The predominantly female lifestyle blogosphere has flourished in the last decade, capitalising on the current fetish for technologically-mediated authenticity and intimacy. In the same way that medical technologies have long penetrated women’s bodies, digital technologies take us into women’s homes and emotional lives, accompanied by the new regimes of self-discipline and regulation that such visibility inevitably evokes.
This discipline is evident when considering the additional labour that takes place in performing digital femininity. Not only are food bloggers performing the work of pre-feminist domesticity – cheerfully churning out endless pies and cakes in their kitchens – but they are employing extensive amounts of creative and digital labour in order to disguise the tedium of this domesticity. They are tasked with nurturing not only their families but their invisible virtual audience: a professional domesticity that is pleasurable for many, and lucrative for few.