Commodifying Mindfulness

The Relationship between Identity Performance and

Entrepreneurship through the Lenses of Yoga on Instagram

Annika Heinemeyer

Master Thesis

Master of Arts (MA) in New Media and Digital Culture

Supervisor: Tim Highfield

Second Reader: Jan Simons

June 28, 2019

Abstract

This thesis provides an insight into how the social media platform

Instagram is used by yoga entrepreneurs for self-promotion and

business pursuits. Set within frameworks of identity performance

online, digital entrepreneurship, Instagram’s development into a

business platform as well as the contemporary growing market with

yoga and mindfulness, this study aims to outline the posting behaviour

of yoga entrepreneurs on Instagram in relation to monetization

strategies. To do so, the most recent 20 posts by ten established yoga

Instagram entrepreneurs and their Instagram stories over a period of

three days were studied through a visual and textual content analysis.

The study concludes that yoga entrepreneurs use Instagram as a tool

for personalized and ‘authentic’ promotion, first and foremost by

presenting yoga as initial step to a desirable, healthy and ‘cool’ lifestyle,

which is seamlessly contextualized with the promotion of commercial

yoga products and services.

Keywords:

Instagram, yoga, identity performance, digital entrepreneurship

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 5

1.1. The Mediation of Yoga in Western Societies .......................................................... 5

1. 2. The Role of Social Media ......................................................................................... 7

1. 3. Research Question .................................................................................................. 8

1. 4. Research Structure.................................................................................................. 9

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ..................................................................... 11

2.1. Performing Identity ................................................................................................. 11

2.1.1. Impression Management .................................................................................... 11

2.1.2. Selective-Self Presentation ................................................................................ 12

2.1.3. Identity Performance through Lifestyle Choices ................................................. 14

2.2. Studying Instagram ................................................................................................ 16

2.2.1. Mediating the Self on Instagram ......................................................................... 16

2.2.2. Instagram’s Aesthetics in the Change of Time ................................................... 19

2.3.” The Brand called You”: Digital Entrepreneurship on Instagram ...................... 21

2.3.1. Influencer Marketing ........................................................................................... 21

2.3.3. Entrepreneurship on the Spiritual Marketplace ................................................... 25

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 28

3.1. Selecting accounts ................................................................................................. 28

3.2. Chosen accounts .................................................................................................... 29

3.3. Post Analysis .......................................................................................................... 32

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS ..................................................................................................... 36

4.1. First impressions: username, profile picture and bio .......................................... 36

4.2.1. The Presentation of Yoga ................................................................................... 38

4.2.2. Identity Performance .......................................................................................... 41

4.2.3. Business purposes ............................................................................................. 43

4.2.4. The Presentation of Authenticity ......................................................................... 45

4.2.5. From Posts to Stories ......................................................................................... 47

4.2. Story analysis ......................................................................................................... 47

4.3.1. The Presentation of Yoga ................................................................................... 49

4.3.2. Identity performance .......................................................................................... 50

4.3.3. Business purposes ............................................................................................. 52

4.3.4. The Presentation of Authenticity ......................................................................... 55

4.3.5. To summarize .................................................................................................... 56

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ................................................................................................ 58

5.1. Identity Performance through Lifestyle Choices .................................................. 58

5.3. The Commodification of Yoga as “New Age Spirituality” and Wellness Product

........................................................................................................................................ 64

5.4. The Role of Instagram ............................................................................................ 65

5.5. Limitations and Further Research ......................................................................... 68

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 70

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 72

APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................... 85

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. The Mediation of Yoga in Western Societies

In closer examination of the contemporary Western media culture, Zen Buddhism scholar

Jørn Borup describes a striking omnipresence of Buddhist images, especially in lifestyle

and health centred contexts: “Buddha is cool and chic in the West, and as a popular brand

has moved from temple to market” (41). Even though ancient Eastern Hindu and Buddhist

practices and ideas such as yoga or meditation can be rooted back several thousands of

years, recent evidence has shown renewed interest of the public in meditative activities,

with the goal of becoming happier, healthier and more mindful (Sun et al. 378; Mathews

et al.; Manns). The amount of people practicing yoga increased from 9.5% in 2012 to

14.3% in 2017, while at the same time the practice of meditation even increased more

than threefold, from 4.1% to 14.2 (Manns). Equally, terms like ‘karma’ or ‘zen’ have

become appealing signifiers of happiness and overall well-being (Borup 48). According to

Jon Kabat-Zinn, dubbed the professor and “godfather of modern mindfulness” (Booth),

mindfulness originally describes a “moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness,

cultivated by paying attention in a specific way, that is, in the present moment, and as non-

reactively, as non-judgmentally, and as openheartedly as possible” (1). Mindfulness has

been described as a self-help tool for “spiritual self-development” (Borup 49) and guiding

concept for people with the desire to slow down and to subvert pressures, stress and

obligations attached to work and other social requests (Melissa Gregg; Raphael). Modern

working conditions such as flexible contracts and working hours as well as constantly

being tied to computers and smartphones has not only led to various mental and physical

health problems but also the increased desire to reverse these impacts (Zambarakji).

Paradoxically, mindfulness has been adapted to media contexts and can be accessed in

various forms, through technologies such as meditation apps, sleeping trackers or other

devices or technologies serving to quantify or improve people’s mindfulness. Likewise,

with the publication of a whole range of articles and guideline books about how to dive into

the Buddhist mindset easily - for example Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness

in Everyday Life or Buddhism: A Beginner’s Guide - ideas about mindfulness and

enlightenment have become to be advertised as an easily adaptable mindset for the

masses on a market where “spirituality is for sale” (Borup 41).

An article by the Guardian in 2015 argued that mindfulness has been recognized

and used as a profitable business idea and commodity to be bought and sold on the free

market, particularly driven by people who are becoming “professionally mindful”

(Sherwood). Since the publication of this article, the market around health, mindfulness

and wellness has not only developed remarkably, but has also shown up yoga as one of

the most established and popular drives within this market (Manns; Mathews et al.).

Leading yoga practitioners from India brought yoga into the Western world and shifted the

focus from the traditional physical-spiritual connection to a more body-centred practice

and thus, marketed the yoga lifestyle in association with modern ideas of wellness and

beauty ideals (White 2; Mathews et al.; Jain 76). In that sense, critical voices describe this

commodification of Eastern spirituality as cultural appropriation1 in which yoga has been

reduced to a fetishization for beauty and physical fitness, especially for wealthy white

women (Boll 31). This however does not seem to detract from the appeal yoga has

nowadays and research by the Global Wellness Institute has shown that “all the yoga

classes, meditation retreats, spas, aromatherapy oils, quartz crystals, juice cleanses, and

other wellness-focused practices” have contributed to turning the global market with

wellness into a USD$ 3.7 trillion industry in 2015 and even USD$ 4.2 trillion in 2017

(O’Leary and Velasco; Raphael). Consequently, countless yoga studios with lessons

starting from US$15 as well as yoga-related magazines and clothing brands have sprouted

from the ground. Gyms have adapted yoga into their programmes by naming it ‘Power

Yoga’ and highlighting its impacts on physical fitness and appearance. Travel agencies

contribute to the flourishing market with yoga and wellness by advertising yoga retreats in

exotic environments. Yoga institutions and studios in India but also the rest of the world

have specialized in offering ‘Yoga Teacher Trainings’ that certificate participants as

professional teachers within about 21 days by the costs of average US$3000. That is to

say, yoga has become a “pop culture phenomenon” within Western societies (Jain 20) and

a fashionable lifestyle concept and image of a contemporary zeitgeist in which investments

in one’s wellbeing and mindfulness are highly valued and ancient Eastern practices are

sold as signifiers for a healthy, socially desirable and ‘cool’ lifestyle (Borup 41; White 1;

Jain 3; Lewis 538; Raphael; Manns).

1 Cultural appropriation is understood as the adoption and usage of a culture’s specific symbols,

rituals, artefacts, genres or technologies by other cultures. While this process has been described as inescapable in terms of any form of cultural contacts, it usually refers to the the assimilation and exploitation of marginalized cults or is involved in the assimilation and exploitation of subordinate cultures in contrast to dominant cultures, mostly visible in East versus West discourses (Rogers 474).

1. 2. The Role of Social Media

In her work on the adaption of yoga to Western cultures, Birgid N. Boll has defined the

presence of yoga brands and entrepreneurs on social media as a driving force on the global

market with yoga and wellness (36). Yoga teachers share their classes on video platforms

such as YouTube, write their own blogs or create Facebook groups to engage with a yoga-

interested community. Popular examples are Mady Morrison, who became one of the most

well-known in Germany through her social media appearance and created the Facebook

group #yogamitmady - Yoga Community with more than 10 thousand members or Adriene

Mishler, a 33-year-old yogi from the US who has more than 4 million subscribers to her

YouTube channel Yoga with Adriene. Mishler’s annual earning through her online yoga

business is estimated to be more than USD$360,000 solely through sponsorship deals with

companies like Adidas (Bramley). Consequently, these examples illustrate once again what a

profitable phenomenon yoga is on the general market and further explains striking individual

aspirations to establish yoga as a business through social media and especially through the

photo-sharing platform Instagram.

Shortly after its launch in October 2010, Instagram became one of the most popular

social media platforms, particularly through allowing users in contrast to more structured social

media sites such as Facebook to communicate predominantly through images which they can

easily make “visually interesting and appealing” (Manovich 40) through filters and in-app

editing options (Manovich 11; Boll 37; DeMers). According to Instagram’s co-founder Kevin

Systrom the original purpose of Instagram was to create a form of a visual diary, a space

where users can capture and share immediate impressions and moments of everyday life:

“We do not offer the ability to upload from the web as Instagram is about producing photos on

the go, in the real world, in realtime.” (Manovich 12). Instagram is potentially open for

everyone, from professional content producers, brands, celebrities and ordinary users alike

and aims to provide a space for people where they can “connect with their interests and

passions” ("About Us Instagram"). In that sense, Boll explains that Instagram became not only

popular for the basic documentation of one’s individual yoga journey and progress, but also a

place for a world-wide yoga community to emerge and has led to the formation of multiple

yoga accounts with up to at least one hundred thousand followers (41). As an illustration, the

hashtag ‘#yoga’ on Instagram reveals more than 68 million tagged posts up to June 2019.

Related hashtags are for example ‘#yogi’ (12.4m posts), ‘#yogachallenge” (7m posts) or

“#yogainspiration” (8.2m posts) that are used dominantly by people sharing yoga content on

Instagram and thus contribute to the high popularity and media presence of yoga.

After Instagram was bought by Facebook in 2012, features were added to the platform

that turned it into a powerful marketing and advertising tool used by business holders,

celebrities and private users alike. Not only got businesses the opportunity to connect

Instagram posts directly with external websites and social networks, but also to “have a dialog

with their customers” (Manovich 134). Instagram’s marketing possibilities are especially based

on the mechanism to strategically merge sensations of “intimacy, access and authenticity with

promotion and branding” (Toffoletti and Thorpe 301). Studies on the Instagram performances

of fashion bloggers (Duffy and Hund), celebrities (Marwick and boyd) or athletes (Toffoletti

and Thorpe) have shown that the way users present themselves on Instagram is driven by

feedback and reputation they get by other users, which is measured through metrics as for

example likes and follower counts. The higher the metrics, the higher the influence and thus,

their potential financial successful. This way, Instagram makes it possible for people to gain

attention and popularity without having to be featured through traditional mass media, and

allows potentially every topic to thrive and enables new entrepreneurial opportunities for the

broad mass of its users (Boll 39). Consequently, Instagram proves to be an ideal marketing

opportunity for yoga entrepreneurs to build up brands and businesses, to make them

accessible for a large customer base and thus, to contribute to the striking popularity of yoga-

related products and services experience on the global wellness market.

1. 3. Research Question

Having discussed the emerging role of mindfulness and wellness today, a certain contradiction

remains to be striking: If mindfulness means to subvert influences of the fast-paced work

cultures and norms, how is it commodified and promoted through social media? Apart from

considering notions about cultural appropriation of yoga in Western social media contexts, this

argumentation indicates specific identity performances yoga entrepreneurs perform on

Instagram that are profit-oriented while maintaining the spiritual and mindful associations of

yoga. As previously discussed, the image of yoga in the contemporary media culture is

dominantly based on associations with desirable ideas about lifestyle and physical

appearance and has “become a commodity to be bought and sold as a mode of constructing

identity” (Boll 30). This study will examine strategies behind this phenomenon more closely

and will explain how yoga is specifically commodified through Instagram, how yoga

entrepreneurs present themselves on Instagram and where the relationship between identity

performance on Instagram and successful entrepreneurship lies.

After having been aware of yoga for several years, I noticed that yoga has become

more and more present, not only on Instagram also in the general society. Taken that the rise

of wellness professionals or “spiritual entrepreneurs” has found to be a constantly growing and

- perhaps increasingly - normalized phenomenon on social media (Gregory 211), the

overarching question of this research is: How do yoga entrepreneurs perform their identity

on Instagram and how does this interrelate with successful entrepreneurship? More

precisely, what kind of visual and textual content is shared on the platform specifically and

how is Instagram used for entrepreneurial pursuits?

Previous studies have focussed extensively on the medial representation of yoga in

contemporary Western societies, as for example regarding its shift from an once male-

dominated practice to an almost exclusively female one (Boll 27) and its exclusively

presentation through beauty ideals (Cowans). The contribution of this study will be to take the

impacts social media had on modern work cultures into consideration. Through the lenses of

yoga, this research will investigate on how Instagram can be utilized for digital

entrepreneurship. Furthermore, while previous research has been done on identity

performance based on Instagram’s image feed, the more recent feature Instagram stories that

has only been added to Instagram in 2016 has not been researched as extensively yet.

Consequently, this research is an ideal opportunity to investigate on how stories are used for

self-presentation and entrepreneurial purposes - both for communication and self-presentation

as well as in contrast to Instagram’s original image feed.

1. 4. Research Structure

In order to investigate into the identity performance of yoga entrepreneurs on Instagram,

this research is based on a theoretical framework consisting of relevant theoretical

concepts regarding identity performance. Therefore, I will outline how identity performance

has been studied for self-presentation and identity performance in everyday life situations,

predominantly based on theories by Erving Goffman (1959) and Anthony Giddens (1991).

The key argument of Goffman’s theory is that people can manage and navigate the

impressions they have on other people in everyday life situations. This concept has been

widely applied to social media contexts and based on that I will outline more specifically

how users present themselves on Instagram. By reflecting on yoga as an alternative

lifestyle I will discuss that especially the presentation of lifestyle choices functions as main

identifier for one’s online identity. Following this, the next part of my theoretical framework

will address how Instagram has emerged as an increasing platform for marketing and

business opportunities. To connect the theoretical foundation of this study with the

aforementioned research interest, Instagram’s affordances and possibilities for identity

performance and entrepreneurship will be addressed in order to specify Instagram as an

object of study. Therefore, the final part of the theoretical framework will discuss the role

of identity performance on Instagram for self-promotion and self-branding pursuits and in

which ways these performances facilitate digital entrepreneurship.

Based on that, this research sets out to explore how Instagram is used by yoga

entrepreneurs for monetization pursuits, first and foremost by analysing the shared content

by ten yoga entrepreneur accounts and the way they use Instagram’s affordances for self-

presentation and self-promotion. Therefore, methods for a comprehensive content

analysis on posts and stories will be set up. Finally, the last two chapters of this research

portray and discuss the outcomes of the analysis and their meanings in relation to the

research questions and draw a conclusion to provide a base for potential further studies.

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

To set up the theoretical framework for this study I discuss how theories on identity

performance have been adapted to new media contexts. This will show that in offline and

online environments alike, individual identity performances are driven by ‘selective self-

presentations’, particularly in the presentation of lifestyle and social ideals. In a second step,

I examine how identity performances determine popularity and monetization on Instagram.

Therefore, I discuss how self-branding strategies can be employed for influencer marketing

and digital entrepreneurship or, in this specific case, yoga entrepreneurship on Instagram.

2.1. Performing Identity

Identity is commonly defined as “the distinguishing character or personality of an individual”

(Merriam-Webster “Identity”). However, based on implementations by gender scholar and

philosopher Judith Butler, instead of being a static, one’s identity is rather performatively

constituted and might be different depending on the way people decide to present themselves

to others in different social contexts and conditions (21). Presenting predominantly idealized

impressions of oneself has found to be a ubiquitous practice, especially on social media

(Deeb-Swihart et al. 42). Consequently, a comprehensive understanding of identity

performance in online as well as in offline environments provides a foundation to investigate

further on entrepreneurship on Instagram.

