Abstract

This research-creation project explores how a narrative-journalism long form magazine-style article can use sociological theory as a framework to turn several different intersecting topics into one relatable and interesting story. It was written in the style of narrative journalism to take both myself and my imagined audience on a journey to understand the connections between online self-performance, Instagram influencer culture, consumer-capitalism, and postfeminist digital cultures (Gill 2007). This research is made up of personal narration, academic research, and excerpts from interviews with academics as well as of “admirers” of influencers, that is, Instagram users that follow and interact with social media influencers. The personal narrative journey within this research-creation project leads me to reach conclusions about my own biases towards influencers, and come to realize the conscious and unconscious ways in which I curate and modify my own digital identity on the internet. This research demonstrates how the literary techniques and subjectivity associated with narrative journalism can take a complex topic and turn it into understandable and nuanced story. Using theories of postfeminism, this research project adds knowledge to how the self-performance of Instagram influencers on social media supports consumer-capitalism and entrenched ideas of the “ideal woman” within North American society.