Legitimation, Authenticity, and Communicative Entitlement in YouTube “Lifestyle” Vlogs: The Case of “Hygge”

Abstract

This article uses ethnomethodological conversation analysis and multimodal analysis to explore the performance of “authenticity” in “lifestyle” vlogs that deal with the topic of hygge. This analysis contributes to our understanding of the emergence and development of vloggers’ “genre practices,” foregrounding the epistemic strategies through which “authenticity” is configured. The analysis points to three distinctive epistemic categories of hygge videos: (1) videos in which vloggers discursively claim legitimacy as practitioners of hygge; (2) videos in which vloggers embody hygge practice as a way of displaying legitimacy; (3) videos in which vloggers show hygge as distinctively Danish and enact their Danish identity through the videos. These three types involve the production of different notions of authenticity that are tied to particular identity claims, accounting practices, and audience positionality.