4 Interviewees and Their Instagram Profiles
4.7 Cara
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4.7 Cara (40, married)
Cara is special. She is the most famous among the participants, because she is also known as a celebrity. Being an Instagram influencer was not her priority. Her first intent was establishing a Facebook fan page after she quit her job. The idea of changing her career path was mainly due to her willingness to share her life with kids.
The prestige of Cara comes from two aspects. One is as a mother influencer herself, and the other is her husband. Similar to Katie, Cara’s job grants her the opportunity to get closer to fashion. Cara has been a part of the fashion industry for a long time, as she was a senior PR for a luxury brand. The job made her closely relevant to the newest fashion trends. The experiences of holding events or creating campaigns also allow her to accumulate connections and establish a professional image in the fashion industry.
Apart from being involved in the fashion industry as a previous PR, she is a famous man’s wife. Her husband is a well-known radio host, DJ, musician, and psychologist.
More importantly, her husband is the son of a great illustrator and writer. Thus, her reputation is beyond any simple description. Her influence has leveraged various platforms. Years ago, Cara established a blog site with a friend to share cooking recipes.
Moreover, she has been participating in events and interviews as a celebrity. Recently, she has a YouTube series that shares her marriage and relationship with her husband.
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As mentioned before, Cara has established a Facebook fan page, where she mainly shares her kids and family. The contents revealed on Cara’s Instagram profile are very different from what she shares on Facebook. In contrast to Facebook, Cara is the main character on her Instagram profile (Figure 19). She shares pictures of just herself and discloses her desire to separate the identity of motherhood from herself on Instagram.
As an Instagram influencer, she shares her outfits, fashion items, travels, and life experiences. In these photos, Cara always looks confident and bright from every angle.
Figure 19. Cara’s Selfies and Portrait Photos
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Cara is quite active on Instagram. She does live-stream sometimes and saves them as IGTV. In these videos, Cara interacts with her followers very dynamically. She tries to answer every question that people ask her. Regarding the comment sections, Cara also replies to almost every comment down below her feeds, even if some of them are just emojis. She seems very active on Instagram, despite that it is not where she makes most of the profits.
4.8 Summary: Commonalities and Discrepancies
Building up an attractive profile is not as easy as it seems. It requires technical operations, personal attractiveness, and much more. By constructing their presentations on Instagram, these mother influencers disclose either similar traits or different features.
From the researched profiles, I briefly classify several features according to commonalities and discrepancies.
4.8.1 The participants
As discussed beforehand, the mothers do not reveal themselves in this image-based environment as mothers we see in the offline world. The first thing to elaborate upon is the participants’ appearance. The participants are all attractive, even though they categorize themselves differently on Instagram. The participants fit Taiwanese beauty norms, which expect mothers to look thin and young. Moreover, the participants present their flawless looks confidently on their profiles. Sophisticated makeup, glowing skin, and even timeless physical appearances fill up their pictures. Apart from physical appearance, the mothers also present their happy mood and pleasing captions.
Rather than manifesting their sad or sentimental feelings, they choose to show just their bright sides or gentle tones through the feeds.
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The mothers also show their different styles for outfit ideas. When the participants share their outfits, they have different tendencies of styling. Anna does not present any luxurious items when she shares her styles with her followers. On the other hand, Annie, Katie, and Cara share plenty of luxuries on their profiles, including high-end clothing and accessories. As for the postures or the facial expressions they exude, the mother influencers have varied preferences. Katie and Cara pose exaggeratedly or dynamically in their content. They show themselves spinning in the pictures with a flowing skirt or squatting down with a confident facial expression. On the other hand, Emma, Rose, Cathy, and Anna pose reservedly with a gentle smile or a calm face.
4.8.2 The revealing of children
All participants reveal their mother-child relationship in their pictures. That is how I could identify them as mother influencers. These contents involve maternity photography, nurturing tips and stories, interactions with kids, family trips, sponsored product promotion, and sharing of outfits. Most of the participants reveal their children very frequently. The mothers in these pictures are always happy and bright with their children. Moreover, with a caption about meaningful mothering stories, the participants manifested on Instagram look patient and kind towards their children. The mother influencers do not show the chaotic scenes that most mothers confront in reality, especially when taking care of their babies.
