Am I Pretty or Ugly? Girls and the Market for Self-Esteem

Beauty surveillance: The digital self-monitoring cultures of neoliberalism

“…In so doing, beauty apps inscribe feminine subjectivity into the realm of 'economies of visibility ' (Banet-Weiser, 2014) and intensify and extend gynaeoptical surveillance (Winch, 2013) Genie opines: 'Tada! In seconds your perfect eyebrows will magically appear', and…”

“Yes, I'm Worth It”: The Economy of Girls' Photo Rating in Social Network Sites

“…As the girls use the psychological‐moralistic discourse to pass judgment on the behavior of other girls, so they use the economic discourse to study the Likes and responses an image receives, analyze their relationships, and gain momentary control over the images they produce. A calculated management of a girl's body and its representations, then, allows her to negotiate the promise for “empowerment through the body” (Banet‐Weiser, , p. 97), and the threat to her reputation (Ringrose et al, ).…”

“…For different reasons, feminist scholars are also reluctant to embrace these new practices. In a critique of postfeminism that draws on the pioneering work of McRobbie and Gill, some feminists ask whether girls' photographing and disseminating self‐portraits on social networks can be theorized as agency (Senft & Baym, , p. 1600), others debate whether it is an expression of liberation and pleasure (Ringrose, Harvey, Gill, & Livingstone, , p. 306), and yet others ponder whether it registers measures of self‐esteem (Banet‐Weiser, , p. 90). Ringrose and her colleagues study U.K. teens' practices of sexting—the creating and sharing of sexually suggestive naked or relatively naked body images through digital media, specifically Blackberry messages.…”

“…Banet‐Weiser () discusses YouTube videos in which U.S. teenage girls ask their viewers to respond to their question, “Am I pretty or ugly?” Banet‐Weiser historicizes this practice, situating it in a neoliberal economy of visibility that privileges an investment in the visible self, which is “constantly scrutinized and evaluated by the mechanism of social media” (, p. 89). This visible, evaluated self is in turn encouraged by the self‐empowerment discourse of postfeminism.…”

“…Thus while the girls adopted the postfeminist idea that being asked for an image of their body carries value, they were conscious of the sexual double standard that was involved in the circulation of their images, and at the same time denigrated those girls who sent them. Banet-Weiser (2014) discusses YouTube videos in which U.S. teenage girls ask their viewers to respond to their question, "Am I pretty or ugly?" Banet-Weiser historicizes this practice, situating it in a neoliberal economy of visibility that privileges an investment in the visible self, which is "constantly scrutinized and evaluated by the mechanism of social media" (2014, p. 89).…”