Displaying family on the DNA platform

Direct-to-consumer DNA platforms are significant yet overlooked social media platforms through which millions of users worldwide shape their identities. DNA platforms sort and match users using genetic data, creating novel familial ‘networked publics’ and reinforcing ‘genetic thinking’. Drawing on the concept of ‘family display’, we interpret the accounts of 23 Australians who had distinct motivations for engaging with DNA platforms and differing ‘intensities of display’. Our thematic analysis derived three themes: how participants appropriated platform affordances to curate digital displays of family, how the platform enabled participants to foreground multigenerational narratives of familial continuity and how the platform’s focus on genetic relationships led users to reconfigure existing family understandings. Our findings contribute to conceptualisations of how individuals ‘do’ and ‘display’ family through digital platforms and advance theorisation of the ‘digitalisation of family’ and ‘platformised relationality’.