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Paper short abstract:

I reflect upon the different functions of home and bedroom for pregnancy vlogging on YouTube – before and during the pandemic. I present a categorization of interiors, reflect on the vlogger’s home as an assemblage of private and public, and look at negotiation of authenticity, intimacy, and trust.

Paper long abstract:

Pregnancy-vlogs are often situated in the pregnant vloggers home and bedroom. This setting not only challenges traditional conceptions of private and public spaces, but it also helps us reflect on interdependences between media, space, narrative, and the pregnant female body.

Speaking about feelings, decision making, and the female body during pregnancy surrounds these bedrooms with a set of narratives that evoke intimacy and trust. These are important currencies for professional vloggers. Thus, filming a vlog at home can be read as a reaction to challenges regarding the authenticity of the vlogging community. The home becomes a promise: What is set here, must me intimate, trustworthy, and real.

Thus, in pregnancy-vlogs, home and bedroom can be analyzed as cultural spaces under negotiation: By blogging from and about the private home - before and during the pandemic -, traditional concepts of family, being a wife and mother, of health and work ethics are promoted. Living a modest, natural (as the basis for a natural birth) and normal life is described as desirable, as it is represented in the style, dealing with, cleaning and decorating one’s cozy, family-friendly home.

Pregnancy-“updates” show the home in a modified quality: It highlights social norms such as tidiness, efficiency, and a capacity to deal with one’s surroundings: Like the mess in the house, messy feelings – how ever intense they are – are finally gathered, organized and overcome in an uplifting story, pain is mentioned but also laughed away, and insecurities are shared, but already dealt with.