The mother influencer’s children also take part in their sponsored content in some way. Taking Rose as an example, who has the greatest portion and the widest diversity of sponsored content among the participants, she repeatedly promotes sponsored products with her daughter. Both the mother and her daughter smile or laugh in these pictures.
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4.8.3 The settings of the pictures
The places where the participants take their photos contribute to a salient theme.
The photography on the researched profiles occur in many scenarios. Commonly, all the participants in this research share their outdoor pictures. Even Emma, a YouTuber about home-setting scenarios, shares foreign travels and camping pictures on her profile.
These mother influencers, who have specifically identified themselves as lifestyle bloggers, share more pictures that are taken outside. Annie, Cara, and Katie present plenty of foreign travel photography, fancy dining-out pictures, participation in high-end brand events, and visiting famous check-in spots like beautiful coffee shops. The portion of taking photos outside surpasses the at-home scenarios among these mothers.
In travel photography, the mothers are always smiling and meticulously dressed.
Moreover, the ambiance created through the mother influencers’ smiling face and relaxing pose seems enjoyable and pleasing. This type of pictures reveal that the mother influencers are having a wonderful and desirable experience.
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Chapter5
The Mothers’ Perspectives and Motivations
This chapter reveals the findings from both observations and interviews. The analysis will embark on the emerging themes since I have previously introduced the participants and their Instagram profiles. The implications will come from analyzing participants’ perspectives and attitudes and their visual content on profiles. Participants’
views are essential resources in this research, because their motivations and purposes cannot separate from the presentation of selves. Moreover, the impression management of content provides salient hints for accomplishing the analysis. Finally, since the research focuses on unveiling the socio-cultural meanings behind the mother influencers’ self-presentation on Instagram, the contradictions the participants have made will be critically elaborated upon in order to discuss the consequential influence of the participants’ impressions made on Taiwanese society.
According to Goffman (1959), individuals portray themselves due to different positions. Specifically, when participants put themselves on a stage, they manage their impressions differently. On Instagram, the mother influencers can construct their images easily without a great cost. Moreover, it provides opportunities in which mothers can fulfill their purposes of impression management.
The summary of the researched profiles in the last section offers a preliminary understanding of how they portray themselves. Since this research is based on understanding the mother influencers’ self-presentation, it is also crucial to delve into their perspectives.
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5.1 Benefits and Rewards
Several participants’ presentations of self are considerably associated with the benefits and rewards they can obtain from manifesting themselves. Their goals of overcoming the mother isolation, benefiting economically, and transforming the traditional mother discourse are explicitly conveyed through interviews. Furthermore, their profiles have become a means of empowering mothers nowadays. To grant a more profound explanation of their viewpoints, I will continue with the mother influencers’
impressions and expand upon several issues accordingly.
5.1.1 Overcoming the mother isolation with social support
Two participants mentioned that the reason why they present themselves on Instagram is to engage with other mothers on Instagram. The first participant, Rose, mentioned that her sharing helps blossom the connections with her followers:
“I’m happy that I can share myself on Instagram. When I became a mother, I felt depressed a lot. Meanwhile, my husband had to work. I stayed alone with myself pretty often. Instagram has become a place where I can share my feelings and get acquainted with other mothers.”
Rose’s pregnancy was unplanned. She did not expect that she would be pregnant at the age of 24. Rose’s wedding was arranged in a rush, which resulted in a lack of communication with her husband. She revealed that she shared herself, because of her isolation from the world. The sharing of herself has improved the predicament of staying alone, for which she could receive support in the virtual world with no boundaries. Similar to Rose, Katie also shared her mothering life frequently with her followers:
“I share everything close to the ‘ME’ in reality. I also like to share random
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even established a hashtag called negative energy (fu neng liang) for him. Many mothers sent messages to me, saying they felt the same way and complained about their husbands. I feel connected to them.”
