No sweat: How wet bodies negotiate wearables as repairables

Abstract

As embodied technologies, wearable devices—from fitness trackers to virtual reality head-mounted displays—interact not only with wearers’ movements but also interface with their skin and temperature. In so doing, people sweat. Perspiration occurs during physical activity and from close bodily contact and can culturally signify productive body-work or generate “grossness” and disgust. Wearable manufacturers Fitbit and Oculus encourage their users to sweat as a sign of healthy and engaged interaction; however, many users talk about their excretion as human-technology breakdowns that seep, corrode, and disrupt smooth coordination. This article integrates interdisciplinary thinking from media studies, science and technology studies, disability studies, and other fields to discuss how wearability becomes a maintenance and repair problem in wet everyday life. It analyzes discourses within the manufacturers’ Internet forums and on Reddit to argue that users clean up, repair, and calibrate their bodies’ overflows in care work that gets threaded throughout consumption practices.