Paper short abstract:

The study is interested in how love practices in the period of courtship are digitized in the life of Bulgarian youths. It explores the new unwritten codes, hierarchies and rituals the virtual body follows in different social media platforms perceived as specific arenas of intimacy expression.

Paper long abstract:

Media have become "infrastructures of intimacy" (Paasonen, 2017). In contemporary sociability online social media platforms function as an extension of the offline networks (boyd & Ellison, 2007). Different platforms for communicating with a romantic partner are used at different stages from the "initiation to intimacy" (Yang, Brown, and Braun, 2014), as "layers of electronic intimacy" which directly reflect the level of intimacy users would like to express. This could be interpreted in parallel with the search for the "appropriate shape" of the virtual body to be used on each one.

The aim of the study is to trace how the theme of love and the love practices in the period of dating, courtship and eventual separation are digitized in the life of Bulgarian youths. The observation does not concentrate on a specific digital space, but is rather interested in the dynamics of media consumption as a whole. Results are based on in-depth interviews. Different online spaces are interpreted as arenas of specific intimacy expression - the arena of drama, the arena of love models, the arena of flirting and sexting, the arena of deep love. The research explores the complex strategies of self-expression, the need of external validation, the new digital ways of creating an intimate atmosphere, but also the social, ethnic and gender differences in online love expression on social media. We can speak of new unwritten codes, norms, hierarchies and rituals, which acquire the significance of meaningful and less meaningful displays of love.