Receiving feedback from other mothers is Katie’s motivation for sharing herself.
Self-presentation is a way to bond with other mothers online. The contents Rose and Katie have generated are not solely about sharing their lifestyles, but are also about being supportive and connecting to mothers in the virtual world. These two participants reveal their stories and connections with other mothers since they regard themselves as their followers’ friends. In return, the participants’ mental health has also benefited from presenting themselves online. As mother influencers are under tremendous pressure, they might not share specific things online, but they still share their personal stories with their followers. When I asked Katie and Rose why they post specific content, they revealed that their self-presentation is mentally beneficial.
Sharing their stories on social media is about creating bonds with other mothers and empathizing with other mothers’ worries or exhaustion in their mothering life. The factor that triggered Rose and Katie to share their mothering life with other mothers in the virtual world resulted from mother isolation, which most mothers confront in a patriarchal system like that in Taiwanese culture. As reviewed in Chapter 2, women suffer from isolating themselves when they become mothers. Mothers feel an inability to be social since they are bound to their kids (Campbell & Hart, 2019), especially those who are “geographically or socially isolated from friends and family” (Madge &
O’Connor, p.17).
More scholars have granted relevant insights to explain the situations of the above two participants. Since mothers are hard to find new connections with other parents in the real world (Campbell & Hart, 2019), they seek support by utilizing social media
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communication. The instant communication in the electronic environment facilitates the emergence of a virtual community. Baum (2004) suggested that information exchange through online groups for social support is a form of establishing communities and relieving. As cited in Nielsen, social support serves as an indispensable element of successful parenthood and can led to better maternal health (2015, p.7). Social support includes the structure of one’s social life, such as family and other functions like emotional support (as cited in Nielsen, 2015). Specifically, in social media, social support is “appraisal support” and “social integration,” which mean the availability of someone to talk to and the network of individuals who share interests and concerns (as cited in Nielsen, 2015, p.6). Through connecting with other mothers, mothers can maintain a healthy mental state.
As a Taiwanese society phenomenon, the participants’ isolation and tendency to seek online support are accompanied by the ideology that exists in the patriarchal systems. A traditional household pattern exists in the Taiwanese system. A Taiwanese traditional household pattern means “an adult son to live with his parents and a ‘marry-in’ daughter-in-law (Sandel, 2004, p.367). As a marry-in daughter, the tight connection between herself and her family is gradually loosened by physical distance. Moreover, isolation could occur when so-called “mother duties” occupy the mother’s life, since mothers’ discourse in patriarchal systems glorify their obligations and sacrifices throughout history. The duty of nurturing children and doing chores, or even compromising by leaving the workforce, worsens the isolation. Rose shared an incident related to this situation:
“One time my husband was looking after our daughter since he took a day off.
However, I found out he was sleeping in bed all day. My mother-in-law asked me
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that’s women’s job.’ I was perplexed about the response from my mother-in-law.
If my husband doesn’t know how to raise kids, he can learn. I’m not born to be a mother, either.”
In a patriarchal system, mothers follow particular traditional beliefs. Rose explained that she felt it to be unfair to have such thoughts about women. Women are not born to be mothers. Women learn to be a mother. Rose believes that the job of nurturing a kid does not belong to mothers only. Namely, Rose still suffers from the traditional beliefs since her mother-in-law disagrees with her. The traditional belief has remained embedded in the previous generation like Rose’s mother-in-law. According to Rose, it is evident that her thoughts on motherhood are very different from those of her mother-in-law. However, she has chosen to obey since she thinks she should listen to the elders, especially her husband’s mother. This belief has something to do with Confucianism as well.
