Caring about queer-feminist artists on social media. Thinking with critical friendship

Arts activisms and gender-based violence through transnational perspectives

Abstract

In this article, I examine the challenging working conditions of queer-feminist artists on the social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, with a focus on gender-based violence, harassment, as well as automated discrimination carried out by the platforms and their algorithms. Based on interviews with five artists – Anahita Neghabat, Julischka Stengele, Natalie Assmann, Sophia Süßmilch, and Stefanie Sargnagel (based in Austria and Germany) – I analyse the platforms’ categorisation and classification of content as “undesired”, their opaque algorithmic rulings, and their practice of gaslighting users. Taking the artists’ experiences seriously and linking them to (social) media studies and feminist theory on public space, epistemology, and friendship, I reflect on methodology and knowledge production: I explore how the various forms and impacts of gender-based violence and automated discrimination against queer-feminist artists on social media can, on the one hand, be made visible and be discussed without reproducing violence, and, on the other hand, be transferred into academic discourse using a caring approach to epistemology.