmetics and Huda Beauty respectively(Mychaskiw). More recently, one of the biggest beauty collaborations to date is beauty vlogger Patrick Starr’s collaboration with MAC Cosmetics (which was first launched in Fall 2017), and it was so successful that a spring collection was launched as of April 2018 (“Patrick Starrr”). In the grander scheme, these ventures and collaborations prove that beauty and blogging are indeed serious and lucrative businesses, attracting audiences that are not merely passive readers, but also beauty enthusiasts with purchasing power. Aside from earning from business ventures, it has also been standard industry practice that bloggers receive a commission from advertisers and sponsors, which has long been a practice among bloggers of all kinds. It is then a piquant observation how the practice of blogging and making money from it has become accepted, and it illustrates the shift from the blog as an “online diary” to a place where bloggers can earn. With beauty blogs as the object of study, this thesis aspires to uncover how beauty blogs became a site for performing
self-
commodification, and the blog’s shift as an open platform to a money-making machine, and what this change means for the academia in new media and feminism.
2 Framework
To begin the study, I lay out in this chapter the concepts used. First, to contextualize my thesis in the realm of new media, I discuss Web 2.0: its features, ideals, and critiques. Second, I cite how Web 2.0 and its technologies and affordances help bolster identities. Third, I introduce postfeminism and detail its characteristics. Forth, I mention specific samples, such as blogs and applications, which reflect a postfeminist sensibility. Lastly, I deliberate the implications of postfeminism, especially in the context of employment and labor.
2.1.What Is Web 2.0?
“Web 2.0” was established by Tim O’Reilly in 2005. During a brainstorming conference, O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty have discussed that despite the burst of the dot-com bubble (O’Reilly “What is Web 2.0?”), the web has not become obsolete, but it still has a function and is in fact evolving, as new applications and technologies continue to crop up. During the brainstorm, O’Reilly and Dougherty compared and contrasted the characteristics of Web 1.0 and 2.0, and one of the main principles of Web 2.0 was that the web was supposed to be a platform, and in particular it entailed that Web 2.0 did not have “a hard boundary, but a gravitational core” (O’Reilly “What is Web 2.0”), with the other principles essentially supporting the hyped notion that this new version of the Web is more open, accessible, and customizable, which allows for endless digital creations and possibilities.
Web 2.0 has essentially been heralded as a public space, in which anyone and anything can be created with simply a few clicks. During this boom, O’Reilly also notes that one of Web 2.0’s most known features was the blog (“What is Web 2.0”). Prior to the boom of Web 2.0, personal pages were already growing, but he notes that the chronological organization of blogs was one of the characteristics that made a small, but valuable difference. Importantly, the incorporation of Rich Site Summary (RSS) and permalinks on blogs was its defining features, allowing readers to
subscribe to blogs and easily link back to them respectively (”What is Web 2.0”). The availability of these features allowed for an unprecedented type of networking, and frequently updated pages have taken over the static page. Easy customization and publication and the networking that these features afford have allowed readers and blog posters to connect with each other, allowing and encouraging communities to propagate.
2.2. The Capabilities Of Web 2.0
Proponents of Web 2.0 and media scholars often noted how Web 2.0 has changed how digital technologies are used. An example of a burgeoning cultural shift attributed to the affordances of Web 2.0 is the notion of “participatory culture.” Media scholar Henry Jenkins et al. notes how the younger generation has been practically raised in a participatory culture, and thus are digital natives (2). Participatory culture exists and is enabled by the web and Internet, and he defines the culture by stating the characteristics that define it, such as: 1) low barriers to expression and engagement, 2) mutual support amongst others with content creation and sharing, 3) casual mentorship and knowledge sharing among peers, 4) members must feel that their contribution is valuable, and 5) members must feel a connection within their social groups (5-6). In summary, participatory culture revolves around contributions, connecting with peers and the community, and self-expression.
Thus far, Web 2.0 came to be known for its social and networking potentials, and many of the mainstream technologies and platforms that have emerged from Web 2.0 concentrate on those possibilities. Social media scholars danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison sought out to define and layout the history of social network sites (SNS), and locate it as a scholarly subject. In their study, they illustrate that as early as 1997, SNS’ already existed (with SixDegree.com being one of the first), and such sites let users create a public or semi-public profile within a particular system, connect and build a network of other users they have connections with, and explore those networks they have established (211-212). It is emphasized that the visibility of a user online varies per site and its features also dependent on the user’s preference (213; 214). The initial goal of SNS was to connect people and therefore establish networks, however, as these sites changed over time, they also incorporated new
features in their sites, such as blogging and instant messaging capabilities, and photo and video sharing, and while these were created to be “widely accessible,” eventually users began congregating according to socioeconomic categories (e.g. age, education level, nationality), though it was not the intention of the site designers (214).
Eventually, SNS’ opened up to a bigger public, while also attracting niche communities, due to increase in features and capabilities. Facebook is a popular example, as it started as a Harvard-only site, and there are smaller sites like Couchsurfing, BlackPlanet, and MyChurch, which cater to a specific group of people with similar interests and backgrounds (boyd and Ellison 218). This spurt in SNS then become a crucial subject of study, as they do reflect existing social structures in which individual interest is the center of online organization and communities (boyd and Ellison 219).