2.1.1. Impression Management

One of the earliest and mostly referenced work on identity is The Presentation of Self in

Everyday Life by the Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman published in 1959. Self-

presentation according to Goffman basically describes how individuals perform and negotiate

their identities and how they present themselves to others in a social setting with focus on how

they want to be perceived by others (10). In that sense, a performance includes all the activities

by one person serving to influence their perception by others (Goffman 8). Consequently, with

“impression management”, Goffman refers to a performance of self that is achieved by giving

presentational cues about one’s identity (Goffman 14). Stating that generally in everyday life,

first impressions are predominantly goal-driven, Goffman implements that people tend to

consider their performances for self-presentation carefully, balancing out individual goals and

the self that they perceive the audience to desire (Goffman 5; Reichard Smith and Sanderson

343). With the dramaturgical metaphors of ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ performances,

Goffman describes that an overall impression of the self emerges through negotiating one’s

performances between these two positions. While front stage performances describe a

person’s conscious performances in front of an audience (Goffman 13), back stage

performances are those characteristics and actions that people commonly want to remain

hidden and not judged by the audience (Goffman 69).

As a core aspect of his theory Goffman states that a person’s presentation of self

consists of what they explicitly and deliberately give and give off, the former meaning the cues

an individual actively communicates and gives to the audience, while the latter refers to cues

that tend to be perceived by the audience unintendedly (Goffman 113; boyd 168; Bullingham

and Vasconcelos 101). Eventually, the theoretical approach of impression management

describing people's intention to present idealized presentation of themselves to an audience,

will play an important role in the further course of this study.

2.1.2. Selective-Self Presentation

Scholars relying on Goffman’s theory of impression management indicate particularly that

photography has become essential for self-presentation and emerged to be an important tool

to communicate with peers (Van Dijck “Digital Photography” 60; Djafarova and Trofimenko 3).

While Susan Sontag states that “what photography supplies is not only a record of the past

but a new way of dealing with the present” (130), José van Dijck builds on this by arguing that

photography experienced a shift from being an instrument for sharing memories to being an

instrument for communication and for capturing and sharing present moments and

experiences immediately (“Digital Photography” 63). While photography was initially

considered as a practice and hobby preserved for wealthy people and professionals, it was

made available among all classes with the development of technology (Mirzoeff 72). In line

with Goffman’s implementations on self-presentation in everyday face-to-face situations,

photographs became simultaneously the stage and documentation of one’s identity with the

camera function as tool for affirmation (Nir 17). Taken that smartphones have become

ubiquitous in people's everyday life, the integration of a camera into these devices have placed

photography to a new level of attention and shifted the practice of photography from

professions or hobbies to insertions of everyday lives and experiences (van Dijck “Digital

Photography” 65). Consequently, digital photography and smartphones with a camera function

allows people more control over their self-presentation by facilitating extensive possibilities for

selection and idealization processes, initially simply by providing extended storage spaces

and capturing possibilities (Leaver et al. 2; Caldeira 143).

With the general digitization of communication, sharing photographs has become the

most efficient way to express and communicate oneself which established sharing images

online as natural default mechanism on social media sites (van Dijck 68). In that sense, Katrin

Tiidenberg and Edgar Gomez Cruz argue that regarding the dominance of online interaction,

images have become a crucial determiner of how we make sense of everyday practices and

experiences and “shape our world” (79). By referring to identity performance and impression

management, scholars ascribe the advent of social media extensive capabilities to manage

and control their identity performances (Goffman; Marom 12; Reichard Smith and Sanderson

344). Just like in offline environments, similar strategies to present idealized images of the self

could be observed in the ways in which individuals share images of themselves on social

media (Djafarova and Trofimenko 2; Baker and Walsh 4555; Caldeira 155).

According to the social philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, photographs have always been

marketed by aesthetic value, given that in its origins, photography was dominantly used as a

tool to portray and celebrate the good aspects of life (qtd. in Verdina 12). Consequently, image-

based social networking sites offer users a whole range of possibilities for idealized and

selective self-presentations, especially regarding to an attractive presentation of the body

(Tiggemann and Zaccardo 1010). Based on that, Sophie P. Caldeira argues that users

consciously tend to create images that aim to be conform with common aesthetic ideals in

order to get more likes and appraisal (155). In a similar vein, Kirsty Young points out that all

features and affordances provided by social media platforms including imageries, texts and

audio serve users to perform their identities based on purposefully selected intentions (3).

These implication match Joseph B. Walther’s theory of a “selective self-presentation”,

describing users’ intention to present themselves in the best light possible which sheds light

on their motivation for particular posting performances on social media (Walther 2540).

Exhaustive research on self-presentation and identity performances on social media

has found that identity performances are to a great extent driven by feelings of social

acceptance and affiliation and that users tend to alter their performances depending on how

they intend to be received by others and the feedback they desire to get (Marwick and boyd

“I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately” 124; boyd 119; Young 4; Farquhar 468). For

example, Baker and Walsh described that users producing healthy eating related content on

Instagram, predominantly publish pictures of their bodies together with compatible hashtags,

being aware that these images are likely to get more measurable approval and reputation

(4555-4559). Similarly, Young differentiates between a “real” and an “ideal” self, in which the

ideal self would be one’s self-presentation in the best light possible (4).

Based on Goffman’s idea of front- and back stage performances, Alice Marwick and

danah boyd describe that users adjust their identity performances to an “imagined audience”

(“I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately” 115). While unmediated environments presuppose

the immediate presence of individuals through spatial and temporal constraints, the audience

on social media is less specific and theoretically limitless (boyd 121; Marwick and boyd “I

Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately” 115). By taking cues from the respective social media

environment, users tend to conceptualize their audience and adjust components comprising

one’s online identity, such as style or language (Marwick and boyd “I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet

Passionately” 115). Regarding the commodification of yoga in Western cultures, Jain has

found that yoga entrepreneurs constantly construct brands in correlation to consumer desires

and needs (79). Consequently, this research will investigate not only on how yoga

entrepreneurs present themselves on Instagram, but also on how this responds to follower

engagement and community exchange.

2.1.3. Identity Performance through Lifestyle Choices

The implementations outlined so far go in line with the work of sociologist Anthony Giddens,

who investigated on the changed nature of identity from the traditional societies up to what he

describes as “post traditional” or “late modern” societies (Giddens; Buckingham 9). Building

up on the earlier theory by Goffman, Giddens argues that a person’s appearance of self is not

predominantly dependent on external influences and relies on an self-presentation on the front

stage based on social norms and conventions, but more on people’s own choices and actions

performed in everyday life (Giddens 6). One of the key aspects of Giddens’ theory therefore

lies on the increased importance of individualism. This led to what Giddens describes as

“reflexive project of the self” meaning that identities are in general more fluid and that

individuals are able to constantly make decisions about their identity performances in order to

create biographical narratives eventually building up and sustaining consistent identities

(Giddens 75). By this, one’s outplayed identity can be flexible, changed and altered over time

but still be portrayed as a coherent image to others (Giddens 76; Buckingham 9).

One main aspect of Giddens’ implementations focuses on how individuals can perform

and narrate their identities based on what he calls “lifestyle choices” meaning that people are

not what they are but what they make out of themselves (Giddens 75). Speaking about

lifestyle, Giddens does not refer to a concept associated with economical consumerism but to

a concept consisting of a specific set of routine practices making up the material of identity

which is an inevitable and ubiquitous aspect of late modernity. More precisely, all the small

lifestyle decisions individuals have to make each day from what to eat to what to wear and the

performance of making and remaking construct biographical narratives and thus, self-

identities (Giddens 81-82). Highlighting the aspect of choice within the variety of lifestyle

options in modern times, Giddens indicate however that rather than taking a choice out of a

purely free will, all individuals necessarily perform lifestyle choices in order to create and their

identities and senses of selves (Giddens 81).

Regarding social media, several studies have shown that in order to portray desirable

self-images promising positive feedback, users must constantly portray “desirable lifestyles

and hegemonic beauty ideals” (Tiidenberg and Baym 3). In line with for example studies on

women’s display of pregnancy (Tiidenberg and Baym), clean-eating (Baker and Walsh) or

“fitspiration” (Tiggemann and Zaccardo) on social media, the role of performing lifestyle

choices on platforms like Instagram serves on the one hand as a powerful tool to perform

one’s online identity and on the other hand to situate one’s narrative within various trends and

movements within digital networks and to actively include oneself with a community of like-

minded individuals (Baker and Walsh 4565; Caldeira 155). Consequently, identity is to a large

extent achieved through consumption of material goods or services connected with lifestyle

choices (Giddens 2001 qtd. in Dittmar 12). In the case of the commodification of yoga, Jain

has found that contemporary yoga entrepreneurs market yoga detached from its original

principles, but in connection with other consumable and easier accessible lifestyle

components ranging from outplaying diet choices such as advertising clothing brands or

wellness products. Through that, they position and market yoga within wider fitness and health

related market discourses (78).

2.2. Studying Instagram

Based on the mechanisms of imageries and social media for self-presentation discussed so

far, Instagram has been described as an “increasingly popular platform for self-presentation

online” (Baker and Walsh 4553). In the following part of the theoretical framework, the concept

of affordances will be taken into consideration to examine how Instagram has evolved from an

exclusive social media platform to a business platform. Based on that, l discuss how

Instagram’s platform affordances enable specific identity performances and determine the

kind of content shared on the platform.

2.2.1. Mediating the Self on Instagram

Generally speaking, social networking sites revolve around individual users and their

interaction with the site in means of sharing content about themselves (Bakhshi et al. 966). In

that sense, Instagram provides users extensive possibilities for self-presentation as they can

literally “write themselves into being” (boyd 121) by setting up online profiles and sharing

selected personal information (Khamis et al. 196; Caldeira 142).

The theory of affordances basically describes a construct of possible actions in an

environment (Gibson 127). This concept has been adapted to different contexts, as for

example to design studies (Norman) or the connection of technology and social research

(Garvern; Wellman et al.). This research will refer to the concept of affordances by analysing

what media technologies or objects offer, provide or permit the user to do, or more precisely,

which specific preconditions Instagram provides for specific user behaviours and actions

(Bucher and Helmond 3; Gibson 127). Consequently, by using the available knowledge of

users, features of interfaces and platforms can be designed and adjusted accordingly and be

built into devices or technologies to create normative ways of engaging with a platform (Stanfill

1060). On this basis, the basic steps to create an online identity on Instagram lies in choosing

a username, setting up a profile picture and potentially a short description about oneself, a

‘bio’, at the very top of the profile. Additionally, this space allows users to place direct links to

other sources that potentially complement their online identity, as for example personal blogs

or social media platforms.

While setting up a profile counts as initial step for identity performance, sharing content

takes up the process of performing one’s online identity (Caldeira 143). Even if written captions

can be used to contextualize images, the visual culture remains to be the most significant

platform-specific feature and more powerful for self-presentation (Caldeira 141; Carah and

Shaul 3). By adding hashtags to their posts, users can influence the visibility of their images.

If users search for example for the hashtag ‘#yoga’ on Instagram they get portrayed all images

labelled with the hashtag (Baker and Walsh 6). Photographs of users or ‘selfies’ -pictures

taken by oneself of oneself- can function as a two-sided way for identity performance. While

visual strategies for aesthetic presentation, for example signalling attractiveness through

revealing outfits or making use of Instagram’s in-app editing options discussed earlier, function

as a way for seeking and ensuring attention and visibility, this “aesthetic appeal” can be further

contextualized with personal views and contents in respective captions (Leaver et al.).

Furthermore, besides performing identity through sharing images of themselves, users

may decide to perform their identity based on what has been previously described as ‘lifestyle

choices’, including images of locations or material objects, the consumption of services or

commodities and, generally speaking, every day and trivial practices and decisions (Caldeira

155). In that sense, particularly the presentation of desirable scenes such as beaches and

travelling settings has become a widely used practice on Instagram to glorify a particular

lifestyle and to portray desirable and “beautiful lives” (Leaver et al.).

Whether or not one’s performance on Instagram achieves the desired effects however

depends on the “feedback mechanism” built onto the platform which shows itself in the form

of likes and comments. While receiving a like or positive comment serves as “a quick

validation”, negative feedback or the absence of it indicates disapproval (Caldeira 153).

Consequently, this feedback mechanism allows users to adjust their identity performances

and actively influence the impressions they want to convey. The extent of all the interactions

and feedback possibilities on Instagram however depends on if one’s account is set to ‘public’

or ‘private’. While technically anyone can get access to and give feedback on posts by public

accounts, the account settings of private limits an account’s content to approved followers.

Even though Instagram is public by default, these settings allows users to some extent to

control and influence their online presentation on Instagram (Caldeira 155).

According to Tarleton Gillespie most platforms are geared towards being profitable

(348). Agreeing with that, Tania Bucher and Anne Helmond argue that the affordances of most

platforms do not only relate to end-users and their activities but also to third parties such as

developers who extend the affordances offered by the platform, and advertisers who monetize

platform activities (19). Regarding the normative nature designed on social media platforms,

the affordance approach can help to understand why, when and how social media application

change, for example in branding practices and can therefore be used to investigate

Instagram’s possibilities for monetization and entrepreneurship (Treem and Leonardi 147).

This is particularly interesting under the premise that the success of Instagram discussed in

the introduction of this thesis has found to rely predominantly on the fact that the features of

the platform have been largely expanded and adjusted over the years which eventually led up

to Instagram’s transformation into a business platform (DeMers; Leaver et al.; Manovich 17;

See Ch. 1.2).

First and foremost, the functionality of hashtags as one of Instagram’s strongest

features has been extended from merely making content visible and categorizable within the

platform by introducing the ‘explore feed’ in 2012 (Constine “Instagram’s New Explore”). Since

then, hashtags got predominantly repurposed to influence and measure hashtag reach and

thus, overall entrepreneurial success (Carah and Shaul 73). Using Instagram for business

purposes has been further increased by allowing people to connect their account with other

social media platforms and networks and by facilitating advertising through the introduction of

the ‘sponsored post tag’ (Manovich 134). By 2013, Instagram provided a video function, which

allows users at the beginning to produce 15 second videos with filters which was later

extended to 60 seconds (Strange; Constine “Instagram Launches Stories”). This function has

been extended throughout the years, not least through the introduction of IGTV in 2018, an

independent app where users can publish up to one hour long full screen videos. Even though

IGTV is a standalone app, videos can be accessed and shared within the normal Instagram

app at the same time (Systrom). Since 2017, Instagram allows users to post multiple images

or videos within one post instead of being limited to one (Leaver et al. 9).

According to Taylor Lorenz, Instagram has changed in many ways since its launch and

has shifted from being a platform for merely sharing selected and filtered images to being “a

messy, tangled social network where photos fight with stories, IGTV, GIFs and video clips for

attention” (Lorenz). In that sense, the ‘Instagram story’ feature introduced in 2016 which allows

users to post 24 hour-lasting images and videos that are portrayed openly at the very top of

one’s home feed has been one of the far-reaching innovations on the platform (“New Ways to

Interact on Instagram”). By being vertical by default Instagram stories do not only portray a

format opposed to usual posts, but also offers a range of new possibilities for user

engagement, as for example the possibility to answer directly to these stories, either with

(emotion-)stickers or comments. With favouring immediate “in the moment” experiences,

stories have broken with previous sensations of highly selected content shared on Instagram

(Lorenz; Leaver et al.). In contrast to posts, Instagram stories allow users new aesthetic

possibilities by editing pictures directly with text or similar components such as emojis and

GIFs, but also with features such as polls, countdowns or surveys. Besides that, they can

conduct approval/response sliders through featuring the heart-eyes emoji, share music, tag

people and locations and additional information as temperature or moods. Story filters, such

as ‘boomerang’ and ‘superzooms’ as well as playful elements and animations such as dog

ears or flower crowns, allow not only more playful or fun representations instead of featuring

predominately aesthetic ones, but also allows users to direct the focus of their story and thus,

the viewers’ sensations (Leaver et al.). For verified users, Instagram provides the possibility

to add a ‘swipe up’ function to their stories, which is located at the bottom of the screen and

directs users to chosen websites or blogs (Instagram).To enhance sensations of immediate

and intimate presentations, users can record ‘live-videos’ through which they can interact with

their followers in real time, who can react to the stories directly through a question sticker tag

(Leaver et al.; Instagram). Beyond that, users may choose to share stories as ‘highlights’ so

that it gets archived in a separate field above one’s image feed and can be approached at any

time until the user deletes it (“New Ways to Interact on Instagram”).

