thelifeofjoun

“I Can Fix It”

Drawn to the title partially for its me-ness (with 2 oomfs mistaking my mention of the book for just being my own quote (but actually☝️, being a viral @boymiffy tumblr post)) suggesting a challenge of what it means to be a human [girl] I found that the book did not have this as its intention but there were theoretical semblances and links to be made between the ‘nomadic pedagogy’ that is girlblogging and the act of challenging humanism; what does it mean critically to position oneself as a digital girl? In her 2022 dissertation-cum-2024 book publication self-proclaimed ‘writer, digital curator, and 'creative academic'’and girlblogger Ester Freider establishes girlblogging as nomadic pedagogy explored through the social media site, Tumblr. Within this text she builds on the conversations of feminists and philosophers before and besides her to link cultural practices and fields of thought to one another thus to lovingly canonise the girl, online, who traditionally has been miscalculated, if regarded at all.

Key concepts and contextualisations:

‘Girlblogging as nomadic pedagogy’

→ The ‘plasmic posting’ and ‘productive theft’ (or simply free access and roaming across the internet to reproduce updated and personalised meanings for the girl online who is a marginalised figure historically and presently) have resulted in a newer way of cultivating and presenting knowledge and identity for the ma

Tumblr as a ‘cultural counterpublic’

→ The exploration into the format of Tumblr being one that encourages hypertextuality with positive potential for both learning and teaching through the reblog whereby each reblog adds a new layer of meaning to a post. I argue all social media sites to be cultural counterpublics, albeit with varying levels of freedom of expression but with girls online nevertheless finding new ways to cement and experiment with their identities via ‘web-weaving’. The hacktivism and feminism of other academics is also referenced as a site that Freider and other girls online are building upon in their use of social media. I must acknowledge, however, that the ‘girl that is a pdf’ is not necessarily the same as the deer girl, or many of the other girls that are animals. 

‘Reblogging, that focuses not particularly on the direct destruction of capitalist power, but rather on an independent construction of safe spaces for marginalized people that can, later on, provide the strength and knowledge to understand the oppressive systems that we are subjected to and imagine a world possible outside of capitalism’ 

‘Girlblogger probably doesn’t mean to be a teacher. She means to feed herself with content and mutuals that satiate her informational diet.’

“Civil disobedience practiced by trespassing and blocking in order to resist panoptic surveillance”

→ While misogyny and tradwifery as a whole aim to domesticate women the iDeal of wandering and frolicking as far as one’s heart desires can be seen as a means to liberate oneself (in an ideal world)

‘Publication-as-meeting-place’ (see image)

Use of AestheticsWiki .. lmao

Challenges the anthropocene; a newer way of social interaction, and learning, key traditional tenets of humanity, inevitably challenges how we are human

imagined physical and digital frolicking as a form of civil disobedience practice “trespassing and blocking in order to resist panoptic surveillance” 

‘The hashtag itself doubles as a symbol for communal meaning-making in cyberspace.’

#deergirl #deerpretty #hopecore #coquette #fawn #aesthetic #lanadelray #justagirl #girldinner #girlmath #safeplace #Priscilla #girlblogger #baby #cute #trinkets #femininestyle #ilysm #bambi #winter #coquettejournal #real #jessicaalba #fyp #edits #DEER #sadcore #doe #morute #girls babyanimals #adriannelenker #girly #deermaxxing # #babydeer 

It is important to note, however, that Freider’s girlblogger is a little bit different to my deer girl. The Tumblr girlblogger Freider theorises about is in their ‘late teens - twenties’ and strongly interested in academia and overtly more political and philosophical, unlike the deer girl who is from her early teens-twenties and does not seem to signal any particular interest in academia and is not actively seeking to align with the aforementioned values but rather inherently and inadvertently so, although this may be rather due to access and age as opposed to uncaring; she may occasionally cite Freud, but no more than this and she does not explicitly make mention of capitalism or creating and inclusivity but her existence does to some extent comment on the state of capitalism; she ‘doesn’t dream of labour’ and she can frolick or sleep or do nothing that will achieve traditional notions of success because ‘the time will pass anyway’ so why not indulge?

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