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Committed Commenting
                  and the Virtual Visage:
                Contextualizing Sorority
                Social Media Encounters
Jack Portman
Wake Forest University—jackportman@alumni.wfu.edu

ABSTRACT
This article addresses the ways in which collegiate sorority women
deploy sorority-specific aesthetic cues to construct socially acceptable
and recognizable presentations of themselves online. I suggest that
sorority members initiate and invite social media interaction as a
means of parlaying their own media posts into discursive sites, thereby
participating in a complex and considerably stratified economy of
display and recognition. Sorority members also exert social capital
through public demonstrations of social network linkages—
demonstrations which can only be performed successfully if one
maintains legitimacy and good standing within the media economy. I
probe the implications of theorizing social media posting (particularly
to the digital media platform Instagram) as a communal art creation
practice that strengthens group social linkages and reifies communally
observed aesthetic guidelines. I also address the stylistic and discursive
regimens that shape expectations of media presentation, contrasting
these practices with the comparatively candid and informal
presentation styles exemplified in Fake Instagram (“finsta”) posting
behaviors.

Keywords: social media; gift economies; Instagram; sororities

                       ISSN 2369-8721 |   The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   121
sorority’s executive committee. Although in the
                                                     same pledge class as Sarah and Maria, Anna is a
                                                     fourth-year student and thus afforded a similar
                                                     degree of seniority by virtue of her age
                                                     classification (Anna transferred to the university
                                                     as a second-year student and was consequently
                                                     initiated a year later than usual). This is to say—
                                                     the social media experiences and practices
                                                     described in this paper are particular to
                                                     collegiate sorority members. Although some of

A
                                                     the principles which appear to underlie the
         nna, a 21 year-old collegiate sorority
                                                     posting behaviors hereafter described are likely
         member, described the role of
                                                     generalizable, the posting criteria, aesthetic
         Instagram in mediating her first forays
                                                     preferences, language use, and hierarchical
         into sorority social life as such:
                                                     nature of the social media encounters
       The whole point of joining a sorority is      described in this article are particular to
       really to make friends, that’s really why     members of the Alpha Beta sorority.
       everyone joins. But it's kind of awkward,        Scholarship       pertaining      to     digital
       it's like, ok, now we're supposed to be       environments, and particularly to social media
       friends because we’re in the same             practices and behaviors, have leveraged a
       sorority. So you definitely try to            variety of digital ethnographic methodologies
       comment on their photos probably, and         and     theoretical    approaches      to   better
       interact with them.                           understand media sharing behaviors and digital
Throughout the fall of 2020 I met regularly with     communications. Ross (2019) posits that
Sarah, Anna, and Maria, members of the Alpha         Instagram users center a particular form of
Beta sorority, to discuss their Instagram posting    value within their social media practice—the
habits and experiences. In addition to several       like—and resultantly focus their content
structured     and    unstructured     interviews,   production on the accumulation of likes, such
informal conversations, and a focus group            that posts successfully fulfill their function
session, I conducted three “Instagram                when they succeed in generating a satisfactory
walkthroughs,” during which each participant         quantity of likes. This position accounts for both
described the creative processes which led to        hierarchical and aesthetic considerations in
their most recent Instagram posts. I also            content creation; posts that generate large
conducted activities in which participants           quantities of likes could be understood to
sorted sample Instagram comments onto                reflect a poster’s prevalent social positionality
egocentric diagrams to better understand how         and/or a communal acknowledgement of a
relationship types and strengths become              poster’s success in complying with the style
embodied in commenting behaviors.                    guidelines of a particular community.

    These women, who have been given                     However, since 2019, Instagram has updated
pseudonyms to protect their identities, are          its interface such that the number of likes a
aged 20-21, and are in the same Alpha Beta           post receives is only visible to the poster. My
(name also changed) pledge class, meaning            research participants affirmed that, while the
they were initiated into the sorority                receipt of large numbers of likes was once a
simultaneously and completed the requisite           dominant consideration in Instagram media
initiation procedures together. They are all         sharing practices, the accumulation of great
frequent users of Instagram, having collectively     quantities of likes has become a lesser priority
posted thirteen photos to their primary              given that this metric is no longer visible to
Instagram accounts throughout the research           other users. Users may still reflect on the
period. Their positions within Alpha Beta are        number of likes their posts receive and come to
relatively senior: Sarah and Maria are third-year    conclusions regarding a post’s success based on
university students and hold positions on the        their private knowledge of its accumulation of
                                                     likes. However, without the pressure applied by
                                                                     The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   122
this metric’s public visibility, the generation of     acceptable    usage    changed     how    users
likes seems to have declined as a focus of             understood the platform’s purpose, illustrating
content creation.                                      the tendency of media ideologies to adapt to
                                                       new circumstances as material constraints and
   Given that the criteria for awarding likes
                                                       affordances change. Within these shifting
have remained largely the same despite the
                                                       virtual confines, users develop innovative
invisibility of like-totals, it is doubtful that the
                                                       strategies for posting successfully to, as Ross
production        of    Instagram       posts    has
                                                       (2019, 5) describes, “produce content to be
fundamentally changed because of the
                                                       liked.”
