You would not believe what we saw!: A sociological analysis of performativity and everydayness in family-vlogs in India.

Abstract

Using the lenses of performativity and everydayness, this paper analyzes Indian family-vlogs on YouTube. It asks questions regarding the performativity of "sharenting" and the realness and the popularity of everyday life in family-vlogs. To answer these questions, the paper thematically analyzes videos of four popular Indian family-vloggers. It concludes that the performativity of parenting in family-vlogs reinforces heteronormative gender roles instead of challenging them. But it gives the video creators some agency to shape the portrayal of their family lives online, even though the performativity is often driven by the demands of the audience and the market. Moreover, the popularity of family-vlogs is based on the portrayal of everyday occurrences as significant, and gives mom-vloggers the scope to challenge perceptions about household work. The neoliberal context is important when one considers the interaction of the social media ecosystem with the economy and society.