Though in context of Wikipedia, New Media researcher Sabine Niederer and Professor José van Dijck sought out to explore how open the site is to public participation, acknowledging that this accessibility has also lead to contradictions. Wikipedia has been proclaimed as a free, collaborative, and collective space, in which contributors take production and information sharing in their own hands (1370). Despite the praise it has received, the rise of Wikipedia has brought up the argument of who has the power to produce and manage it: the few experts or the many amateurs (1371)? Supporters believe in the potential of the site to democratize knowledge, but critics have noted that the capacity of amateurs to revolutionize the online encyclopedia is overstated (1371). However, it is shown a small population was responsible for much of the edits done on Wikipedia, but eventually there was a decline in the number of edits done by “elite” contributors, and this pattern is also seen in other Web 2.0 applications, in which something is dominated by the few elite, but then their participation gradually declines (1372). However, this increase in freedom is largely due to the technological aspects of Wikipedia. They note that open source and networked technologies, while mostly created and controlled by people, it is also managed and “modulated” by technologies (1372). Thus Niederer and van Dijck note that while Wikipedia appears to give back the power to the people, an often-unseen facet is that how much technologies are utilized in the
system. As such, Wikipedia contributors are subjected to a system of check and balances reflects Deleuze’s “society of control,” in which society is kept in check by utilizing technologies (1373). Thus they note that while Wikipedia is labeled as a public encyclopedia, it is a sociotechnological system that still follows a strict hierarchy (1373).
In theory, Web 2.0 appears to have dismantled the physical, technological, and knowledge barriers separating people and the ability to create. While the premise of Web 2.0 was to create an open and free digital utopia, it has not been completely articulated.
2.3 Web 2.0 Critiques
Keywords such as “participatory” and “social” are often used to describe Web 2.0, yet as mentioned above, much of the definitions and characteristics revolve around the larger organizations and businesses, and not on the actual user of the Web. While they note that there is not much existing literature on internet-related content production, they reflect previous literature noting that social class also has a hand in dictating who creates and can participate in cultural content, contradictory to Jenkins’ and Bekler’s (qtd. in Jenkins 541) beliefs that the Internet is supposed to have “low barriers to participation,” (541) however, it remains that those in the higher class have a bigger influence on cultural production, which includes content made via the Internet, and the same principle still exists in the digital world because only those with unbridled access to the internet and other needed devices, and knowledge and skills can fully operate it.
In relation to its open and liberating Web 2.0 roots, media scholar Jodi Dean shares that despite its theoretical benefits, blogging is an online activity only a few can afford to do. Dean observes that the availability of blogging platforms and the ease of publishing has made blogging so fast, that it attracted an entrepreneurial expectation; there is suddenly an urgent need to always be ahead, and always be entertaining (2). Due to this hyper urgency she describes and situates the media practice as “problem specific to critical media theory is the turbulence of networked communications: that is, the rapidity of innovation, adoption, adaptation, and
obsolescence” (1). This increased need for constantly new and fast content, blogging has sanctioned the exploitation of labor in new media, since blog platforms need users to create and post their own content in order to thrive, which she calls “communicative capitalism”(4) and has merged democracy and capitalism in the context of media and entertainment. She also notes that networked communications are complicit in global neoliberalism; while it materialized values central to democracy, networked communications is still dependent on access, but emphasis on speed and fast connections have distorted it and placed power into the hands of a few (5), thus it is difficult to determine when bloggers are sincere, because they are operating on a system of competition. Dean then writes that with the rise of blogging, it coincides with the rise of neoliberalism in media (21), noting that blogging has displaced older digital activities, and digital technologies like blogging also distract users from communicative capitalism (28), with users not fully realizing that it is their voluntary labor that keeps the platform alive, and this media displacement also allows new media to flourish, but simultaneously makes it volatile and prone to obsolescence.
Interestingly, while the blog is still currently one of the most used features of Web 2.0, Dean recognizes that blogging is not brand new anymore; while it is not “dead,” it has been displaced by other Web 2.0 applications, but remains as one of the biggest instigators of communicative capitalism (29). To add, the paradoxical aspect of communicative capitalism is that even though it is meant to be democratic, it is still inherently neoliberal (31-32), and thus has been devoid of political purpose. Blogs have lost its edge and became cumbersome, as frequently writing and updating was crucial in making it interesting and attractive, which have lead to boredom and fatigue from the perspective of readers and bloggers themselves (33). Aside from the monotony, big companies have appropriated blogs (34) with the goal of creating brand attachment, which leads some to believe that blogging has lost its authenticity, which what made blogging popular in the first place. Thus blogging suffered from its own success and lost its genuineness, and with the growth of social networking sites, which had more social qualities and reconfigured how updates are done, consequently, it became the easier and “newer” new media (35-36). As big corporations have slyly taken over blogs, she also proposes the term “blogipelago” rather than referring to the blogging environment as the “blogosphere,” because
there is still stratification within blog use and not everyone has open access, which is contrary to the openness “sphere” suggests (38). While not quite the free space it was promoted to be, blogs are not irrelevant, rather blogs became normalized, and are remnants of the media that was once considered new (40).
