Girl Online: A User Manual

The unwritten contract of the internet, that a user is what is used, extends from data privacy and consent to the selves women are encouraged to create to appear. Girl Online explores how women can use these platforms for survival, creativity, and resistance, using a personal narrative to navigate the (cyber)space between her identities as girl, mother, writer, and commodified online persona.

Format: Hardback
Length: 176 pages
Publication date: 10 May 2022
Publisher: Verso Books

The internet's unwritten contract, which assumes that a user is merely what they use, goes far beyond the well-studied topics of data privacy and consent. It encompasses the very selves that women are encouraged to create in order to appear online. When vloggers, bloggers, and influencers are invited to self-construct as girls online, they enter into a devil's bargain: a platform on the condition that they commodify themselves, perpetually youthful, cute, and responsibility-free, while hiding their offline domestic, professional, and emotional labor. In exchange, they pay for their online presence with accounts of personal experiences.

However, can a girl online use these platforms not only to escape the oppressions of meatspace but also as spaces for survival, creativity, and resistance? Girl Online, told through the captivating personal narrative of one woman navigating the (cyber)space between her identities as a girl, mother, writer, and commodified online persona, explores this question in a diverse range of online styles, including programming language, blog/diary, tweets, lyric prose, selfies, social media, celebrity, and Cyberfeminism.

The book delves into the complexities of being a woman in the digital age, where the lines between offline and online identities are blurred, and where personal experiences are often commodified and exploited. It raises important questions about the role of technology in shaping women's lives and the ways in which they can use it to their advantage.

Through the experiences of the protagonist, Girl Online offers a powerful critique of the societal pressures and expectations that women face in the digital realm. It highlights the ways in which women are often portrayed as objects and commodities, and the ways in which they are forced to conform to narrow beauty standards and gender roles.

At the same time, the book also celebrates the resilience and creativity of women in the face of these challenges. It showcases the ways in which they use social media and other online platforms to express themselves, connect with others, and build communities of support.

Girl Online is a thought-provoking and timely book that will appeal to anyone who has ever been online, whether as a user or a creator. It offers a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities of being a woman in the digital age and provides valuable insights into the ways in which we can create a more inclusive and equitable online world.

Dimension: 198 x 129 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781839765353