DEN PERFEKTA FEMININITETEN. En multimodal kritisk diskursanalys över hur femininitet uttrycks i TikTok-trenden ”Soft Girl”

Abstract

TikTok is a popular social media platform that mostly consists of shorter videos, but also pictures. Trends, or that something is trending has become a big part of the content on TikTok. One type of trend that often goes viral is trends that revolve around femininities, and often include the word "Girl." What these trends have in common is that they construct femininities in often similar and stereotypical ways. In 2024, the "Soft Girl" trend spread widely on TikTok, and was also discussed in media globally. The definition of Soft Girl looks a little different. It started as a rebellion by African women who wanted to resist the harsh pressure and expectations they had faced for a more softer lifestyle. Then a more Western take on the trend was adopted, moving more towards traditional gender roles, renouncing professional life and affirming soft values such as beauty and family life. It is the Soft Girl trend that this study examines. The purpose of the study has been to investigate how femininity is expressed in the popular TikTok trend "Soft Girl". This was investigated with two theoretical frameworks: critical discourse analysis as theory together with a postfeminist perspective and its idea of the perfect. Based on these, together with background and previous research, the study's three questions were formulated: Q1: Through what activities and characteristics is femininity expressed in the Soft Girl trend? Q2: How do you relate to self-regulation and self-discipline in the Soft Girl trend? Q3: In what way is the perfect expressed in the Soft Girl trend? The study has a qualitative methodological approach where the analysis was done in two steps. To answer Q1 a strategic selection of 100 TikTok videos was carried out, which was then applied by a thematic analysis to get an overview of the activities and characteristics through which femininity was expressed in the trend. Based on the categories that the thematic analysis resulted in, five videos were selected for a more in-depth analysis of the content, which constituted the material for the second stage of the analysis. In this step, the method of multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) was applied, and aimed to answer Q2 and Q3. The thematic analysis resulted in activities and characteristics that revolved around taking care of something or oneself, consumption, pink and light values, and a banishment of masculinity. This resulted in the categories Care of the outer, care of the inner and care of the home. For MCDA, two videos were selected from The Outer and The Inner and one video from The Home. The result for the Q2 showed that the users in the videos relate to a number of different self-disciplines and self-regulation over the self and the body in order to reach and maintain the right and perfect femininity. Also, in their presentation of themselves. The result for Q3 was expressed partly in the activities the women in the videos performed, such as the pursuit of a perfect home and a perfect femininity for the trend. But it was also expressed in the very aesthetics of the trend and what seems to be part of being a Soft Girl, to possess a perfect aesthetic and lifestyle. In the Soft Girl trend, femininity is expressed through activities and characteristics that are typically female-coded, where the pursuit of perfection is a constant process and normalized. Based on the multimodal critical discourse analysis, it is possible to see that the discourse of a perfect femininity is reproduced in the Soft Girl trend, without further resistance.