How to Be a Military Spouse: Short-Form Video and the New Genre of Wife Content

Abstract

Military spouses have frequently turned to social media platforms to navigate the complexities of military life. As civilians who are connected to, but not formally part of, the military, they experience many of the impacts of service and can feel unseen and unsupported. This paper draws on a qualitative analysis of TikTok and Instagram content produced by military spouses to reveal how this social media content serves as both a performative space and an instructional network, where spouses navigate the tension between seeking visibility and community support while reinforcing the very normative expectations of military wifehood that contribute to their marginalization. Content creators navigate and reproduce this tension through humor, satire and candid revelations to both challenge their invisibility and produce constraining norms. This analysis contributes to broader social media discourses of how social media platforms mediate identity performance, transformed by the communicative affordances of short-form video platforms.

Introduction

Social media provides a window in domestic and family life, which has evolved alongside digital platforms. Early iterations of domestic and family content were dubbed “mommy blogging” (Lopez 2009) and were framed as a way for mothers to redefine motherhood on their own terms. More recently, the focus has shifted to family influencers (e.g., Abidin 2017) and “sharenting” (Jorge et al. 2022; Ranzini et al. 2020) as modes of sharing (and monetizing) family life through social media. We argue, the latest iteration of domestic and family content online can be broadly understood as “wife” content, popularized through the mainstreaming of “trad wife” content shared by influencer accounts like Nara Smith and Ballerina Farms (Sherman 2024). In this paper, we examine one example of the growing category of “wife content” on social media, military spouses. We argue that military spouse content, as displayed on TikTok and Instagram platforms, creates a complex instructional network where spouses simultaneously seek visibility and community support while reinforcing the very normative expectations of military wifehood that contribute to their marginalization. Platform affordances facilitate this dual tension of empowerment and constraint. While military spouses present a unique case study in some ways (discussed below), they give important insight into how the front stage space of social media structures normative expectations of military wives, effectively acting as a “how to” guide, and providing a form of pedagogical instruction (Hendry et al. 2022).

Military Spouses and Social Media

Social media has become a vital tool for military spouses, who shoulder many burdens of military life and often feel caught between the military and civilian communities—not fully integrated into either one, despite being profoundly affected by service life owing in part to the totality and masculinity of the military (Jervis 2011). Military service impacts all facets of life for families (Borah and Fina 2017) who are often required to navigate their unique lives without reliable support from their partner or extended family networks. Their military connection impacts on spouses’ health, well-being, social connections and employment status (Biedermann 2017; Elliott and Scott 2001; Foreman 2001; Johnson 2018; MacDonell et al. 2016; Quinn 2017).

Military spouses have reported that expectations of their role place them under pressure; they are expected to be supportive and caring (Borah and Fina 2017; Garcia 2012; Jessup 2000) and “not allowed” to show emotion, dependence, vulnerability, fright and worry (Aducci et al. 2011). A study of Australian military spouses confirmed the existence of a “Perfect Partner” archetype (Johnson et al. 2021). This archetype, as an idealized version of a military spouse, creates expectations for women who feel pressured to show “resilience” while fully supporting the military member’s career. The intense expectations in this environment, combined with fears about the consequences of failing these expectations, makes peer support crucial yet complicated, even in private online groups that have been created away from official military channels (Archer et al. 2021). Broader societal developments, including enhanced education and employment opportunities for women (Jessup 2000), have contributed to a growing discontent amongst spouses, however complaints remain few, which may be because partners perceive any reports of dissatisfaction will be ignored (Jervis 2011).

