Tube Girl and Pierre Bourdieu; Evolving Social Capital in the Digital Age
Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist who studied the dynamics of power within society, creating a framework for understanding culture: how it is created, perpetuated and controlled. Bourdieu argued power and value were not exclusively drawn from, exchanged or accrued by financial means. Putting forward the concept of social capital, Bourdieu argued; that in the same way money holds power and value, so does social position and status. As access to economic capital is affected by class, gender and race, the same rules apply to social capital, giving an advantage to those who are not hindered by a form of oppression. For example, a wealthy, affluent family will have equally affluent connections, more access to a legacy of opportunities and wealth expansion (hello nepo babies). It’s a meticulously constructed hoarding of resources. Bourdieu’s work provides a structure for discussions around a new form of capital: digital social capital. If you are active on social media, you have already begun exchanging and accruing this new, potent form of currency.
Digital social capital adapts the basic idea of social capital for the online world, swapping the potential value found in relationships for the digital value of likes, comments and follows. Whether we have realised it or not, digital social capital can rival or surpass the value of monetary and social capital, with online success giving the user access to a culmination of things usually out of reach. From relative obscurity, a successful online creator can skyrocket in popularity, gaining economic wealth, access to powerful people, large corporate brands and even government officials (why did Addison Rae meet Donald Trump again?).
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
The Tube Girl trend is a textbook example of this trajectory, as creator Sabrina Bahsoon, within a few weeks of going viral, was catapulted into fame and fashion week. Whilst on the tube, Sabrina lip-syncs and dances to music enthusiastically, whipping her phone around as carefree as can be. As other creators piled onto the trend in their thousands, so did big corporations. With lightning speed, Hugo Boss, MAC Cosmetics, Valentino and music artists like Troye Sivan collaborated with Tube Girl or invited her to walk at fashion week, putting aside months of event preparation to make way for the newest It-Girl. Thanks to the algorithm, creators at the top of the trend cycle can demolish the old barriers of class, gender and race, and gain access to the most gatekept, elite areas of society. Or can they?
“What further separates digital social capital from its traditional counterpart, is the lengths we will go to to attain it. Online spaces give a false sense of democracy; an even playing field not at all governed by bias and insidious marketing.”
Digital social capital can easily be mistaken as revolutionary; but in reality, it constructs its own set of barriers that don’t stray too far from Bourdieu’s original ideas. Since there has been no rebalancing of power at the top of our institutions, as technology evolves, these biases will be built in, manifesting in new ways. The visual nature of social media mixed with the biases of mass audiences and algorithms, ensures creators who adhere to global beauty standards - possessing proximity to whiteness and thinness - usually rise to the top. Creators ascending to Charli D’Amelio levels of stardom do not often stray too far from Eurocentric beauty norms.
What further separates digital social capital from its traditional counterpart, is the lengths we will go to to attain it. Online spaces give a false sense of democracy; an even playing field not at all governed by bias and insidious marketing. We see the rewards to be gained from an online presence and the barriers are not as glaring as traditional obstacles to social mobility, so of course we engage with it. The Tube Girl’s unwavering confidence immediately gained online traction, partially due to the shock factor of dancing somewhere as purpose-built and unsexy as the tube. When using public transport, you enter a mutual code of silence and stillness with your fellow passengers, as everyone simply waits in silence being carried from A to B. So to take up space, be vulnerable and undergo public embarrassment - completely disrupting the agreed social norms of the space - was an endeavour users either loved and admired or absolutely hated.
Inspired by Sabrina’s confidence, thousands of users have participated in the Tube Girl trend, undergoing the inevitable public embarrassment from breaking social norms in favour of obtaining digital social capital. B.T. (Before TikTok), versions of this behaviour have long been documented through pages like @influencersinthewild, cataloguing ‘cringe’ BTS recordings of people creating content in open, public spaces. Whether you disagree with the creation of content in public spaces, find it empowering or are indifferent to it is beside the point, the process of putting ourselves online in this way represents a shift in cultural norms. TikTok’s ability to catapult creators into the limelight is encouraging us to be more focused on how we are perceived online rather than IRL. As a repercussion, normative, public behaviour is fraying at the seams. Whilst the Tube Girl trend is an extreme example, we engage in this behaviour maybe more than we wish to admit, as the rise of candids, photo dumps or outdoor outfit videos sees us manufacture moments of authenticity, alone or with friends but always in the presence of a camera, conveying a carefully constructed image of coolness online.
This willingness to seek digital social capital is maybe our last attempt at clawing back some semblance of power, however, in reality, digital spaces are rigged by self-interested corporate entities, much like the real world. The constant pursuit of digital social capital and extracting value from our online self is costing us presence in life, as we attempt to win a lottery based on ‘pretty privilege’, that most of society is destined to lose. There is even an inherent privilege to being able to participate in these trends in public, disrupting social norms for fun, as those with marginalised status must assimilate, making themselves small and unnoticeable to avoid unwarranted abuse. Making the point to eschew societal norms in favour of prioritising digital success, the implied credence given to seeing our online presence as more important or worthwhile than existing within a community is worrisome. We must return back to Bourdieu’s key idea that our relationships hold value and ask ourselves what is more important; creating and maintaining lasting, nurturing relationships that exist offline, or perfecting an online image at the cost of eroding our humanity.
Words: Emma Quin