Jenkins also affirms that from the birth of Web 2.0 until recently, there has been a dramatic shift in the content, economy, and power of and within media, as users and audiences become progressively productive and powerful content producers. To add to the conundrum, startups and big companies seek to monetize and earn from the collective intelligence and user-generated content Web 2.0 has given rise to (49). There has been a spike in Web 2.0 companies that heavily use the Internet as a platform to market, sell, and upgrade their products and services, thus the birth of Web 2.0 has lead to a cultural change in online business, and businesses began adapting to and profiting from participatory culture (48). As power structures online began to morph, it has been expected that Web 2.0 companies must surrender some of their rights to users and audiences, as it has been emphasized that they are also the producer and distributor of content, making them collaborators instead of spectators, however in actual application, such companies have corrupted this indefinite boundary between individual and collective efforts and ownership (49).
Operating on the idea that Web 2.0 is easily customizable and adjustable, such technologies let communities who felt dismissed and ostracized carryout interactions and find camaraderie with each other online, and this lead as well to alternative kinds of production and also a platform to critique mainstream market activities (Jenkins 53). The perception that Web 2.0 and related media activities had the ability to alter existing production and distribution methods were glorified by users, and communities rushed to create their own content, however, this desire to create alternatives have opened questions about content rights, labor, and marketing practices (Jenkins 53-54). One of the problems that have emerged from a Web 2.0 context is the disparity between exploited labor and content. The affordances of Web 2.0 technologies have created a blurry economic system on audiences and creators, and platforms and users run on, and both parties’ arguments must be considered. There has been an increasing worry that one of the biggest threats to the moral economy of Web 2.0 is the illegal distribution of protected content and the free labor
of fans and bloggers, which some media scholars fear that such practices overstep the boundaries of the moral economy and discounts the labor of media and creative professionals (55), however, some fans and bloggers return the argument, noting that they are the ones being exploited with the efforts and opinions remaining unanswered and unpaid. However, it is also argued that the practice of “free labor” is not one of exploitation, but it is voluntary and acts within the bounds of capitalist businesses (56). However, if there is anything that this tension demonstrates is that users are not unknowingly accepting the conditions of Web 2.0 technologies, but they are asserting their rights to have the ability to create, voice out their opinions, and to be informed about their choices (58).
As Web 2.0 technologies have become expansive, its economical role saw an unprecedented transformation as well. As its use and role related to commerce and exchange are exponentially branching out, it also concurs with the shift on how a user uses Web 2.0 applications in expressing and presenting their identity online. As notions of labor and economy are added into the equation, the effect of new such technologies on self-presentation and networking also take on a different turn.
2.4 Web 2.0 And Establishing Identities And Communities
New Media Professor Anne Helmond states that Cultural software, such as search engines, blog tools, instant messaging, and platforms have significantly shaped our social, political, and economic lives (4). She also notes that the transition from desktop software to web-based software has made software invisible, obscuring the operation of the software and its updates. This invisibility is the strength of cultural software, and this unseen type of software architecture, called platform, is what keeps Web 2.0 together (5). Helmond also mentions that search engines influence blog software, thus she questions if the relationship between the two is symbiotic and not one-sided. She states that the relationship between search engine, software, platforms, and this assemblage of various factors creates a new kind of identity on the Web: Identity 2.0 (5).
Presenting one’s identity online has undergone a shift, from being anonymous (e.g. chat rooms) to clearly stating one’s identity (e.g. social networking sites, blogs).
Helmond states as well that much of our identity is largely performative, and thus brings into question how we perform our identities online (6). She then analyzes the different platforms that have been used to present identity online. Seen as the descendant of the personal web page, she emphasizes the ease of self-publishing blogs have afforded (7). With the establishment of the software Blogger in 1999, it meant that users no longer needed vast knowledge on HTML, as it is the software automatically doing the publishing for the user. To add, because blogs were fairly simple to customize, it was not a closed environment as crosslinking and embedding widgets and items from third-party applications (e.g. Youtube for videos, Flickr for images) (7), allowing ones identity to be customized and centralized in one page (8). Though the aim was to centralize one’s information in a page, the customizable aspect of blogs also lead to “cluttered sidebar syndrome,” due to the multi-faceted nature of curating an online identity (8).
Nonetheless, from a central identity to a distributed identity (Helmond 22), Web 2.0 has presented a plethora of software, applications, and technologies that offer unlimited options to a user. This seemingly limitless way of expressing oneself has been utilized by several users and movements. In the context of this thesis, women’s activities have always been related to or discussed within media.
