A social media professor, mediated: Being subject, object, and spectator in #BamaRush TikTok

Article / Journal

Author(s):
Jessica Maddox

Year: 2024

Abstract:
#BamaRushTok is a yearly viral event in which young women at the University of Alabama audition for spots in gender-specific social clubs (sororities). As a researcher working at the University of Alabama, I was uniquely situated in this viral phenomenon. I quickly became the expert called upon to explain this trend. However, being on the periphery of a viral event from my standpoint—social media researcher, lifelong resident of the U.S. South, tenure-track academic education—problematized everything I knew about the self and the research as I became subject, object, and spectator. Through this highly personal and reflexive digital autoethnography, I explore how I experienced context collisions—something normally thought of as collapsed audiences but invoked by me to explore what happens when researchers become physically entangled in the digital worlds they study. I experienced being subject, object, and spectator of these context collisions in three ways: At times I was in control; at times I was used; and at times I could only stand back and watch. My experience mirrored the visibility and precarity experienced by the girls of #BamaRushTok and the creators I have made a career out of studying. This speaks to the broader neoliberal conditions that structure platforms and American higher education. This work also underscores the importance of autoethnography as a valuable but underutilized method in Internet Studies research, as it is a way for those studying digital spaces to reach inside of themselves and understand vulnerable and liminal social media experiences.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/29768624241306051

Post created by: Lymor Wolf Goldstein