Current research tends to focus on spouses’ use of platforms like Facebook for social support and connection (Johnson 2018; Rossetto and Owlett 2022; Sherman et al. 2016; Wood et al. 2023) rather than social media as a site for acceptance or rejection of the military spouse identity. As yet, there has not been an examination of the role of video-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok and how spouse-created content conceptualizes military spouse identity. This paper argues that the affordances of short-form video platforms provide important space for identity work, while also being markedly different from previously dominant social media platforms, such as Facebook, due to their algorithmic structure. As such we sought to understand the creation and maintenance of their online, digital identities; knowing the potential to reveal partners “front stage” (Goffman 1956) performance by which individuals desire their audience to understand and perceive them (Bullingham and Vasconcelos 2013). In doing so, we sought to understand what military spouse content on TikTok and Instagram reveals about the everyday experiences of military families, finding that these everyday experiences are mediated through a complex dual process of seeking visibility while continuing the promotion of reinforcing constraining norms. This analysis is timely, as the digital engagement within this community has expanded from forums and blogs (Blakely et al. 2014; Rea et al. 2015), to Facebook (Rossetto and Owlett 2022), and now to the under-explored visually-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Methodology

This project applied a digital ethnographic methodology (Pink et al. 2015) to collect insights about military spouse content on social media. Digital ethnography builds on the concepts of traditional ethnography by adapting traditional ethnographic methods to understand how people interact and behave in digital spaces (Hine 2015; Murthy 2008). In embracing a digital ethnographic approach, we leant into the subjectivity of the algorithmically sorted online spaces, accepting the “messiness” of undertaking content research on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

To examine how military spouse identities are expressed on and through short-form video, we observed and collected content directly from TikTok and Instagram, which are among the most popular and heavily used social media applications. TikTok is a video-focused platform, and with the introduction of “reels’ Instagram has incorporated aspects of TikTok’s design where viewers scroll through an algorithmically created feed of videos to discover new content. As such, the experience of short-form video is less collective than previous forms of social of social media like Twitter and Facebook which encourage asynchronous but collective discussion and connection. Algorithmic personalization has been increasingly used to curate social media feeds over the last decade, a change which was initially resisted and protested by users (Mahnke Skrubbeltrang et al. 2017). The emerged of short-form video has intensified this process and allows user to create and share content that emphasizes authenticity (Barta and Andalibi 2021). Vizcaíno-Verdú and Abidin (2023), also argue that affordances of short-form video which focus on the replication and memefication of content through audio, specifically help facilitate the development of micro-celebrity.

Given the affordances of short-video forms platforms we argue that a digital ethnographic approach which works with the algorithmic structures of the platform, is most appropriate for this present research project, which seeks to understand how short-form video functions as a site of identity construction and translation for the military spouse community . We sought to connect, through digital ethnographic methods, to the material world of military families and spouses and their digital representations.

We collected data over a six-month period from March to September 2024. The project was reviewed and approved by the Central Queensland University Human Ethics Research Committee. To discover algorithmically curated content, we used targeted search terms such as, “military spouse” and “military family” and reviewed the videos that appeared, saving ones that appeared relevant to assist with further analysis. During the research, we were promoted a small amount of content created by comedians about military spouse stereotypes. We ultimately excluded these videos from the data because they weren’t generated by military spouses and thus outside of the scope of our study but does point to the prevalence of spouse stereotypes outside of the military community.

Over time, we saved and reviewed videos that were organically delivered to our content feeds. To increase the number of military spouse videos surfaced by the algorithm, we also engaged in deliberative and strategic interaction to encourage more of this content, drawing on Abidin’s (2020) approach to TikTok research. We only included screengrabs or other identifying content in this paper from creators who we established had intended for their posts to be widely circulated, applying Abidin’s (2018; 2021) work on internet micro-celebrities to assist in making this determination. This includes the creators’ strategic use of hashtags, tonality in their captions and profile elements which appear designed to enhance their online presence and reach.

Consistent with a digital ethnographic approach, we collated the saved videos and established initial themes during a series of detailed discussions. From there, we independently reviewed each video, creating a written summary of what was happening in each clip as well as our responses to the content. We captured both our observations as researchers as well as evidence of audience engagement with the content. We reviewed each other’s written reflections and held further discussions about the content, which were recorded and transcribed. This led to the development of three key themes. The first is about liminality, where spouse details how their everyday lives are connected and, in many ways beholden to the military. The second theme explores the promotion of gratitude and positivity by content creators. Our final theme speaks to the way in which the content creators accept, reject and reframe military spouse stereotypes.