What is striking here is that, stories provide extensive possibilities for what Marwick

has described as “selective posting” meaning that users carefully consider the frequency and

amount of posting and post as “posting several times in a row is disfavored” and might “over-

saturate” their followers (“Instafame” 143). Instagram stories generally encourage users to

share more content on Instagram, including “every little thing that happened in a day” (Leaver

et al.) without having the feeling of spamming or “over-posting” (Constine; Instagram). In

addition to contrasted aesthetic realizations of stories and posts, Leaver et al. argue that

“stories become a way of posting content that was shareworthy but not perhaps deserving of

permanence on the profile”. Given the relative newness of the story function, this assumption

might be confirmed when investigating the identity performances of yoga entrepreneurs but

could also show up potential differences.

2.2.2. Instagram’s Aesthetics in the Change of Time

Following Brian McNely, Instagram’s basic platform infrastructure provides similar affordances

to other popular social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, including a reverse

chronological timeline, asymmetric follower relationships and the possibility for express

reputation through liking and commenting features (McNely). However, Manovich has

indicated significant differences of Instagram compared to other platforms: “Twitter is for news

and links exchange, Facebook is for social communication, and Flickr is for image archiving,

Instagram is for aesthetic visual communication (41). As aforementioned, Instagram’s filter

and editing options allow for highly selective self-presentations. With a view on these features,

Leaver et al. describe the development of certain aesthetic standards and styles emerged on

Instagram as well as a general aesthetic of everyday life and situations: “The visual stakes of

any image can be heightened by strategic filter use, transforming the mundane into a more

dramatic or emotional scene” (12). Initially, the newness of Instagram’s filters was widely

perceived like a default action before posting and resulted in an exhaustive use of retro- and

vintage filter. With the development of the platform from solely being a social networking site

up to be a professional commercial platform for brands and professional content producer

however, Leaver et al. argue that the initial exhaustive usage of filters has been replaced by

more professional use of editing options (12). This, according to Lorenz, resulted in a specific

“carefully staged, color-corrected, glossy-looking” style of Instagram, particularly visible in

ubiquitous, perfectly arranged and edited images of avocado toast, beaches and coffee cups

that are most exemplary for the aforementioned implementations and particularly

disseminated through Instagram influencers (Lorenz). However, Lorenz further indicates that

in line with Instagram’s general ephemerality and as “every trend has a shelf life”, a new trend

emerged on Instagram over the last year targeting to present authenticity and accessibility

over apparent aesthetic, which is often referred to as “Instagram vs. reality” (Lorenz). Within

this movement, users increasingly post apparent unstaged and unflattering pictures along with

long captions thematizing emotional or personal topics such as mental illness, which is not

uncommonly used as a new marketing strategy by amplifying perceptions of authenticity and

thus, credibility into Instagram influencers and brands (Lorenz).

Given that Instagram’s platform is constantly concerned with refreshing feeds and

providing user with new image flows, users aiming to increase one’s visibility constantly must

perform particular actions and behaviours on Instagram. In their study on Instagram’s branding

culture, Carah and Shaul have emphasized that the ephemeral nature of the platform

significantly encourages attention seeking performances that are thus, “persistently

promotional in character” (72). In a similar vein, previous studies on the presentation of yoga

on Instagram highlight the platform’s possibilities for popular yoga Instagrammers to emerge,

predominantly by constructing their identities towards aggregating maximal follower bases

(Boll 39). By evaluating aforementioned theories on exclusively idealized self-presentation on

social media (Carah and Shaul; Cowans) and more recent studies on Instagram’s changed

aesthetics (Manovich; Lorenz) as well as considering Instagram stories as more recently

introduced and less extensively studied platform feature (Leaver et al), this study will

investigate on how these more recent features have affected identity performances and the

way content is shared on Instagram. Consequently, in addition to examine on how yoga

entrepreneurs perform their identity on Instagram, this study will connect those identity

performances with entrepreneurial and monetization pursuits on a growing marketplace.

2.3.” The Brand called You”:

Digital Entrepreneurship on Instagram

The previous part of the theoretical framework has discussed Instagram’s development from

a basic social media platform into a business platform and the impacts respective changes of

the platform had on the ways Instagram is used for identity performance. The following section

bridges the gap between identity performance and digital entrepreneurship by examining self-

branding and marketing strategies and performances on Instagram. More precisely, I discuss

how these performances can be employed for digital entrepreneurship on Instagram.

2.3.1. Influencer Marketing

Instagram brought up not only new forms for online self-presentation through its specific visual

culture discussed earlier, but also a new type of user, publicly known as “influencers”

describing commonly those users with particularly many followers on social media (Djafarova

and Trofimenko 4). Following Gandini, to “influence online” describes an individual’s ability to

affect other people in their behaviour, acting and thinking through social media (86). The term

influencer emerged from the phenomenon of “lifestyle bloggers” who built up their career by

constructing “micro-celebrity personas” and harness their medial presence and blogging

activities to promote their own businesses such as for example web shops (Abidin 3). In

contrast to celebrities in traditional mass media whose popularity is widely portrayed,

influencers are commonly “famous to a niche group of people” (Marwick “Status Update” 114).

In previous studies, scholars have described specific identity performances amongst

influencers, in means of attracting and maintaining followers as well as in the way they use

their influence for commercial pursuits (Abidin; Marwick “Instafame”; Djafarova and

Trofimenko; Banet-Weiser; Erkan; Carah and Shaul). First and foremost, Instagram allowed

the influencer phenomenon to emerge by allowing users to actively accumulate followers

without requiring following back in return (Abidin 7; Marwick “Instafame” 137). This system

resembles the phenomenon called ‘para-social relationships’ which describes the illusion of

real, face-to-face friendships created for people, for example when watching television shows

or consuming music (Marwick “Instafame” 139). Through the advent of social media this

phenomenon has taken new dimensions and shifted from evoking “para-social” feelings to

evoking “potentially social” feelings through enabling new forms of social and emotional

connections (Marwick “Instafame” 139; Baym 44). These connections unfold themselves

predominantly through the opportunity to connect with people detached from spatial and

temporal constraints (Baym 1). Within these predominantly one-sided relationships, the

influential accounts make their lives accessible to their followers as a whole community without

taking the individual user into consideration, while the followers in turn respond to influencer

accounts “as if he or she were a personal acquaintance” (Marwick 139). Previous research on

the relationships between popular beauty YouTubers and their audience for example has

shown that the intimate setting of the platform creates feelings of trustworthiness, closeness

and friendship (Rasmussen 280). Consequently, evoked feelings of intimacy and identification

constitute the main characteristic of influencers and micro celebrities in comparison to

traditional celebrity media figures (Rasmussen 283; Djafarova and Trofimenko 3; Khamis et

al. 7).

Beyond that, social media enables people to ascribe themselves to online

communities, which forms a significant part of one’s online identity (Baym 38). By actively

engaging in a community on social media, one automatically gives off identity cues by

outplaying lifestyle choices, which has been described as a component of building up one’s

online identity earlier in this thesis (Baym; See Ch. 2.1.3.). On Instagram, hashtag-

communities present the most dominant form of community that allows people to identify with

a particular interest, such as fitness (Tiggemann and Zaccardo; Baker and Walsh), eating

disorders (Tiggemann et al.) or sexual identity (Herrera). In cases of Instagram influencers, a

sense of community is predominantly based on content and actions shared by the respective

influencer (Seargeant and Tagg 9). Consequently, in the case of yoga entrepreneurs on

Instagram, users interested in related values and practices would be more likely to engage in

online communities maintained by those influential accounts that in return perform their online

identity based on maintaining and enhancing their community, seeing them as potential

consumers.

As already briefly mentioned, the more followers an individual has in general, the

greater is their perceived influence on social discourses (Djafarova and Trofimenko 2; Marwick

“Status Update” 96). Social media platforms do not only provide a space for sharing textual

and visual content about one’s personal life and to mobilize and build up online communities,

but also a space for engaging in commercial practices that has been widely taken advantage

from by brands using influencers as new advertisement intermediary through strategic product

placements or electronic word-mouth advertising on a greater scale by documenting personal

experiences and recommendations (Rasmussen 280; Abidin 86; See also Toffoletti and

Thorpe 15; Manovich 112). With this practice, understood as “influencer marketing”, those

who receive larger amount of attention and influence, can assimilate “authentic personal

brands” that can be employed by companies and brands to reach consumers (Hearn and

Schoenhoff 194).

Influencer marketing became a popular marketing strategy for advertisers as

influencers are more relatable to consumers than traditional advertisements. More precisely,

influencers can function as embodied presentation of the brand and assimilate trust into the

goods they advertise, but also evoke that followers get more attached to the influencer, than

to the goods they advertise themselves (Dittmar 12; Abidin and Thompson 468). The

mechanism behind this marketing strategy is: If a specific public figure or stereotype is

associated with a brand, consumers tend to identify more with the respective brands in means

of becoming like this desired stereotype or influencer.

Jennifer M. Whitmer argues that regarding modern market conditions, the cultural

value of a brand became more about their identity than their utility. Consequently, influencer

marketing is not only about promoting brands, but about conveying ideals of wellbeing,

happiness and beauty, or, has Dittmar describes it, about “communicating lifestyle and identity

constructions” (12). As influencer marketing emerged to present paid-off business

opportunities, attaining the status as influencer became a highly existent feature of social

media use amongst users (Marwick “Status Update” 5; Van Dijk “You have one identity” 203).

Therefore, influencers engage in self-branding practices, meaning they strategically adjust

their online appearance and identity performance to build up personal brands (Marwick

“Instafame”138).

2.3.2. Self-Branding

One of the earliest notions on self-branding was articulated by Tom Peters in the publication

The Brand called You for Fast Company in 1997 invoking to create a unique and dynamic

brand in order to be outstanding at the labour market (Peters; Khamis et. al 192). In line with

that, Wee and Brooks define that in self-branding practices “the actor is expected to present

a self that is constantly working on itself, to better itself and its own relationships with others,

all the while demonstrating that its behaviours are reflections of an authentically unique

personality” (56). Similarly, Marwick defines self-branding as a form of self-presentation relying

on perceiving oneself as a consumer product and selling this image as a product to others

(166). Self-branding has been discussed predominately in social media as well as in marketing

contexts. For marketing, self-branding is according to Gandini “a device for self-promotion for

the pursuit of self-realization in a context that reifies entrepreneurialism as the main ideological

stance” (124). In social media environments, self-branding practices describe investments in

social relationships and online performances promising a potential for fame and celebrity

through attention and reputation (Gandini 124; Khamis et. al 196). These practices are not

only rewarded with personal attention affirmation by the social media audiences, but also with

economic or social benefits (Khamis et. al 196). By combining social media use with

entrepreneurial pursuits, social media users are potentially able to monetize and commodify

their identity through social media platforms (Abidin and Thompson 468).

Extensive research has found that portraying exclusively appealing and aesthetic

images is crucial within Instagram’s influencers marketing economy (Toffoletti and Thorpe 13;

Marwick “Instafame” 156). Studies retrieved for this thesis have shown that especially

individuals maintaining wellness and health related Instagram accounts perform their online

identity mainly through body representation the presentation of white, thin and aesthetic body

types, such as athletes (Smith or Sanderson) or yoga bloggers (Cowans). Other studies have

shown that this phenomenon accounts not only for female accounts, but also for male

accounts (Tiggemann and Zaccardo; Toffoletti and Thorpe). In line with that, previous research

on female cover images of established yoga print magazines has examined the visual

representations of the body as agency for the fulfilment of general ideals on the market with

wellness, health and fitness (Webb et al. 93).

According to Crystal Abidin, with Instagram’s development into a marketing platform,

especially images received high commercial value (3). In other words: Presenting certain

image styles and types became a major determinant for attention on Instagram’s image-based

ephemeral platform (Toffoletti and Thorpe 308; Carah and Shaul 72; Dobscha 103). In that

sense, according to Sarah Banet-Weiser, some bodies are for example more brandable than

other bodies, all depending on the specific audience's perception of social codes of desire and

desirable femininity (58). Interesting for this study is that previous studies have shown that

yoga today is commonly associated with physical fitness and aesthetic and resulting from this,

overall well-being, happiness and health (Jain 78; Boll 40). To bridge the gap between body

representation, yoga as a lifestyle and self-branding, Carah and Shaul’s implementation that

Instagram enables “endless loops of body work that both produce forms of calculable attention

and embed the construction of the self within market processes” comes into play (73). Given

that the phenomenon of body-centred selective self-presentation and self-branding in online

environments have been observed remarkably more frequently in female social media

practices, it has been described as “postfeminist sensibility” and linked to neoliberal values

(Gill; Duffy and Hund; Banet-Weiser “Keynote Address”; Liu and Suh). According to Michel

Foucault, the neoliberal subject constantly works on improving him or herself and calculates

invested work and profits through self-branding strategies, predominately by portraying

narratives of free choice, autonomy and individualism (226). By drawing on several studies on

contemporary social media production, Duffy and Hund argue that the ideals of individualism,

creative autonomy, authenticity and self-branding explain the narratives and forms of

gendered social media production that have emerged in the recent years (3). Despite women

tend to portray themselves in independent and feminist attitudes, they are still bound to certain

neoliberal guidelines in which for example presenting an attractive body is seen as key

sources of female identity (Liu and Suh 18; Gill 149; Fitzsimmons 8).

Taken Instagram’s public accessibility and a heightened presence of self-love and

“body positivity movements” (Cwynar-Horta 37) as well as previously discussed “Instagram

vs. reality” discourses into consideration (See Ch. 2.2.2), the aforementioned studies indicate

that despite social media providing users with the possibility to take potentially more control

over their online self-presentation, identity performances on Instagram still occur

predominantly through idealized body presentation and aesthetic and sexual attributes which

portrays normative and stereotypical gender images in both, professional as well as user-

generated content (Gurrieri & Drenten 103). Consequently, this research is interested into

potential alternative body representation of self-curated images on Instagram and its

connection to marketing purposes and monetization and will show how identity performances

and self-branding strategies are entangled on Instagram to realize entrepreneurial pursuits on

the contemporary wellness market.

2.3.3. Entrepreneurship on The Spiritual Marketplace

The rise of new media has manifested itself not only in people’s everyday life and

communication but has also been the subject of study of several scholars about the impacts

it had on work cultures (Duffy; Duffy and Hund; Drenten et al.). Facilitated through social media

a whole new archetype of new media workers emerged over the last decade who “seemingly

make a living from their passion projects” (Duffy and Wissinger 4655). In addition to influencer

practices, Instagram became a tool for individual users to openly portray and promote their

businesses or freelance work (Manovich 126). Social media platforms redefined the traditional

understanding of consumer and producer by providing users a low-cost infrastructure to create

online content and, subsequently, to visualize themselves as self-employed workers and

entrepreneurs on the platform (Drenten et al. 21; Gregory 214). Likewise, several scholars

have evaluated that the market is driven by the stance that one’s job should not seem like

work, more likely, it has to be compatible with one’s “love” and “passion”, and is this dominated

by mantras like “Do What You Love” (Duffy 442) and a highly consistently outplayed, almost

flaunted “fuck you money” attitude (Marwick “Status Update” 80).

According to Marwick, the new affordances provided by social media on the neoliberal

market have led to the stance that self-employed entrepreneurship is taking up the highest

status within the creative and new media work cultures (“Status Update” 80). In a similar vein,

Brooke Duffy and Emily Hund argue that this has led to the aspiration of a whole new class of

creative workers that perform their online identity like “creative self-enterprises” (1; Duffy 442).

By performing what Duffy terms “aspirational labour” (446) these workers invest time, energy

and resources of themselves and commit themselves fully to their work in means of being

rewarded for their work at some point, even though in percentage terms only a few individuals

eventually become successful through social media influencer or entrepreneurship activities

(Duffy 454). Consequently, the symbiosis of neoliberal market logics and social media made

it possible for individuals to transform workers into self-regulated and entrepreneurial

commodities (Gill 26; Marwick “Status Update” 167).