obsolescence of likes as a public-facing metric;
posts are still created to observe certain                Likewise, Marwick (2017) grapples with the
aesthetic      standards,      still  function    as   strategies Instagram users employ to generate
expressions of self-presentation, and still serve      successful content within the platform’s
as platforms for affirmative discourses.               confines and limitations. Marwick (2015, 138)
Nonetheless, that periodic updates to social           interprets “microcelebrity” as “a mind-set and a
media interfaces might dramatically change             collection    of    self-presentation   practices
research conditions seems to prescribe a digital       endemic in social media, in which users
ethnographic approach that is similarly                strategically formulate a profile, reach out to
adaptive. Caliandro (2017, 552) acknowledges           followers, and reveal personal information to
that “ethnography is a flexible method that on         increase attention and thus improve their
the one hand can be effectively adapted to             online status.” Microcelebrity, as described by
online environments, but on the other hand             Marwick, seems to capture a social media
continuously needs to be reshaped according            praxis oriented towards generating laudative
to the features and mutations of online                interactions—likes and comments—in much
environments.” While virtual communities have          the same way that Ross identifies likes as an
long been studied ethnographically, social             implicit directive of content creation. Marwick
media        platforms      require     a     unique   (2015, 138) situates microcelebrity within an
methodological approach given their diffuse            “attention economy,” positing that a post’s
nature       and     susceptibility    to     sudden   efficacy can be understood to consist in its
transformation. Furthermore, functional and            unique capacity to attract attention. This
conditional changes experienced by other               analysis draws an explicit connection between
platforms within the media ecology, such as            the qualities of a particular Instagram post and
Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok, may likewise            its success in the marketplace. Ross’s
impact the ideologies relevant to a particular         understanding of the “like” as a primary
social media platform and thus require                 objective in posting behaviors succeeds in
flexibility in addressing users’ notions of what       identifying a dominant (or, perhaps, once
each platform is “for” (Gershon 2014, 284).            dominant) metric of success, while Marwick
Caliandro (2018) suggests that ethnography of          provides for an understanding of how
digital environments should thus account for           community specific strategies are developed to
both the ways in which a particular social media       generate the engagement Ross identifies.
interface organizes communications, and the
                                                          Gift giving and gift economies have been
strategies, perceptions, and understandings
                                                       documented extensively and, indeed, are one
held and employed by social media users. Such
                                                       of the most heralded foci in anthropology.
a framework provides for a reflexive and
                                                       Following Bronislaw Malinowski, in Argonauts
conversant approach to understanding the
                                                       of the Western Pacific (1922), Marcel Mauss, in
configurations of—and relationships between—
                                                       The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in
users and social media platforms.
                                                       Archaic Societies (1925), Pierre Bourdieu’s work
   For example, Sarah observed that “the               on the Kabyle society, symbolic capital and gift
Instagram Story like, that wasn’t around in high       exchange in his Outline of a Theory of Practice
school, so I think that really changed                 (1977) and David Cheal’s efforts in The Gift
[Instagram] because it was like, food and more         Economy (1988), I will attempt to demonstrate
casual posts.” The advent of this form of              how social media commenting practices among
posting on a platform with existing norms of           sorority members proceed as gift exchanges,
                                                                      The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   123
layered with meaning and expectation and                      editing aspects or whatever, but like the
connected intimately to the social capital                    way you look in your photos, so like your
invested in intra-sorority relationships and                  pose, definitely, can mimic the kinds of
hierarchies. Particularly, I will focus on the ways           poses they show on the Alpha Beta
in which deferred Instagram commenting                        Instagram.
practices, conceptualized as gift exchanges,
serve to expand the temporality of intra-              It would seem that the Alpha Beta official
sorority social linkages through contractual           Instagram feed is a highly curated stream of
reciprocity and debt creation. As Hjorth et al.        images—more so than the personal Instagram
observe, “the symbolic role of gift giving—as a        feeds of Alpha Beta members. The official Alpha
practice     of  reciprocity,      obligation   and    Beta account’s posts are selected from posted
negotiating power relations—has long been              Instagram photos or images submitted by
attached to mobile media cultures” (Hjorth et al.      sorority members, and, according to Maria:
2020, 79). Embedded within a particular moral                 To get on the Alpha Beta Instagram, you
economy, Instagram commenting exchanges                       either have to post a picture that they
are used to sustain and protect important                     like, which has, like, blue in it, or you can
relationships and to cohere peer coalitions                   submit one. So a lot of these people are
within the sorority. This system is shaped by the             taking these pictures with the goal of it
orientations and expectations of sorority                     to be on the Alpha Beta Instagram. So
members who, in dispensing Instagram                          it's very—I don’t want to say artificial—
comments, consider the “objective probabilities               but you really need to try to get that
of profit” flowing from the likelihood that their             look.
gift will be reciprocated by its recipient
(Bourdieu 1997, 232).                                  The official Alpha Beta Instagram feed is almost
                                                       uniformly blue—an effect achieved both by
   In this article, I will demonstrate that sorority   filtering posted images with blue tints and by
members        form        coalitions    of  mutual    strategically employing blue clothing, props,
respondents in social media environments that          and backgrounds in the photos.
distribute       responsibility       for   content
engagement and ensure that coalition                      As Maria points out, this aesthetic isn’t
members’ posts meet a threshold of                     necessarily adopted by members of the
interaction. I will likewise use sociogramatic         sorority—neither Maria, Sarah, or Anna use
data, as well as a discourse analysis of               unifying color themes in their personal
Instagram comments, to address how sorority            Instagram posts. However, their posts that
social linkages are expressed in virtual settings.     depict sorority life and sorority events, such as
                                                       parties and initiations, almost always feature
Instagram Aesthetics and                               blue colors prominently. The participants' posts
Presentations of the Self                              that are associated with sorority activities are
                                                       almost immediately recognizable from their
“I don’t have one filter I stick to, so my pictures    broader oeuvre of posted material given the
don’t go together, like, the way the Alpha Beta        distinctive and identifying blue accents.
