“I STARTED THE DAY JUST CRYING FOR 2 HOURS STRAIGHT.” ECHO-LOCATING THE VULNERABLE SELF ON INSTAGRAM.

Building on previous online-ethnographic fieldwork on the#strokesurvivor-community on Instagram, this contribution dives deeper into practices ofecho-locating (Markham 2020) the vulnerable self on Instagram. This paper aims toreconstruct practices of adapting to a new body, identity and self through communicating onInstagram from a symbolic-interactionist perspective. I build on Goffman’s concept ofstigma, Charmaz’ studies on adapting to illness and impairment and use the lens of Markham’s(2020) concept of echo-locating the self through online connection, Based on close readingsand interpretations of postings, including pictures, captions and comments, as well asinterviews with active community members, two critical antipodes of sense- and self-makingin the #strokesurvivor-community emerged: First, mourning the loss of the familiar body,self, and identity and related identity goals. Users seek permission to mourn and alsovalidation for their grief through their postings and comments. Second, and probablyoppositional, perseverance, or in its extreme form, toxic positivity - this concept refersto a (more or less forced) attitude of optimism while ignoring valid reasons to actually notbe positive, a mindset that seems to be embedded in a “contemporary cult of happiness”(Wright 2014) and cruel optimism (Berlant 2010). In the #strokesurvivor-community, apositive mindset and belief in the possibility of regaining physical and mental functions isa recurring theme and strong imperative. The contribution focuses on the reconstruction ofpatterns and practices of mourning and perseverance and their relevance to the echo-locationof the vulnerable self.