Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Communication

Committee Chair

Andre Johnson

Committee Chair

Elja Roy

Committee Member

Craig Stewart

Committee Member

Robert Byrd

Abstract

This dissertation examines how aesthetic-driven online subcultures—specifically cottagecore, cozy gaming, and the clean girl aesthetic—function as performative sites of identity formation, labor, and community-building within algorithmically mediated digital platforms. Through a multimodal, feminist methodology grounded in crystallization (Ellingson, 2009), I explore how these trends, often dismissed as superficial, actually serve as complex arenas of sociocultural negotiation, offering insight into platformed life under late capitalism. My research employs a mixed-methods approach that includes digital ethnography, multimodal content analysis of over 800 pieces of user-generated content, ten semi-structured interviews, and documentary filmmaking as both method and representation. I analyze how creators engage aesthetic performance not only to express identity but to navigate platform algorithms, forge communities, and subtly embed activism within their branded content. Each case study illustrates distinct tensions: Cottagecore creators—especially queer and Black participants—reimagine pastoral aesthetics to claim space within visual traditions coded as white and heteronormative. Cozy gaming streamers design inclusive, emotionally affirming livestreams that resist gaming’s hypermasculine norms, though often at the cost of emotional labor and burnout. In contrast, the clean girl aesthetic reinforces neoliberal ideals of femininity and productivity, with moments of critique emerging through parody and cultural reclamation—though these counter-narratives receive less algorithmic traction. My analysis argues that these aesthetic communities do not merely reflect cultural values but actively shape them. They codify new norms of online relationality, femininity, and care while also participating in the same platform economies that commodify identity and attention. Aesthetic labor in these spaces becomes both empowering and exploitative, offering visibility while reinforcing exclusionary standards. I argue that digital aesthetics are not peripheral to internet culture—they are core infrastructures of feeling, visibility, and identity in contemporary life. By integrating filmmaking with critical media analysis, this project offers a model for multimodal scholarship that honors the affective and visual complexity of online cultural production while advancing methodological conversations in media studies, feminist ethnography, and digital communication.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Embargoed until 08-04-2027

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Available for download on Wednesday, August 04, 2027

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