Instagram posts do, but I’ve never really felt the     Because their feeds are not uniformly blue
need to have one that looks like [the Alpha Beta       themed, the juxtaposition of blue and non-blue
Instagram account] ...” explained Maria when           material on the participants’ accounts creates
asked whether the official Alpha Beta Instagram        an     auspice     of   two     worlds—that      of
account, run by an executive member of the             grandparents, family vacations, and friends
sorority, serves as a social media style guide for     from home, and that of Alpha Beta sorority life
members. She continued:                                and the aesthetics therein. When users deploy
       … and I don’t know many people in               particular themes and aesthetics to stylize their
       Alpha Beta who have an entire “blue             sorority-related     content,    they   effectively
       theme” for Instagram. But the way               differentiate sorority activities from the rest of
       people portray themselves might be              the sharable quotidian, emphasizing the
       mimicked. So not at all, like, the artistic     stylistic rigor and formality necessary to convey

                                                                       The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   124
the nature of sorority experiences. Alpha Beta’s                   methods and presentation styles to avoid
blue theme, and its instantiation in the                           behaviors that are inconsistent with certain
Instagram posts made by Alpha Beta members,                        standards of performance. It may be tempting
directs   attention     to    the   refinement,                    to frame the sorority en masse as one such
commitment, and attention to detail required                       coalition, however Alpha Beta members
by sorority life. Such attention-grabbing                          frequently associate in far smaller groups and
strategies are crucial in the social media                         rarely, if ever, express a deep familiarity with all
attention economy (van Dijck and Poell 2013,                       group members. Rather, members tend to
7).                                                                congregate in smaller, more intimate groups,
                                                                   and the performative nature of these small-
   The deliberation and attention to detail
                                                                   scale coalitions is captured both by their
incorporated in the sorority content creation
                                                                   iterative content engagement strategies and the
practice seems to reflect Goffman’s (1956)
                                                                   tacit yet highly regulated expectations
analysis of self-presentation. Sorority social
                                                                   regarding media practices.
media materials are intricately cultivated and
rely on a distinct stylistic grammar and                              Egocentric sociogram data gathered during
presentation style to convey membership.                           participant interviews reflects that sorority
Goffman asserts that the act of self-                              members repeatedly interact with posts made
presentation is a performance: “it is a dramatic                   by small peer coalitions: 62% of comments
effect arising diffusely from a scene that is                      made by sorority affiliated peers on the
presented, and the characteristic issue, the                       participants’ five most recent Instagram posts
crucial concern, is whether it will be credited or                 were produced by peers who had commented
discredited” (Goffman 1956, 244-5). The                            on multiple posts within that time span.
leveraging of recognizable and accepted                            Furthermore, the participants had recently
aesthetic elements        to    convey    sorority                 commented on posts made by 51% of the
affiliation—and moreover to convey that one                        sorority affiliated peers who had commented
has bought-in, and so embodied the relevant                        on their posts. This trend reflects the existence
ideologies of presentation—illustrates the                         of virtual coalitions of interlocutors who
extent to which media presentation styles                          repetitively engage with one another’s material
constitute a performative mode of self-                            (See Figure 1).
presentation (Miller 1995, 8). The extent of a
                                                                      Goffman’s      analysis    of      coalitional
sorority member’s success in deploying relevant
                                                                   performance suggests that small peer groups of
stylistic cues—that is, whether their post is
                                                                   sorority members engage in practices of
“credited or discredited”—may be reflected in
                                                                   systematically    repetitive   interaction     to
their post’s acquisition of likes and comments,
                                                                   demonstrate commitments to performance
the currency animating the attention economy.
                                                                   standards and successful instantiations of
   The value invested in sorority-wide                             appropriate social discourse. Consistent within
commitments to acknowledged modes of                               these coalitional bonds are expectations of
presentation is a crucial component of the                         reciprocity germane to media interaction:
aesthetic strategy and is the context in which                     coalitional    assemblages     that     promote
the deployment of such presentations should                        reciprocated interaction enable members to
be understood. Goffman (1956) observes that                        parlay their future media posts into sites for
individuals frequently recruit peer coalitions                     further discourse and thereby benefit from the
with whom to perform, relying on shared                            social capital invested in these forms of
understandings of socially acceptable discourse                    dialogue.

Figure 1: Egocentric sociogram data regarding Alpha Beta peers who commented on the participants’ five most recent posts.

                                                                                     The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022        125
Likewise, this expectation of exchange can          Anna’s description of group participation in
be understood as a system of gift giving that          content production indicates that media
lends itself to servicing and demanding media          posting behaviors are not only highly deliberate
interactions (Bergquist and Ljungberg 2001,            but also essentially collaborative in nature.