One of the key conditions for building up a successful self-brand has been examined

by several scholars as authenticity, a concept that is associated with the idea of presenting a

true and actual self and has gotten increasing interest in marketing and social media

discourses (Duffy and Hund 3; Khamis et al. 203; Marwick “Status Update” 17; Duffy 447;

Marom 22). Following Gregory, a huge sector on social media is taken by a “spiritual

marketplace” in which users build up authentic online personas and self-brands in the first

place by engaging actively in online conversations and by documenting ones “‘authentic’ daily

life” (214). Agreeing with that, Marwick argues that authenticity is conveyed through

consistency: “authenticity is judged over time, in that people’s authenticity is determined by

comparing their current actions against their past for consistency” (“Status Update” 120) which

aligns with earlier implementations by Goffman about an expected consistency between

appearance and manner for desired impression management (Goffman 16). Consequently,

regarding performances of Instagram influencers, authenticity refers to an individual’s motifs

and motivations, relying on their personal passions and beliefs and the portrayal of one’s

“hidden inner life” (Marwick “Status Update” 120). Aligned with that, Marom points out that the

concept of authenticity is often strongly associated with the idea of living a “meaningful life”

(Marom 22). In a similar vein, Helga Dittmar argues that in our contemporary society,

consumers can be “thought of as identity-seekers” (2). Therefore, consumers strive to invest

into goods that are linked to desired attributes of wellbeing and physical attractiveness,

embodied by those promoting those goods (Dittmar 2). This phenomenon strongly relies on

the aforementioned implementations about embodied lifestyle presentations by social media

personas and its effects on marketing pursuits and links to Sarah Banet-Weiser’s observations

of a general “spiritualization of the corporate system” in which investments in self-care are

highly valued as “buying good is being good” (“Authentic” 176).

Connecting the contemporary ideals of turning one’s passion into a career with the

raised desires for wellness and mindfulness discussed in the introduction of this thesis, this

market provides fruitful opportunities for entrepreneurship (Khamis et al. 202; Marwick “Status

Update” 193; Duffy 452). This is mainly based on the fact that Instagram has been

characterized as an intermediary for professional as well as ordinary users to create content

and to carry out consumerism and advertising activities (Gillespie 351). Consequently,

Instagram has found to be especially dominated by self-proclaimed wellness and fitness gurus

selling their expertise by linking to various coaching and consulting programs, books or other

products and services by themselves or related brands (Gregory 209). According to Gregory,

the rise of the spiritual marketplace is mainly based on the contemporary spirit that people

increasingly invest money and time for personal care, health and wellbeing. This has given

rise to self-appointed “life coaches” offering guidance to achieve respective life improvements

(211). With “going pro” or taking the step from “blog to brand”, Gregory describes a neoliberal

spirit to rather brand themselves instead of remaining merely a brand strategy. Thus, she

indicates a distinction between merely creating online content and being a self-employed

“spiritual entrepreneur” (211).

In line with Instagram’s functionality as a powerful tool for self-presentation (Baker and

Walsh; Smith and Sanderson; Döring), previous studies have concluded that yoga content on

Instagram demonstrate predominately images of white, thin and female yoga practitioners

(Cowans; Jain). In these studies, however, the user behind these representations and their

potential entrepreneurial purposes has not been taken into consideration - as to if the publisher

of the respective images was a yoga teacher, an owner of a yoga clothing brand or merely a

passionate or occasional practitioner (Cwynar Horta 41). Consequently, this study is interested

in how ‘spiritual’ or ‘wellness entrepreneurs’, in this case yoga entrepreneurs, present

themselves on Instagram and more specifically, how Instagram is used as a tool for digital

entrepreneurship and self-employment on an emerging market with wellness, health and

mindfulness.

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1. Selecting accounts

This research focuses on individual identity performances with users clearly indicating that

yoga comprises a major part of their business, which they promote on Instagram. A huge

number of Instagram accounts are concerned with topics related to wellness, wellbeing, fitness

and health, within which the publication of occasional or regular yoga-related content is highly

visible. To detect accounts that make a living with the aid of Instagram a selection process of

different steps was conducted to form a final and comprehensive data corpus for the following

analysis. Consequently, several articles of yoga- and lifestyle-related online journals such as

Yoga Journal or doyouyoga.com were searched through in order to find matching accounts2.

From there, Instagram’s feature of recommending similar accounts was used as a ‘snowballing

system’ to discover more potential accounts. However, only accounts with at least 100.000

followers were included as this indicates that those accountholders realized successful

entrepreneurship based on their Instagram performances and are thus most representative

for this study. Additionally, only accounts that are clearly maintained by individual people were

included. This was evaluated by a mentioning by one of the yoga-related journals or webpages

as well as through a ‘verified badge’ which confirms that the profile belongs to a real person

(Instagram Help Center). To differentiate yoga entrepreneurs from users that merely practice

yoga as a hobby a close-reading of the individual account’s ‘bio’- the space at the very top of

a profile- was conducted include only those individuals that actively target to use Instagram

as a monetization tool or platform to make business in any way. Therefore, it was mandatory

that the accounts have set their profile on ‘public’, meaning that they consciously want their

profile to be accessible and visible for everyone. As a last selection criterion, only accounts

publishing their content in English were included into the data set. This does not only serve to

create a common ground for the research, but also indicates the user's intention to make their

content accessible to a larger audience, based on the language’s wide reach, detached from

any spatial or temporal constraints.

2 Articles retrieved for the selection process were for example “6 Most Inspiring Yogis on Instagram This Week” (Yoga Journal) or “10 Instagram Yogis You Should Follow” (doyouyoga.com).

Having set the selection criteria, I constructed a total list of about 50 Instagram

accounts. After eliminating accounts not matching the mentioned criteria, the list was narrowed

down to ten individual accounts, within which seven belong to female users and the other three

belonging to male users. This distribution is based on the fact that yoga was in its origins

reserved as a practice for men but is today perceived as an almost exclusively female practice

(Boll 21). However, Boll argues that the yoga market is still marked by patriarchal structures

through a significant contradiction between business-holders and practitioners given that more

yoga-related businesses such as popular clothing and equipment brands - popular examples

would be Manduka or Lululemon- belong to men (26-27). Consequently, even though the

selection process provided more female Instagram accounts, more male yoga entrepreneur

accounts than initially expected were found, which might rely on the fact that this study focuses

on yoga entrepreneurs instead of merely practitioners. Consequently, the decision to include

relational less male accounts than female accounts was made in order to maintain the general

gender evaluation of yoga entrepreneur accounts on Instagram, but was still perceived as

promising for discovering comprehensive results and interesting potential differences in their

identity performances, which might explain widespread stances and understandings of the

modern yoga market.

3.2. Chosen accounts

The chosen accounts for this study are as follows: @yoga_girl, @kinoyoga, @sjanaelise,

@kathrynbudig, @koyawebb, @beachyogagirl, @laurasykora for the female accounts as well

as the male accounts @carsonclaycalhoun, @patrickbeach and @dylanwerneryoga.

The selection process has already revealed an analysis of the account’s profiles as

initial step to set up the methodology for this research. This aligns with boyd’s notion on “writing

oneself into being” - meaning that profile descriptions present a space for people in which they

can explicitly describe what they want to present to others in the first place (119). In their profile

descriptions, the accounts have presented yoga entrepreneurship through “explicit identity

statements” in form of “autobiographic descriptions” revealing their conscious intention of how

they want to be categorized by others as well as “implicit identity statements” by presenting

their affiliation to yoga throughout profile pictures and descriptions (Zhao et al. 1820). More

precisely, the self-descriptions of users in their individual bios, including profile picture,

username and description, serve as “first impression” identifier of how the respective accounts

want to be initially perceived and situated by their audience (Goffman 22). To provide a base

and context knowledge for the following analysis on the respective accounts’ profiles and their

shared content, short introductions of each account will be given in the first instance.

username follower (May 2019)

@yoga_girl

2,1m Rachel Brathen Brand Yoga Girl. Mom. Creator of #yogaeverydamnday

❤️

JOIN OUR YOGA RETREATS + TEACHER TRAININGS! → www.yogagirl.com

info@yogagirl.com

☀️ linkin.bio/yoga_girl

@beachyogagirl

1m Kerri Verna Fitness Coach Get a strong #core, practice #yoga, & learn to

#handstand with me!🙌🏻⠀

Get my Playbook app!🤳🏻⠀

#vegan 🌱 🧘🏼‍♀️ @kerrivernatraining

Train👇🏻🔗 beachyogagirl.com

@koyawebb

885k 💗Koya Webb💗 Public Figure Founder @GetLovedUp

📚 Author “Let Your Fears Make You Fierce”

🤸🏾‍♀️500hr E-RYT Yoga+Meditation

🌴Los Angeles, CA

💃🏾Online Training/Eco Vegan Lifestyle linktr.ee/koyawebb

@kathrynbudig

224k Kathryn Budig

🎧:@freecookiespodcast

🧘🏼‍♀️:@yogaglo

📚:Aim True + Big Book of Yoga

👩🏼‍🍳:#aimtruekitchen

💄:@vapourbeauty Ethereal Collection

👗:kb x @kiragraceyoga: tinyurl.com/yxo7a7t4

@laurasykora 1,2m Laura Kasperzak

Public Figure Wife, Mother, Handstand Addict, Dance Mom, Great Dane FurMom, Gym Junkie, #YogaTeacher •E-RYT200•

@kinoyoga

1,1m Kino MacGregor

Author, Beachbum, Yogi 💕

@miamilifecenter @omstarsofficial ⚡ Workshops: Guatemala, Arizona, Portland

Online Classes Only at Omstars.com 🧘‍♀️ linktr.ee/kinoyoga

@patrickbeach

434k patrick beach creator of @awakeningyogaacademy

owner @communeyoga seattle now open😊✌🏼

for all workshops and teacher trainings! 🔽 www.patrickbeach.com

@dykanwerneryoga

607k Dylan Werner Fitness coach Upcoming workshops

April 26th-28th London 🇬🇧

Sept 13th-15th Milan 🇮🇹

Sept 20th-22nd Nürnberg 🇩🇪 @alo.moves NEW SERIES!!! BEGINNER

FLEXIBILITY ⬇️ alomov.es/beginner-flexibility

@carsonclaycalhoun

126k Carson Calhoun | Strong Yoga Coach Yoga, Handstands, Weights, Jokes. Next up: Mexico City, Denver, Chicago, DC, VA, Boston, London, Dublin, Prague, Zurich, Berlin, SLC, Fishkill, EPTX linktr.ee/carsonclaycalhoun

Table 1: yoga entrepreneurs Instagram accounts (profile pictures, bio descriptions and

follower counts retrieved from Instagram on 25 May 2019).

Holding more than two million followers, @yoga_girl by Rachel Brathen is the commonly most

popular yoga instagrammer in the current yoga online world (Boll 45). In her profile bio the

yoga instructor living on Aruba describes herself as “Yoga Girl. Mom. Creator of

#yogaeverydamnday” and offers a linktree to her various businesses, ranging from yoga

retreats and trainings up to her online shop, podcast and blog. The account @kythrynbudig is

run by an American yoga teacher, podcast producer, author and designer. In her bio she links

her respective businesses as well as her designs and collaborations for clothing and cosmetic

lines. @kinoyoga is the account of a yoga instructor, author and co-founder of a yoga studio

in Miami as well as Omstars, the first yoga TV network. Despite linking to these businesses in

her bio, she offers a linktree providing direct access to her various workshops and classes.

@laurasykora is run by “Wife, Mother, #Handstand Addict [and…] #Yoga Teacher”.

@sjanaelise provides their followers mostly with images of herself performing yoga postures

on the beach and links in her bio to her YouTube Channel and advertises her yoga program:

“Find my BAM yoga program in the SWEAT app”. @koyawebb is run by a yoga teacher, author

and founder of the wellness app @getlovedup from Los Angeles. She links to her classes and

programs relating “Eco Vegan Lifestyle.” @beachyogagirl is the account of Kerri Verna, a yoga

instructor and fitness trainer. In her bio she links to her training account @kerrivernatraining

as well as her website with “all my stuff”, ranging from her eBook up to her own app for yoga

equipment and programs.

The account @dylanwerneryoga uses the space in his bio to promote his YouTube

channel as well workshops about which users can find “details on my website.” The account

@patrickbeach is run “creator of @awakeningyogaacademy” and “owner of @communeyoga”

and provides access to his workshops and trainings on his website as well as the yoga platform

alomoves. @carsonclaycalhoun is owned by a yoga teacher specialized in giving workshops

all around the world, who provides a linktree giving access to his various classes, yoga teacher

trainings and workshops.

3.3. Post Analysis

Although Camilla Vásquez has stated that online identity is commonly studied through the

analysis of user profiles (6), this research will go beyond studying the clearly given identity

statements. By taking on-going identity performances through sharing visual and textual

content into consideration, I argue that the outlined ideas of successful entrepreneurship,

authenticity and self-branding on social media could be observed and contextualized more

efficiently. Therefore, I decided to analyse the most recent 20 posts of each account

backwards as at 10:00 am (Amsterdam time) on the 6 April 2019.

A coding procedure was applied for the images posted on Instagram in which each

image counts as one unit. The coding scheme was established throughout the theoretical

framework and was inspired by Goffman’ work on gender representation in traditional

advertisements (1979) and his adaptation by following scholars such as Kang (1997) who

indicated the categories “body display” in which women are predominantly represented in

sexualized images as well as “independence” describing a seemingly more empowered

representation of women as well as Smith and Sanderson’s work on athlete's self-presentation

and Cowans study on the presentation of yoga-related images on Instagram, which both found

that respective self-presentation mainly occurs through body display and physical

presentations (Cowans 37; Smith and Sanderson 354). Consequently, each image of the 20

posts was first classified into the initial coding categories selfies, yoga videos, presentation of

yoga poses, normative body types, body display, entrepreneurial cues, outdoor settings and

social scenes that were redefined throughout the analysis.

While a content analysis predominantly shows how frequently certain images, words

and themes occurs, it does not provide much insight about the respective contexts of the

images. Despite Instagram is in the first place a visual platform, I argue that taking captions

as textual complement into consideration provide more profound results for how the accounts

argue, promote and contextualize their visual content, especially within the double sidedness

of achieving successful online entrepreneurship while simultaneously maintaining authentic

and desirable self-presentations. On the first sight, the majority of yoga-related Instagram

posts present images or short videos of yoga postures with appealing backgrounds such as

ocean settings accompanied by captions portraying for example longer texts about one’s

feelings or thoughts motivational quotes. As being discussed by Smith and Sanderson, textual

elements might neither necessarily reflect the content of visual images nor can visual coding

criteria be applied to textual content (349). Consequently, a more reflexive and interpretative

approach seems to be a more efficient option for this research. Following Braun and Clarke,

the advantages of this form of content analysis are based on its flexibility to allow researchers

to search for meaning and pattern instead of merely reading through given data (4).

Consequently, I conducted a textual qualitative analysis to discover potential themes and

pattern provided through the image’s captions. In contrast to quantitative analysis, qualitative

research seeks to understand a phenomenon through capturing and analysing it through

closer observations or case studies (Yilmaz 313).

To carry out this research, a grounded theory approach for the content analysis of the

captions was implemented. According to Corbin and Strauss, grounded theory described the

“identification and integration of categories of meaning from data” (70). Throughout the data

collection, grounded theory served as a guideline in identifying numerous categories, creating

links between categories, and establishing a relationship between categories (Glaser and

Strauss 1967; Corbin and Strauss 70). Data for grounded theory can be retrieved from various

sources, simply aiming to shed light on a research question (Corbin and Strauss 5). Following

Corbin and Strauss, grounded theory aims not only to point out conditions, but also

emphasizes how actors respond to changing conditions and to the consequences of their

actions (5). Beyond that, grounded theory relies on the idea that in addition to previous studies

the researcher’s existing knowledge influences criteria selection significantly. Consequently,

this approach is a promising choice for the nature of this research. Inspired by Smith and

Sanderson’s approach, I read through all the captions of the 200 selected images and built up

striking and emerging categories for identity performance to work with. Those a priori defined

categories were based on key themes of the theoretical framework, given that these points

will be visible within the respective captions and were more exploratory and adaptable in their

nature and allowed for refinements, additions and adjustments during the more detailed close-

reading process of the analysis. The a priori emergent categories for the caption analysis were

gratitude, authenticity, self-branding promotion, self-love, self-development, yoga as a passion

and lifestyle and brand endorsement. Eventually, the analysis of the visual and the textual

content were combined into general emerging themes based on the theoretical framework and

research question of this study which are the presentation of yoga, identity performance,

business purposes and the presentation of authenticity.

