ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the vital function the body plays in defining these online communities, thereby problematizing this online disembodiment thesis. It demonstrates for interactants on these channels 'the body' is both a shared reference for online communication and a principal component of online identity. Facilitating the incorporation of the physical into online social relations is a distinct vernacular for the body, generally shared across the three channels. While facilitating the speed of online communication, stats also function to institutionalize the quantification of the body. Stats become incorporated into an individual's online identity in much the way a face and a particular build becomes representative of a person in physical-world interactions. Acknowledging the body's simultaneous existence as both a physical presence and a discursive configuration provides an understanding of how it is that the somatic remains always already present in online social relations.
