#dadtribe: Performing Sharenting Labour to Commercialise Involved Fatherhood

This study looks at new developments in the commercial representation of fatherhood as exemplified by ‘Instadads’—a group of father influencers who use Instagram to document their family lives and foster a following that is attractive to brand sponsorship. With a netnography of 21 Instadad accounts and 10 in-depth interviews, we investigate how these influencers perform sharenting labour, which is the labour involved in commodifying and monetising the sharing of parental experiences. We posit that through this labour, father influencers contribute to early attempts at translating the new discursive territory of involved fatherhood into mainstream commercial representations. Sharenting labour has the potential to shift discourses on masculinities, lending more legitimacy to male parental caregiving activities.