3.4. Story analysis

As discussed before, the ephemeral nature of Instagram stories allows users potentially for

“less filtered” content or “behind the scenes” presentation of the images posted in their image

feed (Amâncio 26). According to Marina Amâncio, Instagram stories serve users to show what

is happening at the immediate and exact moment of production, in order to provide more “real-

time experiences” (82). Consequently, a significant feature of Instagram stories has found to

be users giving followers self-contained narratives that inform and update about one’s life,

aiming to set off and enhance attention and interactions within one’s online community

(Amâncio 54). While this previous research focused merely on the use of Instagram stories

for digital storytelling, it has not been examined yet how this relatively new and highly used

feature can be used for entrepreneurial purposes.

Given that the ten Instagram accounts conducted for this study produce rather high

amounts of content in their stories, all their story performances will be captured over a time

period of three days. As most of the stories published by the respective accounts consist of

short videos instead of images, simply taking screenshots of the stories would not be sufficient

for capturing the content. Therefore, the free and publicly available online tool storiesig.com

created by the Instagram user @jlobitu allowed to download users Instagram stories over a

period of 24 hours directly to a PC, Mac or phone. Consequently, all stories published from 2

and 6 April 2019 were captured for the analysis. Given that these days overlapped with the

posting performances analysed in previous steps, it seemed promising to detect potential

similarities and differences between the identity performances in the posts and in the stories

of the respective accounts. Therefore, the emergent themes of the post analysis - the

presentation of yoga, identity performance, business purposes and the presentation of

authenticity - serve as framework for the story analysis, with the goal to detect potential

similarities or differences not only content-wise, but also regarding the way of use for

entrepreneurial pursuits.

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS

Studying the visual and textual content shared by the selected accounts allows to define a

certain representation of how yoga is presented and carried out as a business through

Instagram’s platform. While a content analysis of posts shared on Instagram gives on the one

hand insight into the specific type of imageries shared by the entrepreneurs, it helps on the

other hand in understanding the respective contexts and narratives of the posts through a

textual analysis of captions accompanying the images. Comparing the results of the post

analysis with Instagram’s more recent story feature provides additional insights about how

Instagram is used for entrepreneurial pursuits. Furthermore, as outlined in the theoretical

framework for this study, the information given in one’s profile bio, including a profile picture,

username and description, serve as “first impression” and provides indications for how one’s

online identity was intended to be perceived by others and how Instagram is used specifically

in the context of presenting an authentic self-brand (Goffman 22).

4.1. First impressions: username, profile picture and bio

Similar patterns were found for the initial profile set up amongst the accounts that included

usernames and profile pictures as two major elements for initial self-presentation. Eight out of

the ten accounts used their real names as username, either only their first name (@kinoyoga)

or their first name and surname. Only two of the accounts did not use their names in their

username but directed it clearly to yoga instead (@yoga_girl and @beachyogagirl). However,

all of them indicate their real names at the top of their bio. Seven of the accounts used profile

pictures in which they perform yoga postures as given the audience an initial impression of

themselves. The remaining three accounts however used close-up and clearly visible pictures

of their faces which makes them possibly more recognizable as ‘brand’.

Similarly, most of the accounts used a feature available within Instagram’s ‘business

tools’ to influence strategically how they are categorized by the audience which matches

aforementioned implementations about influencer marketing and digital entrepreneurship on

Instagram (See Ch. 2.3). @yoga_girl has categorized her account as ‘brand’, @koyawebb,

@laurasykora and @sjanaelise as ‘public figures’, @dylanwerneryoga, @carsonclaycalhoun

and @beachyogagirl as ‘coaches’. For the ones not labelling their accounts as businesses

(@kathrynbudig, @patrickbeach, @kinoyoga) it can be added that here they link to business-

related Instagram pages in their bio such as @kathrynbudig’s podcast page

@freecookiespodcast or @patrickbeach’s account @communeyoga. However, given that this

study focuses on individual identity performances for entrepreneurship, these additional

accounts will not be taken further into consideration.

Yoga as a business has found to be a dominant theme amongst the accounts’ bio

descriptions. In general, all of them except @laurasykora link to a range of other businesses,

such as websites (@yoga_girl, @patrickbeach), podcasts (@kathrynbudig), clothing lines

(@kathrynbudig), other social media platforms (@sjanaelise) or apps (@koyawebb).

Therefore, they often provide ‘linktrees’3 to give easy access to programs or online shops

(@kinoyoga, @carsonclaycalhoun, @dylanwerneryoga). This was commonly accompanied

with clear invitations such as “train with me” or “join our classes” (@yoga_girl,

@beachyogagirl, @sjanaelise, @dylanwerneryoga, @carsonclaycalhoun, @kinoyoga,

@koyawebb). Furthermore, they either describe themselves as business holders in the first

place, for example “founder of @awakeningyogaacademy” (@patrickbeach) or emphasize

their expertise, for example “#yoga teacher E-RYT200” (@laurasykora), “500hr E-RYT

Yoga/Meditation” (@koyawebb).

The option to save Instagram stories as highlights at the bottom part of the bio was

used to different extents. In general, while all the female accounts provide story highlights, for

the male accounts only @dylanwerneryoga only saved one story. In general, the story

highlights were used to provide permanent, categorized and easy to be accessed content,

such as information about products and programs, links to it as well as different categories

regarding personal topics such as a travel or food documentations.

4.2. Post analysis

After having provided insights about how the general affordances of Instagram’s platform are

used to situate first impressions of one’s online identity and narrative, the analysis will focus

further on identity performances based on continuous sharing of contents. Selecting the last

20 posts of the ten chosen accounts provided a total dataset of 200 posts, which resulted in

255 single images and videos based on Instagram’s function to post multiple images and video

sequences within one post and naturally 200 textual captions.

The distribution of posted images and videos is the following: 34 for @yoga_girl, 33 for

@sjanaelise, 23 for @beachyogagirl, 20 each for @kinoyoga and @koyawebb, 23 for

@laurasykora, 28 for @kathrynbudig, 21 for @patrickbeach, 25 for @dylanwerneryoga and

3 Linktree is a free tool advertising to optimize Instagram traffic by allowing specifically bloggers and entrepreneurs to “get one bio link to house all the content you’re driving followers to” (Linktree)

28 for @carsonclaycalhoun. Out of the 255 image and video units 57 are videos or short

sequences shared from IGTV videos, 177 photographs, additionally ten selfies, four images

showing text on a screen, five screenshots used as advertisements as well as two memes.

The individual account holders were the main subject in 54 out of the 57 videos and in 178 out

of the 187 photographs or more precisely, in 232 out of the total 255 images and videos. In

order to conclude these results, the screenshots of each video and the content portrayed in it

on the first sight was treated as an image.

In 56,50% of all posts (113 out of 200) the hashtag feature was used, which however

varied between the accounts. Some accounts, such as @carsonclaycalhoun (1x) or

@dylanwerneryoga (3x) made almost no use of the feature, while some used it occasionally,

as for example @laurasykora (6x) or @yogagirl (11x) or constantly, as for example

@patrickbeach (20x), @beachyogagirl (20x) or @kathrynbudig (17x). The analysis of the

visual and textual content of the 200 posts have shown emerged, recurring patterns and

themes which will be portrayed and examined more closely in the following thematic analysis.

These themes are the presentation of yoga, identity performance, business purposes and the

presentation of authenticity.

4.2.1. The Presentation of Yoga

In her research on the Western imagination of yoga, Boll has found that on social media yoga

is particularly represented through postures, so-called asanas as “without featuring asana, an

Instagram account would not be linked in any way to yoga” (42). In line with that, this study on

yoga entrepreneurs on Instagram has shown that visually, 41,18% of all posted images and

videos present the account holders performing almost exclusively advanced yoga postures

such as handstands or arm balances (See fig.1). Together with images presenting workshop

or yoga class situations (See fig. 2), a total of 44,71% of all images and videos could be on

the first sight associated and connected with yoga. Similarly, 63,16% of the videos show the

account holder performing yoga. However, the behaviour of posting yoga-related images

varies among the accounts. While @yoga_girl has only one post in which she is performing

yoga, like @kathrynbudig (4x) or @koyawebb (5x), other accounts have almost all their

images representing yoga, such as for example @kinoyoga (19x), @dylanwerneryoga (23x)

or laurasykora (18x). Align with that, 41,18% images and videos show the account holders

wearing yoga clothes.

Fig.1: Example for an advanced yoga posture” by @kinoyoga.

Fig. 2: Example for a yoga workshop/class situation image by @carsonclaycalhoun.

By contrast, only six of the accounts used hashtags clearly related to yoga and only two of the

accounts used yoga-related hashtags more constantly. More precisely, whereas @kinoyoga

(20x) and @patrickbeach (15x) have been found to use yoga-related hashtags such as

“#yogini”, “#yogaflow” or “yogapractice” in the majority of their posts, other accounts used

respective hashtags only sporadically (@beachyogagirl 5x; @laurasykora 1x) or not at all

(@koyawebb; @carsonclaycalhoun). @kathrynbudig and @yoga_girl used yoga-identifying

hashtags only in posts that directly represented them performing yoga, which occurred only in

one post for both accounts.

Thematically, yoga was presented in different ways throughout the posts. First, it was

highlighted continuously through the importance of physical practice under the wider goal of

self-love and well-being, especially in view of the body as for example in @yoga_girl’s caption

“love your body, move your body” or @sjanaelise’s caption “Find the movement you enjoy -

the movement your body and mind love and crave, and do that”. Second, yoga has found to

be emphasized as a concept that moves beyond its physical appearance though postures to

be the reflection of a spiritual and profound mindset, and is expressed predominantly through

self-written texts accompanying the presentation of yoga in images, such as for example in

@kinoyoga’s captions “If you come to the practice of yoga and think it’s just about some poses

you will find out that we are seekers on an ancient path of awakening” as well as in a post by

@dylanwerneryoga saying “for me, and I know for many others, yoga is a word that we use

to describe our journey to understand the self [...] This is how I define yoga.”

While the visual presentation of yoga is based on portraying aesthetic images of yoga

asanas, traditional principles of yoga were not thematized explicitly within the captions.

Instead, the captions contextualize yoga as a lifestyle and path of self-development to overall

fulfilment and wellbeing. This was expressed dominantly through long inspirational self-written

texts in the captions such as: “If you are one, meaning whole and complete, then there is

nothing that you can add or take away that will change you from being you”

(@dylanwerneryoga) or “Let it all come. Let it all unfold. You are in the right place”

(@yoga_girl) so that happiness, love and self-love can be experienced as ultimate goals: “only

those willing to risk everything truly experience the totality of love” (@kinoyoga) or “you are

becoming that which you have always been. You will discover not some new shiny self, but

an eternal self that glimmers with the pure light of timeless love” (@kinoyoga). However, there

were some exceptions found to that finding. For example, @dylanwerneryoga used the

hashtag “#svadyaya” meaning self-study (Newlyn) once, while @kinoyoga dedicated one post

to the description of the yoga posture yoganidrasana and another post to the collaboration

with her teacher and yoga grandmaster - which however, was accompanied with a give-away

and thus, promotional content. In general, content directly connected to ancient principles was

found to be more neglectable in proportion and only @dylanwerneryoga thematized

sensations about the shift from traditional to modern yoga in one of his posts: “The face of

yoga has changed as well as its practitioners [...] Yoga is an ancient system, but very little that

we do today looks anything like that system”.

4.2.2. Identity Performance

In the theoretical framework of this study, it has been discussed that the body serves as a

major tool for self-presentation and identity performance on social media. The analysis of the

ten accounts has taken the presentation of the respective bodies in revealing outfits, such as

no shirts for males and only wearing a bikini for females, as well as the body being the clear

focal point of the image as indication for identity performance through body display. In total,

30,98% of the images have found to present body display through clothing choices. This has

been found in 74,37% of the male images, but only in 13,26% of the female images (See table

2 for detailed distribution).

However, the focalization of fit and thin body types was a dominant theme in the

images and videos portraying yoga and has been found in most of the images portraying body

display through outfit choices and additionally in yoga-centred images and videos. In total,

more than half of the images and videos (51,37%) had their focus on the presentation of

bodies. The distribution of male and female images and videos however has shown interesting

results: While only 41,44% of the female images were found to focus predominantly on thin

and fit body presentation, this was the case for 77,03% of the male images (See table 2 for

detailed distribution).

account name body display (shirtless/bikini)

normative body type (thin/fit)

outdoor- setting

family, friends, pets

@yoga_girl 1 2 15 21

@beachyogagirl 1 10 4 1

@sjanaelise 9 18 25 13

@kathrynbudig 0 3 2 2

@koyawebb 1 8 4 0

@laurasykora 0 17 12 11

@kinoyoga 12 17 16 0

@patrickbeach 12 13 8 7

@dylanwerneryoga 23 23 15 1

@carsonclaycalhoun 20 21 6 6

Table 2: Detailed distribution of image coding categories amongst the accounts (n/255).

Identity performance through lifestyle and lifestyle choices was found to be a dominant theme

for the accounts. Almost half of the images and videos were found to feature outdoor setting,

more precisely beach and ocean settings (41,96%; See table 2 for detailed distribution). Align

with that, themes such as travelling, summer, sun and beach adoration were recurring in the

accompanying captions. For example, @sjanaelise contextualized her posts with captions

such as “I pray the sun never stops kissing my skin” or “My favourite place to be... in your

arms, by the sea ✨”, while @kinoyoga wrote “Life is a Dream — Bondi Beach Yoga” or “Life

is better in the sun [...] If I haven’t felt the warmth on my skin, or the salty ocean breeze I feel

like I’m not myself”, or @patrickbeach “sunny days always make handstand a little bit more

fun!”

The importance of the body has also found to be a dominant theme in the posts

captions, not only in relation to yoga, but also in connection to one’s lifestyle, mindset and

thus, self-identity. In general, in particular for the female yoga entrepreneurs, the body was

connected with diet choices such as veganism and wellness, while male entrepreneurs

highlighted exclusively physical benefits through the yoga lifestyle. For example, @yoga_girl

wrote “Entering my third week of raw food, no sugar, no grains, no processed food of any kind.

[...] I have a very healthy body image. I want to inspire self love!”, @koyawebb indicated “the

answer is never numbing the pain with too much processed food, drugs, alcohol or anything

that is damaging to the body” while @patrickbeach wrote “steady practice leads to steady

improvements over time.”

Beyond that, they contextualized their own experiences in means of helping and

inspiring other. For example in the cases of @carsonclaycalhoun: “Go to the gym and hit

some squats!” or @beachyogagirl: “I struggled with my self esteem and I always hated my

body [...] Later in life (age 27) I came to find my passion in life ~ helping others find freedom

in their bodies, minds, and hearts”. In that sense, body, wellness- and health related topics

have found to be contextualized as ‘life advices’ through aforementioned long and profound

captions, as for example in @kinoyoga’s caption “Do what you love [...] but first [...] learn to

love yourself with a love that is not predicated on good outcomes, a love that is unconditional”,

@dylanwerneryoga’s caption “the end of every journey is the end, but it is the end that gives

the journey meaning” or @sjanaelise’s caption “If you want to find happiness, be happiness.

If you want to find love, be love.”

A dominant theme for identity performance has found to be the use of self-referential

hashtags with the effect to highlight originality and to accentuate one’s online persona from a

wider pool of similar content on Instagram. For example, @sjanaelse marked her self-written

texts with the hashtag “#writtenbysjana”, @yoga_girl used “#yogaeverydamnday”, @kinoyoga

used the same two hashtags “#onebreathatatime” and “#practiceyogachangeyourworld” in the

majority of her posts, which can be understood as a form of personal ‘mantra’”. Others used

hashtags directly connected to their businesses, for example @kathrynbudig with the hashtag

“#aimtrue”, the name of her book and @koyawebb who used “#getlovedup” as a connection

to her app and main business. Consequently, it has been found that the entrepreneurs did not

only employ Instagram’s affordances to navigate their self-presentations, but also to

strengthen their brand identities, which is presented more closely in the following thematic

section.

