From "GRWM" to labor: professionalization of adolescent influencers in the digital beauty field

This study examines how beauty practices on social media contribute to the early professionalization of adolescent influencers. Drawing on practice theory and Bourdieu’s theory of taste, the study conceptualizes digital beauty content as a taste regime through which young influencers learn and reproduce socially valued aesthetic performances. A netnographic analysis of 200 TikTok videos produced by 20 Brazilian influencers aged 12 to 17, with audiences of different sizes, identified four interrelated competences - aesthetic, technical, communicative, and reproductive - that structure participation in the digital beauty field. These competences enable young influencers to perform legitimate taste, gain visibility, accumulate symbolic capital, and establish relationships with audiences and brands. The findings show that the repeated enactment of these competences transforms everyday beauty practices into platformmediated labor, blurring the boundaries between leisure, self-expression, and professional activity. By demonstrating how adolescents learn to reproduce and monetize aesthetic performances online, the study extends research on taste regimes and digital labor while contributing to discussions on the professionalization and adultification of underage influencers on social media.