The Racial Politics of Desire: Hegemonic Ideas of Black Masculinity and Femininity in “Pop the Balloon or Find Love”

Description of research project: 

This project uses the popular YouTube dating show 'Pop The Balloon or Find Love' as a case to examine how hegemonic ideas about Black masculinity and femininity are constructed and reproduced in contemporary digital media. On the show, participants publicly decide whether to “pop” a balloon to reject a potential partner or keep it unpopped to signal interest and then explain their reasoning. These collective moments of justification, in which participants explain why someone of the ‘opposite’ gender is or is not desirable, offer rich insight into how Black Americans construct and/or challenge normative ideas about masculinity and femininity. Taking Butler’s (1990) notion of gender as performance as a conceptual starting point, this study asks two central questions:

1. What performances of Black femininity and Black masculinity are validated, or perceived as desirable, on the show?

2. What performances of Black femininity and Black masculinity are subordinated, or perceived as undesirable, on the show?

Description of work that will be assigned to research assistants:

1. Episode Viewing and Targeted Transcription: Watching full episodes of Pop The Balloon, paying particular attention to moments when participants give explanations for their decisions to pop or not pop the balloon. RAs will transcribe these narratives for analysis;

2. Focused Thematic Coding: Coding excerpts of episode transcripts to capture how participants express/evaluate desirability;

3. Data Organization: Recording episode details, timestamps, and transcribed excerpts for collaborative review; 

4. Analytic Memos: Writing short reflections (1–2 paragraphs) that identify emerging patterns; 

5. Literature review support: Helping to review relevant literature on Black sexuality, gender, race/ethnicity. 

RAs will receive training in literature reviews, and qualitative research methods.

Supervising Faculty Member: Dr. Al Young 

Graduate Student: Kayonne Christy & Kyle McCullers 

Contact Information: kchristy@umich.edu, kylemcc@umich.edu

Average hours of work per week: 6-10

Range of credit hours students can earn: 2-3

Number of positions avaiable: 4