312). This exchange system organizes                   Members value the perspectives of their peers
coalitional linkages among Alpha Beta members          and rely on their aesthetic judgments to gauge
such that the act of commenting grants the             the credibility of certain media within the
commenter the power to demand reciprocation            context of Alpha Beta stylistic norms. These
of their gift, allowing relationships to be            collaborative practices function to strengthen
maintained longitudinally and ensuring their           social linkages among coalition members by
continued mutual beneficence. Thayne (2012)            embedding media posting within a framework
poses that reciprocity in content engagement           of group reciprocity and service exchange—the
prefigures     “potential   future     interaction,”   tasks of critiquing a peer’s photos, assisting
suggesting      that   Instagram      commenting       with their editing, or helping to formulate a
behaviors      assist   in    sustaining     virtual   witty photo-caption can be understood as
relationships. In this sense, the debts created        services rendered to maintain valuable
through deferred commenting exchanges have             relationships (Dutton, 1977). Additionally,
the effect of expanding and extending the              collaborative posting practices formalize certain
temporality of social linkages. As Taylor and          aesthetic systems that delineate group
Harper indicate, “teenagers’ phone-mediated            membership and identity—that is, communal
activities can be understood in terms of the           content creation activities legitimize and
obligations of exchange: to give, accept and           empower Alpha Beta stylistic norms.
reciprocate” (Taylor and Harper 2002, 439).
                                                          The normative styles that inform posting
These exchanges are “characterized by a strong
                                                       behaviors and content creation largely define
set of social obligations to give, to accept gifts,
                                                       users’     Instagram       presentations       and
and above all to reciprocate gifts,” illustrating
                                                       experiences. These prevailing aesthetics
how reciprocity norms within coalitions
                                                       exemplify how users enact a nuanced regime of
structure gift exchanges and give rise to
                                                       ornamentation in order to purify and make
extended temporality (Elder-Vass 2015, 37).
                                                       credible one’s presentation of self. Ross (2019)
Animating deferred commenting exchanges is a
                                                       argues that this highly formalized environment
particular moral economy, wherein the debts
                                                       is juxtaposed by users’ interactions on Fake
produced through commenting practices are
                                                       Instagram. ‘Finsta’ (Fake-Instagram) accounts
backed by normative behavioral expectations
                                                       are secondary Instagram accounts that serve as
shared by the sorority at large.
                                                       a comparatively more spontaneous and organic
   Group oriented posting behaviors are                outlet for self-expression than ‘real Instagram.’
further displayed in the tendency of sorority          Finstas are unique in that they are typically far
members to engage in communal content                  more private than their ‘real Instagram’
creation processes in preparation for media            counterparts—Instagram users typically only
posting. In reflecting on her own Instagram            allow their closest peers to follow their Finstas.
practice, Anna commented that:
                                                           Finsta content is ostensibly less formal. Anna
       I think often you will narrow it down to a      noted that “finstas are, like, unfiltered, both
       few [pictures] yourself, and you’ll send        literally because you don’t have to look good
       your top two or three pictures to your          and don’t usually edit the posts, and also
       friends, and then they’ll tell you which        metaphorically because you can, like, be
       one they like best. Sometimes there’s           yourself if that makes sense. Like, post stuff you
       also, like, collaborative editing. [Her         wouldn’t post on your main [Instagram account]
       friend] pays for an editing app, like she       that's like, kind of more you.” Ross (2019, 14)
       has a really nice editing app, so a lot of      characterizes Finstas as a “respite from the
       times I’ll be like ‘oh, can you edit it for     social expectations of Instagram, class and
       me with your app?’                              gendered pressure to impress with beautiful
                                                       portraits and envious locations.” Finsta
                                                       accounts do indeed facilitate a distinct mode of
                                                                      The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   126
content creation and posting behavior, however          Throughout the research process I was not
I do not necessarily view them as a foil to the      granted—nor did I ask for—access to the
highly formalized and regimented ideologies of       participants’ Finsta accounts. In fact, only Sarah
‘real Instagram’ as does Ross. Finsta content        and Maria had their own Finstas, and neither
creation    is   still subject    to  aesthetic      posted on their Finstas regularly. My
normativities—posts typically eschew the             interviewees discussed their past experiences
presentation styles of ‘real Instagram’ and          producing       Finsta   content      and     their
embrace an alternative visual language akin to       understandings of the particular media
popularly self-deprecating internet memes.           ideologies pertaining to “fake Instagram,”
                                                     however we did not conduct walkthroughs of
   It is seemingly expected that one not look
                                                     the interviewee’s Finstas. For this reason, I will
presentable in Finsta posts, and that one make
                                                     refrain from further discussing the aesthetic
efforts    to     sabotage     the    meticulously
                                                     particularities and expectations of Finstas for
constructed self-presentation crafted on the
                                                     lack of available data. Nonetheless, it is evident
users’ main account. There is certainly a polarity
                                                     that certain formalities dictate acceptable
between the deliberate presentations of one’s
                                                     posting behaviors on Finstas, such that Finsta
primary Instagram account and the ostensibly
                                                     material may be read as vulnerable and candid
less rigorous presentations of the Finsta
                                                     by other users while still allowing posters to
account, however one does not appear to be
                                                     maintain      control   over     self-presentation
more reflective of the “true self” than the other.
                                                     techniques.
