Description
Social media influencers play an important role in shaping how feminist ideas circulate online. Influencers such as Thewizardliz discuss themes of confidence and femininity with audiences of millions. In two different YouTube videos, published in 2022 and 2023, Thewizardliz shows two contradictory yet interconnected feminist narratives around femininity and empowerment.This contribution examines how empowerment is discursively constructed and how these messages reflect broader tensions in contemporary feminism, answering the following RQs: In what ways does Thewizardliz simultaneously promote girlboss feminism and reactionary feminism, and how does this reflect the contradictions within contemporary feminist discourse? To answer these questions, the two videos were analyzed employing Multimodal (Critical) Discourse Analysis [2; 4]. The analysis shows that Thewizardliz’s discourse positions empowerment between girlboss feminism [5] and reactionary feminism [3]. On the one hand, empowerment is framed as a project of self-optimization: Thewizardliz encourages women to improve their mindset, appearance, and habits in order to become confident and successful. On the other hand, empowerment is framed through the reinforcement of traditional gender hierarchies: Thewizardliz teaches women to strategize their femininity and expect financial provision from men. Although these messages appear contradictory, both reduce empowerment to an individual strategy for navigating capitalist patriarchy while leaving its structures unchallenged [1; 5; 6; 3]. Ultimately, Thewizardliz’s discourse uses two different strategies for achieving the same goal: individual success within existing power structures. This encases her discourses both into a postfeminist, neoliberal framework and a “choice” feminism, overlooking the bigger systematic problems feminism tries to address.References
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Kay, J. B. (2024). The reactionary turn in popular feminism. Feminist Media Studies, 1–18. https://doi-org.tilburguniversity.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/14680777.2024.2393187.
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Mastrangelo, F. (2021). Theorizing #Girlboss culture: Mediated neoliberal feminisms from influencers to multi-level marketing schemes (Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Commonwealth University). VCU Scholars Compass. https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/6648.
Sykes, I. (2024). From ‘girlboss’ to #stayathomegirlfriend: The romanticisation of domestic labour on TikTok. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 28(3), 830-848. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494241285643 (Original work published 2025)
Thewizardliz. (2022, May 16). Confidence baby [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTA9bwp-RrU.
Thewizardliz. (2023, July 28). How to receive princess treatment [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtqK662eYpA.
| Period | 29 May 2026 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Anela Juniorendag |
| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 35th |
| Location | Amsterdam, NetherlandsShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |
Keywords
- girlboss feminism
- femosphere
- influencer
- multimodal discourse analysis
- critical discourse analysis
- YouTube
- social media