4.2.3. Business purposes

In total, 76 posts have found to be associated with sponsored content or contained any other

form of tagged branding, for example clothing brands as recommendations or potential

collaboration deals. Sponsored content was presumed when the hashtag “#sponsor” or

“#sponsored” was used in the caption or when the text referred to a brand as sponsor, which

eventually was only found in nine of these posts (@kathrynbudig 1x, @koyawebb 5x,

@sjanaelise 3x). In the other 67 posts, collaboration were assumed when a brand was

mentioned, recommended and thanked for, as for example in “Thank you @3dprmarketing for

this amazing wellness retreat (@koyawebb) or “Spending the next four days in Byron Bay

with @biossance” (@sjanaelise) and when a tag was accompanied by lines such as ‘outfit by’

in the captions as for example “outfit by @aloyoga” (@dylanwerneryoga).

In total, about half of all posts that provided the use of hashtags (52,63%) and 20% of

all posts were business-related, either in the form of a clear indication for sponsored content

such as hashtags related to collaboration or sponsorship partners or by using hashtags that

are specific for their respective businesses. This was found for example for @yoga_girl with

“#yogaeverydamnday” or “#yogagirlpodcast” (3x), @kathrynbudig with “#aimtrue”,

“#kiragracekathrynbudig” or “#freecookiepodcast” (13x) or @koyawebb with “#getlovedup”

(8x) @kinoyoga with “#kinoyoga” (1x).

account name collaboration/ sponsored content

connected with aloyoga

self-promotional content captions

entrepreneurial indication in images

@yoga_girl 0 0 5 3

@koyawebb 12 3 13 11

@kinoyoga 0 0 18 0

@dylanwerneryoga

17 17 1 0

@carsonclaycalhoun

14 10 11 2

Table 3: Detailed distribution of business-related content amongst the posts

The distribution of posts containing content dedicated to brands, collaboration or sponsorship

content however varied amongst the accounts. An interesting finding was that many posts

connected with sponsorship and potential collaboration content was connected with a US

based yoga clothing company aloyoga that also own the online yoga teaching platform

alomoves. Aloyoga has potential collaboration deals with @sjanaelise, @koyawebb and

@dylanwerneryoga and they are described on the company’s website as “part of the aloyoga

family” (“Meet the Alo Yoga Family”), while @laurasykora is described as “official VIP

Ambassador for aloyoga” on her website (“About Laura”). Consequently, 78,95% (60 out of

76) of the posts detected as sponsored or featuring potential collaboration deals related to

aloyoga, exclusively by accounts connected with the company (See table 3).

Connected to aforementioned findings about normative body types and body display,

94,74% of the posts that contained sponsored content or brand collaborations subsequently

showed up normative and disposed bodies as image focal point. While this was the case for

all the potential aloyoga collaborations and sponsoring, the same could be observed in post

promoting own content, for example in the case of @kinoyoga who promoted her own clothing

line along images portraying body display in eight of her posts.

Besides sponsorship or collaboration pursuits, Instagram was found to be a tool for

self-promotion. While accounts making higher use of sponsorships or collaboration were less

likely to indicate clear self-promotional content, other accounts focus on using Instagram to

promote their own businesses instead. In general, entrepreneurial cues based on images such

as the presentation of logos, images of workshop class situations, edited images for

promotion, so-called ‘giveaways’ or preview shots of podcast-covers were rare and only found

in 9,80% of all images (25 out of 255). Instead, self-promotion occurred more frequently in the

captions and was found in 30,5% of the posts. To give examples, the accounts were found to

frequently post excerpts of yoga videos or images accompanied with prompts in their captions

such as “Practice with me here, Link in bio or beachyogagirlapp.com” (@beachyogagirl) or

“Here’s a sneak peek at my Sculpt and Flow workout, download @getlovedup app via link in

my bio for full workout” (@koyawebb) or “Sign up for everything on my website [...] (link in bio)”

(@carsonclaycalhoun). Here as well, structures of an overarching yoga market could be found.

Just as with the clothing company aloyoga, some of the accounts related their businesses to

the respective connected online teaching platform alomoves and promoted their classes on

alomoves in their posts (@dylanwerneryoga, @koyawebb). In addition to yoga classes and

workshops, some of the accounts used Instagram in order to announce and promote additional

businesses such as podcasts: “I’m excited to announce the @GetLovedUp podcast is here!”

(@koyawebb) or clothing- or cosmetic lines: “Outfit is my Omstars by @liquidoactive design”

(@kinoyoga) or “Wearing the Kathryn Bra and Slashed Legging from my

@kiragraceyogacollection” (@kathrynbudig). Additionally, self-promotion was strengthened

through making use of Instagram’s community building aspects. For example, some account

holders conducted give-aways for promotion and follower engagement such as

@carsonclaycalhoun (“Free workshop giveaway! Here’s how to win! 1. Like this photo. 2. Tag

3 friends who like to have fun”), @koyawebb “or @kathrynbudig (“Giveaway time! Join in to

snag my new Ethereal Collection with @vapourbeauty”).

4.2.4. The Presentation of Authenticity

A dominant theme found in the posts was the presentation of one’s personal and unfiltered

life. As for the visual representation, 23,54% of all images or videos presented the

entrepreneur with their families and partners, friends or pets, which is due to the possibility to

post multiple image units within one post distributed on 22,50% of all posts. This distribution

however varies amongst the accounts (See table 1). For example, @yoga_girl’s account is

strongly concerned with representing her family, pets and children (50% of her posts)

alongside with giving personal insights about their private life “Going on a last-minute romantic

surprise trip for 24 hours”. Similar results were found for @laurasykora (40% of her posts):

“😴 <— Current mood after a long but exciting day with my mini at her dance competition”

and @patrickbeach (30% of his posts). In addition to being family driven as a theme, others,

for example @sjanaelise dedicated a major amount of her posts to represent her relationship

and her boyfriend (25% of her posts), accompanied with romantic captions such as “You are

a walking example of a life well lived, and a life well loved. You are prana itself; powerful and

pure” to portray love and feelings. The same was found for @kathrynbudig (25% of her posts):

“I celebrate my wife and all the love and patience she offers me every single damn day”.

Furthermore, the expression of feelings and their inner life revealed to be a major

theme to convey authenticity, particularly by distancing oneself from stereotypical shiny

images portrayed by the wellness industry and social media influencers: “The dirty secret

about the wellness world circa 2019 is that it’s talking about balance while showing you bodies

that, for the most part, take extreme, unbalanced discipline to achieve” (@kathrynbudig),

“anyone else struggling to make it all work?” (@beachyogagirl) or “Have you ever had some

many things that you need to do and no desire or motivation to do any of it? That is pretty

much me right now” (@dylanwerneryoga).

Earlier in this study, it has been outlined that Instagram has shown a change from

presenting staged perfection up to presenting more authenticity. In that sense, one major

theme found in the analysis was sharing personal histories and experiences the entrepreneurs

made earlier in life and overcame in order to share it and help others. For example,

@beachyogagirl thematized her experiences with body shaming and bullying but writes that

“later in life, I came to find my passion in life ~helping others to find freedom in their bodies,

minds and hearts [because…] helping others makes everything I’ve gone through worth it”.

@yoga_girl and @koyawebb for example expressed their own struggles and weaknesses,

especially in relation to lifestyle and diet choices and how they overcame it: “This body has

been through so much [...] There were months, years, when I drank every day. I spent the first

18 years of my life completely clueless about health, filling my body not only with alcohol but

with chicken, meat, fried foods and pretty much anything” (@yoga_girl) or “I've experienced

trauma, pain, and so much fear that I've built barriers to love [...] I realize I'm emotionally eating

and this is not healthy for processing my pain” as well as her way out of it. Consequently, the

expression of personal thoughts and mindsets got frequently connected and intertwined with

sponsoring or self-promotional content: “I try to reflect during my meditation daily but it’s

always great when I can take a weekend vacation or girls trip to really dive deep and pamper

myself. Thank you @3dprmarketing for this amazing wellness retreat” (@koya_webb) or “If

you know me, you know I am passionate about finding and supporting eco-friendly,

sustainable brands. And I truly believe skin care is no exception” (@sjanaelise).

4.2.5. From Posts to Stories

The previous analysis has shown that in Instagram posts mainly aesthetic and appealing

images are displayed. Consequently, in relation to the theoretical framework and research

question of this thesis, the identity performances of the respective accounts were

predominantly marked by a selective self-presentation enhancing sensations of desire for the

audience. Simultaneously, yoga has been portrayed as a lifestyle choice to fulfil potential

desires, which was overall contextualized and complemented with promotional contents.

Beyond that, providing insights into one’s personal life or sharing profound and inspirational

texts were found to build up sensations of authenticity and intimacy. These presentations were

strongly connected with entrepreneurial pursuits, either through promoting sponsored

contents and deals or one’s own businesses. While the posts on one’s Instagram feed are

what other users get portrayed on the first sight once they come across a profile, Instagram

stories exclusively address users that are already familiar with an account’s nature based on

the fact that users normally follow accounts in order to see stories and have to be accessed

more consciously. Consequently, posts might be more staged and carefully considered in

order to get attention and desired feedback and thus, match aforementioned implementations

by Goffman on front stage performances. The next part of the analysis discusses this idea

within the context of Instagram stories. Examining whether this notion hold true, such as if

stories offer less staged background performances, adds to this study’s reflection and

discussion of implementations about Instagram’s changed aesthetics and increased demands

for more authenticity that emerged on the platform in recent times.

4.2. Story analysis

Capturing the stories of all ten accounts over three days provided a dataset of 359 story units

in total, including images and short videos. Some of these short units form whole video

narrative strands, based on Instagram’s affordance to only not allow single stories to extend

15 seconds. Consequently, the single-story units make up a total of 206 self-contained stories.

The distribution of the dataset varies amongst the accounts. With 153 single stories units

making up 73 complete stories @yoga_girl posted by far the most stories, while

@dylanwerneryoga did not post any story during the three days in which the stories were

captured. All stories are archived in the appendix of this thesis and the respective citations

given in the text refer to the respective file names. The detailed distribution of the story usage

amongst the accounts is as follows (See table 4):

account name single story units

images video narratives

stories in total

@yoga_girl 153 47 26 73

@koyawebb 68 31 17 48

@dylanwerneryoga 0 0 0 0

@carsonclaycalhoun 10 3 7 10

Table 4: Detailed distribution of stories amongst the accounts.

More than half of all the single story units (51,94%) were edited by applying text or emojis to

it, out of which 14,97% were edited with a ‘swipe up’ or ‘tap here’ in order to direct users to

external business related websites (See fig. 3). In 8,61% of all single story units images were

edited with GIF’s or animated text or swipe up options. Three of the accounts made use of the

story to direct to recently published posts, namely @koyawebb (3) stories, @beachyogagirl

(3) and @carsonclaycalhoun (1; See f.ex. cc_st_2). As pointed out before, Instagram stories

provide users a specific use of filters, such as boomerangs, time lapses or focusses. This

feature, however, has found to be used only in a total of 11 story units by @sjanaelse (8),

@koyawebb (2) @kathrynbudig (1; See sj_st_27, sj_st_32, kw_st_6, kb_st_6).

Features such as polls or questions have not been found to be widely used either:

While the story function was only used by @yoga_girl, the poll function was only used by

@patrickbeach, both only once (See fig. 3 and 4).

Fig. 3: @yoga_girl uses the question-tag Fig. 4: @patrickbeach uses the poll-tag

While these findings relate more to the overall appearance of the dataset, the content will be

examined more closely in the following while focussing on the same thematic categories as

well as potential similarities and differences to the previous post analysis.

4.3.1. The Presentation of Yoga

In contrast to the findings of the post analysis, the presentation of yoga has not found to be a

dominant theme within the stories. Only 1,94% of the stories (7 stories) presented the account

holders performing yoga postures, amongst which only one story is not contextualized with

promotional features such as “class is now on @alomoves swipe up to join me” (kw_st_12).

However, instead of functioning for the presentation of yoga, stories provided extensive

possibilities for identity performance and entrepreneurship given in posts in other ways, which

is presented in more detail in the following.

4.3.2. Identity performance

In the post analysis it has been found that the presentation of one’s body through normative

body types and yoga poses served as a dominant tool for identity performance, which has not

been found in the stories to the same extent. Consequently, instead of focussing on normative

body types and displayed body presentation, stories either framed the entrepreneur in a selfie-

like perspective or their immediate environment out of their viewpoint, which is based on the

way Instagram stories afford users to hold their phones while recording stories (See fig. 5 and

6). Stories were dominantly used as a tool for documenting one’s life and lifestyle choices that

goes beyond the respective presentation in the posts. Consequently, self-identity and lifestyle

were less portrayed through appealing and aesthetic visualizations, but more through ‘behind

the scenes’ strategies. While health and wellness-related topics in the posts were exclusively

thematized in the captions, the entrepreneurs used Instagram stories to share recipe videos

or food (See f.ex. yg_st_2; sj_st_7) or to discuss health- and wellness-related topics (See f.ex.

yg_st_1; kw_st_1).

Fig. 5: Screenshot of a story by @kinoyoga. Fig. 6: Screenshot of a story by @sjanaelise.

Above that, the way the respective accounts used the affordances and features provided by

stories to express specific and unique styles and therefore, identities. The use of GIFs and

animated letters or emojis for example, might have been used to create a more humorous

atmosphere (See fig. 7) or to attribute clear emotions and messages to a story, so that the

intention of a story gets conveyed even though people might potentially watch a story without

sound (See fig. 8). @sjanaelise for example dominantly edited her stories with filters, time

lapses, boomerangs and music underlays in order to maintain the aesthetic and self-selected

impressions given in her posts (See sj_st_32).

Fig. 7: Example of a GIF in a story Fig. 8: Example of text and emojis applied to

(@kathrynbudig). a story (@koyawebb).

The aforementioned aspect is strengthened by a range of features Instagram stories provide

for community engagement, such as questions-tags or polls. These functions, however, were

not widely used by the entrepreneurs within the three days. More precisely, @yoga_girl was

the only one using the question feature. By encouraging her community to “ask me anything”,

she got confronted with personal questions but also business-related questions such as “Why

did you choose not to do paid advertising on Instagram?” or “Which yoga accounts do you

suggest following?” which she answered with “None. I pretty much despise every major yoga

account out there. Give me another skinny girl posted in sponsored yoga-pants with a generic

quote and I vomit” (See fig. 9).

Fig. 9: Examples of using the question tag for enhanced self-presentation (@yoga_girl).

4.3.3. Business purposes

Stories have found to be used by some of the accounts in the first place as a promotion tool.

For example, @kathrynbudig promoted her business in 74,29% of her stories, either through

the use of Instagram’s features to direct followers to external websites or other accounts such

as ‘swipe up’, ‘tap here’ or tagging her brands or collaboration partners in the image or video

units (See fig. 10). The same was found for @koyawebb in (42 % of her stories) and

@carsonclaycalhoun (30% of his stories) as well as sporadically for @kinoyoga, @yoga_girl,

@beachyogagirl and @laurasykora with only one story each. Additionally, some of the

accounts used stories as an amplification tool for their posts by sharing them in their stories

and by using the ‘tap here’ affordance which directs users to the respective post. Even though

this function has only been used in 2,91% of all stories, it has been exclusively used to draw

attention to posts that self-promotion contain self-promotional content (See fig. 10).

Fig. 10: Examples of using affordances provided by Instagram stories for self-promotion. left

and middle: swipe up affordance, right: tap here affordance.

The editing features and affordances provided for stories and the changed aesthetics for

stories discussed earlier in this study, encouraged new promotion possibilities. By editing an

image with text or animations, some accounts created stories looking like advertisements,

which could be found in 13,11% of the stories. For entrepreneurial pursuits consequently,

stories functioned like a merger of images and captions: On the one hand, capturing attention

through visual appeal and on the other hand, conveying information immediately on the first

sight without having to rely on textual contextualization as in captions (See fig. 11).

Fig. 11: Examples for merging images and text in stories to create “advertisements” (left:

@koyawebb, right: @kathrynbudig).

Another form of more direct self-promotion could be seen as well in the possibility to post short

video sequences in their stories. This feature was used for example by @kathrynbudig who

announced in her post to discuss her new clothing line “in my story with swipe up links to shop.

