ABSTRACT
While there are many movement practices that maintain a pop cultural appeal, and many wellbeing practices that have mainstream interest, few of them have reached the high level of penetration into popular culture of yoga. Through the aspirational vision of slender, female flexibility and privileged calm, images of yoga dominate the marketing of a number of extremely profitable international industries. Yet, the differences in form and intention between yoga as a marketing meme, yoga as a personal practice, and yoga in transmission to others can be glaring. In response, this chapter considers those same fault lines between the experience and the presentation of yoga through the lens of social media. It explores the in/visibility of lived experiences of the body, and the eternal conversation between the private and public nature of yoga as a practice, and asks, to what extent is it a performative or philosophical endeavour?