Rather, both are artifices, presentations of the
self that complement one another. Although           Discourse Analysis in the
each are seemingly antithetical, the apparent
self-sabotage affected by the Finsta may be
                                                     Comments Section
considered a calculated means of bolstering          Posting free-standing images to one’s
one's most intimate social network. Finsta posts     Instagram profile is a single component of an
are often read by users as “unfiltered,”             array of possible actions an Instagram user can
“organic,”     “spontaneous,”      “candid”   and    take. Users can also choose to like or comment
indicative of the “real” self—an apparently stark    on posts made by other users; the participants
departure from the media practices and               liked and commented on others’ posts regularly
ideologies endemic to other Instagram                and frequently interacted with the comments
environments. Finstas, in this sense, may be         made on their own posts as well. In my
understood as a curated album of scandalous          interviews and sociogram activities I primarily
and socially unacceptable material that can be       focused on commenting behaviors among
entrusted to a close peer with the effect of         sorority Instagram users, analyzing both
signifying—and        possibly     enhancing—the     quantitative patterns in commenting and
strength of the social linkage. The act of           general styles of discourse endemic to sorority
presenting an unacceptable version of oneself        members’ comment sections. My discourse
to a peer is a performance of deep trust; we are     analysis led me to taxonomize Instagram
attentive to around whom we let our guards           comments by coding for implicit semantic
down and to whom we let drop our masks—              meanings and referents. While I identified three
those who we allow in to this unpresentable          prominent categories of discourse that seem to
presentation       of    selfhood      must    be    be predicated by the nature of the interlocutors’
knowledgeable enough of our person that the          relationships with one another, I acknowledge
particular deliberateness familiar to primary        that many other categorization possibilities are
Instagram media creation is unnecessary. The         likely just as viable. The discourse taxonomy I
Finsta is in this sense a token of appreciation      will present is a relatively simple framework for
and an acknowledgement of intimacy. But this         understanding how commenting behaviors
does not preclude a formal, unifying aesthetic       arise from certain typologies of social linkages;
grammar endemic to Finsta posts, nor does it         it seems likely that a more nuanced analysis of
guarantee that the material posted on Finsta         Instagram discourse could be gleaned by
accounts is necessarily as vulnerable and            leveraging a more substantial data set.
organic as it is understood as being.

                                                                     The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   127
The discourse analysis focused on the                         These comments may be an affirmation of the
comments made by other sorority members on                       acceptability of the presentation style employed
the participants’ five most recent Instagram                     by the poster or an acknowledgment of the
posts—the same sample used to generate                           credibility displayed by the presentation. Maria
sociogram data. I identified three primary                       reflected that “I feel like [comments on her
modes of commenting that were ubiquitous                         posts] give me a sense of validation in a way, to
throughout each post’s comment section by                        know that at least a few people are like, yeah
coding for references to the post itself,                        this looks good, or yeah this is a good picture or
references to the poster and/or persons                          whatever.” Maria’s statement suggests that
portrayed in the post, and simple supportive                     comments operate to affirm the credibility of
remarks and/or symbols. I denoted “references                    particular presentations and acknowledge the
to post” as those comments which specifically                    poster’s successful deployment of group-
appeal to the non-personal, primarily aesthetic                  relevant aesthetics. Similarly, references to the
contents of the post, “personal references” as                   post may also be understood as one of a variety
those that referred to the poster or persons                     of mechanisms by which aesthetic criteria are
portrayed in the post, and “vague applause” as                   formalized by Alpha Beta members.
supportive comments that do not substantively
                                                                    Commenters may also refer to the post if
engage the post material.
                                                                 they were involved in its creation. Maria noted
   Following Frege’s      (1948) observations                    that “a lot of times you're like, with them when
regarding the relations between signs, senses,                   they post it, or like, she talked to you about it—
and referents, I examined how commenters                         “oh, should I post this picture”—so then you
engaged with posted material by appealing to a                   kind of want to, like, hype them up because you
variety of referents, in so doing revealing the                  told them yes they should.” Anna affirmed that
nature of their relationship with the poster and                 involvement in the posting process often
with the posted material itself. Figure 2                        obligates peers to comment affirmatively about
provides a selection of material posted to the                   the quality of a given post: “like, you
participants’ Instagram photos, categorized by                   encouraged them to post it, so you also on
each comment’s referent (in the cases of                         Instagram want to be like, yes, this is a good
references to post and personal references)                      post for sure.” The obligation of peer
and by the extent of their engagement with the                   consultants to affirm the quality of the posts
post (with regard to vague applause).                            they’ve helped see to fruition reflects how the
                                                                 collaborative practice of content production is
   References to the post and personal
                                                                 succeeded by a similarly collaborative
references each demonstrate a comparatively
                                                                 affirmative discourse. Comments to the post, in
higher level of engagement with the posted
                                                                 this sense, can be understood as strengthening
material than vague applause. References to
                                                                 collaborative relationships among Alpha Beta
the post refer to certain of the post’s aesthetic
                                                                 members while likewise formalizing the
qualities or acknowledge the posted material as
                                                                 aesthetic standards that shape how members
a self-contained object. Uses of the word “this”
                                                                 produce content.
frequently indicated that a commenter was
referring to the post itself and intended to                       Personal references enable commenters to
articulate some response to its presentation.                    publicize their social networks, thereby

Figure 2: Taxonomy of Instagram comments made by Alpha Beta members on the participants’ five most recent posts.

