MOTHERHOOD INFLUENCERS: BETWEEN CATALOG PREGNANCIES AND LIVED-IN HOMES - Elhem Beddouda - ETHICA SOCIETAS-Rivista di scienze umane e sociali

The Performativity of Care Between the Aesthetics of Perfection and the Display of Chaos in Contemporary Social Media

Abstract: This article examines the representation of motherhood within the contemporary digital ecosystem, focusing particularly on the figure of the so-called mom influencers. Through an interdisciplinary approach combining media sociology, gender studies, and performance theory, the text explores two dominant aesthetics of online motherhood: on the one hand, the “catalog motherhood” built through images of domestic perfection, harmonious pregnancy, and impeccable care; on the other hand, the spectacularization of everyday chaos as a new form of performative authenticity. The aim is to understand how both narratives, despite appearing opposed, respond to common logics of visibility, monetization, and identity construction within social media platforms. The article highlights how digital motherhood today occupies an ambiguous space between normative pressure, the marketization of intimacy, and the search for social recognition.

Keywords: #Motherhood #MomInfluencers #DigitalCulture #SocialMedia #Performativity #CareWork #Authenticity #PlatformCapitalism #Sharenting #GenderStudies #DigitalIdentity #EmotionalLabor #Domesticity #InfluencerCulture #OnlineVisibility #ElhemBeddouda #ethicasocietas #ethicasocietasjournal #scientificjournal #humanities #socialsciences #ethicasocietasupli

Elhem Beddouda, is a professional educator with a degree in Education and Training Sciences from the University of Parma, where she completed a thesis entitled Islam and Educational Function: Perspectives on Religious Assistance in Prison. She is currently enrolled in the Global Studies for Sustainable Local and International Development and Cooperation program at the same university.

Italian version

Introduction

In recent years, motherhood has become one of the most profitable and visible forms of content within digital platforms. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube daily host images of aestheticized pregnancies, perfectly coordinated nurseries, carefully curated family routines, and domestic life transformed into consumable content. At the same time, a counter-narrative has emerged that stages household disorder, mental exhaustion, children crying, maternal burnout, and the impossibility of adhering to traditional ideals of perfection.

Mom influencers therefore occupy a central role in the contemporary construction of maternal imaginaries. They do not merely share personal experiences; they actively participate in defining what is perceived as “good motherhood,” “authentic motherhood,” or “desirable motherhood.” In this sense, social media platforms are not simply spaces of representation but genuine cultural devices that produce norms, expectations, and forms of symbolic control.

This article critically investigates this dual aesthetic of online motherhood: the pursuit of perfection and the exhibition of chaos. Although these representations appear antithetical, both seem to respond to the same logics of digital performativity and the capitalization of private experience.

Motherhood as Social Performance

Motherhood has never been a purely private experience. Modern societies have historically assigned mothers a fundamental moral and symbolic role, associating the maternal figure with ideals of sacrifice, dedication, purity, and educational responsibility. With the rise of social media, however, motherhood has entered a new phase: from a social experience to one of constant visibility.

The theory of performativity developed by Judith Butler is particularly useful in understanding this phenomenon. Digital motherhood is not simply “shown”; it is continuously performed through visual and narrative rituals: pregnancy photographs, morning routine videos, birth stories, breastfeeding tutorials, domestic organization, and emotional management of children.

Each published piece of content contributes to the construction of a recognizable and socially validated maternal identity. The platform itself encourages this dynamic through algorithms that reward narrative continuity, emotional engagement, and the constant production of shared intimacy.

Online motherhood thus becomes a form of relational and symbolic labor. Influencers do not merely sell products; they sell lifestyles, educational models, aesthetics of care, and contemporary forms of femininity.

Catalog Pregnancies: The Aesthetics of Perfection and Aspirational Domesticity

One of the dominant models within contemporary digital culture is that of aspirational motherhood. Within this imaginary, pregnancy appears harmonious, luminous, and orderly. Pregnant women’s bodies are represented as controlled, elegant, and photogenic; homes appear clean, minimalist, and aesthetically curated; children are smiling; routines are productive and serene.

This aesthetic recalls the concept of performative domesticity, in which the home becomes not only a living space but also an identity stage. Motherhood is incorporated into a visual language strongly influenced by advertising, interior design, and wellness culture.

The image of the perfect mother is not new in Western history, but social media amplify its intensity through three fundamental elements:

1. The continuity of visibility: motherhood is documented daily.

2. The monetization of intimacy: family content becomes economically profitable.

3. The internalization of social comparison: users constantly compare their own experiences with those of others.

Within this context, pregnancy itself becomes an aesthetic project. The maternal body is disciplined through controlled nutrition, exercise, skincare, coordinated clothing, and positive emotional storytelling. Even pain and fatigue are often filtered in order to maintain a reassuring narrative coherence.