A specific example of the role of Web 2.0 technologies in aiding identities and communities is the Not Safe For Work (NSFW) community in Tumblr, a microblogging and social networking site. Lecturer Katrin Tiidenberg and researcher Edgar Gómez Cruz’s study focuses on the content and implications of NSFW blogs, which are primarily composed of provocative and sexy selfies or self-shot images. They situate this blog genre and practice within how the technological affordances of Tumblr, and also the circumstances and effects of posting such images online on their self-empowerment and community creation. The study states that posting NSFW images help the women “understand and experience their bodies” (81), and situates this practice within a Foucaultian notion of self-regulation and discipline, and rather than focusing on the technologies of power, their look focuses on the relationship of the self for the self (84). Their research shows that by posting sexy selfies, it changes the perspective and relationship the women have with their bodies, giving them control of their bodily narrative and ownership (87). They note
that this practice can only be considered a practice of freedom if the person is “critically self-aware” (90), however the act of posting intimate pictures also lead to a “popularity paradox,” in which the women feel pressured to post more content and content that is more revealing, because the reader gains a sense of false of intimacy by seeing personal pictures, and also since Tumblr’s features allows them to communicate with them (93-94), which include likes, reblogging, fanmail. These affordances allow for direct communication with the readers, but concurrently since these features are public, some of the bloggers feel vulnerable if they get unwarranted attention, which is contrary to the self-agency ideals the women believe in.
2.5 The Introduction of Postfeminism In Mainstream Media
In the current media milieu, it appears that feminism has been firmly woven into several mainstream cultural products. Whether in television, print, or online, it seems that there are several content that features female-centric stories, and female characters, actors, and subjects. While it seems that female voices and narratives are being acknowledged, at least in terms of media representation, scholars and professionals state that much has yet to be actually realized. Much of the feminism interjected into mainstream media is described to be Postfeminist.
Emerging from within media in the 1980’s, Lecturer Sarah Gamble notes that this postfeminism strived to be free from the chains of constricting and dogmatic feminism, and perhaps some even argue that it was about time that this new brand of feminism separated from its previous forms, as they are outdated and in fact, the goals of equality and freedom of all sexes is assumed to have been attained (36). The ideology of postfeminism has frequently been mirrored in popular culture; Gamble cites pop music icons The Spice Girls and Madonna as some as examples of a postfeminist product. The Spice Girls have been known to embrace “girl power” rhetoric in their aesthetic and work, meanwhile, Madonna is known for her provocative work, and for reinventing her appearance as she wishes. Those are just some popular examples of postfeminism in media, in which values of liberation, uninhibited sexual expression, and freedom to choose are manifested and projected in media (37).
While on a surface level, it may be empowering for some women, but critics have argued that postfeminism is the backlash and response to feminism; the milestones previous feminists have worked to attain, have been diminished, and this brand of feminism seen in media, is diluted, and stripped of its history and politics, and in particular discounting the work established by second wave feminism (37; 38). Gamble remarks that much of the criticism on feminism is due to the fact that women still live in and are controlled by a patriarchal structure, and previous feminist movements have been already misrepresented and ridiculed by popular media, however this reputation is also caused by “bad habits” within the movement, which perpetuates stereotypes and daunts women (40). However, Wolf argues that postfeminism is highly theoretical, and this particular ideology of feminism is pluralistic, and because of this, postfeminism is inherently paradoxical and revolves around the ideas of “deconstruction,” “difference,” and “identity” (qtd. in Gamble 41-42).
Gamble also takes into account writer and feminist Germain Greer’s critique of postfeminism. A proponent of second-wave feminism, Greer likens postfeminsim to a marketing scam, in which big companies push cosmetics, surgery, fashion, medication, and miscellaneous false needs to female customers (qtd. in Gamble 42), and the reason conglomerates sell such items to women, because they are selling the idea of “having it all” to them: a perception of being on top of one’s career, relationships, and appearances. Another critique Greer has of postfeminism is that it is only privileged, western women are able to partake in it, and much of the items and services being peddled are a luxury for many others, and even explores the idea that one woman’s enjoyment maybe be linked to another woman’s oppression (qtd. in Gamble 42).
2.6 The Characteristics Of Postfeminism
Rosalind Gill, a gender and media scholar whose work touched on postfeminism, has argued that while we live in modern times wherein sexism and feminism seemed to have disappeared in advertising because of the portrayals of attaining equality and empowerment. However, she notes that the issue of sexism never disappeared, but rather, people stopped talking about sexism, as feminism became akin to a dirty
word (55). Situating the discussion in the media industry, she notes that in 1991, she coined the term “new sexism,” when she observed that there was a lack of female broadcasters in the UK pop music scene, and while the professionals she spoke to, such as producers or radio bosses, always highly spoke of women highly, there was just a staggering deficiency of women in the media industry and a general lack of opportunities for females (56). Despite the rampant inequality, Gill notes that those in the media workplace were reluctant to acknowledge the problem, even those who were affected, and this resulted in an “unspeakable inequality,” and this obstacle was obscured by the idea that the media workplace runs on meritocracy, and if one cannot cope and compete, then it is the individual’s own incompetence (57).
She then connects this to the shift in gender portrayals during the 90’s, in particular noting that there was an increasing number of female and feminized roles in television, but this shift also saw an increase in the eroticization of both females and males (57). Gill then positions that sexism did not become obsolete, but it merely took on a different form, and in particular, she reverberates Robert Goldman’s idea of “commodity feminism,” in which advertisers harnessed and appropriated the feminist movement to “sell it back to women, emptied of its political content” (qtd. In 57). She then establishes that this novel form of sexism and change in gender representations and interactions, has opened up a new territory in the realm of feminist media studies, and these overlapping movements and theories have allowed for postfeminism to propagate in media (57).
