"A World of Beautiful Fat Babes": Community-Building Practices in Plus-Size Fashion Blogs

Abstract

This paper focuses on the community-building practices of plus-size fashion bloggers. Because of the stigmatization of fatness in mainstream fashion media, plus-size women have turned to online resources to express their sense of fashion and to construct communities with others who have similar interests. In a qualitative analysis that builds on Herring’s (2004) computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) approach and Wenger’s (1998) community of practice theory, three categories of community-building practices are identified in blog data. The bloggers show their engagement with the group by expressing a sense of belonging, negotiate a joint enterprise by vocalizing a sense of solidarity among plus-size fashion consumers, and offer support to each other through a shared linguistic and discursive repertoire.