The hybrid lives of teens online

This chapter argues that adolescents experience belonging in spaces that offer recognition and discursively construct their identities in response to feedback from others—both on- and offline. It begins by showing how adolescents today are increasingly enmeshed within affective online networks, and argues that online identity presentations are as constitutive as those offline. Online and offline worlds alike provide opportunities for recognition and belonging—or misrecognition and alienation—and as young people navigate these hybrid lives, the desire and struggle for recognition shape their identity performances. Experiences of collective self-esteem, support, and solidarity within online communities can be affirming, leading many young people to align with collective identities and internalise group norms and values. Over time, such performances contribute to a more stable sense of self carried into other hybrid worlds. Finally, the chapter considers the risks of identity construction in unhealthy environments, focusing on the misogynist online sphere of the manosphere and its connections to extremist ideologies of the alt-right.