Showing progress. Defining self-tracking as an aesthetic audio-visual genre

This article analyses videos of men talking about and documenting their lack and growth of hair via Finasteride and Minoxidil. We explore these male self-representational videos on YouTube as a specific form of self-tracking enabled by the camera within a specific platformed environment. We argue th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inConjunctions Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 1 - 16
Main Authors Raun, Tobias, Petersen, Michael Nebeling
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Sciendo 01.06.2022
Subjects
audio-visual genre
biomedicalization
self-representation
self-tracking
YouTube
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Summary:This article analyses videos of men talking about and documenting their lack and growth of hair via Finasteride and Minoxidil. We explore these male self-representational videos on YouTube as a specific form of self-tracking enabled by the camera within a specific platformed environment. We argue that the camera is not solely a tool, but rather an aesthetic practice with performative effects. In other words, self-tracking must be understood as always already entangled in and inseparable from mediating and aesthetic processes. The article then outlines the main characteristics of self-tracking videos as a self-representational audio-visual genre, defining them as momental videos and longitudinal videos. It is our claim that these defining characteristics constitute the central aesthetic principles of Finasteride and Minoxidil self-tracking videos, but that they are also applicable to other forms of videos preoccupied with representing and tracking transformation.
ISSN:2246-3755
2246-3755
DOI:10.2478/tjcp-2022-0004