Open Access“MY MINIMALIST JOURNEY:” NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF YOUTUBE MINIMALISM STORIES
Author(s) -
Longmao Zhao
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12085
Subject(s) - minimalism (technical communication) , narrative , sociology , aesthetics , media studies , art , literature , computer science , human–computer interaction
The recent minimalist lifestyle is often claimed to be a way tochange your life by minimizing your spending, possessions, tasks, relationships, etc.YouTube is an important venue where minimalist content is published and shared (Meissner,2019). The current study focuses on “minimalist journey" narratives, where people tell theirstories of "encountering" the minimalist lifestyle. I collected “minimalist journey" storiesfrom 40 YouTube videos with their comments and analyzed them using narrative analysismethods, both thematic and structural (Labov & Waletzky, 1997; Riessman, 2005). Byclosely examining these narratives, this study sheds light on how people experience and makesense of the minimalist lifestyle within the context of anti-consumerism and neoliberalismin digital space. This study also contributes to digital culture studies by showcasing howpersonal life narratives are constructed on video-sharing platforms like YouTube. Two themesemerged in the analysis. In the “Hoarder to Minimalist” narrative, narrators were onceover-consuming hoarders and now minimalists. Minimalism facilitates discursive rejectionsand behavior disruptions of consumerism. The "transformational" stories, however,reinforcing the neoliberal sense of self that needs constant improvement. In the “Alwaysbeen a Minimalist” narrative, narrators have always been frugal due to underprivilegedsocial status. Minimalism empowers them by providing a set of vocabulary for recreatingmeanings. It, however, downplays the class divisions in capitalist society as merely anissue of “framing”; the struggles of lower social class people just need to be beautified as“minimalism.”