ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relation between networked digital media and affect. The chapter uses the quote by Tony as a starting point for exploring how trans people's virtual presence and free flow of self-speak on YouTube can enable new possibilities for self-representation, challenging and renegotiating existing tropes of representation within mainstream film and media. As media scholar Jane Shattuc points out: 'Consciousness-raising groups have always been a hybrid: part therapy and part political activism'. The trans vlogs share an affinity with the move toward self-help in American therapy and the belief in self-actualization and enhancement. The DIY aspect of the trans vlogs involves sharing experiences and giving and taking advice about how to cope with one's life situation as trans. The Trans vlogs are filled with information on how and where to access various kinds of inexpensive and high-quality body-modifying products and procedures and how to make prostheses out of cheap material.
