Abstract
DopamineDécor is a popular digital trend that rejects prescribed aesthetics to, instead, emphasize individual tastes and prioritize pleasure. This aesthetic, whereby collecting and curating eclectic objects to foster ambiences of joy, nostalgia, and other positive affects in the homespace is greatly assisted by, and present in, digital publics. Dopamine Décor—encompassing home design as well as social media content and engagement—is not just a passing trend, but a popular international phenomenon that significantly influences the creation and consumption of media and goods and reflects cultural attitudes towards visuality, space, and aesthetics. It also serves as an illustrative case of blended paradigms whereby mental health and disability are understood through both a medical/neuroscientific lens (of dopamine deficiency) and a cultural lens (built environment). Drawing from interdisciplinary fields such as communication and media studies and critical, feminist, queer, (ie. crip) theory and methodology, our analysis treats #DopamineDécor as a rich case study for understanding how people envision and craft more survivable words through use of (digital) aesthetic practices including self-fashioning, homemaking, media consumption, and personal media production. We forward a rhetorical understanding of #DopamineDécor, examining its agencies, exigencies, audiences, characteristics, ethical nuances, and effects. The digital aesthetic functions as a tool for identity-fashioning, community-building, world-making, care, and well-being, especially used among crip, queer, and neurodivergent people participating. Altogether, this presentation elucidates Dopamine Décor’s complex rhetoricities and potentialities as a mode for interpellating, styling, and sustaining critical (affective) publics.
Presenters
Talia KibseyPh.D. Student, Communication Arts and Sciences; Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, United States Cora Butcher Spellman
PhD Candidate, Communication Arts and Science;, Penn State University , Pennsylvania, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Queer Crip Rhetoric, Social Media, Digital Publics, Aesthetics, Affect, Neurodiversity
