Searching for My Village: The Mom Humor Memescape of Instagram
摘要
This chapter foregrounds how mom memes serve as viral cultural commentary generating connection, empathy, community, and humor among participants. Through close textual autoethnographic analysis of the images and captions of mom memes, Crews examines how the construction of identity within the mom meme village on Instagram provides ways to navigate the challenges of motherhood through the power of humor. Crews’ chapter adds to the existing body of work on motherhood, identity, and social media. The mom humor memescape is not often studied, yet their re-appropriated popular culture references and viral spread is vital to understanding motherhood in the twenty-first century. The cultural contexts and dominant mediated discourses that surround the developing mom are what influence the development and expression of self. In search of a village for maternal support, Crews uncovers how social media and memes contribute to the social construction of identity, particularly the identity of Mom.