She discusses that postfeminism, despite the name, is a new kind of sexism (Gill 60), and a common example she gives to contextualize this is cosmetic surgery. For a while, it was only a procedure done by those who can afford it, but currently, there is an expectation that women will have something done at one point in their life (Gill 60). There is a blatant and undeniable shift ongoing in sexism and what feminism is, yet postfeminism remains ill defined. Gill then calls on for a deeper exploration and understanding of what postfeminism is and the ideologies and the psychosocial aspects behind it, and she then locates the concept back to the 2010’s as the emergence of Web 2.0, especially the DIY media though blogs, social media, and other technologies that further shape and influence postfeminism (60).
One of Gil’s biggest contributions on the discourse of postfeminism is by framing it not as a theory, shift, or reaction to previous waves of feminism, but it is a sensibility composed of themes, instead of a specific ideology or branch of feminism (148). She places this study in postfeminist media culture, as much of the materialization of the sensibility occurs in media. Additionally, she also notes that much of postfeminist themes are in parallel with neoliberalist characteristics. The themes Gill has observed connotes that postfeminism is akin to an aesthetic and are a string of features that characterize the sensibility. The six themes are: 1) intense fixation with the body, 2) the shift from sexual object, to an insatiable sexual subject, 3) emphasis on “individualism, choice, and empowerment,” 4) self-policing and scrutinizing oneself, 5) “the makeover paradigm,” in which there is importance in constantly improving oneself, as if there is always a flaw to fix, and 6) validation in sexual differences (149-158). It is paradoxical that while the themes proclaim female agency and validate women’s perspectives, women are expected to restrict and monitor themselves.
Gill acknowledges the irony in postfeminist media discourse. She notes that irony in postfeminism serves several purposes, such as allowing one to be distant from a certain notion or belief as appearing to care or know too much is unappealing, as a reaction to “sign fatigue,” a concept from advertising in which customers are aware that there are attempts to lure them, and importantly, it expresses the notion of having it “both ways” (159). Irony is then used as a defense to delicately critique sexism while trying to establish female identity, however, this indirect approach allowed misogynistic media content to propagate (160).
While this sensibility makes it seem it that feminism is freely discussed in mainstream media, Gill also notes that much of feminist discussion happens in media, not outside of it, thus such discourse on it is being diluted and stripped of its political meaning (161). She echoes Angela McRobbie’s sentiments in which she says that it is this “’double entanglement’ of neoliberal values in relation to gender, sexuality, and family life, and a feminism that is part of common sense yet also feared, hated, and fiercely repudiated” (qtd. in Gill 161), and it is this entanglement that makes contemporary media culture uniquely postfeminist.
In liberal, western media culture, feminism is widely accepted and frequently spoken about, yet it is depicted and seen as being constricting and dogmatic (Gill 161-162). She notes that feminism has acquired a reputation of being a “Big Sister” who polices you and encourages you to reject traditional feminine constructs, such as liking pink-colored items (Gill 162), thus the postfeminist sensibility offers a respite from stiff ideals. She also highlights how some postfeminist media sells domestic, pre-feminist ideals as a new feminist pleasure. She illustrates this contrast by noting the stress of having the perfect wedding, yet mainstream media also showcases “lad” magazines such as FHM. Therefore, it is this transgressive play between feminism and anti-feminism that makes current media content postfeminist. This entanglement shows that postfeminism has neoliberal underpinnings, as both runs on a grammar structure of individualism (Gill162).
2.6.1 Big Sister is Watching You: That Friendly, Female voice
Reverberating the idea of a bigger sister watching over women, Alison Winch, a cultural studies lecturer, has taken note of a growing “girlfriend culture” within media, and this culture is rooted in neoliberalism has affected female interactions in a mediated world. She cites “Thinspiration” blogs as a particular example, noting that this community of (primarily) women put heavy stress on losing weight and remaining slim, which runs on “a better you” rhetoric. One of the defining characteristics of Thinspiration blogs was “its emphasis on peer control” (2). The rapid propagation of what Winch describes as the “girlfriend gaze” (21) in media is characterized by the lack of male presence in its rhetoric, with a strong emphasis on “girlfriendship,” and a mutual, intimate surveillance among women, which is constructed as being empowering and entrepreneurial (2). She also notes that this gaze is particularly based on postfeminism, and it is automatically assumed that the subject is a white, cisgendered, middle-class, and able-bodied (3) and grounded on the “Anglo-American liberal feminist rhetoric of agency, choice, and empowerment” (2). As established in previously in this thesis, postfeminism inherently tied to neoliberalism, and Winch considers neoliberalism as an “aggressive” kind of capitalism, which subjects every aspect of life to be commodified and exploited, and also allows corporate and financial behemoths to take control of our social and
economic lives (2). It is particularly sly as it uses a friendly, familiar, “girlfriend” approach, yet it is the private individual is valued the most by society. As opposed to the “male gaze,” women bond with other women, and often it is their bodies and aesthetics that are put on a pedestal.