As discussed in Chang’s study, Chinese culture influenced by Confucianism seeks
“social harmony” among social connections, especially when the system is practicing the ideology of “familial obligations” and “social propriety” (2001, p.156). Namely, Rose feels the need to comply with her mother-in-law. The relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is intense in patriarchal systems. Gallin (1994) investigated the relationships between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, mentioning that a mother-in-law often disciplines a daughter-in-law severely and bitterly when she has into the home of her husband. Taiwanese daughters-in-law sacrifice their welfare to avoid conflicts and the condemnations of not behaving morally. More importantly, Taiwanese women desire acceptance from their mother-in-law (Sandel, 2004). The system has perpetuated women’s desire to be a favorable person when living with their husband’s family as a married-in person.
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5.1.2 Benefiting economically even in different financial echelons
Apart from mentally beneficial, the participants revealed that they could also benefit economically from being influencers on Instagram. As Cathy mentioned, she thought it was a good opportunity for homemaker mothers. Homemaker mothers could earn extra money from receiving sponsors. Cathy believes that being a mother influencer is perfect for her, because she does not need to spend much time working since she is busy taking care of her baby. She also has learned that it is good to receive sponsored products, because she does not have to spend money on pricey infant products.
Cathy shared another story with me. She would intentionally post a photo of her and her son together in a car to attract sponsors. She revealed a message about how she can drive, and that needed a safety seat for her baby through the photo (see Figure 20).
As Cathy shared, “It is not a bad thing when you present yourself purposefully on Instagram.” She is inclined to share content relevant to her mothering life, making profits from her profiles.
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Similar to Cathy, Rose and Annie also gain economic benefits significantly from their profiles, in which they have different types of sponsored content. Rose has the widest variety of sponsored content from different companies, while Annie’s sponsored content is mostly about her jewelry brand. Rose, a divorced mother with child custody, carries the responsibility of taking care of her daughter. Divorced women like her bear tremendous economic pressure. Scholars have found that divorce results in “significant economic declines” for women (Warrener, Koivunen, Postmus, 2013). As a mother influencer, Rose endorses many kinds of products, thus increasing her income. Rose mentioned her thought on receiving sponsors:
“I don’t mind to accept lots of sponsored products. I can make profits from promoting them. That’s a great thing. As long as it’s not illegal or too sexual…”
Rose’s statements reveal that she is happy to be sponsored since she could benefit from it. However, collaborating with sponsors as an influencer is not enough for her and her daughter’s living. To maintain a stable financial situation, Rose needs to return to the workforce. A single mother is inclined to face the dilemma of taking care of kids and working at the same time. Namely, Rose made a compromise when it came to her daughter and job.
“I think I’m luckier, comparing to other single mothers. I can work in my brother’s tea shop. I don’t have to worry about finding a decent job. Most importantly, I don’t have to worry that no one can look after my daughter when I work. My mother is willing to look after my kid. I feel grateful.”
Rose’s mother takes care of her daughter most of the time, because Rose works in her brother’s tea shop in Tainan. As mentioned before, Rose’s mother stays in Kaohsiung, and so Rose cannot see her daughter every day. The above excerpts also reveal the dilemma among mothers when they want to re-enter the workforce. In the
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study of Warrener, Koivunen, and Postmus, factors such as mothers being the primary caregiver for children and a lack of quality and affordable childcare worsen the economic situation among women (2013). Divorced women confront obstacles when they want to re-enter the workforce since they need to take care of children and their work simultaneously.
The traditional belief of a household pattern further worsens a mother’s financial situation. Vogler (1998) suggested that males are associated with taking on a financial provider role throughout history, signifying their great value in a family. Since mothers are not the primary breadwinner in a family, they must sacrifice for the family. In contrast to Rose, being an influencer has helped Annie’s business to grow. Annie is an entrepreneur of her jewel brand and frequently promotes her jewelry as a fashion influencer. The sponsored content is mostly about her jewelry brand and often comes with feeds or stories. Annie demonstrates the styles by wearing her jewelry. Sometimes, she elaborates on her inspiration for designing a product. She noted her motivation of starting her influencer career:
“At first, I just wanted to promote my jewelry brand. I think being an influencer
“At first, I just wanted to promote my jewelry brand. I think being an influencer