hashtags randomly selected and without a pattern to follow, for instance, a promotional post could have a body positive hashtags or sexualized posts were accompanied with the name of a brand, among other cases. A set of the plus-sizes’ most used hashtags is given below:
Table 5. Hashtags used by Panamanian and Taiwanese Plus-size Celebrities
Country Hashtag
Panama
#SoHotSoMeSlays, #Panama, #Plus-zise, #clothes, #body, #hot, #bikini,
#yotambiénpuedo (I can also do), #gorditos (cute way of calling the belly fat),
#playa (beach), #latina, #hotbody, #ACTITUDPLUS (plus attitude),
#plussizemodel, #plussizefashion, #selflove #motivacióndeldía (motivationoftheday)
Taiwan
#cat and its Chinese version #貓 (mao) (this hashtag is present in some of Wang
Qi’s captions as she represents herself as a cat lover), #beachbody #beatuy #beauty
#summer, #makeup #smile #fighting, #play, #sing, #biggirl, #fun,
#onlyYESmeansYES, #cute
Conclusion and Discussion
This study has researched about the phenomenon of plus-size women on Instagram from Panama and Taiwan. As outlined in the previous sections, there is a lacking academic research addressing the topic in these cultural environments, hence this study finds its importance. Based on the findings, there were 7 major themes within their accounts, glam posts, natural body, commercial and promotion, beautification, body acceptance labeled posts, fatness and transgressions, semi-nudity and sexualizations.
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The plus-size movement within these women is considered an individualistic phenomenon with variations in social media; since each of the analyzed profiles publishes different self-presentation content, despite sharing the same nationality and cultural background.
The results of the netnography showed that there are more similarities than differences between the content portrayed among the two Taiwanese and the two Panamanian women, for instance, the repetitiveness and abundancy of glam in their posts, imitating poses and presenting fancy clothes. They also shared same patterns towards promotion since their accounts are used to commercialize, to gain fame and presumably to make profits, although, money is not mentioned in any profile. Additionally, they are all managing appearance and trying to make changes on their bodies through beautifying methods (diets, gastric sleeves, exercise) and when they uploaded material exhibiting fat and flaws, it still contained some glam features.
Differences were also noted between the nationality groups and between the two plus-size from the same country, however, the ones between countries seem to be more useful for future research. Taiwanese accounts still save a touch of cuteness, while the Panamanian ones will pay more attention to make their curves and flaws more attractive and sexy, triggering hate and sexualized comments. Online beautification was stronger or easy to notice in Taiwanese accounts, yet skin whitening effect was not detected, different to what research suggests about Asian cannons of the beauty (Chung & Bissel, 2009); also, even though it was not mentioned on the findings section, the Taiwanese portray more selfies than Panamanian do.
In general, Erving Goffman will say that those women performances, perhaps are not authentic and constantly interchanging narratives for a goal driven action, but it is important to emphasize that female bodies are highly criticized out and in online environments; hence, this
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paper suggests that without Instagram and any other available social media, these plus-size would not have the opportunities they actually do to share themselves with their own public, and considering the fact that they are plus-size women with endomorphic figures and yet are still able to share their bodies in so many forms (from natural body to sexualized images), they are already challenging standards of beauty and should be considered part of the body positive movement.
Their bodies and popularity are now being presented in areas that used to only consider thinness, and people seem to like it as their number of followers is growing every day. Possibly, through their freedom of self-presentation other people, especially women, can also feel empowered and motivated to share their own skin and try the things that were originally designed for skinny women, for instance bikinis, lingerie, two pieces sport clothes and other.
Implications and Limitations
In future research, it would be interesting to analyze and theme comments from followers to determine the real acceptation levels the micro-celebrities have. One direction would be to directly interview body positive members to discover their motivations and strategies for publishing content and whether or not their posts goals are accomplished; also, to know how the online self-presentation affects their performance in offline interactions.
As every research has its limitations, the first one this study had to evaluate the differences and similarities of self-presentations between Panama and Taiwan, is that the two samples from each country will have differences and similarities between themselves as well.
Added to this, as the phenomenon of plus-size is quite new on these countries, there was not much information about women portraying the movement on Instagram, therefore, it was difficult to find the most appropriate samples.
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