The notion of girlfriendships comfortably places itself in pop culture, which is fixed in an entrepreneurial market. This echoes Deleuze’s view that in a society that values control, individuals are in “perpetual training,” thus the self is entangled in a network of “mutual governance” (qtd. in Winch 3). She notes that the media appropriates girlfriendships by perpetuating the idea that one must always belong, thus relying on a notion that one finds comfort in girlfriends, and men are treated as an accessory in this rhetoric (4). However, in this sphere of intimacy and individualism, feelings of completion, jealousy, and desire are also harnessed in order to gain some sense of control and regulation (5).
Winch uses the example of dating and weddings to situate this the girlfriend gaze into contemporary digital media. She mentions that contemporary wedding discourse focuses on the bride, but it also emphasizes the role of other women, such as friends and family. The bride is often portrayed as the star of the event, while her network of fellow women assist and fawn over her, thus this strategic and networked aim of attaining a perfect spectacle is one of the more current forms of self-branding in mainstream media (179). Wedding-focused media is a striking example of the entrepreneurial self and self-commodification, and it is this mentality that encourages a culture of transformation, in which women are cheered on to attain physical beauty, but the rhetoric notes that women do it for themselves, as opposed to doing it due to societal expectations, thus attaining semblance of authority over one’s appearance (181). Interestingly, Winch parallels this with brand management literature that instructs business owners to regularly update their brand so as to keep customers interested (181). Ironically, calls for self-branding also carries with it notions of remaining “true to yourself” yet, there are also calls to make sure your packaging always has the best details; she also applies this idea of curating the self to both dating and online dating, especially since you have to be “memorable and unique” (182).
In the greater scheme of things, Winch notes that the perfect wedding spectacle is just one example of the societal obsession with celebrities (183). In several media outlets like tabloids, there is an always overzealous detailing of who wore what, who hangs out with who, and who got married to who; meanwhile she also cites British personal trainer advertisements on “bridal bootcamps,” in which a competitive format is used to induce envy or rivalry among women (185-186). With a growing obsession with celebrity culture and a hyper-mediated environment, there has been an increasing number of outlets, which allow for self-promotion and publicity (187). In digital wedding media, like websites and forums, women congregate in such “intimate publics” and support each other; it is also through this congregation, which creates content for forums or sites, thus this online community is also essentially free labor (187). The sites, which support this kind of community makes for “care structures,” that upholster technologies of interaction (188). She also cites Facebook as another example, as such social networking sites rely on a web of “friends,” the existing postfeminist assertion that equates self-branding to empowerment is validated and occurs on digital media (193), and thus this creates social and cultural capital.
2.7 How Femininity And Feminism Are Articulated In New Media
Thus far, I have observed that there are currently not a lot of studies pertaining specifically to beauty blogs, however, there is an abundance of previous research on other blog genres and new media technologies and, that are specific to women. This final part of the framework looks at other female-oriented blogs and technologies, which may share similarities with beauty blogs, and perhaps how they embody postfeminism in the context of technology, and ultimately what they might mean in a bigger location.
2.7.1 The Case Of “Mommy” Blogs
Social Media Scholar Kelsey Cumming’s research on “mommy blogs,” she has uncovered that in the mommy blogs that she analyzed, most of them are owned by bigger corporations, while one used to be a personal mommy blog, but has since been purchased by a media company (3), and all the blogs had in common was that
aside from their benefactors, they earned profit from advertisers and frequently wrote sponsored posts. Aside from receiving funding from firms, she notes that blogs are not merely blogs, but it also has an extensive social network consisting of other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Plus, and Snapchat. Thus, besides having a big, yet discreet financial backer, an already powerful and frequently visited blog further benefits from a wider audience reach, across multiple platforms. She mentions that US-based mommy blogs function as a site for commiseration and discussion with other moms, but also as a space to talk about familial matters and also dissipate feelings of obligation or guilt, thus mothers often find a community in such blogs (3-4). She notes that the individual blogger has been accepted as “inherently” seeking to monetize their blog, as the activity is seen as entrepreneurial, specifically in the context of the current economic situation. As such, many bloggers also run on the rhetoric that success can be reached by way of quick and efficient digital resources (4). The same principles relate to blogs of other genres, but through that idea we, see that many blogs profit from their digital labor, with themselves as the capital.
Through the studies of Web 2.0, blogs, and the affordances of a social network, we see how the political underpinnings of new media are materialized and, and thus we see the patterns and themes that emerge from its application. To give a historical account of the change of beauty blogs from a casual pastime to a full-fledged, moneymaking endeavor.
2.7.2 Beauty In Applications
In an environment that is increasingly getting dependent on new media for its practical functions, and also its leisure-related affordances, there are a growing amount of studies that situate beauty in a digital context, which also relate to the arguments raised by Duffy and Hund, and Nakamura. Rosalind Gill and Media and Creative Industries Scholar Ana Sofia Elias have taken note of the proliferation of beauty applications, smart applications that modify and track one’s appearance and bodily functions, and often, these apps are targeted to women (2). They note that in postfeminist media, citing Bridget Jones’ Diary as example, women have always been subjected to various kinds of bodily surveillance, such as logging one’s
menstrual cycle or number of alcoholic drinks consumed, however, because of the ease of installing an application on multiple devices and the willingness of the user to input information on, this kind of surveillance is becoming difficult to distance ourselves from the technology, and the purpose it serves becomes progressively intertwined with the personal and becomes “coercive” (3-4).
