Liking as Taste Making. Social Media Practices as Generators of Aesthetic Valuation and Distinction

Abstract

A great deal of research has been conducted on how social media platforms constitute the construction of subjects, but much less attention has been given to how social media platforms and their users construct objects. This holds especially true for research on taste, which has primarily been conceptualized as taste expression of active subjects, using passive objects for identity work or group construction. We propose an understanding of taste making as a core practice of social media usage. Rather than merely performing a taste learned elsewhere, users cooperatively develop sensitivities on social media platforms, constituting practices of joint observation. In this triangle of taste subjects, objects and media mutually co-produce each other.