The Post and the Grab: Instagram Memes and Affective Labour

Abstract

Holowka explores the ambivalent ways women of colour participate within mainstream photo sharing digital platforms. She considers the critical and playful potential of popular digital memes on Instagram, using the work of @GothShakira as examples of a reflexive feminist artist who intervenes within social media spaces with creative mobilizations of meme images. Against the hegemonic styles and messages within male centered meme culture, Holowka discusses the social and political dimensions of activist art and affective labour enacted by racial and gender marginalized subjects. She addresses the exploitative and empowering conditions of image reproduction and circulation within social media platforms and considers the ways researchers need to thoughtfully engage with digitally mediated subjects to foster care and responsibility.