The authors notes that beauty apps are one of the products that are symptomatic of a neoliberalist, postfeminist sensibility that is woven into contemporary society, and returning it again to the topic of beauty apps, instead of being monitored for constantly improving for economic or political reasons, the very essence of applications appropriates those sensibilities for technical reasons, and exchanges the judgment and reasoning with measured that visualize ranking or place in a system (5-6). They also note that within the past 10 years, across various media types and content, much of it focused on gazing at women, and this hyper fascination is challenging to separate from celebrity culture, more so that it spreads easily via social media (7). Another important statement they make is that these beauty applications do not exist in a vacuum, but they have a firm place in the beauty industry, and are linked to other fields such as “cosmetics companies, women’s magazines, celebrity culture, the aesthetic surgery industry, fashion industry, social media entrepreneurship and the burgeoning aesthetic service sector” (8). Due to accessibility and affordances of applications, and especially since these technologies are situates in a neoliberalist and postfeminist system, beauty applications are just some of the digital products that normalizes self-policing and a reliance on aestheticization (17).
2.8 Blogging And Feminine Labor
Digital Culture Researcher Brooke Erin Duffy and Communication Scholar Emily Hund acknowledges that fashion bloggers right now are some of the most prolific and known digital cultural producers (2). They trace the general boom of freelance creative work as a symptom of the post-Fordist labor market, which they characterize as having uncertain employment opportunities, thus an increase project-based and informal work, and this type of employment is only on the rise (1). There have been debates regarding the freelance economy, especially that associated with creative
jobs. A career in creative and cultural fields are frequently glorified and are associated with being hip and free, yet the risks of flexible and infrequent employment are real, and in light of that, self-sufficiency and entrepreneurialism are welcomed and encouraged in both creative and digital media industries (2). The ideals of individuality and self-reliance are that of neoliberalism, thus urge the practice of self-branding, and this has lead to extremely calculated methods of branding the self (2), and through Web 2.0, these entrepreneurial ideals get communicated via social media, and Duffy and Hund have also added that these translate to “attention seeking and status-enhancing behaviors” (2).
To add, Duffy and Hund also observe that the act of self-branding is often applied to gendered discourses, especially those that relate to postfeminism, noting that it is “self-expression rooted in the consumer marketplace,” which they also note intersects with neoliberalism (3). The authors note that in contemporary times, the intersection of self-branding, mediated digital technologies, and postfeminism are built on a “neoliberal moral framework” and it requires persistent improvement and surveillance of a self-brand (3). This contemporary understanding and interpretation of self-service, branding, and autonomy then provide a background to cognizing and analyzing gendered digital cultural products, and they also note that such recent examples are mommy blogs, fashion blogs, hauler videos, and DIY sites (3), and with those ideas in mind, their study’s finding can also be applied to beauty blogs as per this thesis.
In the same vein, while the notion of self-brand evokes notions of doing it out of free will and choice, it turns out that in the context of digital labor, the concept of “free” is ambiguous, and comes with privacy and economic ramifications. In “Feminist Surveillance Studies,” Digital Media Scholar Lisa Nakamura writes in her essay that women have been disproportionally been subjected to surveillance before and during the emergence of digital technologies (221-222). She rejects the notion perpetuated by Internet critics and supporters in the 1990’s that surveillance will be impossible online, noting that with the advent of social media, digital surveillance has even become easy (222). Additionally, she mentions that on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, women acquire a “significant amount” of user traffic, thus they provide “free labor” by frequently using sites like Facebook and Pinterest, and
services like Instagram, and consequently produce more original content (223). Although there have been proponents of social media saying that digital platforms can be empowering and serve as a creative outlet, Nakamura raises a point, stating that it is contrary, when these said platforms unfairly police women and minorities (224).
In relation to labor, Sociologist Stephanie Taylor has observed that in the United Kingdom, there has been a sudden rise among citizens who work for themselves, and this notion of self-employment is a “feminized figure” (174) and in lieu of the standard type and schedule of employment, many people who identify as self-employed choose to work from home in order to attain a sense of creative freedom and flexibility (175). It has been studied that though the workforce is more educated and skilled than ever, employees, especially women employees, report higher levels of dissatisfaction with their work and labor-related regulations (176). Thus, the “humanization of work” has been a growing trend, as workers call for more independence, and therefore because of “lifestyle issues,” several employees are opting to start their own business, and this trend is more apparent with women who specifically identify as a “mumpreneur” as working for themselves in the comfort of their own home allows them to simultaneously work while caring for their children and household (176-177). Besides flexibility, many workers have chosen self-employment as it allows them complete creative control and to “follow their passion,” thus this type of employment is also a common occurrence those who work in cultural and creative fields (180).
However, despite the positive aspects being highlighted, self-employment is not without risks, as those who are self-employed note that it is not as lucrative as others perceived it to be since any income they make goes back to their work, they do not have bonuses or paid leaves as a normal job would entail, they spend more on protecting their intellectual rights, working at home eventually becomes dull and lonesome, and in the case of mumpreneurs, they still have to schedule their work around their children (179). The over spilling of one’s personal life into their professional life is called “presence bleed” (177). Nonetheless, working for oneself presents a “new mystique,” as it offers a refuge from the normal, mundane type of employment while still having control over one’s creative process (182-183). This
“turning away of wider social issues and publics,” however is akin to returning back to the feminized, domestic lifestyle (183). At the end, this return to domesticity and willingness to work for oneself is symptomatic of the growing uncertainty and unhappiness in the workplace, and in the grander scheme of things, a symptom of a neoliberal system that encourages privatization, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurialism (185).