Hit me up with any questions!” Consequently, a video sequence of her “virtual dressing room”

consisting of 22 single story units allow for more personalized advertisement by encouraging

engagement and bypassing the risk of over posting (See kb_st_1). Another way to harness

Instagram stories for promotion purposes is by engaging the community. Consequently, the

entrepreneurs did not only address their audience directly through Instagram stories, but also

activated a sense of community and the motivation for participation through sharing user posts

they were tagged in in their stories, as form of sharing reputation, as for example “Did THE

most relaxing @alo.moves flow with @koyawebb #heaven” (kw_st_37).

Previously, it has been outlined that stories provide extensive possibilities to express

one’s personality and manage how one wants to be perceived by an audience, for example

through humoristic or aesthetic editing. These posting performances in turn have found to be

widely connected with promotional aspects, such as swipe up options or tags (See fig. 7).

Consequently, stories as well provided opportunities to connect self-promotion with authentic

self-presentations, which will be discussed in the following section.

4.3.4. The Presentation of Authenticity

Like the findings of the post analysis, stories were dominantly used to document everyday life

situations that increased feelings of intimacy and authenticity. In stories, this has been

strengthened however through documenting one’s immediate surroundings detached from

yoga. For example, yoga_girl posted 17 story narratives (in 56 single story units) about

everyday situations with her daughter and even posted stories of her in which she is taking a

bath or sleeping (See f.ex. yg_st_7; yg_st_10; yg_st_3). @patrickbeach did not use the story

function for entrepreneurial purposes in any way, but to provide his community with insights

about his girlfriend’s pregnancy (pb_st_1). Giving insights into one’s life through stories has

shown itself through documenting one’s environment, for example while travelling (See f.ex.

ky_st_14; sj_st_1) or recording stories during everyday practices such as exercising (See f.ex.

kw_st_1; sj_st_19) or the presentation of food (See f.ex. kb_st_4; sj_st_45; yg_st_59;

yg_st_2).

Furthermore, stories were used as a way to present sensations of being ‘behind the

scenes’ of a post (see fig. 12), for example through posting additional material to posts, which

could have been observed during the three days in which the capturing of the stories and

posts overlapped. To give examples, @sjanaelise posted a post about her dinner plans with

a sponsor, which she portrayed more insights about in her stories (sj_st_2; sj_st_15), while

@kathrynbudig’s dedicated one post about inviting her followers to her “virtual dressing room”

in her stories, which was simultaneously portrayed in her stories and constantly connected

with self-promotional features such as swipe up and tags (kb_st_1).

Stories were dominantly used as a tool to directly address one’s community and to

initiate audience engagement. Consequently, some of the accounts used stories to express

and share feelings, mindsets and emotions. For example, @yogagirl recorded stories in which

she gave insight about her emotional and physical wellbeing: “I don’t think I have recovered

from my little burnout from last year” (yg_st_1), while @koyawebb expressed her feelings

towards her work: “I hope you guys get as much out of it as I do...the work I am doing right

now is something that I wanted to do for a while [...] and I am basically over-joyed”, then edited

with text for voice-off: “So grateful” (kw_st_3; See fig. 8).

Fig. 12: Example for creating ‘behind the scene’ atmospheres through Instagram stories

(@sjanaelise)

4.3.5. To summarize

As outlined throughout this chapter, the findings of the analysis of the collected data provide

interesting initial impressions of how Instagram is utilized for entrepreneurial pursuits on the

yoga market. First, the accountholders’ basic steps for identity performance on Instagram

show up similar strategies based on setting up their usernames, bio description, profile picture

and an account’s verification. These findings indicate that even though yoga is presented as

common and main theme to ground the entrepreneurial nature of their accounts on, they

present their individual identities and narratives as determining factors to the audience.

Consequently, the majority of them - eight out of them - connect their Instagram to themselves

in the first place by using their real names as username, while all of them indicate their real

names as first indication in their bio. In line with that, nine of them maintain verified accounts.

By making use of Instagram’s business tool to label one’s account, the account holders tend

to position themselves apart from ordinary Instagram users. Through categorizing their

accounts as business-related they indicate yoga not only as a personal hobby or passion, but

as a source of potential income. By categorizing themselves as public figures, they emphasize

the influential potential they have regarding their large follower base. In line with that, all of

them use the space in their bio to situate and promote their business by highlighting their

expertise as a yoga teacher, by promoting respective programs and by providing access to

websites and further business-related content.

The content shared by the studied accounts show on the one hand similar strategies and

form of representations, but on the other hand also interesting differences. While the images

in posts were predominantly concerned with aesthetic presentation of oneself, foremostly by

drawing attention to the body by performing yoga postures, written captions were used to

contextualize the images in order to strengthen the conveyed feelings of a desirable lifestyle

through thematizing yoga as a path for self-development and overall well-being and

happiness. Additionally, written context in the posts circulated a lot around self-promotion or

promotion of sponsorship and collaboration deals, which shows that identity performance on

Instagram is strategically used for entrepreneurial opportunities. The analysis of Instagram

stories however has shown that this feature of Instagram most notably functions as an

amplification tool for self-branding. First, the technological possibilities of Instagram stories

provide users a way for more direct promotion through creating ‘advertisements’ with direct

access options. Second, stories opened new ways for community engagement and self-

presentation, which paves the way for intensified ‘authentic self-branding’.

This chapter has laid out how yoga entrepreneurs use Instagram for self-presentation

and entrepreneurial purposes. The next chapter goes deeper into the meaning of these results

in order to provide an all-encompassing understanding and connection to the topic and

research question of this thesis. This is achieved foremostly by linking the findings of this study

to the main points of the theoretical framework in order to situate them within the wider context

of online identity performance for monetization and entrepreneurship pursuits on the

contemporary wellness market and how this is facilitated through Instagram.

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION

5.1. Identity Performance through Lifestyle Choices

How do yoga entrepreneurs perform their identity on Instagram?

A key finding of this study is that all the ten account holders use similar identity performance

strategies on Instagram in order to present themselves above all as entrepreneurs. This has

been conveyed through the way they set up their profiles, more precisely their usernames,

profile pictures and description. By indicating their real names, identifiable pictures and profile

verifications, the account holders connect their online identity to their offline identity and

present themselves as identifiable individuals. Through indicating yoga as main identifier in

their profile, categorizing their account and by using the limited space provided for a

description to bundle up links and access to their respective products and services, the

account holders actively differentiate their online presence from users merely sharing yoga

content to be directly identifiable as yoga entrepreneurs on the first sight. Consequently, based

on aforementioned implementations by Marwick and boyd, initial profile setups determine an

account’s supposed nature and indicate a distinction between personal and business account

(115). Additionally, their overall self-presentations indicate to not only aim to make oneself

identifiable as a yoga entrepreneur, but also as unique self-brand. In the theoretical framework

for this study, hashtags have been described as a way to increase visibility and to build up

communities on Instagram (Baker and Walsh 6). Consequently, while someone trying to

establish a yoga account on Instagram would most likely use popular hashtags such as ‘#yoga’

or ‘#yogaflow’ to increase visibility, the studied entrepreneur accounts did not use a huge

number of these kind of attention-seeking hashtags in overall terms, but more likely hashtags

related to themselves. With special regard to their overall high follower counts, this finding

implicates that their individual existence on Instagram does rather not require actions to

increase one’s visibility further, but instead more to build up ‘recognition value’ and sub-

communities within the wider yoga sphere on Instagram in order to make one’s content and

brand more unique amongst the big pool of yoga content on Instagram. Beyond that,

especially by presenting their real identity as initial cue, the account holders indicate that their

content will go beyond the presentation of yoga up to presenting their respective lives and

lifestyle choices. Consequently, in line with writing their identity as yoga entrepreneurs on

Instagram through profile construction into being, their posting behaviour and content is

generally consistent with their aforementioned initial impressions. This goes in line with

Marwick’s notion that authentic identities and narratives are built up through consistent identity

performances (“Status Update” 120). In a similar vein, even though the way the respective

account holders curate their identities on Instagram shows up overall similar strategies, the

content might differ slightly amongst the respective accounts. Consequently, while some of

the accounts focus on presenting themselves predominantly as yoga entrepreneurs through

posting exclusively yoga-related content (See fig. 13; @kinoyoga, @dylanwerneryoga,

@carsonclaycalhoun), others share more content about their private life (See fig. 14;

@yoga_girl) or their respective businesses (See fig. 15; @koyawebb; @kathrynbudig). This

finding goes strongly in line with aforementioned implementations given in the theoretical

framework about identity performances. In that sense, identity performance is based on

individual lifestyle choices and constant selective decision-making processes in order to create

consistent and coherent narratives while making one’s identity unique and distinguishable

from others (Giddens 76; Buckingham 9).

Fig.13: snapshot of @dylanwerneryoga’s Fig. 14: snapshot of @yoga_girl’s feed

feed portraying mostly yoga content portraying mostly family content

Fig. 15: snapshot of @koyawebb’s feed portraying mostly business and promotion content

Content-wise, in line with implementations given in the theoretical framework, the

entrepreneurs overall discuss lifestyle choices portraying them as “lifestyle icons and

devotees”, predominantly by presenting yoga as initial step to achieve an aspirational life

marked by overall health, fulfilment and wellness (Leaver et al.). In that sense, the process of

presenting oneself on social media has been described as being carefully considered and

selected based on desired feedback and impressions of the audience or more precisely, to

create likeable content which commonly includes the presentation of “desirable lifestyles and

hegemonic beauty ideals” (Tiidenberg and Baym 3; Marwick and boyd). Consequently, most

images presenting the account holders performing yoga is contextualized with ‘wisdom’ and

life advices in terms of struggles they overcame through yoga and related lifestyle choices,

such as obtaining a vegan diet, supporting sustainable brands and especially maintaining a

positive and mindful mindset. Such content is continuously formulated in long self-written texts

that in line with Lorenz implementations increase perceptions of authenticity and credibility

that in return contribute to the creation of strong identities and successful self-brands (Lorenz;

See also Duffy and Hund 3; Khamis et al; Marwick “Status Update” 120; Duffy; Marom 22).

To strengthen sensations of desirability, the images portray predominantly ideal body

presentations and desirable visual settings. In that sense, the body has been described as

marking agency identity as well as ideals on the wellness and fitness market (Webb et al. 93).

Consequently, in a remarkable amount of shared visual and textual content featuring body

discourses, the entrepreneurs promote the benefits yoga and lifestyle-related choices had for

their physical appearance and health. More precisely, while male entrepreneurs seem to

advocate physical benefits of yoga more than females (@dylanwerneryoga, @patrickbeach),

female entrepreneurs are more likely to thematize diet choices, such as veganism

(@yoga_girl, @koyawebb) as life changing characteristic. Consequently, an openly displayed

fit and toned body type signifiers not only a physical transformation, but also a psychological

transformation, from an unhealthy to a healthy lifestyle and thus, overall mindfulness and

wellbeing. In that sense, the body accounts as the most striking example for the impacts

lifestyle choices can have on one’s identity (Giddens 56). By presenting body types that are

conventionally associated with attractiveness and desire (i.e. thin, fit, toned), they use

Instagram to portray obvious results and to attract followers through visual appeal (Rassi 8).

Thereby, they contextualize and promote yoga and their lifestyle as desirable and aspirational

concept. More precisely, the entrepreneurs convey their audience the feeling of being able to

experience the same health and happiness once they adopt the same identity performances

and lifestyle choices as they do, which presents the key mechanism for successful Instagram

entrepreneurship that will be discussed in the following part of this chapter.

5. 2. The Zen Entrepreneur: Self-promotion and Monetization

In which ways are identity performances used for entrepreneurial pursuits?

The findings of this study indicate that yoga entrepreneurs portray predominantly appealing

and desirable impressions of themselves on Instagram. Specific identity performances in this

direction can be instrumentalized for entrepreneurial and monetization pursuits. By creating

likeable and appealing content as discussed in previous parts of this study, the accounts

actively contribute to maintaining and increasing their status as micro-celebrities or influencers

within the yoga niche (Marwick “Status Update” 114). Consequently, in connection to the

theoretical outline of this thesis, the performances of the studied entrepreneurs go in line with

Marwick’s definition of self-branding as a form of self-presentation that relies on presenting

and selling an image of oneself as consumer product to others (“Status Update” 166). In that

sense, their overall identity performances respond to previous studies of health and fitness-

related social media content by posting a striking amount of body-centred imageries that

portray exclusively fit and thin body types Duffy and Hund; Carah and Shaul; Cowans;

Toffoletti and Thorpe).

While establishing the theoretical framework for this study, certain expectations for

alternative body presentation as well as different body presentations between female and male

accounts have been raised based on Instagram’s reliance of user-generated and recently

emerged “body positivity movements” (Cwynar-Horta 37). However, while themes like body

positivity or self-love have found to be widely preached within caption, the images overall

exclusively portray fit and thin body types, interestingly even more displayed by the male

accounts. This finding strongly confirms Banet-Weiser’s argument that specific bodies are

more likely to evoke desire and are thus, more brandable (58). While previous scholars

referred this argumentation particularly to female bodies as a signifier for desired femininity

and appearance, this study neglects any form of gender superiority and suggests that

entrepreneurial pursuits are more likely based on aforementioned associations of physical

fitness and aesthetic with well-being, happiness and health for males and females alike.

Consequently, in this study presentations of identity on Instagram has found to be dominantly

instrumentalized for monetization purposes and explains why content promoting for example

yoga clothing brands portrays exclusively desirable bodies. This notion aligns with discussed

ideas that constructed identities are determining factors in consumers decision-making

processes as “consumption depends on whether or not products and services are linked to

consumer desires” (Boll 83). In that sense, the yoga entrepreneurs fulfil conditions similar to

influencer marketing outlined in the theoretical part of this thesis in a way that they assimilate

trust into goods they advertise by functioning as embodied presentation of the brands, either

for potential sponsorship or collaboration partners or their own brands (Dittmar 12; Abidin and

Thompson 468).

Consequently, self-promotion is a dominant theme for entrepreneurship on Instagram

and manifests itself in addition to the respective account bios predominantly in the post

captions and the stories. The terminology used within the captions accompanying

predominantly appealing images focus on encouraging users to purchase products and

services by providing links to their websites and programs. The branding and self-branding

behaviour of the entrepreneurs have provided an interesting and striking system which reveals

itself in the combination of aesthetic and desirable content, authentic contextualisation and

promotional pursuits. In other words, the predominantly appealing content of the images which

functions to create a sensation of desire is combined with inspirational self-written texts

evoking authenticity is in turn contextualized with promotion content, such as tags for

collaboration deals or self-promotional content. This creates a sensation of ‘authentic

branding’, which on the one hand strengthens the credibility of the entrepreneurs and on the

other hand provides an identification potential for the audience and possible clients and

enhances monetization potential.

In establishing a theoretical framework for the study on the identity performance of

yoga entrepreneurs, it has been found that desirable lifestyles and beauty ideals on the

contemporary wellness market are seemingly easily achievable through the purchase of

certain material goods and services. More precisely, consumers are being conveyed that

personal fulfilment and the elimination of all problems can be achieved through downloading

for example a meditation app, starting a raw vegan diet or juice cleanse or - very common -

doing yoga (Blei). However, authentic representation and advertising of respective lifestyles

and choices have argued to be an inevitable precondition so that a common stance is that all

kinds of health and wellness related problems can easily be solved through purchasing certain

products or services “because consumption will get them closer to these ideals” (Dittmar 22).

Consequently, through practices of authentic (self-) branding and the promotion of yoga as

life-changing and improving initiator contextualized through own experiences, the

entrepreneurs package yoga as a commodification product. Notions of authenticity, in turn,

have not only been outplayed for promotional purposes, but also to verify one’s whole

existence as yoga entrepreneur, potentially to counter critics about the monetization of yoga.

On the whole, the way the entrepreneurs present themselves on Instagram and

communicate their businesses, responds to the general market drive to go from “blog to brand”

and to distance one’s business from general and amateur yoga-related online content by

constantly highlighting their expertise as “spiritual entrepreneurs” or “life coaches” (Gregory

211). In that sense, this research supports studies stating that successful entrepreneurship

takes up the highest status on the contemporary market, which is driven by the general stance

that one’s job must be driven by passion and love (Marwick “Status Update” 257). More

precisely, a common theme within the general identity performances have found to a

contextualization of self-promotion with a drive to help others by doing and sharing what they

love. Consequently, the entrepreneurs outplay an overall attitude of “getting paid for doing

what you love” or even more accurate, an attitude of placing the benefits one’s expertise and

businesses might have for others over one’s own financial profit and media popularity

(Marwick “Status Update” 80; Duffy 442).

