Girl Culture, Unspectacular Resistance and Social Media – A Study of How Adolescent Girls Undo Emphasized Femininity through Shitposting

Early debates within subcultural theory have criticized the field for its male bias and its tendency to ignore girls’ culture. This criticism may still be highly relevant in terms of digital girl culture and digital sites of resistance and dissent. Based on interviews with early adolescents (n=80; age 12-16), we discovered how posting low-quality, seemingly random, out-of-context content onto private Snapchat stories was an integral part of online girl culture referred to as ‘shitposting’. This digital practice of ‘shitposting’ shows how the technologies and functionalities of social media can be used to create insulated, well-hidden, and unspectacular sites of resistance towards dominant notions of femininity associated with success, perfectionism, and flawlessness, i.e., emphasized young femininity. We argue that this resistance arises in the face of a pervasive and dominant achievement culture that continuously pressures young people to strive towards success, perfection, and personal achievements in all areas of life. While previous research has found shitposting to be a masculine practice, particularly within more extreme groups, the feminine version of shitposting may have been overlooked due to its hidden, mundane, and unspectacular nature. It is, however, equally important as it informs us about contemporary young femininity as a site of resistance.