The ties that bind: the networked performance of gender,sexuality and friendship on MySpace

Although the body of research on social network sites (SNSs) continues to increase, scholarship in this relatively new field has largely neglected the gendered dimensions of networked interaction on SNSs. Through an empirical analysis of users’ comment exchanges, this study demonstrates how a group of interconnected ‘friends’ on MySpace engage in gendered and sexualized interactions through the use of various semiotic resources (i.e. text, images, video). In this particular network, articulations of affection are indiscriminatingly distributed among the friends, creating a flow of polymorphous desire in which the heteronormative gender binary is repeatedly transgressed. From a theoretical perspective, it is argued that Judith Butler’s notion of performativity is useful as an analytical lens when investigating these networked interactions. The examples illustrate how the friends make use of ironic and/or parodic citations in order to be recognized as a member of the group, performatively delineating and shaping their friends network.