                                                                                   The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   128
leveraging the social capital consistent within        necessarily iterative process which protects
certain high-value social linkages During an           against the entropic invisibility—the natural
activity focusing on the relationships between         difficulty of ever knowing who knows who
comment types and perceived levels of                  within the confusing field of intra-sorority
friendship between commenters and posters,             relationships—constantly       threatening      to
Maria humorously reflected that, “there’s no           undermine one’s capacity to make use of the
reason to say ‘I love my peeps’ other than to          social capital at one’s disposal. Such is partially
show people who you know.” The value in                why       commenting       practices     reiterate
“showing who you know” was expressed                   constantly—one needs always to carefully tend
regularly throughout the research process:             both one’s relationships and the public
participants    frequently     alluded  to    the      representations of one’s relationships to stave
complexity and nuance of social networks               off invisibility in the attention economy, a
within Alpha Beta. According to Maria, “there’s a      marketplace—only accessible to visible actors—
lot of connections in Alpha Beta altogether, and       where social capital can be put to use.
it's kind of hard … to like know really who
                                                          By producing a comment that expresses
knows who. That would be hard, to like, gauge
                                                       one’s familiarity with the poster, commenters
completely without [Instagram].” According to
                                                       publicly locate themselves within a complicated
Maria, cultivating public displays of one’s social
                                                       matrix of intra-sorority relationships. This type
network in comment sections allows members
                                                       of comment likely reflects a relatively strong
to record proof of—and thus reap benefits
                                                       social tie between the commenter and poster—
from—having “participat[ed] in the craziness” of
                                                       comments that emphasize “closeness of
intra-sorority sociality. The payout may not be
                                                       relationship” are seen as inappropriate when
immediate,      however      the    capacity   to
                                                       the commenter is perceived as being too
demonstrate a robust intra-sorority social
                                                       hyperbolic about the strength of their
network can, in the long run, “open doors.”
                                                       relationship. When asked whether a comment
   Because so much social capital—understood           reading “my favorite people” would be
as the “more or less institutionalized                 acceptable if the commenter were a distant
relationships of mutual acquaintance and               acquaintance, Maria responded: “that would be
recognition” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992,              weird because we’re not that close and it would
119)—becomes embedded in the tangled and               seem like she’s trying to make it seem like we
disorderly fabric of intra-sorority social linkages,   are.”
efforts to publicize and accentuate one’s
                                                          Personal references and, to a slightly lesser
relationships through the use of public facing
                                                       degree, references to the post, are seemingly
comments serves both to reinforce such
                                                       indicative of intimate social ties between
relationships in the face of ever-shifting internal
                                                       commenters and posters. Vague applause in
politics and to make them effectively
                                                       large part enables peers with weaker ties to the
canonical—that is, to embed close and
                                                       poster to nonetheless maintain their familiarity
important relationships within a corpus of
                                                       through low-effort affirmative comments. These
common knowledge accessible to and
                                                       comments, which frequently consist of a single
recognizable by the rest of the sorority. This is a
                                                       emoji or word, laud the poster’s appearance or
process through which relationships can
                                                       vaguely express affection without designating
become institutionalized, such that they exist
                                                       or implying a close relationship to the poster.
beyond      the     linkages   between       private
                                                       Weak ties, those that are peripheral to an
individuals and come to be known and
                                                       individual's core network, are susceptible to
accepted at large among sorority members. So,
                                                       untrustworthiness (Völker and Flap 2001, 401).
while “showing who you know” can be
                                                       Vague applause may be a means of maintaining
understood as a practice of leveraging social
                                                       relationships with those on one’s social
capital, wherein a valuable relationship is
                                                       periphery by occasionally re-establishing
publicly demonstrated in order to make use of
                                                       familiarity through simple, supportive remarks
any prestige or power to be had as a result, it
                                                       (Haythornthwaite 2002, 391). The value of these
also can and should be understood as a means
                                                       comparatively weak relationships is well
of institutionalizing such relationships. This is a
                                                       documented—although they provide less
                                                                       The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   129
support than strong ties, weak ties constitute       media profiles. Images depicting underage
crucial sources of information given that these      alcohol consumption, drug use, or violations of
peers frequently liaise between members of           the university’s COVID-19 protocols are
multiple groups (McPherson et al. 2006, 355). It     prohibited. Likewise, depictions of certain illicit
is therefore advantageous to maintain weak           social events that have been formally banned
ties and reciprocated social media encounters        by the university, but which the sorority
may be one way of doing so.                          continues to host in secret, violate the sorority’s
                                                     social media policy. The sorority has co-opted a
   This economy of interaction illustrates how
                                                     particular emoji to convey when a user posts an
Alpha Beta Instagram users embody their social
                                                     illicit image—the emoji is an acronymized four
networks—and their social positionality—in
                                                     letter word (the first words of which are “That
their online encounters. The shape one’s
                                                     Ain’t” and the latter of which are the sorority’s
Instagram comment takes largely reflects the
                                                     initials) and revealing it would likely
nature of the interlocutors’ relationship.
                                                     compromise the identity of the research group.
Instagram comments are an exercise of
                                                     However, the formulation of the particular
relations and relatedness; likewise, the act of
                                                     emoji’s meaning within Alpha Beta discourse
commenting is an act of embodiment.
