“An Australian beauty-lover based in Singapore”: negotiating Asian Australian identity in the beauty vlogosphere

Abstract

Abstract This article explores how the conventions and culture of beauty vlogging elucidate Asian Australian identity and politics. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of Asian Australian beauty vlogger Tina Yong’s vlogs, I explore how national, ethnic, and racial identities are negotiated through platform logics, commercial imperatives, and community participation. Yong’s vlogs offer tangible ways to narrate the mundane, everyday experiences of Asian Australian identity that are underrepresented in mainstream Australian media. At the same time, Yong’s self-representation is made legible through her engagements with the commercialized beauty vlogosphere and her transnational audience, which tend to reduce the potential for illuminating hybrid and culturally specific Asian Australian experiences, communities, and politics. While Yong’s vlogs generate productive dialogue on race/ethnicity and race-based affinity communities, platform and commercial logics hinder her representational capacity as an Asian Australian subject who is doubly marginalized within the global beauty vlogosphere.