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U Ok Hun?: The digital commodification of white woman style
Author(s) -
Ilbury Christian
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/josl.12563
Subject(s) - commodification , style (visual arts) , persona , semiotics , indexicality , sociology , white (mutation) , identity (music) , sociolinguistics , gender studies , ethnic group , art , anthropology , linguistics , aesthetics , literature , humanities , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , economics , market economy , gene
Sociolinguistic research has increasingly explored the ways in which semiotic features are variably recruited to stylistically perform enregistered social personae. In this paper, I add to this body of work by exploring the emergence of a stereotypically feminine style and persona that is widespread in British social media. Specifically, I examine the prevalence of non‐standard spellings (e.g., darling, gorgeous ), discourse features (e.g., hun, babe, u ok hun? ), and characterological tropes (e.g., the life motto ‘ live, love, laugh ’) as indexical representations of a particular type of classed, gendered, and ethnic identity in a corpus of Instagram memes. I demonstrate that these features have become enregistered as a characterological figure of a British working‐class White woman—the Hun—that is stylistically deployed as a digital commodity register. Concluding, I emphasise the need for research to engage more fully with stylisation and commodification in social and digital media interaction.