Mapping Touch of (Ugly) Selfies, Memes, and Jokes as Forms of Intimacy and Violence

Abstract

AbstractTo further consider the ways Touch both enables and constrains bodies and ways of being, this chapter examines Touch as including forms of both intimacy and violence. Extending from the implicit understandings of selfies and memes as Touch (Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-94316-5_2) and the initial mapping of Touch (Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-94316-5_3), the PrettyGirlsUglyFaces meme (and the selfies that make up the meme) is used as an example to consider selfies and memes as intimacy and violence. Then, drawing on the fundamentals of Touch (Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-94316-5_3), I begin to plot a map of Touch, identifying how the example meme and selfies act as intimate connections that are positioned in a culture of violence. Central to this chapter is the identification of the joke’s importance to the positioning of visual conversations in social networks. As a form of Touch, the joke is identified as both enabling and constraining intimacy and violence. Examining memes and selfies as practices of connectivity and symbolic violence further recognises Touch for the ways it culturally both enables and constrains bodies and identifications.