Tears and body insecurities: The 'authentic' influencer as change-maker?

This chapter explores the phenomenon of authentic influencers who showcase everyday life, emotional experiences, and behind-the-scenes content on Instagram. These influencers embrace more explicit depictions of authentic content, often sharing personal and private content that highlights their vulnerabilities and struggles with body insecurities. The chapter analyses the performances of emotions, motherhood, and body insecurities by these influencers, and discusses their potential as a feminist contribution to influencer culture. The authors use a postfeminist framework to define influencer culture based on the politics of authenticity and visibility, and to untangle its ambivalent relation to feminism. The analysis focuses on two core motifs: the crying selfie, which explores how female influencers perform emotions and motherhood, and images revealing the manipulative nature of images of their bodies.