Women’s lifestyle and wellness visibilities on instagram: a critical analysis from a feminist perspective

Wellness influencers and accounts on Instagram have reached large followers, a majority of which consist of women, by gathering engaging content that resonates with users seeking guidance on various topics and overall lifestyle improvement. Through a thematic content analysis of the most recent 200 posts from 20 of wellness and lifestyle Instagram accounts, this research examines the messages, communication strategies, and underlying feminist ideals presented to followers. Results indicated that the content fosters feelings of inadequacy for women, especially since they advise women to constantly self-improve. Although these accounts claim to aspire for the goal of empowerment, they often align with media-visible feminist perspectives characterized by postfeminism, neoliberal feminism, and popular feminism. They employ the term feminism as a motivational and trendy concept, which results in hollowing the term’s meaning and certainly not following feminist ideals.