Digital platforms favor content that is easily consumable, visually harmonious, and capable of generating desire. The result is an “Instagrammable” motherhood in which domestic life is transformed into a cultural product.

Chaos as the New Authenticity

In recent years, however, a counter-aesthetic has emerged that explicitly rejects traditional perfection. Many influencers now display messy homes, screaming children, emotional exhaustion, postpartum depression, relational difficulties, and feelings of failure.

This representation is often perceived as more authentic and liberating. It opposes the idealization of traditional motherhood and denounces the social pressures imposed on women.

However, authenticity itself can become a performance.

Contemporary media sociology demonstrates how social networks have progressively incorporated the language of vulnerability. Showing domestic chaos, crying in front of the camera, or narrating maternal burnout may become strategies for emotional proximity with audiences.

A new form of symbolic capital is thus created: no longer perfection, but emotional transparency.

The “imperfect” mother gains legitimacy through the public confession of her difficulties. Yet even this vulnerability is often selected, edited, and narratively optimized. The chaos shown online rarely coincides with real chaos in all its complexity.

In other words, disorder itself becomes an aesthetic.

Digital authenticity does not eliminate performance; it transforms it.

Perfection and Chaos: Two Sides of the Same Device

Although the two narratives appear opposed, both share the same cultural structure. Both perfect motherhood and chaotic motherhood operate within algorithmic logics that reward:

-continuous exposure;

-emotional intensity;

-narrative recognizability;

-audience engagement;

-monetization of private life.

In both cases, everyday family life is transformed into content.

The primary difference lies in the aesthetic code employed: order and harmony on one side; spontaneity and vulnerability on the other. Yet both representations respond to the same need for visibility and identity construction.

This dynamic produces significant effects on the social perception of motherhood.

Many women experience feelings of inadequacy not only in relation to standards of perfection, but also regarding the ability to “manage chaos correctly.” Online motherhood creates new emotional expectations: women must be productive yet present, polished yet natural, exhausted yet ironic, vulnerable yet resilient.

The result is a continuous state of performative tension.

Motherhood as Emotional and Platformized Labor

Motherhood influencers perform a form of labor that is often invisible yet highly demanding. Beyond actual family care, they must manage:

-content production;

-editorial planning;

-audience interaction;

-commercial collaborations;

-personal brand construction;

-comment moderation;

-constant exposure of their own intimacy.

Digital motherhood therefore exists at the intersection of domestic labor and immaterial labor.

The concept of platform capitalism helps explain how platforms transform emotions, relationships, and private life into economic value. Everyday family life becomes monetizable material through sponsorships, affiliate marketing, partnerships, and views.

This process also raises important ethical questions.

The children of influencers, often present online since pregnancy, become integral components of the visibility economy. Their images circulate publicly before they are able to express consent. This opens critical debates regarding children’s privacy, sharenting, and the commercialization of childhood.

Digital Communities and the Search for Recognition

Despite these problematic aspects, it would be reductive to interpret online maternal communities exclusively in negative terms. For many women, social media also represent spaces of emotional support, sharing, and recognition.

Contemporary motherhood is frequently characterized by social isolation, labor precarity, and the fragmentation of traditional family networks. Digital platforms may therefore function as spaces of symbolic belonging.

Online, mothers find:

-practical advice;

-emotional identification;

-psychological support;

-normalization of difficulties;

-communities of shared experience.

The exposure of vulnerabilities itself may produce positive effects when it breaks the silence surrounding issues such as postpartum depression, mental load, or parental burnout.

The problem emerges when platform logic transforms every experience into permanent content and every emotion into an opportunity for engagement.

Conclusions

Contemporary digital motherhood develops within a constant tension between authenticity and performance, intimacy and market, lived experience and aesthetic construction.

Motherhood influencers do not simply represent a superficial phenomenon of social media culture; they embody profound transformations in the relationship between identity, emotional labor, and public visibility.

The “catalog pregnancy” and the exhibition of domestic chaos appear to be opposing models only on the surface. Both participate in the same attention economy, in which private life becomes content and motherhood a practice continuously observed, evaluated, and consumed.

Within this scenario, the primary risk is not merely the imposition of unattainable standards, but the transformation of motherhood itself into a permanent performance.

Understanding these processes means critically interrogating not only the role of influencers, but the entire cultural and technological system that today organizes the visibility of emotions, care, and everyday life.

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