                                                     can be analogously conveyed with the greek
Hierarchy and Media Surveillance                     letter Tau (τ). When an Alpha Beta member’s
                                                     post violates the sorority’s posting guidelines, a
Upon initiation into Alpha Beta, new members         senior member may simply comment “τ” in the
are required to enter their social media             offending post’s comment section. τ in this
usernames into a spreadsheet accessible by all       context serves as an acronym for “That Ain’t
active members of the sorority, following which      Us,” and although innocuous to non-Alpha Beta
they usually experience a deluge of new              Instagram users who may see the symbol in a
Instagram followers. “I remember when I              comment section, the receipt of a τ on one’s
joined,” Anna recalled, “all the older girls—not     post is considered “super, like really, really
all of them, a lot of them—just followed me. I       embarrassing.”
was like ‘I don’t know who this is but she’s in
Alpha Beta so okay.’” This exercise is partially a       When a poster receives a τ they are required
means of disseminating new members’ social           to remove their post, illustrating how senior
media information so that existing members           members leverage their seniority to monitor
can follow new members, but the activity also        social media behaviors and take action against
enables existing members to monitor the social       content that belies the sorority's standards of
media activities of new members who may be           discourse and presentation. Older members,
less trusted to observe the sorority’s social        therefore, have a hand in how younger
media guidelines. Maria noted that “they ask         members construct their self-presentations on
you to put your Instagram, Snapchat, you have        Instagram—they delineate what content is
to put it into a Google Doc so that they can all     suitable and litigiously address media that
follow you and monitor what you’re saying and        violates these boundaries of expression. The
posting.” This spreadsheet also equips the           surveillance program enacted by senior
sorority’s social media chair to follow the new      members suggests a form of panopticism, and
members’ accounts using an unofficial Alpha          the “fear” of being monitored is apparently
Beta Instagram account: “They have an                successful in affecting self-regulation among
Instagram separate from the Alpha Beta               new members. “Getting tau-ed” is relatively
Instagram … and it doesn’t have any posts, and       uncommon, largely because the threat of being
it just follows active members, so I think, like,    “tau-ed” is so severe that members post
the social media chair can easily just scroll        diligently to avoid this punishment.
through and see what everyone’s posting, like          Social media platforms are frequently
on a regular basis, so I guess there’s kind of an    conceptualized as public spaces that are
element of fear.”                                    constructed and contested by users (Poell and
  There are Alpha Beta guidelines that shape         van Dijk 2015, 2). Institutional efforts to surveil
what users can and cannot post on their social       and desocialize public spaces are one means by
                                                     which discipline may be internalized by users of
                                                                     The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   130
public space (Foucault 1975, 198). The               unique; the other participants affirmed that
surveillance strategy employed by Alpha Beta’s       following initiation, older members commented
senior membership exemplifies how monitored          on newer members’ posts more regularly than
social    media    environments    affect  an        newer members commented on older
internalization of media discipline in new           members' posts.
sorority members.
                                                         The tendency of older members to comment
   Foucault’s theorization of surveillance as        extensively on newer members’ posts reflects
permanent visibility illustrates the ways in         their comparatively more comfortable situation
which social media users navigate inclinations       within the Alpha Beta hierarchy and might
towards      media      prominence      and    the   suggest that the initial surge of comments
concomitant susceptibility to surveillance           made by senior members is a largely
(Livingstone 2008, 12). Maria’s previously           pedagogical activity. Maria mentioned that “on
referenced remark that Instagram comments            my bid day photo, I was looking through the
made by other users on her posts “give me a          comments, I have a lot of older girls that I
sense of validation in a way, to know that at        barely talked to, so I think there definitely is like
least a few people are like, yeah this looks good,   that kind of welcoming stage where everyone
or yeah this is a good picture or whatever,”         kind of commented on any Alpha Beta bid day
reflects Bucher’s (2012) articulation of the         pictures.”      She    described    these     initial
“threat of invisibility,” a reversal of Foucault’s   interactions with older members as being
analysis of surveillance that suggests that          informative about how to proceed socially:
possibilities of virtual obsolescence configure      “they kind of showed me, like, the kinds of
media orientations towards attention-seeking         things you can say and the right tone and stuff.
strategies. While Foucault describes panoptic        Like, I felt like I could kind of go from there in
surveillance methods as systems of perpetual         terms of reaching out to my PC [pledge class]
visibility, Bucher (2012) suggests that social       and starting to get to know them.” These initial
media users regularly work to sustain visibility     interactions might be understood as a means of
in their online activities. The “attention           demonstrating acceptable discourse styles and
economy” articulated by Marwick (2017)               a method for equipping new members to safely
similarly incentivises strategies that support       interact with their peers. This introductory
media visibility while exposing users to regimes     deluge of comments from senior Alpha Beta
of virtual surveillance. This tradeoff likely        members may constitute a passing on of a
informs users’ media switching behaviors—by          corpus of a unique sociolinguistic repertoire, a
toggling between primary Instagram accounts          rite of passage whereby members are made
and “finstas,” users can dictate the visibility or   familiar with the modes of discourse they will
obscurity of their content (Ross 2019, 4).           be required to employ throughout their
                                                     membership.
