Selfie-Editing Practices,Visual Culture and Contemporary Formations of Embodied Subjectivity

Abstract

Selfie-editing technologies, including in-phone editing tools, filters and apps like Facetune, provide the ability to digitally edit and ‘enhance’ facial and body features in photos shared on visual social media platforms. This study is unique in focusing on how young people understand and experience the practice of editing self-images through qualitative and visual methods. It is based on a study with 79 young people in Australia. Editing bodily and facial features was experienced as editing the self. We map the different categories of editing young people undertook, including photo-taking, post-production, ‘touch-ups’ like removing blemishes, and ‘structural’ edits to one’s face or body shape that can mimic cosmetic surgery procedures like rhinoplasty. Participants described significant tensions between different editing practices, which we conceptualise as ‘affective frictions’, illustrating the tenuous boundaries and meanings associated with different forms of editing. These boundaries and the frictions between them highlight the complexities, ambivalences and tensions surrounding young people’s experiences of editing practices which are crucial for understanding the contemporary demands of visibility in social media cultures. Our findings extend feminist sociological understanding of how embodied subjectivities are navigated in a digital-physical context where perfected images are a baseline norm for young women in contemporary media cultures.