From Body Positivity and Beyond: Investigating Affective Aesthetic Atmospheres of Influencers

Abstract

How do influencers create content on social media that shapes consumer experiences and discourse around beauty standards? While research recognizes the power of influencers to help motivate market-level changes, limited research has investigated this performance, particularly related to content intended to resist existing aesthetic norms. This research explores how social media spaces are designed and modified within the wider discourse by leveraging critical video analysis of TikTok influencers within the context of the body positivity movement. Using findings from netnographic data, we introduce a conceptual framework that explains how influencers and various market actors co-create an affective aesthetic atmosphere—a space offering aesthetic meanings with the subjective formation of an experience and its related emotional bricolage, herein aimed at resisting normative beauty standards. Implications address the impact on consumer well-being, the beauty industry, and marketers.