Although Twitter has been subject to modifications since its conception, the acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022 represented perhaps its most dramatic vibe shift. The rebranding to X and the extremist political orientation increasingly encouraged by Musk have recently led to a mass exodus of users to alternative platforms – a pattern of migration many referred to as #Xodus. We explore this transition in which ordinary users have decided that it was time to move away from Twitter/X and, simultaneously, attempt to make sense of the logics, affordances, and atmospheres of competing apps – particularly, Bluesky. To examine how users perceive and articulate the atmospheres of Bluesky (and how those, in turn, are compared to X’s), we conducted a mixed-method study combining NLP Semantic Analysis and qualitative Thematic Analysis of messages mentioning ‘Twitter’ posted on Bluesky in October-November 2024. Our preliminary findings indicate that some of the main themes are: mourning the Twitter that once was; celebrating the escape from a toxic environment; and actively cultivating Bluesky as a ‘good place’. While Bluesky’s technical affordances are described in many posts as ‘almost identical’ to X’s, users seem to associate its ‘vibe’ with an older, better, pre-Musk social medium. Also, many of the analyzed posts included tips and suggestions on how to protect the new space from toxicity, such as how to block and avoid feeding trolls – demonstrating the acquired literacy of atmosphere staging and the resistance tactics of platform migration.

This paper examines the counter-narratives to breastfeeding norms on Italian social media, focusing on the project Mamme a Nudo as a key example. With the rise of digital media, motherhood has increasingly been shaped by online communities, offering both support and new pressures. Social media platforms, while providing spaces for mothers to voice diverse experiences, also foster environments that reinforce unrealistic standards of parenting, contributing to a culture of parental comparison and blame. One such divisive issue is breastfeeding, where the medical discourse promotes "breast is best," creating a maternal norm that intensifies feelings of guilt for those who do not breastfeed. This study analyzes how Mamme a Nudo, led by Sasha Damiani, a healthcare professional, critiques this norm, presenting alternative perspectives on infant feeding while simultaneously reinforcing certain forms of maternal normativity. Drawing on concepts from intensive motherhood and risk society, the paper explores how the project challenges the "breast is best" paradigm by citing alternative scientific studies and placing maternal well-being at the forefront. However, this critique paradoxically reaffirms medical authority and intensifies mothers' sense of responsibility, further embedding the culture of hyper-responsibilization. Through digital ethnography, the study explores the role of affective practices in online motherhood communities and how they shape emotional experiences, revealing the complex interplay between resistance and reinforcement of dominant maternal norms.

In this paper we analyze discourse in women’s online spaces about the “science” of feminine attractiveness and beauty. On “women’s only” subreddits such as r/Vindicta and r/Splendida, users invoke supposedly timeless concepts like facial symmetry to construct an idea of beauty that is definitively “objective.” and enroll scientific and technological tools to evaluate, diagnose, classify, and enhance attractiveness. Among both men and women, the interrelated movements around biohacking and “looksmaxxing”--from skincare to fillers and surgeries– promise that bodily discipline will yield biological, economic, and social rewards.

We examine how these attempts to create a definition of “objective beauty” intersect with what Jilly Boyce Kay has dubbed “reactionary feminism,” an emergent (and conservative) mutation of postfeminism. We identify a phrenological turn in online discourse, in which different subgroups mobilize typologies, scientific research, and archetype-based beauty and style systems to resolve the contradictions between the strict beauty standards of the 2000s and the body positivity movement of the 2010s. This new dialectical conceptualization emphasizes an individual’s choice–and obligation– to analyze one’s body objectively and optimize their attractiveness within embodied constraints. Redditors portray “objective beauty” in both essentialist and achievable terms; it is tied to eugenic ideals of face shape, bone structure, and body type and yet achievable by anyone, through economic and technological interventions. We investigate this contradiction and the broader economic, political, and technological logics that underscore this phrenological turn in online women’s subcultures.

While Reddit is often associated with toxic techno-cultures, platformized violence is not confined to explicitly harmful spaces—it also emerges in communities dedicated to fostering ‘good vibes.’ In this context, this paper examines how platformized violence operates in four of Reddit’s most popular positive-vibe communities. Using digital ethnography, I analyze how harmful speech manifests in these spaces and how community dynamics shape its function and visibility. Findings reveal two key mechanisms: targets and visibility. These two mechanisms show that, while platformized violence is used to reinforce oppression through insults and exclusion, it is also deployed as a strategy of ‘punching up’—attacking those in positions of power to defend marginalized groups. Additionally, platform affordances such as moderation and downvoting influence the visibility of platformized violence, sometimes mitigating harm and other times weaponizing obscurity. These findings challenge simplistic understandings of platformized violence, demonstrating its dual role in both sustaining and disrupting online toxicity. This study highlights the need for nuanced governance strategies that balance community well-being with the complexities of online harm.