*Weaponising Digital Architecture: Queer Nigerian Instagram Users and Digital Visual Activism DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108760*

their 'difference' and embrace their identities. Within the overall landscape of queer advocacy and activism in Nigeria, ensuring self-acceptance, communality and unity of purpose within the queer community is seen as a precursor to the ability to challenge the normative structures which continue to minoritise and render their lived realities invisible.

Consciously embedded in these figures (**Figures 8** and **9**) is the queer rainbow flag, the colours of which are semiotically used to convey inclusivism and togetherness. According to Anderson [68], the rainbow flag within queer discourses is used to stimulate an 'imagined community', one which transcends the discrimination of heteronormativity to invoke and mobilise following among people who identify as non-heterosexual. Chasin [69] also acknowledges that 'the rainbow flag stands as an emblem of gay nationalism, simply because flags are a standard symbol of nationhood'. Thus in the data analysed, the contexts of realisation and invocation of the

**Figure 10.** *Rendering assistance as queer support.*

rainbow flag determine the ideological strain that is being cultured and dispersed. Whereas in **Figure 8**, the queer rainbow is represented through the love shape – as a way of preaching self-love to queer-identifying Nigerians –, in **Figure 9**, the queer colours appear twice: first in the fonts of the text which are thus foregrounded, and again in the comment accompanying the post. To cultivate positive feedback within the queer community, the poster encourages other users to signal support by dropping 'a rainbow if you agree' that being queer is not a phase.

However, beyond engendering self-love and stimulating psychological communality online, these Instagram users are also very pragmatic. Queer-identifying individuals are subjected to and contend with discriminatory practices that span healthcare, job and career opportunities, and wholesome representation in the public space [70–72]. Within these spaces, these individuals are denied their agency as opportunities which normally should be publicly available are denied them based on their (oftentimes perceived) sexual identities. The social media scape thus becomes a veritable locale where queer individuals can challenge the punitive realities of their physical existence and also provide valuable and worthwhile functional opportunities to remediate their plights. Queer-identifying Nigerian users of Instagram therefore seek as well as extend valuable information as a collaborative way of strengthening in-group affinity. This in-group sustenance forms the crux of **Figure 10**:

The @lgbtqnaija handler shares a direct message sent by a follower. The follower makes an inquiry on the possibilities of getting a job in view of the prevailing demanding economic situation. The follower is probably a student who needs additional income and thus sees the need to work during weekends. By sending the message to the handler who subsequently posts the message, one identifies an in-group synergy aimed at enabling other in-groupers with opportunities that are ordinarily denied them by the largely homophobic Nigerian society. The @lgbtqnaija handler sustains the advocacy with the text: *kindly assist him if you can*. The text is accompanied by the semiotic resources: the love emoji and the queer flag, which connote the kind of positive relationship encouraged on the platform and sustains an in-group camaraderie which is expected to be nurtured even beyond the digital space.

## **8. Instagramming Nigerian queerness: linking the knots**

While the platform may not be the most popular among Nigerian social media users, for the Nigerian queer community, Instagram has grown from just being a platform for photo and video sharing. This is because these users understand the wider social and ideological implications of representation which underlie the images projected by individual handles. As consequence, the six queer handles explored in this study manipulate the interface of the platform in the transmission of their queerpositive ideologies as well as for visual activism purposes.

Dewan [73] and Provvidenza et al. [74] reinforce the potency of visual communication over words, and this seems to be a critical awareness in Instagram-domiciled queer narratives. The image-text interplay identifiable across the images subjected to analysis illustrate the multiplicative nature of meaning in the verbal-visual orchestration and uncovers that attitudinal meanings can be implicitly conveyed through image-text interaction and contextualising information [75]. Since images tend to assist in facilitating the synthesising and sharing of information, they further facilitate the construction of specific ideologies – and in the case of the context of this study, they help in creating queer-positive awareness and visibility. Thus, while

#### *Weaponising Digital Architecture: Queer Nigerian Instagram Users and Digital Visual Activism DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108760*

Alichei [76] draws attention to the persistence of homophobic rhetoric even online in Nigeria despite the liberalisation of identities which the digital space has enabled, Nigerian queer people inscribe their presence on the platforms as a way of marking territories. The implication is that in spite of the enhanced visibility and opportunity to challenge extant normative structures which digital platforms have provided, queer-identifying individuals still navigate treacherous on- and offline existence, as evoked in their digital submissions.

The peculiarity of Instagram also manifests in the user engagement metrics – likes and hashtagging. While these are weaponised to ensure wider engagement, one also recognises the manifestation of gender and identity politics as these determine the context where such metrics and engagement evaluation become integral to queer normativity. Thus, where a positive outlook is envisioned for queer advocacy, ingroup users and allies are encouraged to boldly make themselves visible. However, in other scenarios where there are fears of homophobia or compromised identity, likes are either suspended or discouraged.

Furthermore, there is an identification of an ideology which is embracing of all sexual and gender identities. While there are identifiable contexts where heterophobia is expressed, the images mostly attempt a resolution to the gender wars perceptively stoked by heteronormativity. Through these public stance of ameliorating the provocative narratives of heteronormativity, these Instagram discursive engagements constitute a platform for positive digital activism, which are expected to spill over to the creation of an enabling physical space. The digital narratives also constitute platforms for the centring of queerness within Nigerian digital and post-digital discourses.

More critically however, through the Instagram posts and comments, one recognises an in-group vitality which hinges on an ideology of sustenance and assistance. Predicated by and built on the gender identity hierarchies and alterity which the Nigerian society had created, members of the queer community in Nigeria assist one another through opportunities that can facilitate economic power. This lies on the recognition that strong economic power can strengthen queer agency and in turn assist in queer visibility and legalisation [77, 78].

### **9. Conclusion**

This article has studied the use of queer-positive images on Instagram as bookmarking and embodying visual digital activism. A standout observation in the visual representations across the Instagram handles examined in this study is the absence of personal photographs by the handlers. Undoubtedly, this is related to the Nigerian space which constantly attempts to invalidate queer existence as well as the violent outcomes which have followed accusations of queerness in the country. However, by using the images which engender queer visibility – either through celebrity images or images from protest contexts – these graphic representations have been shown to indeed constitute activist semiotic resources for the contestation of the deprivation and invalidation which homophobia has for long sustained within the Nigerian society. Furthermore, the integration of an in-group ideology in the narratives help to foster a sense of communality – preserved by a 'we' vs. 'them' perception. These viewpoints become vital in providing reassurance for queer-identifying individuals who find it difficult to navigate the homophobic suffusion of the Nigerian physical and digital spaces. Through the visual advocacies too, opportunities for economic

growth and empowerment are nurtured since these are deemed vital to surmounting the challenges of queer-phobia. Consequently, it can be concluded that, like other social media platforms, Instagram has provided a vent for the dissipation of hitherto repressed expressions of queer identities in Nigeria. Unsurprisingly, the queer Instagram post handlers and the commenters have mastered the opportunities availed by the platform and have indigenised their activism to both fit Instagram's enablement and the peculiarities of the Nigerian gender and sexual identities ecology.
