Sell (It) Yourself: Marketing Pleasure in Digital DIY

摘要: DIY (do-it-yourself) craft is in the midst of a North American renaissance, and reasons attributed to phenomenon's meteoric rise are manifold. Thrift, conspicuous consumption, politics, environmental activism, nostalgia, individuality, community: each turn has been cited as driving force behind handicraft's recent blossoming. In this dissertation I examine work professional semi-professional crafters through an alternative explanatory lens, one that noticeably absent from academic investigations underutilized scholarship on creative at large: rhetoric pleasure. Through examination in-depth interviews with Etsy sellers bloggers, textual analysis promotional materials individual Etsy.com, participant observation indie fairs local knitting groups, trace pleasure's effect chronology commercial handicraft. First, drawing Roland Barthes's distinction between jouissance plaisir, well Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi's concept "flow," argue pleasure derive act making itself bifurcated, once concretizing destabilizing their sense self. then direct my attention handcrafted object's sale, maintaining both plaisir folded into crafters' marketing narratives build personal brands signal authenticity. Finally consider interactions individuals community nature exchange, suggesting handicraft functions simultaneously gift commodity. However primacy throughout sale obscures challenges entrepreneurship engenders. But considering these oft unrecognized hardships-the loneliness isolation; endless administrative burdens; pressures saturated marketplace--it becomes clear there deep-seated irony work: more successful maker bigger her business grows, farther away she moves personally experiencing jouissance. conclude by arguing paradox emblematic neoliberal large points limits class thesis. suggest surest path pleasures production might fact lie outside its professionalization. Degree Type Dissertation Name Doctor Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Communication First Advisor Sharona Pearl