5.3. The Commodification of Yoga as “New Age Spirituality” and

Wellness Product

How is yoga presented by yoga entrepreneurs on Instagram?

Despite its ancient and religious roots, yoga has become more of a “fashion statement than a

sacred practice” on the modern market (Hoffmann). The results of this study have shown that

even though yoga is used as the main identifier within the respective account descriptions and

visual content, traditional yoga principles were rather not explicitly thematized. However, major

themes of the captions can be connected to traditional principles in modernized and adjusted

forms. In that sense, traditional principles are thematized and literally ‘translated’ through more

accessible and marketable themes such as self-development, self-love, lifestyle choices or

‘being present in contentment’. This theme for example can be connected to traditional yoga

principles, described as “samadhi” or “cultivation of one-pointed concentration” in the Eight

Limbs of Yoga, a guideline paths written by the Indian sage Patanjali as part of the Yoga

Sutras, the central source and foundation text in yoga. The eight limbs offer moral, yogic and

ethical guidelines that eventually lead to ultimate sensations and feelings of enlightenment,

happiness and joy (Jain 10; Carrico). Consequently, the entrepreneurs repurpose traditional

principles with indications about related lifestyle choices, frequently followed by self-

promotional content. This can be traced back to observations on identity performance and aim

to present yoga predominantly as desirable and easily accessible lifestyle commodity. In other

words, thematizing traditional principles explicitly might be too abstract or even deterrent to

potential clients or customers that are more interested into the postmodern commercial

interpretations of yoga widely advertised on the contemporary market, such as overall fitness

and weight-loss as well as increased mindfulness, stress release and overall well-being (Lewis

541). Another interesting aspect relating to that finding is that this form of posting yoga content

could be observed widely throughout the posts, while yoga was found to be barely portrayed

in the Instagram stories at all. Instead, stories were predominantly used to curate promotional

content or additional material about insights into one’s personal lifestyle. Consequently, yoga

is by most of the entrepreneurs not promoted and thematized as a single product itself, but in

combination with other wellness-related services and products such as skin care, yoga

clothes, health-related podcasts or diet programs, as for example a ‘7 Days Chakra Smoothie

Challenge’ (@koyawebb).

Consequently, yoga entrepreneurs on Instagram are more likely to commodify and sell

a whole range of yoga-related lifestyle products and services instead of aiming to convey

original meanings and principles of yoga. Through revealing and openly discussing one’s past

and struggles and providing ways out, mostly in form of long spiritual and inspirational texts,

they present themselves as lifestyle gurus making their expertise and lifestyle accessible to

potentially everyone through creating and promoting related programs, products and services.

In that sense, yoga is used as the main identifier for extensive and further purchasable lifestyle

choices through which the entrepreneurs “define who they are and what they do (or want to

reflect that they do) in their everyday practice” (Schwindt 216). By taking these argumentations

a step further, it could be evaluated if yoga has become as popular as it is nowadays because

of the verifiability of actual positive effects on the individual or if it is mainly instrumentalized

as identity marker in order to be perceived and categorized as mindful, healthy or spiritual

given the positive associations these characteristics have today (Lewis 541).

5.4. The Role of Instagram

How is Instagram used by yoga entrepreneurs? In which ways are Instagram’s platform-

specific affordances used to perform one’s identity for entrepreneurial and monetization

pursuits?

This study supports previous studies that have described Instagram as a platform used by

brands and advertisers to carry out marketing pursuits (Abidin 86; Manovich 112) as well to

build up and promote self-brands (Marwick; Duffy). This study has shown that Instagram is

used by yoga entrepreneurs as a tool to promote their businesses, such as yoga classes,

products and challenges by presenting and advertising them on the one hand bundled up in

their bio description and on the other hand by constantly performing what has been evaluated

and described earlier as authentic branding strategies in continuous posting processes. In that

sense, the overarching research question of this thesis could be answered as follows: The

relationship between identity performance and entrepreneurship on Instagram is determined

by how Instagram’s platform-specific affordances are used. More precisely, the key to

successful entrepreneurship seems to lie in finding the right relationship between evoking

desire and maintaining authenticity and presenting both consistently in combination. This

function relies mainly on contextualizing aesthetic and appealing content with self-promotional

impulses and links.

In view of the findings, studying and comparing the use of posts and stories to

investigate the relationship between identity performance and entrepreneurship on Instagram

has shown that Instagram’s platform-specific affordances and general features provide

determining and interesting influences and opportunities for entrepreneurship on its platform.

Consequently, in addition to aforementioned interrelations between visual and textual content

in the posts, Instagram’s more recent and not yet exhaustively studied story feature has shown

up crucial amplification potential for entrepreneurial pursuits. More precisely, Instagram stories

do not only encourage more direct promotion through the possibilities to create advertisements

with direct links and access to external businesses, but also through transmitting extensive

sensations of authenticity, closeness and intimacy through for example enhanced community

engagement and a changed camera perspective. Even though not equally used amongst the

studied accounts, Instagram stories have shown up not only complementary, but also

enhanced opportunities for identity performance and entrepreneurship in different ways. Most

striking, Instagram stories allow for more personalized self-presentation and branding. In that

sense, in relation to Goffman’s implementations, stories provide new and extensive ways for

users to give off cues about one’s personality and influence how they are perceived by others

(See Ch. 2.1.1.). While for example a predominant use of humoristic GIFs and animations is

likely to be used to present oneself for example as a funny and accessible personality, an

overall aesthetic style might be used to express one’s life and lifestyle as perfect and desirable.

To give examples, in line with her dominant use of humoristic animations, @kathrynbudig is

described on her website as known for her humour (“Kathryn Budig|Me”), while @sjanaelise’s

exclusively idealized and aesthetically edited self-presentation match the presentation of her

life as “the good life” on her website: “I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world,

because I get to do what I love and call it a job” (Earp).

By setting up the theoretical framework about users general posting behaviours on

Instagram, it has been discussed that Instagram is driven by “selective posting”, meaning that

users carefully consider their posting behaviour and content to avoid “over-posting” their

followers feeds and to only present selected impressions and moments (Marwick “Instafame”

143). However, taking the structure and environment of Instagram’s platform into

consideration, stories aim to exclusively address followers, while posts in addition to providing

content for their followers aim to attract a wider audience and get them to follow their accounts.

Consequently, the content of stories assumes a prior and general knowledge of the account’s

nature and interest into their respective projects, businesses as well as private life.

In general, the findings of the simultaneous time period of capturing posts and stories

shared by the entrepreneurs indicate that their image feeds are indeed overly concerned with

portraying snap shots highlighting exclusively the positive aspects of their lives, most

dominantly in terms of yoga, travelling and family. Simultaneously, stories were generally

concerned with the same sceneries, but provided a range of additional material that evokes

the sensation of getting provided with ‘behind the scenes’ or more precisely ‘behind the post’

content as well as intimate insights into the entrepreneurs lives. This is amplified through the

camera perspective afforded in stories as opposed to images in the posts. In other words,

while images in the posts were dominantly images of them taken by others, stories indicate

self-presentation by the “real self” instead of the “ideal self” (Young 4) and thus, reveal more

immediate “in the moment” experiences (Lorenz; Leaver et al.) and closeness to the audience.

In that sense, this study has confirmed aforementioned implementations about the rise of a

new authentic aesthetic on Instagram and the emerging trend to present less staged

“Instagram vs. reality” content, carried out predominantly through Instagram stories as

opposed to posts (Lorenz).

Therefore, the aforementioned original purpose of Instagram to create a space where

people can share realtime impressions of everyday life as stated by Instagram co-founder

Systrom (Manovich 12), has been taken to a higher level through Instagram stories that

encourages rather than frowns an over-posting behaviour. In reference to Goffman’s

implementations about impression management discussed in the theoretical framework of this

thesis, stories provide a sense of “back stage performance”, while images posted on the image

feed rather count as “front stage performance” (Goffman; See Ch. 2.1.1.). This effect is

amplified through new ways for community engagement and exchange that eventually allow

followers through new affordances provided through stories, such as question or poll tags, to

influence the entrepreneurs content and performance more actively in comparison to merely

commenting on posts and sending private messages. Equally, the feature to share follower

posts and reactions in stories extends the original feedback mechanisms of Instagram’s

platform in form of likes and comments (Caldeira 153). More precisely, it provides a fruitful use

of Instagram stories for promotion by portraying audience feedback as a form of proof of one’s

business being efficient. In a similar vein, the features provided by Instagram stories allow for

extensive possibilities for identity expressions. While content in posts is normally exclusively

initiated and staged by the respective accounts, questions and impulses by the audience can

hardly be planned or might also be appropriate and dispatching to their general online identity

and performance. In case of the aforementioned example of @yoga_girl’s use of the question

feature (see fig. 9), the feature eventually allows her to express identity statements and topics

that would simply not fit into the general positive self-presentation she is maintaining in her

posts. Even though one single story is not representative for all entrepreneurs, it portrays

however the significant extensive possibilities Instagram stories provide to navigate the

impressions of the audience.

The aforementioned aspects however effect the way Instagram is used for

entrepreneurial pursuits in a twofold way. First, the sensation of getting insights into their ‘back

stage performances’ and thus ‘real life’ amplifies authentic perceptions of the entrepreneur

accounts. Authenticity in turn, can be outplayed for branding purposes, which is a dominant

theme throughout the stories. In that sense, more personal use of stories in comparison to

posts have been confirmed using it for self-promotion in contrast to promotion for other brands.

While a majority of the posts have featured sponsorship or collaboration deals, for example

for aloyoga, promotional content in stories have found to exclusively refer to the entrepreneur’s

own brands and businesses.

Stories have found to amplify opportunities for identity performance as well as

entrepreneurship through encouraging more personalized and authentic posting. However,

given that Instagram relies on user-generated content, it remains the individual user’s decision

what to present online and what to hide from their followers (Bullingham and Vasconcelos

103). Consequently, the new experiences and sensations provided through Instagram stories

require a more careful definition of authenticity. More precisely, also outplays of authenticity

through alleged ‘unstaged’ or ‘unaesthetic’ content can be a fruitful strategy to enhance

entrepreneurial and monetization opportunities, which must be considered when doing

research on Instagram stories.

5.5. Limitations and Further Research

Just as any research, this study had certain limitations. For the scope and lengths of this study,

the data provided a convenient and appropriate sample to get interesting results on the identity

performance of yoga entrepreneurs on Instagram. However, different strategies for the data

collection might have provided a different data sample and thus, potentially different results.

For example, instead of taking the most recent posts into consideration, collecting posts from

different time points, might potentially lead to different results. Similarly, the accounts were

almost exclusively selected based on popularity, filtering out ‘micro-celebrities’ within the

Instagram yoga community in order to assure a study on successful entrepreneurship and

corresponding identity performances. However, there might be a not inconsiderable number

of Instagram accounts belonging to yoga teachers and entrepreneurs who also utilize

Instagram for self-promotion but are not equally popular based on their follower count.

Consequently, instead of taking exclusively established and entrepreneurial successful yoga

influencer accounts into consideration, it could be interesting to study identity performances

of accounts that are still in the process of actively striving to build up successful and renowned

businesses. As outlined throughout this study, specific practices to increase visibility, such as

a wide usage of hashtags has not been observed for the respective accounts, probably based

on their popularity and established visibility on Instagram. Therefore, the use of Instagram’s

affordances by more ordinary accounts could present interesting additional findings.

In a similar vein, further studies could investigate on the identity performance of the

studied accounts in earlier time periods and on the ways their identity performances might

have changed, both in view of increased popularity as well as changes and developments of

Instagram’s platform-specific affordances. In that sense, given the newness of Instagram

stories at the time of writing this thesis, I consider this feature as promising for extensive further

studies. Consequently, further research could elaborate on the use of Instagram stories, either

in isolation or through studying the relationship between posts and stories in an extended time

frame.

Another opportunity for further research deriving from this study is to investigate on

identity performances of yoga entrepreneurs on different platforms with the possibility to carry

out a cross-platform analysis. As stated earlier in this study, Instagram is similar to many other

social media platforms, but has a unique nature of aesthetic visual communication (Manovich

41). In that sense, it could be interesting to investigate if the results of this study are equally

present on other social media platforms such as specifically YouTube based on its focus on

video-content. Given that the same yoga influencers tend to maintain accounts across several

social media platforms, contents and use of Instagram, particularly IGTV due to the similarities

to YouTube, could be taken into consideration. Exploring identity performances and

approaches of entrepreneurship across multiple platforms might thereby provide an interesting

contribution for research on the opportunities for entrepreneurship and monetization of

different social media platforms. Similarly, external business platforms found to be bundled up

on Instagram would make for an interesting further study on exploring the relationship between

identity performance and entrepreneurship. This is especially interesting in the context that

some of the yoga entrepreneurs simultaneously maintain podcasts which have lately been

described as a new and increasingly popular medium for people to consume wellness-related

content and thus, for wellness professionals and entrepreneurs to reach consumers (Kohll;

Ryan).

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

The fundamental relationship between identity performance and digital yoga entrepreneurship

on Instagram lies in presenting yoga as a desirable and aspirational lifestyle concept.

Detached from its ancient and religious origins, yoga today has become first and foremost

associated with a ‘cool lifestyle’ that seemingly facilitates the achievement of common beauty

ideals, physical fitness, overall health and wellness as well as a somewhat prestigious positive

and mindful mindset. In response to increasingly digitized and networked stances in society

and work cultures, ideas about mindfulness and wellness have not only been discovered as

auspicious self-help tools to subvert any form of stress and discontent, but simultaneously as

especially easy to access and achieve through technological innovations such as meditation

apps or, as this study has shown, yoga-related online programs, challenges and products

promoted on the social media platform Instagram.

Based on Instagram’s primary reliance on user-generated content and users’ sole

responsibility for what to share and how they want to be perceived, this study set out to

investigate on how yoga entrepreneurs use Instagram for entrepreneurial pursuits. Based on

the initial ways in which the entrepreneurs set up their profiles and perform their online identity,

they do not only actively navigate how they as individuals are perceived by others, but also

how yoga is presented as a desirable lifestyle representing aforementioned health and

wellness related goals. According to the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words,

content on Instagram have found to be particularly conveyed through appealing visual content

to secure attention, ranging from desirable bodies to travelling scenes. The idealized

presentation in the images in turn, was generally contextualized with personal and particularly

emotional texts representing yoga as initial step to overall happiness, health and wellness

based on their own experiences. Consequently, just as traditional ancient yoga gurus, yoga

entrepreneurs today present themselves as lifestyle icons and gurus on Instagram, conveying

the impression that merely the purchase of their products and participation in their programs

will provide people the same sensations of health and happiness.

In that sense, this study has found that Instagram provides ideal conditions for

entrepreneurial and monetization purposes. Instagram is not only one of the most popular and

widely used social media platforms worldwide, it also allows users to make content widely

accessible and reach potential customers detached from spatial and temporal constraints.

Consequently, Instagram has given rise for yoga entrepreneurs to build up a larger following

and become ‘yoga influencers’ or ‘yoga celebrities’ engaging in commercial deals with

renowned brand or succeed to run completely on a self-sufficient business. The latter

corresponds to contemporary stances on the labour market in which self-employment and

following one’s passions are valued as highly aspirational. In addition to the possibilities

provided for self-presentation and entrepreneurship through Instagram’s image feed, the more

recent feature Instagram stories provides additional opportunities for both aspects. By freeing

users from general normative and aesthetic boundaries set through Instagram’s image feed,

the more ephemeral story feature allows users to increase sensations of authenticity and

credibility through sharing not only more content, but also supposing behind the scenes

sensations, meaning less staged and idealized content. Facilitating this feature for promotional

pursuits, Instagram stories provide significant possibilities, first and foremost through merging

visual and textual content in order to create recognizable advertisements with swipe up options

that direct users straight to respective programs or shops. This interplay between presenting

an authentic online identity and simultaneously promoting either general brands or their own

business has been found to be best described as authentic branding and describes, simply

said, the key element within the interplay of identity performance and entrepreneurship on

Instagram.

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APPENDIX

Please use the following link to access the Google drive folder holding the complete data

set the analysis is based on (screenshots of the posts and captured files of Instagram

stories) as well as a folder containing exclusively those stories referenced in the text:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CshDFDpazRJ-gktDe0P6ymr_7aVANYFL

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