Description

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On Instagram, the private work of mothering has been turned into a public performance that's generating billions of dollars, and the message is simple: we're all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful experience of motherhood. Momfluenced examines the performance of motherhood, producers of it and consumers of it, through the multilayered phenomenon of the mommy influencer. Sara Petersen tackles the complexities of modern motherhood. Drawing on personal experience, interviews with prominent momfluencers, literature, pop culture, and discussions with experts (psychologists, linguists, sociologists, technologists) to construct a wide-ranging exploration of maternal glorification and self-erasure. For fans of Lyz Lenz's searing critique in Belabored of how we treat mothers in this country and of Jia Tolentino's decoding of social media in Trick Mirror, Momfluenced argues that mommy influencer culture has fundamentally changed modern motherhood by transforming it into a vehicle for consumption. More than an investigation into filters or a critique of monetized identity performances, Momfluenced considers what it means to define motherhood for ourselves when society is determined to define motherhood for us.