Lifestreaming Beauty: Reading antoniobtwo's User-Created Procedural Beauty Discourse as Queer Counterstorytelling

• In Event: Disrupting Power and Dreaming Liberatory Worlds Through Multimodalities

Abstract

Objectives: Reading user-generated procedural digital media as queer multimodal counter-storytelling, this paper challenges what lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) digital activism looks like by rerouting its definitions to include technical communication. In particular, its zeroes in on one queer young person to ask: How does antoniobtwo mobilize procedural beauty discourse and user-created video as queer activism? How does he use facets of counter-storytelling to engage LGBTQ+-oriented social action? What can participatory technical communication, and procedural digital media more specifically, teach us about LGBTQ+ youths’ digital participation?

Theoretical Framework: Theoretically, this paper understands user-created media as part of the larger “lifestreaming” enterprise (Author, 2015; Freeman, 1997; Marwick, 2013). The rhetorical practice of streaming digital documents, texts, and visuals, lifestreaming works to curate a user-generated ethos online. This paper, like others in technical communication (Ledbetter, 2018), examines how antoniobtwo – a queer entrepreneur and influencer – embeds activist discourse across digital media to engage LGBTQ+ civic action through digital participation. Whereas others have examined user created media across isolated communities such as YouTube (Saul, 2014; Author, 2017), this paper traces participation across antoniobtwo’s larger social network (e.g., Instagram, Twitter, YouTube). In doing so, it traces the ebb and flow of his activist work across digital spaces and modalities by examining the evolution of his beauty brand.

Methods, Techniques, Data Sources: Utilizing a descriptive “case study” (Stake, 1995) design, this paper employed “connective ethnographic” (Hine, 2015) methods to examine user-created procedural media. Connective ethnography, as a methodological perspective, allowed for an in-depth examination of activist participation offline as mediated by digital production work online. Data generated included three 1:1 interviews, screen captures of antoniobtwo’s Instagram archive (n=199) and user-created procedural beauty videos featured on his popular YouTube channel. Data analysis was an iterative and recursive process. I first transcribed and coded verbal data from procedural videos featured on Instagram and YouTube, noting the particular rhetorical moves antoniobtwo used to engage his audience. These initial codes (story [STOR], instruction [INSTR], activism [ACTIV], emotion [EMO], and audience [AUD]), were then used to examine and code one-on-one interviews and follower’s comments. Taken together, these two sets of data were then triangulated with his multimodal Instagram archive to describe how participation functioned as counter-storytelling across social networking sites.

Findings & Significance: Findings are reported thematically, each pointing to the specific rhetorical moves, communicative functions, and modalities employed by antionobtwo. I first highlight how antoniobtwo built ethos and expertise in his beauty brand through the uptake of technical language. Through professional communication and beauty jargon, I detail how he apprenticed new users into the cosmetics community while cultivating an early online brand and digital following. Second, I describe the ways in which antoniobtwo used multimodal counter-storytelling as a mechanism to write (right) injustice and empathize with viewers. Narrating personal stories of hate and homophobia, I account for the ways he used user-generated procedural media to connect with other LGBTQ+ viewers who were reticent to “be seen [as] beautified” in their truer form.

Author

• Jon Michael Wargo, Boston College