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“Oh, She's a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular

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“Oh, She's a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring the Platform Vernacular SMSXXX10.1177/2056305119867442Social Media <span class="symbol" cstyle="Mathematical">+</span> SocietyKeller 867442research-article20192019 Article Social Media + Society July-September 2019: 1 –11 “Oh, She’s a Tumblr Feminist”: Exploring © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions the Platform Vernacular of Girls’ Social DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119867442 10.1177/2056305119867442 Media Feminisms journals.sagepub.com/home/sms Jessalynn Keller Abstract As avid social media users, it is perhaps unsurprising that feminist teenage girls use their favorite platforms to engage in various forms of feminist activism. Yet, existing research has not explored how a growing number of social media platforms and their technological affordances uniquely shape how girls engage in online activism. I address this oversight by asking the following: Why are girls using particular platforms for feminist activism? How do certain platforms facilitate distinctive opportunities for youth engagement with feminist politics? and How might this shape the types of feminist issues and politics both made possible and foreclosed by some social media platforms? To answer these questions, I draw on ethnographic data gathered from a group of American, Canadian, and British teenage girls involved in various forms of online feminist activism on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. These data were collected as part of two UK-based team research projects. Using the concept of “platform vernacular,” I analyze how these girls do feminism across these different platforms, based on discursive textual analysis of their social media postings and interview reflections. I argue that teenage girls strategically choose how to engage with feminist politics online, carefully weighing issues like privacy, community, and peer support as determining factors in which platform they choose to engage. These decisions are often related to distinctive platform vernaculars, in which the girls have a keen understanding. Nonetheless, these strategic choices shape the kinds of feminisms we see across various social media platforms, a result that necessitates some attention and critical reflection from social media scholars. Keywords feminism, girls, platform vernacular, activism Facebook is a more conservative platform, that’s where you Marlo was adamant that Twitter was the best social media share news about family, or like, you know, I got accepted platform for such a message. Her characterization of to Oxford, as opposed to Twitter where I can use curse Facebook as “conservative,” a platform used by her grandma words and be a little more free in what I say! and “her parents’ generation,” meant that sharing her femi- nist views on Facebook posed a risk of a family dispute. “Because a lot of my family is very conservative, I feel more The above quote is from Marlo, a 19-year-old sophomore comfortable to share things that are of a certain controversial at a large state school in the Midwest United States. I’m nature on Twitter than I do on Facebook,” she says. Marlo’s speaking to her about her use of the hashtag #CropTopDay to evaluation of Facebook isn’t exactly new. There has been protest gendered dress codes that unfairly target teenage popular buzz about teens abandoning Facebook for the past girls. Originally used by a teenager in Toronto who was rep- several years, with a 2015 Washington Post article declaring rimanded for wearing a crop top to high school, #CropTopDay that “teens aren’t just bailing [on Facebook]—they’re trended in the late spring of 2015 when hundreds of teens globally adopted the hashtag to express their own dissatis- University of Calgary, Canada faction with sexist dress codes (see Keller, 2018). An avid Twitter user with over 6,000 tweets at the time of writing, Corresponding Author: Marlo learned about the hashtag via her Twitter network and Jessalynn Keller, Department of Communication, Media & Film, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, was eager to “spread the message” that the policing of girls’ Canada. bodies through dress codes is unjust. Email: [email protected] Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 Social Media + Society refusing to buy into Facebook in the first place” (Lang, (Postill & Pink, 2012). Next, I outline key scholarship related 2015). Academic studies have found similar trends (Miller, to digital feminisms, girls’ participation and contributions to 2016), suggesting that teens are opting for platforms like these feminisms, and the affordances and vernaculars of Instagram, Snapchat, and Whisper over Facebook. social media platforms. My analysis is situated in the inter- But what might this diversity of social media platforms section of these literatures, and explores teenage girls’ use of and their technological affordances mean for teenage partici- Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr to engage in feminist politics. pation in politics, specifically feminist activism? We may ask These platforms were popular with the teenage girls I inter- the following: Why are girls using particular platforms for viewed at the time of this research. I conclude by reflecting feminist activism? How do certain platforms facilitate dis- not only on the strategic use of social media by girls to tinctive opportunities for youth engagement with feminist engage in difference forms of feminist critique and activism politics? and How might this shape the types of feminist but also on the ways in which my analysis affirms teenage issues and politics both made possible and foreclosed by girls not as victims of the seductive lure of social media but some social media platforms? To address these questions, I as strategic, discerning, knowledgeable, and savvy users of draw on ethnographic data gathered from a group of such technologies. American, Canadian, and British teenage girls (ages 14-19) involved in various forms of online feminist activism on Mapping the Digital Socialities of Girls’ Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. These data were collected as Online Feminisms part of two UK-based research projects, as I describe below. Using the concept of “platform vernacular” (Gibbs, Meese, My methodological approach draws on John Postill and Arnold, Nansen, & Carter, 2015), which calls attention to the Sarah Pink’s (2012) concept of digital socialities, which unique communication genres that develop in accordance refers to the multiple qualities of social relationships that with platform affordances, I analyze how these girls do femi- transverse online and offline spaces. As Postill and Pink nism across these different platforms, based on discursive (2012) note, the concept of digital socialities allows research- textual analysis of their social media postings and interview ers to move beyond the oft-used framework of the “online reflections. I argue that teenage girls strategically choose community” which suggests a distinct, bounded group that how to engage with feminist politics online, carefully weigh- can easily be identified, approached, and studied (also see ing issues like privacy, community, and peer support as Keller, 2015). Instead, digital socialities attends to the fluid- determining factors in which platform they choose to engage. ity of the web and the movement of users across platforms These decisions are often related to distinctive platform ver- and between online and offline spaces, acknowledging the naculars, in which the girls have a keen understanding. “shifting intensities of the social media landscape” (Postill Nonetheless, these strategic choices shape the kinds of femi- and Pink, 2012, p. 11). In this sense, digital socialities pro- nisms we see across various social media platforms, a result vides a productive framework for considering how teenage that necessitates some attention and critical reflection from girls engage in feminist politics that are often dispersed feminist media scholars. across several social media platforms and variable in terms The aim of this article is not to make definitive statements of the affective investments and intensities that they about particular platforms being “better” or “worse” for produce. doing feminism; instead, I aim to uncover and analyze some As a feminist media studies scholar, I would also add the of the nuances offered by three popular social media plat- word “critical” to digital socialities, understanding critical forms for teenage feminisms. In this sense, I am also not digital socialities as a concept that recognizes not only the making an argument based on technological determinism, multiple qualities of social relationships facilitated through but attempting to attend to both the technological/material digital media but also the uneven power relationships that and social/creative aspects of what Carrie Rentschler and often shape these encounters. Critical digital socialities then Samantha Thrift (2015) call “doing feminism in the network” attunes us to the structural inequalities exploited by the (p. 3). In doing so I aim to encourage scholarly discussions design of the Internet (Harvey, 2016), which results in wide- about online feminisms to more seriously
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