‘I wouldn't want my family to cop anything’: examining the family of origin and its place in LGBTQIA+ young people’s social media practices

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social media practices are situated within the contexts that people are located in, including family and peer relationships. LGBTQIA+ young people carefully curate social media spaces to find similar others in careful ways. However, less is understood about how existing connections to families of origin (re)shape social media practices. Drawing on interview and focus group data with 65 LGBTQIA+ young people, we examine family considerations in social media practices and curation strategies. Findings reveal that considerations about familial relations play an important role in how young people use social media for maintaining and fostering ties with family members. Young LGBTQIA+ people narrativise their social media practices as intensely affective experiences, where issues of care, concern, and love for family, (re)shapes their social media use. We argue that queer young people’s social media practices can be conceptualised as family practices and consider the implications this has for making sense of social media for queer young people.