Latinas Online Are “Built Like This”

Abstract Latinx comics creators publish on social media to connect with a global audience and perform digital self-mediation that enhances the self-reflexive themes in their work. Among these creators is Chicana artist, Daisy Ruiz, known as Draizys, whose auto-bio comic Gordita: Built Like This showcases this approach. Its narrative contents, publication trajectory, and digital promotion exemplify how Ruiz as protagonist and author uses digital tools to produce and share her creative work. Her depictions of adolescent internet use, along with the behind-the-scenes content she posts to Instagram and TikTok, underscore how she uses medium-specific affordances to produce sequential autobiographical narratives in her comics and social media posts that, in both content and form, nuance how Latinas are mediated to the public.