Mobile Masculinities and Hashtag Hinduism

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Abstract

Instagram, a photo and video-sharing service, allows users to engage in social networking through pairings of image and text. Drawing on interviews and discourse analysis, this paper unpacks the relationship between image and text on Instagram profiles belonging to male religious leaders of Pushtimargi Hinduism—a Krishna devotional tradition with roots in northwestern India. These men, such as Vishal Goswami (b. 1980), have thousands of devotee-Instagram-followers from across the globe, and post to their accounts daily. By using similar sets of hashtags—such as #divinelove, #God, #familytime, and #weekendfun—on photos that capture diverse situations ranging from family vacations and daily routines (e.g., cooking breakfast for children or shopping) to formal ritual activities in temples (e.g., festival processions), figures like Vishal Goswami model a distinct type of Indian masculinity meant to show that Pushtimargi devotion is compatible with the everyday-life aspirations of an increasingly affluent and transnational demographic of devotees.