Inspired by the online fieldwork assignment i have decided to take a look at another site called TheCHIVE. The site has a tagline “probably the best site in the world” I am not going to discuss wheter or not this is true, but the tagline has much in common with another slogan, used by Carlsberg “probably the best beer in the world”. Becouse the slogans are so similar at least I automatically think about the beer whenever i see the slogan of TheCHIVE. Beer is something that traditionally is concidered masculine. So allready in the slogan it is possible to see that this site is gendered.
TheCHIVE is a site dedicated to pictures and videos on the internet. Some of theese are funny, some are unbeliveable, some are cute and some are pictures of girls. Theese girl pictures are worth a deeper look becouse all the girls in the picture look more or less the same. Thin, big breasts, little clothing and long hair. This is interesting becouse the site never posts pictures of girls that not look like this. I don’t really know why. I know this is the looks of what is concidered a sexy girl, but everybody doesn’t like the same thing. The theories of heteronormativity also applies here concidering the fact that this is a site aimed towards a male audiance that supposedly like to look at the female body.
At the top of the page it is possible to choose from 8 different categories. Theese categories are Store, Girls, Video, Funny, Randomness, Sports, HQ and Show All. The most interesting of theese categories from an analytic point of view are Girls, Funny and Randomness. Each of theese three categories have a number of sub-categories Girls have 14 sub-categories e.g. Burn Bra, Hump day and Things that Bounce. Funny have 18 sub-categories e.g. FAIL, Meme and motivational. Randomness have 24 sub-categories e.g. Bachelor Pads, Crazy Food and Nature. Many of theese sub-categories are also male oriented as seen for example in the sub-category Bachelor Pads.
TheCHIVE is one of five sites owned by Resignation Media. The other sites are TheBERRY (that’s what she saw), TheTHROTTLE (probably the best auto site in the world), TheBRIGADE (In ‘merica we trust) and TheCHIVERY (has no slogan, but it is a online store). Of theese five sites only TheBERRY is aimed specificly for girls. TheTHROTTLE is a site dedicated to things with a motor, this is traditionally seen as a male thing. TheBRIGADE shows weapons and army related stuff in addition to girls in uniforms, theese are also traditionally concidered male things. The theories of heteronormativity fits surprisingly easily into any of theese sites, since none of them really shows anything different than people of the opposite sex than the target audience.
Great observation, and connecting it to the construction of masculinity and heteronormativity.
Analysing the site one could maybe use theories about hegemonic masculinity, which describes the hierarchical interaction between multiple masculinities and explains how some men make it appear normal and necessary that they dominate most women and other men (Connell 1987 ). Hegemonic masculinities marginalise and subordinate alternative forms of masculinity.