Neoliberal rationality and the entrepreneurial self on social media: problematizing the phenomenon of child coaches

Abstract

This article analyzes the construction of discourses produced by children and adolescents who act as child coaches, aiming to create and disseminate content regarded as inspirational on digital social media platforms. From a Foucauldian perspective, the study highlights the shaping of ways of being and relating to oneself that are connected to neoliberal rationality, which emphasizes self-management, proactivity, and free initiative. Adopting an archaeogenealogical approach, the study examines statements extracted from videos published on digital social networks, as well as a journalistic article published on the UOL portal. The analysis indicates that child coaches are grounded in a pedagogy of performance, through which childhood and youth shift from a period of experimentation to a space of continuous self-improvement. In this process, children and adolescents begin to internalize the conduct of the individual-as-enterprise, characterized by competitiveness, productivity, and personal responsibility for one’s own success. Such discourses seek to transform individuals by establishing a regime of governmentality that operates through affects, desires, and motivations, thereby directing behaviors aligned with neoliberal values and disseminating the idea that each subject should become, from an early age, the entrepreneur of the self.