Digital Culture and Performative Acts for Online Identity: Social and Physical Consequences of Yoga Commodification

The rise of digital culture profoundly influences how individuals curate and present aspects of their lives to create online personas through social media profiles. This research focuses on the online identities of two yoga influencers, examining how their performative acts shape these identities and the resulting impact on social norms and expectations of an ideal yoga practitioner. Employing a semiotic approach, this study analyzes signs in the Instagram posts of these influencers to identify repeated actions and event series that shape their online identities. The results reveal that the performative acts of these influencers perpetuate two distinct potential false myths of yoga. Their online representations contribute to a public perception of yoga as an activity exclusive to the elite social class or merely a physical exercise, overshadowing yoga's other facets. With thousands to millions of followers, these influencers significantly influence yoga's online representation, particularly among young people whose subjectification occurs within digital culture. These potential false myths exemplify the social and physical consequences of yoga commodification. Further discourse analysis is needed to explore public responses, which can be conducted by examining comments and likes from their viewers and followers.