Magkänslor och ätvideor

Affektiva praktiker kring mat i sociala medier

Resumé

This article explores affective meaning-making practices on social media content about food and eating. The analysis draws on eight interviews conducted with eighteen teenage girls in Sweden. Unlike much research that focuses on how young people are affected by social media, this study aims instead to highlight young people’s own perspectives on content they actively engage with. The analysis is based on Wetherell’s concept of ‘affective practice’ and identifies affective patterns, flows and values. The affective pattern that emerges in the participants’ descriptions is two-sided and contradictory, as it highlights both restrictions and transgressions linked to femininity and body norms. The participants also describe the affective flow between viewers and social media through their emotional connections and reactions to what is seen on social media, but also through their strategic approach to what they see. The participants state that influencers use emotions strategically through spectacular content, such as mukbangs, to attract attention and generate affective value. Since the benefit or enjoyment of eating videos appears in contrast to restricted and controlled eating, this article argues that excessive eating - even though it presents a resistance-cannot be regarded as an opposite, but the two are rather as mutually dependent.