Fieldnotes

Fieldwork in Seoul & Tokyo (Dec 2019)

In December 2019, I transited from pre-fieldwork prep (previously in Canberra, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney) and started fieldwork properly for my five-year research study on ‘Social Media Influencers and […]

Influencers

Fieldwork diaries: Njie House in Stockholm.

Njie House, a project by Universal Music, sees six Swedish YouTubers living and working together in a public share space in the middle of Stockholm for thirty days. The ground […]

Brainfarts

First touches.

handshake NOUN 1 An act of shaking a person’s hand with one’s own, used as a greeting or to finalize an agreement. – Oxford Dictionaries

Academica Dramatica

Ten days in the life of an anthropologist on fieldwork.

As an anthropologist of internet culture, I am often asked […]

Influencers

Fieldnotes: Social media microcelebrity and affective labour

I sit in a dessert cafe in the heart of […]

Influencers

Fieldnotes: Body labour and selfies

“In the flesh, these microcelebrities seem to have mastered the practice of displaying their camera ready face – head slightly tilted to emphasize oneʼs chin and elongate the face; eyebrows slightly […]

Influencers

Commerce on Instagram

This is the third and final installment of a series on Instagram. Part one on The Great Instagram Purge and part two on Authenticity on Instagram now concludes with Commerce on […]

Influencers

Authenticity on Instagram

Since its creation in 2010, Instagram has become an aesthetically stylized site for photosharing, microblogging, networking, and commercial exchange. Instagram’s philosophy is listed on its FAQ page: What is Instagram? […]

Influencers

The Great Instagram Purge: Chaos, Currency, and Commerciality

This week’s Internet crisis has been brought to you by […]

Influencers

The Lifecycle of Privacy Among Microcelebrity Bloggers

Author’s Note: Here are some early thoughts on privacy as […]

Influencers

Microcelebrity Social Media Selfies

Reflecting on Week three of The Selfie Course on selfies and microcelebrity, I thought I would share my take on the types of heterosexual feminine scripts microcelebrity social media personalities in […]

Heritage

Freckleface!

Had to slice this gold nugget out of a recent paper to make the word count, but am so happy it exists because somebody can relate to my freckleface :) […]

Influencers

Photo Essay in The Q.

One of my mini photo essays has been published in The Q: The Quarterly Newsletter of the Australian Anthropological Society. Special thanks to Klarra for allowing me to embed with them […]

Influencers

In today’s episode of a day in the life of a Social Media scholar…

Closely tracking the social currency of Dashiel Marquet Sayre, newborn of […]

Influencers

Establishing blogger social currency through hashtags and tags.

Although they broadcast to readers primarily on their blogs, commercial […]

Gender

Celebrity blogshop models – performing cyber-femininity

Celebrity blogger, Naomi Neo, being approached by a fan for […]

Influencers

Speaking with Beatrice Tan

Beatrice Tan is easily the most recognisable face in the commercial blog industry in Singapore, having been among the pioneer batch of blogshop models in the mid 2000s. She also […]

Influencers

Off stage/On stage

Ever wondered what goes on at a Bloggers’ coverage event? Lifestyle blogger, Beatrice Tan, very kindly invited me along to The Most Marvellous Bloggers’ Party held at Nassim Hill @ […]

Gender

Cyber-femininities

Imagine a world where we traded on intellect, circulated ideas, and communicated textually to convey our ‘inner selves’, where others evaluated us based on our ideal self-perceived identities… In this […]

Influencers

Fieldwork diaries: Shooting in style

It was another weekend (with an unearthly reporting time) for an Ohvola outdoor photo shoot. This time, I got to meet the lovely Freda! The location was Punggol Marina, where the […]

Influencers

Speaking with Ohvola.

Since my first contact with them in mid-2011, the Zhou sisters have very graciously agreed to host me during my fieldwork in South East Asia for a good part of […]

Influencers

Why are some blogshops more successful than others?

Blogshops are a dime a dozen in Singapore. But why […]

Influencers

Speaking with Collette Miles.

Collette Miles is a woman of many talents. The blogger and former blogshop model was recently signed to Avenue, works for Abercrombie & Fitch, and somehow manages to sail through […]

Influencers

Behind The Scenes.

Last month, I had the honour of observing Ohvola‘s first outdoor shoot of the year. Dee of Souldeelight Photography was engaged to shoot the girls’ Lookbook, January album to be featured on their Facebook […]

Influencers

I survived the first week of fieldwork!

I made it through the first week of fieldwork, whoo hoo! I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work with Beatrice of Klarra and Lucinda & Jolene of Ohvola for the […]