    Senior Alpha Beta members enjoy an overall
more comfortable situation within the sorority       Conclusion
and are consequently better able to engage in
social media activities with a broad range of        Its material affordances and adaptable
interlocutors. “For me personally,” commented        interface make Instagram a powerful means of
Sarah, “going into freshman year, the                projecting self-presentation and community
confidence you had in high school is not there       membership. Ross (2019, 19) argues that “the
really. I would not have been confident enough       various factors that go into the image-making
to post on these older girls’ pictures. It’s         and -sharing process can be traced back to the
intimidating, and it's like, in high school you      desire to have one’s posts liked by others.” This
knew everyone. Now you don’t know these girls,       paper primarily explores the role of Instagram
and I was like, oh, they’re going to think I’m a     commenting as a crucial mediator of content
weirdo … I felt like the girls I knew and their      creation and posting behavior, as well as the
friend groups, that were older, were                 broader function of Instagram commenting in
commenting on my stuff more than I was               facilitating  socialization   among      sorority
commenting on their stuff at first, because I        members. Partially owing to the recent
was like, awkward.” Sarah’s experience is not        obsolescence of visible Instagram “like” metrics,

                                                                     The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   131
“like” accumulation has seemingly declined as a       hauntological, given frequent reappropriations
directive of media activity.                          of vintage and retro styles in reimagined and
                                                      recontextualised environments. Ambiguities
   Commenting behaviors provide for analysis
                                                      surrounding       linearity    and       aesthetic
not only of content creation practices but also
                                                      recapitulations suggest a need for further
of how particularized virtual discourse methods
                                                      scholarship concerning the situation of sorority
shape and maintain group membership.
                                                      media aesthetics within broader histories of
Whereas “likes” may be a means of gauging
                                                      image making and production. Moreover,
posting success and a principle for fine-tuning
                                                      attending to the ways in which sorority
image production, Instagram comments reflect
                                                      members contest existing aesthetic regiments
the situation of social media encounters within
                                                      could clarify the tensions between agency and
broader contexts of social relatedness,
                                                      conformity in online activities (Code 2013, 41;
coalitional expectations, and intra-sorority
                                                      Bullingham and Vasconcelos 2013, 7). Many of
dominance       hierarchies.    The    discursive
                                                      my interview conversations explored how
potentialities invited by commenting platforms
                                                      sorority members adopt existing media
underlays the sociality of social media.
                                                      ideologies to instantiate their membership and
Baudrillard (1985, 577) dictates that truly
                                                      group-commitment,        however       participants
“social” media most fundamentally serve as
                                                      frequently alluded to instances in which they
“reciprocal spaces of speech and response,”
                                                      departed from these norms, such as in
exemplifying the centrality of comment
                                                      portrayals of non-sorority activities. These cases
discourse as a powerful and pervasive media
                                                      reflect that, just as members toggle between
practice.
                                                      primary and “fake” Instagram accounts, so do
   Alpha Beta affiliated Instagram users employ       they toggle between presentation styles within
the platform to communicate their membership          single accounts. This code-switching behavior
by      mobilizing    distinct,   sorority-specific   suggests that agency and coercion in media
aesthetics. Style guidelines are formalized           posting are context-dependent and contingent
through intra-sorority power dynamics and             on the nature of the material being portrayed.
iterative     commenting        processes     that
                                                         Furthermore, participants commented that
congratulate successful uses of group
                                                      restrictions    on     in-person     gatherings
acknowledged aesthetics. Virtual and face-to-
                                                      implemented by the university in response to
face collaborative practices also enabled
                                                      the COVID-19 pandemic expanded how social
sorority Instagram users to establish stylistic
                                                      media was used as a tool for initiating new
modes of content production that complement
                                                      Alpha Beta members. Research regarding the
existing organizations of group relations (Yates
                                                      changing role of social media as a result of the
et al. 1997, 3).
                                                      pandemic, and the extent to which these
   The implementation of acceptable content           changes become formalized beyond the
creation and discourse practices enables users        pandemic, could provide insight concerning the
to project their sorority identities and establish    adaptability of media environments to changing
expectations of membership (Nisa 2018, 92). By        conditions.
interacting with media posted by sorority
                                                          Adaptability is a primary component of
members and sorority affiliated accounts
                                                      media usage and is precisely what enables
(particularly, the official Alpha Beta Instagram
                                                      users to direct their content creation practices
account), users learn to operationalize certain
                                                      towards particular audiences. Posting with the
stylistic and discursive aesthetics in order to
                                                      sorority in mind necessitates attention to group
inform their own participation in and
                                                      power dynamics and stylistic cues, however
embodiment of sorority life.
                                                      these formalities may be circumscribed by
   Instagram comment forums and image feeds           leveraging alternative channels, such as
are largely palimpsestic in nature, owing to the      “finstas.”    Group-acknowledged        aesthetic
capacity of new media content to overwrite            normativities shape how and what users post,
existing material and the tendency of users to        and in so doing systematize a practice of
delete posted material entirely. Moreover,            communal content creation that affects
media posting behaviors are frequently                perceptions and presentations of the self.
                                                                      The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   132
Acknowledgements

Thank you, Dr. Clark, for supporting my research, both within
and without the classroom, and for connecting me to people,
organizations, and ideas that enabled me to refine my research
skills. Your mentoring, which began before I was your student
and did not end when I was no longer your student, has
shaped my trajectory as an anthropological thinker in a truly
profound way. Thank you, as well, to the reviewer, who offered
valuable suggestions which ultimately improved this article.

                                                                 The JUE Volume 12 Issue 1, 2022   133
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