Beyond the specificities of the themes relevant to military spouses, our analysis finds that TikTok and Instagram content provide a clear interpretive framework for understanding the everyday interactions and expectations of military spouses. It confirms what remains consistent with previous research about the online interactions of spouses, including their use of digital platforms for connection, information, and support and reveals new findings about how this community building simultaneously reinforces normative expectations of military wifehood.

Life in the Liminal

The structure of life for military spouses is one lived in the liminal between spaces, characterized by uncertainty and the absent presence of the service member. Thus, a key task for spouses is to provide a sense of structure and order to the unpredictable and often chaotic nature of military life. Research by Villagran et al. (2013) identifies the various coping strategies, and the cultivation of resilience by military spouses to deal with the deployment cycle, which the authors term the “battle rhythm,” a term they use to describe the rhythm of normalcy they acquire in their spouse’s absence.

In order to make sense of military life, the military spouse content creators often deployed humor to make light of the chaos that surrounds them. This is particularly evident in content that addressed a Permanent Change of Station (PCS), the US term for when families relocate to facilitate a military posting order. Military families are highly transient and may move between postings every 2 to 3 years, and over which military service members and by extension, their spouses have low levels of control (Manser 2020). The chaos of moving is a persistent theme in the data, as are the negative effects associated with it.

In one video reel, the creator uses a meme from the movie Home Alone to express her feelings about her spouse’s deployment, which, in addition to PCS, is also often unpredictable. The video uses footage of the main character, Kevin McAlister, defiantly walking out the front of his house, saying, “I’m not afraid anymore. Can you hear me? I’m not afraid anymore.” The neighbor that Kevin spends much of the movie being afraid of enters the frame (labeled as “The next deployment”), Kevin screams and runs away. The creator uses this meme to point to the cyclical nature of deployments, and while spouses may feel a sense of confidence after finishing one deployment, that doesn’t negate the fact that another deployment will soon arrive to disrupt that sense of confidence.

The emotional cost of having a spouse deploy and the need to manage the absent presence of the spouse is also a persistent theme. Deployment is an emotional time for spouses, and this emotion is contrasted with the idealized version spouses perceive some people hold of having a partner in the military. This was clearly demonstrated in one post by a creator, who recorded herself crying and talking directly to this idealized portrayal. That is, that military spouses are resilient, self-sacrificing and happy to facilitate their spouse’s military careers without complaint. Here we seem short-form video serving as a way of constructing a glimpse into the back stage of the military spouses’ lives.

While they express sadness or even grief, other videos suggest that military spouses have full lives in the absence of the service member. A typical way to communicate this in the videos collected in this research is to frame the return of the service members as a surprise or an intrusion that needs to be accounted for. One video shows the creator reading quietly, alone. The video uses an audio meme from the TV show Schitt’s Creek; a man’s voice says, “I’d like to check in please.” One of the main characters, Moira, replies, startled, “Oh my god, where did you come from?”. In this video, the creator lip-syncs to, and acts out Moira’s dialog to suggest the members’ return to the home was unexpected and disruptive.

These results are consistent with themes identified by Villagran et al. (2013). They describe a process of a new normalcy as a way of managing the realities of deployment and the accompanying uncertain - the “new normal” described by these researchers is also situated in liminality, or as described by Villagran et al. as, “situated between the present and the future, based on a routine of the past” (2013, p. 782). As is evident from the content analyzed the impression of “backstage” access is of course, highly curated. This is apparently in two ways, firstly, the creator is making a conscious choice to use a short-form video platform to publicly express parts of their identity and experience, irrevocably moving them from to the front stage, and broadening the possible audience. The impression of authenticity, as other scholars (Duffy et al. 2024) have identified, is part of becoming a successful social media creator.

