Becoming Your “Authentic” Self: How Social Media Influences Youth’s Visual Transitions

By focusing attention on the ways that media manifold fosters visual practices of presentational work for Generation Z, this article examines active and relational nature youth’s engagement with self-images during transition between high school university. Drawing in-depth interviews 35 youth ages 15–22, analysis how contexts family, school, peers, alongside socioeconomic gendered dimensions young people’s everyday lives to shape different engage in processes becoming; terms becoming who they are want themselves be. Findings reveal although self-performances parallel contemporary theorizations mediatization, self-identity, visuality, I argue more should be paid nuances transitional moments among people, precise which navigate “looking,” tightly bound up heightened expectations around performance projection self.