The widespread proliferation of social network sites (SNSs) in
contemporary society has opened up the ways that consumers approach selfrepresentation and self-promotion, raising new questions around the authenticity of
SNS portrayals. SNSs and their features have enabled social media users to portray
an exaggerated, curated and idealised version of themselves whilst simultaneously
evaluate their own abilities and attributes, and thereby running the risk of experiencing
feelings of inadequacy. Using Foucault's concept of power and governmentality, we
explore the role of humour as a mechanism of control, and consider its role in the
production and negotiation of power relations and social order in the social media
landscape. Preliminary findings found that disparaging humour, through the
apparatuses and institutions of biopower, may inadvertently participate in the
continuous production of both normative and deviant categories of (in)authentic
practices on SNSs.