For example, one of the persistent themes includes the neglect or delay of maintenance and upkeep of certain parts of domestic life and the self. Spouses forget to water and care of the lawn in the member’s absences, or do not regularly start or maintain their car while they are deployed. Both instances were evident in our data collection, rendered humorously, and are calibrated to communicate authenticity and relatability; the “failure” of upkeep is not shameful and private but “real,” transformed, in part by the communicative affordances of the platform itself.

Demonstrating the impossibility of accounting for the rhythms of military life also underscores the pedagogical and normative functions of military spouse content on short-form video platforms. It is not possible for one partner to take on and fully encompass the domestic rhythms of the other, and some things naturally fall away. The unpredictable absence and presence of the service member necessitates two separate ways of being, both with and without the service member, which must be continually negotiated. The data shows that moving between these rhythms of being takes conscious interpretative work on the part of the military spouse, which is not necessarily wholly successful. Short-form video platforms are a way of doing this interpretive work both individually and collectively. This is also congruent with prior research, which has found that some spouses alter their expectations of family relationships, even when the spouse is not deployed, to help ease the strain of separation and integration (Villagran et al. 2013).

The care of the self also takes a different form in the absence of a spouse. One creator encapsulated this in a video humorously responding to the “good” news that their spouse will be home a few weeks early. The video is of the creator looking slightly panicked while she gets ready to leave the house, presumably to engage in a range of beauty appointments that have been neglected during the member’s absence. These types of videos show that while a spouse returning home early and safely is undoubtedly positive news, it is still disruptive to the rhythm of life on deployment. Thus, changes to personal grooming and what we broadly term “self-care” are one way in which military spouses mark the change from deployment to return. The unexpected return of the spouse, while welcome, disrupts this routine. At this point, we want to note how the authenticity and relatability of military spouse content is achieved on short-form video platforms.

The content from military spouses collected for this research relies heavily on audio memes. As described above the content created by military spouses is intertextual, a pastiche of overlapping cultural references, including sound, video and images. Despite calibrating their content to appear relatable, we rarely hear or see military spouses speak directly to their audience, or to the camera. In this way, military spouse content creators are distinct from other kinds of influencers who may engage in more direct dialog with their followers/audience. For example, the fitness creators examined by Hendry et al. (2022) in their study on influencer pedagogy engaged in a much more directly instructional relationship with their viewers, suggesting workouts and diet plans. The use of memetic templates to create content indicates, importantly, that memes can also be instructional, and that creators do not need to engage directly with their audience in order to shape and communicate normative expectations. Importantly, using and reusing audio memes also appears to relieve military wives of the burden of actually speaking directly to their audience. Notable in our data is the lack of direct, spoken engagement with their audience. Instead, the memes talk “for” military wives, which implicitly underscore traditional expectations regarding women’s (non) engagement in the public sphere.

Temporality and Memetic Short-Form Videos

The emphasis on memetic content in the short-forms videos collected in this research underscores a dual emphasis on temporality present in the data collected for this research. On an expressive level, the short-form videos engage with the temporality of life as a military spouse, organized around the absences of the spouse. Temporality also applies the memetic content itself which is cyclic. Content creators are playing the visibility and relevance game, using the right memetic format at the right time also helps to boost their audience by riding trending social media content.

Temporality looms large in the lifeworld of military spouses. Metaphors of “seasons” are abundant in military spouse social media content as a way of conceptualizing and, indeed, embracing the constant change that military spouses navigate, discourse that engages with the temporal aspects of military spouse life, also provide what Williams (1977) might refer to as “structures of feeling.” For Williams, structures of feeling exist in the gap between official structure and popular response. While military spouse content in short form videos may communicate normative ideas about how to manage the intolerable linear temporality (Lefebvre 2004, 76) of military spouse life, they also illustrate how the affordances of short form video also allow the possibility of new formations of thought (and feeling). The memetic structure of the short-form videos analyzed in this research also illustrates how memes act as a way of reading between the lines, through which new formations of thought (and feeling) take shape.

Positive Thinking and Making Peace

“You’ll never hear me complain. . .” explains one military spouse content creator to her audience of Instagram followers. This simple statement exemplifies a broader theme that was evident in our analysis of the social media content: strong and adamant promotions of positivity and gratitude. Positivity and gratitude are one of the ways that spouses are total to “cope,” by actively reframing their experiences.

This theme is evident not only in specific videos, but as a broader theme related to specific influencer accounts. @Wivesofthearmedforces is one such account. Wives of the Armed Forces, or WAF, define themselves as a “blog and community.” The content for their Instagram account is generated by several “WAFs” and aims to create a space for military-connected spouses to “find empowering resources and a community eager to thrive in this chaotic lifestyle” (Wives of the Armed Forces 2024). The collective arrangement of WAF is of interest here. Consistent with Afifi et al. (2020), the “communal coping” represented by WAF is a response to a shared stressor, in this instance military life, which is framed as a collective problem and responsibility. This illustrates the potential of social media to act as a shared resource in coping with the stressors of military life (Rossetto and Owlett 2022). However, unlike previous research, which has focused on more “interactive” sites of communal coping, like Facebook groups (Rossetto and Owlett 2022) and forums (Knobloch et al. 2017), online platforms like Instagram and TikTok have “few too many” rather than a “many too many” structures that characterize the platforms studied in previous research. To this end, it is less clear how the TikTok and reels analyzed in this video structure communal coping. However, we argue that they still fulfill the pedagogical functions identify by Hendry et al. (2022) by demonstrating models of appropriate coping.

Acceptable models of appropriate coping are most evident when creators talk about relocation. Relocation and geographical mobility are well-established in academic literature as one of the most stressful and impactful key events associated with military life. Frequent relocations are disruptive to family life; relocation disrupts social and community connections, impacts the civilian spouses’ access to ongoing employment, and can lead to poorer health and wellbeing outcomes over the longer term (Allen 2008; Baumann and van Rensburg 2020; Borah and Fina 2017; Burrell 2006; Manser 2020; McKain 1973; Newfield et al. 2024). WAF acknowledge this; however, they reframe this event to align with their positive focus. This framing was adopted by their followers, as demonstrated by comments affirming this sentiment, such as “bloom where you are planted.”

The focus on expressing positivity and empowerment is also evident throughout the content they share on their account, including this post, where an image of two women embracing is accompanied by the audio clip from “Night at the Museum 3,” in which Robin Williams’ character says: “It’s time for your next adventure.” Another character says, “I have no idea what I’m going to do tomorrow,” and Robin Williams’ character responds in an encouraging tone, “How exciting.”

The content that was coded into this category is unified by a central theme of reclaiming agency and choice, in that by focusing on the positive aspects of military life, they are reframing their experiences in a system that removes their choice and agency. For instance, military-connected spouses’ choices about when they see their loved ones and where they live are dictated by service requirements. These include choices about the timing of deployments, where they live and their ability to participate in paid work outside the home. Some research suggests that when military spouses do elect to participate in paid work outside the home, its effect is to further isolate the spouse from networks of support (Villagran et al. 2013). Thus, gendered expectations, that is, that women are primarily responsible for domestic and family life and do not work outside the home are positioned as rational choices.

Thus, the determined focus on the positive is a pragmatic choice to “make the best of it” in the absence of other options. While Ehrenreich (2009) is critical of the American focus on positive thinking, in this instance, the military spouse is left with few alternatives; focusing on the negatives of military life may only amplify the constrained agency that military spouses experience. Within a framework of extremely limited choices, the only viable one is to embrace “what is” and “bloom where you are planted.”

On the other hand, the acceptance and even encouragement to be satisfied with your situation in untenable situations points to the bind that military spouses are in. Both the military and family are what Segal (1986) terms “greedy institutions.” Within these familial and institutional structures, there is limited room for individual agency, resulting in an attitude that spouses should seek individual satisfaction rather than critiquing the system and petitioning for change. In this form of resignation and acceptance, we can read Alkhaled’s (2017) sharp critiques of how women interface with patriarchal systems, in that women often resist the breakdown of a patriarchal system because they cannot envisage an empowering alternative that affords them the form of protection provided by the system that silences them. To this end, the disruption and totalizing nature of military life become a blessing, not a curse. This focus is reinforced through short-form video content that only allows limited expression of negative feelings like frustration, sadness, loneliness and fear. The “greed” of the military institution then consumes what emotions military spouses are permitted to express, even as they may work to reject persistent stereotypes of military spouses.

Accepting, Rejecting and Reframing Military Spouse Stereotypes

Core to the content collected in this research is the way in which digital platforms like Instagram and TikTok function as a site of identity construction and affirmation. In many of the videos, the creator is pushing back against stereotypes about what it means to be a military spouse, both real and imagined. For example, one video shows the creator painstakingly creating a Marvel-themed care package for their spouse, while a sarcastic and computer-generated voice over (i.e., not the creator’s real voice) discusses stereotypes that military spouses cheat on their spouses while they are deployed.

The sarcastic dismissal of military spouse stereotypes, reinforces the important of marriage as an institution. The creator also reaffirms and reasserts their own identity as a committed and loving spouse. This theme is echoed across a number of videos in our sample, where creators actively re-center a committed, monogamous, heterosexual marriage as an “ideal type,” and a central element of their identity as a military spouse. However, it is less clear who, precisely, these creators are “speaking back” to. Are these stereotypes coming from within the military community, or are they responding to what they believe are broader civilian perceptions of military marriage? The American military TV show, Military Wives, often features cheating or accusations of infidelity as key plot points. This very popular American network TV show ran for seven seasons, and arguably is a key cipher through which military spouse identities are read and understood within both military and civilian communities due to its significant popularity during its run (Vavrus 2013).

Aside from stereotypes about infidelity, creators often point to a multiplicity of stereotypes about being a military spouse, while not directly describing them. Most prevalent in online content is the idea that military spouses are entitled “dependas” (slang for “dependants”) and may view their husband’s rank as their own. Videos make jokes about these stereotypes, and often call on viewers to identify and transform negative stereotypes into positive ones, or identify where they do, or don’t align with commonly held preconceptions of military spouses. These videos appear to affirm aspects of the group identity, taking pride in stereotypes, or reclaiming them.

In a similar manner, other content creators highlight the exciting and adventurous aspects of their lives as military spouses. This sits in contrast to the liminal spaces explored earlier, where creators highlight the difficulty of living with the absent presence of their spouse, and the predictably unpredictable rhythms of military life. @Wivesofthearmedforces, a group Instagram account, exemplifies the emphasis of the “silver lining” or “bright sides” of military life, replete with American military iconography including the National Cemetery at Arlington and various war memorials interspersed with footage of girls’ nights and various outdoor adventures. The caption serves to reinforce their construction of military spouses as active and empowering, emphasizing that being a military spouse has enabled them, for example, to become, “. . .creative and flexible in ways we never had been before. . .to better communicate and set expectations. We became more bold and confident in our abilities to do hard things.” The post concludes with asking the viewer to respond with comments about how military life has changed them for the better. This call-and-response style of posts not only serves as a way of driving engagement which boosts algorithmic visibility, but also serves as a way of encouraging and surfacing positive accounts of life as a military spouses. The implicit message here is that if you are not already reframing the demands of family and military life as a net positive, then you should be as part of fulfilling the role of a “good wife.”

Again, this echoes a persistent theme in research examining military wives, where military wives are expected to navigate any of the challenges of military life without complaint (Gray 2017). Spanner (2020) also highlights how the expectations of military wives have been infused with the neoliberal values, shaping military wives’ relation to their identity, through an entrepreneurial frame. We see evidence of this in the data collected in this research, where military spouses use social media platforms in an entrepreneurial way to promote their business through their social media presence as a military wife. Social media platforms allows military wives to “make it work” in two ways, by learning how to “cope” appropriate and by potentially monetizing this coping through social media platforms. For example, Wives of the Armed Forces sells merchandise and engages in brand partnerships as part of their monetization strategy.

The entrepreneurial frame is also linked to what Ehrenreich (2009) calls “bright siding.” The comments in response to the video described above reinscribe and reinforce this active “bright siding” and commentators list positive changes such as, “‘thinking fast on my feet,” “letting go of expectations,” “patience with my husband” and “pushed out of my comfort zone.” These are characteristic examples of Einrich’s concept of “bright-siding” and positively reframe the burdens of military life, of being a military spouse, into blessings and avenues for self-improvement. Previous research highlights the elevated levels of self-reliance expected of military spouses (e.g., Ziff and Garland-Jackson 2020); the bright-siding evident here is also highly individualized and places the burden on the military spouse for their own sense of wellbeing. Ehrenreich’s (2009) framing of this type of positive thinking is a critical one, and one she argues is driven by anxiety and insecurity. She argues that the American orientation toward positive thinking or “bright-siding” reflects an assumption that “our thoughts can, in some mysterious way, directly affect the physical world. Negative thoughts somehow produce negative outcomes, while positive thoughts realize themselves in the form of health, prosperity and success” (Ehrenreich 2009, 5).

The bright-siding evident in the content analyzed in this category also functions to reaffirm marriage as a central site of identity creation for military spouses. While this may seem to be a rather obvious observation, it ought not be taken for granted, given the long deployments that must be negotiated by military spouses. Exemplars of this type of content are romantic-style videos filmed with the spouse, which will, most often show the couple holding hands, and kissing, with part of the caption reading, “You’ll never hear me process or complain about my spouse on the internet. . . .” The serving spouses, and by virtue of their service, are above public reproach, and by extension so too is the military which is materiality and symbolically part of the spouse.

Here, specifically, social media serves as a way for military spouses to engage in “bright siding” and concurrently, push back against negative stereotypes of military spouses. This reframing owes much to the interaction functions of social media as well as the imagined audience these posts are directed toward. The reframing at work in this content is only possible through interaction, which affirms alternative meanings and identity formation in relation to military family life. While there is some evidence of resistant identity formation in this content, the identity at play here re-emphasizes the central functions of the military as a patriarchal institution, where women stay at home, and act in support of the service member in monogamous, heterosexual marriage. This leaves the military spouse available to meet the demands of the military, particularly the persistent mobility that often characterizes military service.

Discussion

Short-form video hosted by digital platforms like TikTok and Instagram provides an interpretive frame for military life. It demonstrates appropriate emotional and affective registers for responding to the demands of life as a military spouse. As such the content analyzed in the research is highly normative, and frankly repetitive, the product of content is constrained by the norms governing emotional expression which emphasize as previously discussed, gratitude, bright-siding and emotional resilience. The emphasis on these qualities effectively forecloses the possibility of other kinds of content that is more directly resistant emerging, as it would sit so far outside the bounds of “appropriate” emotional displays. Thus, the affective publics captured in this research are quite narrow, and function to reestablish and reproduce the status quo, including the gendered status quo, which also elides the question of any government or societal ethical, moral and legal obligations to military families, as #milspouse content reproduces the expectations that military spouses will “make it work,” through a combination of a positive attitude and neoliberal entrepreneurship.

During our immersion in the internet culture of military wives, it was inherently clear to us that the themes, stereotypes and portrayals were much the same as what has been reflected on in research over more than two decades of military spouse research. While the medium has changed, the message remains much the same. In similar ways to blogs, internet forums or Facebook groups (Garcia 2017; Lockwood 2013; Makeyeva 2014; Rossetto and Owlett 2022; Wagner 2014) social media continues to afford spouses ways to connect socially, access information, and explore this facet of their identity while also reinforcing normative expectations of military wifehood.

What is different, however, is the way the community is constructed. Where previous research has focused on military spouse communities, here there was less clear connection between content creators. There was little evidence that creators were aware of each other or interacted in any genuine ways; the content has become increasingly individualized. This may be the result of the transformation of the internet itself, which offers less space for community and a greater focus on broadcast and consumption. This points to the shifting affordances of the platforms themselves, and what can be meaningfully achieved through them. It is clear this has resulted in more content which is public-facing, that is, created to engage with an external audience. This is markedly different to social media and forum groups which tended to be closed, insider-only spaces in an effort to safeguard participants (Archer et al. 2021). Indeed, as we see more content removed from these closed and private spaces into a public arena, we may witness a stronger “front stage” (Goffman 1956) performance.

While our research echoes the findings of prior research examining the lives of military spouses on blogs (Lockwood 2013; Wagner 2014) and Facebook groups (Rossetto and Owlett 2022), it also demonstrates a marked shift away from previous forms of online community that were synonymous with Web 2.0. Spaces like Facebook groups and forums have a many-to-many structure (Jensen and Helles 2017) that affords the creation of community, and are also often temporally structured, that is, users would see the most recent posts first. This is a marked difference to the algorithmic presentation (Siles et al. 2024) of short-form video content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. In short-form video feeds, where users scroll through a continuous feed, content is presented to the user based on a number of factors, including what the algorithm predicts they might be interested in, based on past behavior. Ultimately, this creates a community structure that is more akin to a few-to-many broadcast structure than community hubs. This shift in affordances makes the site of analysis qualitatively different to, for example, the Facebook groups examined as sites of support in prior research. Thus, it is difficult to establish how short-form video content functions as a site of community building and support. We argue that future research should attend to how the affordances of short-form video structure experiences of community on platforms that prioritize and algorithmically order this content.

Also of interest here is the invisibility of queerness and race in the data we collected and examined for this research. All of the audiovisual content analyzed in this research featured women who presented as heterosexual, cis gendered white women. No men made #milspouse content. Queer couples exist in the military, and men are also military spouses. The invisibility of these dynamics in the data raises questions for future research about the creators making this content, and the military spouse experiences of those who may choose not to participate in or be functionally excluded from identifying themselves as part of the #milspouse community on social media platforms.

Conclusion

The themes present in our analysis of short-form video content on TikTok and Instagram echo previous research examining the lives of military spouses. Arguably, this demonstrates that despite a large body of resources that highlight the persistent and yet unsolved challenges faced by military spouses, little has changed. Additionally, we suggest that this further highlights the difficult position that many military spouses find themselves in, unable to demand and meaningfully affect change from the “greedy institution” of the military (Segal 1986).

While the social media content of military spouses gives important insight into how this identity is negotiated and understood, we know much less about those married to service members who do not build an identity in relation to their status as a military spouse. We argued that future research should consider how to engage with this often hard-to-access group, as their experiences may provide valuable insight into how partnership with a service membership is experienced and managed by those who do not straightforwardly identify as “military spouses.”

Finally, one of the key contributions of this research is to highlight how short video serves a pedagogical purpose. As per Hendry et al. (2022) the content from online influencers can function as a site of learning. In the case of military spouse content, it provides valuable information on the informal process that may surround important events in the life of a military spouse, such as relocation and deployment. In some ways, these videos function as an evolving “How To” guide to being a military spouse. Thus, these videos can be highly normative and foreclose alternative ways of being and coping. They also communicate information about appropriate and expected emotion displays, and modes of coping, which ultimately function to shield the military, as an institution, from sustained and transformative criticism. Further, it provides an apt example of the shift in domestic and family content online to focus more on the “wife,” such as has been popularized through “trad wife” content and in doing so creates scope for further research into how this content creates normative expectations of contemporary wifedom.