3 Methodology
To see where postfeminism and blog technologies meet and uncover the blog elements and technological features used in beauty blogs, this thesis operated on a protocol that is part digital methods, part qualitative content analysis. The study gathered a current list of the top ten beauty blogs, according to Bloglovin’. Then screen captures of its oldest and newest front and about pages were generated, with the former accessed through Internet Archiving tool, The Wayback Machine3. The visual and textual elements of the two versions of the front and about pages were analyzed, in order to examine the beauty blogs’ content and transformation. From the analysis, the study then uncovered the underlying patterns and narratives of beauty blogs, and aids the thesis in determining what the absence or presence of certain elements in the beauty blog may signify.
Figure 1: Summary of research protocol.
3 http://archive.org/web/ TOP TEN BEAUTY BLOGS • SOURCED FROM BLOGLOVIN' THE WAYBACK MACHINE • TO ACCESS OLDEST POSSIBLE VERSION OF THE BLOG 1) EARLIEST PAGES 2) MOST RECENT PAGES QUALITATIVE VISUAL AND CONTENT ANALYSIS
3.1 Internet Archives Via The Wayback Machine
The Digital Methods Initiative (DMI)4 notes that using web archiving tools uncovers historiographical, bibliographical, and legal discourses within the evolution of a website, institution, or medium (1). In particular, the Internet Archiving tool, The Wayback Machine is put into focus as one of the digital tools used for web archiving (3), allowing web and digital products and artifacts to be acquired and studied in the context of particular social, cultural, and historical setting (3). The ability to capture specific periods from a single site layouts and visualizes the story and evolution of a page, and aside from showing the general story of a website, it also allows users to see the definite changes that have been made over time, such as how have websites utilized new media features or how “old” media may have embraced new media (e.g. how radios and newspapers have adapted digitally).
In the context of this thesis, beauty blogs have long been digitally native, thus the study benefits from the use of web historiography tools as it affords a detailed and visual documentation of how beauty blogs have progressed. To add, by allowing access to previous versions of the beauty blogs, it allows users then to look back into the history of that particular blog, and see how it changed overtime in terms of narrative, function, and technology. Additionally, as it allows the user to go back in time, it also aids in locating and contextualizing the period in which a shift may have occurred within the blog, thus tracing out the changes in elements, and locating that change to a specific era in the blogosphere.
3.2 Qualitative Textual And Visual Content Analysis
Rosalind Gill has noted the role of the method in analyzing portrayals of gender across media, and numerous patterns and frequencies present in media (43). Gill cites Global Media Monitoring projects 5 conducted by the United Nations used content analysis in order to document and analyze gender bias and exclusion in media (43-44). This study specifically draws on the qualitative textual and visual
4 The DMI Worksheet used in this study notes that it is based on Richard Roger’s study, “Doing Web
history with the Internet Archive: screencast documentaries,” from Internet Histories, Volume 1, Issue 1-2, 2017.
content analysis done by Duffy and Hund, with their study being mentioned in Chapter 2.8. In their study, the authors analyze the top 38 fashion blogs, which they have gathered from blog aggregator, Bloglovin’, and conducted a close reading of its textual and visual content, alongside selected Instagram posts, in order to determine the feminine entrepreneurial tropes seen within the fashion blogs (Duffy and Hund 3-4).
3.3 The Top Ten Beauty Blogs As Case Study
In the same vein as Duffy and Hund’s study, this study gathers its list of the top ten beauty blogs from Bloglovin’, as the blog aggregator focuses on fashion, beauty, and other lifestyle-related blogs. In the same note, as mentioned in the Introduction, Bloglovin’ also dedicates two categories to beauty in its “Explore” page. Also, as of September 2013, 90% of Bloglovin’s users were women, making it primarily female-oriented service (Meyers and Berger “Top 50 Startups”), and the aggregator acts as a pulse of the blogosphere, since it shows which are the most popular and followed blogs per category. However, Bloglovin’ only covers the top blogs in fourteen different countries, most of which are European nations, mainly Western Europe and Scandinavia. In those 14 countries, the only exceptions are: The United States of America and Canada (North America), Australia (the only Australian/Oceania country included), and China (the only Asian included).
However, as established by Greer (qtd. in Gamble 42) and Winch (3) in Chapter 2, much of the current postfeminist content produced and distributed in mainstream media are Western, specifically Anglo-American. Therefore, only the most popular blogs from the USA and United Kingdom are considered. In relation, after conducting a preliminary scan of the top ten beauty blogs in the USA and UK, overwhelmingly, women based in the UK started much of the top beauty blogs. The USA and the UK also shared the same list of the top ten beauty blogs, and they are considered the top beauty blogs as they had the most number of Bloglovin’ followers. Based on Bloglovin’ follower count6, the most popular beauty blogs in the USA and UK are:
