Men have to be competent in something, women need to show their bodies. Gender, digital youth cultures and popularity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social media represents a significant part of digital youth culture, providing young people with models, symbolic resources, and space for self-presentation and reputation management. This study explored how the ideal of entrepreneurialism, which marks the social media logic of attention and visibility, is appropriated by young people in ways that allow them to challenge or reaffirm traditional gender and sexual norms. This research was based on empirical material collected through online workshops involving 12 Italian schools (42 classes and about 900 students), in which we asked participants to join in an activity to create fictional accounts that could become popular with their peers. Our analysis shows that young people discursively construct gender and sexual norms, frequently reproducing dominant cultural discourses on gender and heteronormativity. Young people’s discourse focuses on the apparent feminization of the internet and a perception of social media platforms as belonging to the female sphere. The feminization of the internet leads to a discourse that concerns men’s need to link technical competence, professionalism, and masculinity in order to perpetuate the stereotypical portrayal of women as bearers of an innate sexual power that compensates for their perceived lack of digital skills.