‘Monetising vulnerability: An exploration of Instagram’s niche-memes and digital patronage’

2020

There exists a specific category of meme art on “post-internet” (Connor 2017, Olson 2018) Instagram, which is inextricably referential, absurdist and vulnerable. I define this category as “the niche-meme”. Niche-memes are a set of memes that seek to alienate Instagram’s mainstream, viral-meme consuming audience through grotesque aesthetics and an uncompromising presentation of emotional vulnerability. There is an intentional, self-confessed ‘ugliness’ associated with niche memes and I suggest that this is in part a response to traditional, consumerist media.While alienating said audience, these niche-memes foster a tight-knit and entangled community of creators and consumers on Instagram. Many of these niche-meme creators and consumers have also become meme-patrons. Both patrons and creators use the crowdfunding membership platform Patreon, on which creators provide content to their audience in exchange for a monthly subscription fee. The content that niche-meme creators provide on Patreon can take on many forms, but is always of an emotionally vulnerable nature. Some examples are: personal diary entries, poetry, access to a private Discord chatroom, access to the creator’s “close friends” list on Instagram, a “shout-out” from the creator on an Instagram post and so on.This monetisation of vulnerability and personal proximity on Patreon brings up various discussions which I will address in my presentation. I will firstly focus on the commercial potential of vulnerable “post-internet” art. After which I will examine how niche-memes occupy a politically tense position in relation to commercialised, consumerist media.