Crystal Abidin

Dr Crystal Abidin is a digital anthropologist and ethnographer of vernacular internet cultures. She researches internet celebrity, influencer cultures, and social media pop cultures. Her books include Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online (2018, Emerald Publishing), Microcelebrity Around the Globe: Approaches to Cultures of Internet Fame (2018, Emerald Publishing, co-edited with Megan Lindsay Brown), Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures (2020, Polity Press, co-authored with Tama Leaver and Tim Highfield), Mediated Interfaces: The Body on Social Media (2020, Bloomsbury Academic, co-edited with Katie Warfield and Carolina Cambre), tumblr (2021, Polity Press, co-authored with Katrin Tiidenberg and Natalie Ann Hendry), and TikTok and Youth Cultures (forthcoming 2022, Emerald Publishing). A/Prof Crystal has led projects comprising teams of international collaborators competitively funded by governments and industry, including the Australian Research Council, Facebook, Social Science Research Council, and Swedish Retail and Wholesale Developmental Council. She is Associate Professor of Internet Studies, Principal Research Fellow, and Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow at Curtin University. On top of being an authority in social media and society studies, she is listed on ABC Top 5 Humanities Fellows (2020), Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia (2018), and Pacific Standard 30 Top Thinkers Under 30 (2016). She also serves on the advisory board and has contributed to policy changes for several tech firms and platforms. Reach her at wishcrys.com.