"Nothing Makes Me Hate Myself More Than a Skinny White Person on Tumblr": Evaluating Exclusionary Ideals and Racial Discimination in Online Pro-Eating-Disorder Communities

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dc.contributor.advisorJacobs, Merle
dc.contributor.authorShaikh, Aynur
dc.date.accessioned2024-11-07T11:06:00Z
dc.date.available2024-11-07T11:06:00Z
dc.date.copyright2024-07-05
dc.date.issued2024-11-07
dc.date.updated2024-11-07T11:06:00Z
dc.degree.disciplineSociology
dc.degree.levelMaster's
dc.degree.nameMA - Master of Arts
dc.description.abstractPro-eating-disorder internet communities extend hegemonic standards of health, beauty, and fatness to inform their cultural ideals, producing a racialized subculture in which marginalized communities are stereotyped and excluded. I present qualitative content and discourse analyses of pro-ED communities on Tumblr, TikTok, X, and Facebook to examine how they reproduce the domination of racialized bodies, providing serious health risks to marginalized users. BIPOC are predominantly excluded from pro-ED communities, lacking representation or being displayed in explicitly discriminatory presentations. The primary pro-ED ideals are: whiteness, youthfulness, sickness, and emaciation. These exclusionary ideals, reinforcing class distinctions, are also evidenced by the production of idealized subject positions that are informed by racial hierarchies: The Girl Who Has It All, The Beautiful Bag-of-Bones, The Phenom, and The Little Doll. Racialized users are found to internalize the thin white ideal and are enmeshed in moral health discourses which situate them as non-ideal biocitizens, reinforcing structural oppression.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42429
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectSociology
dc.subjectWeb studies
dc.subjectHealth sciences
dc.subject.keywordsEating disorder
dc.subject.keywordsRace
dc.subject.keywordsIntersectionality
dc.subject.keywordsInternet studies
dc.subject.keywordsQualitative research
dc.subject.keywordsContent analysis
dc.subject.keywordsDiscourse analysis
dc.subject.keywordsPro-eating-disorder
dc.subject.keywordsAnorexia
dc.subject.keywordsMental health
dc.subject.keywordsOnline communities
dc.subject.keywordsSocial media
dc.subject.keywordsCultural ideals
dc.title"Nothing Makes Me Hate Myself More Than a Skinny White Person on Tumblr": Evaluating Exclusionary Ideals and Racial Discimination in Online Pro-Eating-Disorder Communities
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

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