From selfie to #sealfie: Nature 2.

0 and
the digital cultural politics of an
internationally contested resource
Roberta Hawkins & Jennifer J. Silver
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/from-selfie-to-sealfie-nature-2-0-and-the-digital-cultur
al-politics-of-an-internationally-contested-resource-roberta-hawkins-jennifer-j-silver/
 Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Geoforum
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum

From selfie to #sealfie: Nature 2.0 and the digital cultural politics
of an internationally contested resource
Roberta Hawkins, Jennifer J. Silver ⇑
Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper examines an iteration of debate about seal hunting in Canada wherein the politics of nature
Received 1 July 2015 and celebrity culture intersected via Web 2.0 in an unanticipated way. Our analysis focuses on a spike
Received in revised form 18 February 2016 in social media posting that took place after celebrity Ellen DeGeneres took a ‘selfie’ photo with a group
Accepted 18 June 2016
of movie stars live during the 2014 Academy Awards. ‘Nature 2.0’ is a relevant framing for this case
Available online 9 July 2016
because, in the weeks and months after the 2014 Oscars, many seal hunters and other pro-hunt advocates
took to Twitter and posted personal photos and/or accounts of seal hunting and its significance. In a play
Keywords:
on DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie, both types of posters often labelled their tweets with the following ‘hashtag’:
Canada
Celebrity
#sealfie. Our analysis shows that, while important, the Oscars spectacle and the star-studded selfie did
Political ecology not alone the scene for #sealfies and their circulation. Moreover, we demonstrate that some #sealfie
Sealing posters challenged the authority of anti-sealing organizations and employed Web 2.0 functionalities in
Social media ways that took debate about sealing beyond engrained moral and environmental binaries. We conclude
that Web 2.0 not just enabled, but actually shaped, the form and function of #sealfies and the journalistic
attention that the phenomenon received.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
This paper examines an iteration of debate about seal hunting
in Canada wherein the politics of nature and celebrity culture
intersected via Web 2.0 in an unanticipated way. Contestation
regarding seal hunting in this country has a long history, including
many organizations and campaigns both for and against. Our anal-
ysis will focus on a spike in social media posting that took place
after popular talkshow host and self-identified animal welfare
advocate, Ellen DeGeneres, took a ‘selfie’ photo with a group of
movie stars live during the 2014 Academy Awards (i.e., ‘Oscars’)
television broadcast. DeGeneres immediately posted the picture
– which included herself and several ‘A-list’ movie stars like Julia
Roberts and Brad Pitt – to Twitter. It was re-tweeted by over two
million other Twitter users, and within days, was dubbed the ‘most
famous selfie in the world’ (Addley, 2014).
‘Nature 2.0’ (Büscher, 2013, 2014; Büscher and Igoe, 2013) is a
relevant framing for this case because, in the weeks and months
after the 2014 Oscars, many seal hunters and other pro-hunt advo-
cates took to Twitter and posted personal photos and/or first-hand
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Geography, University of Guelph, 50
Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1, Canada.
E-mail addresses: rhawkins@uoguelph.ca (R. Hawkins), j.silver@uoguelph.ca
(J.J. Silver).
accounts of seal hunting and its benefits, the function and fashion
of sealskin clothing, and the taste and nutritional value of seal
meat. People who posted these tweets frequently expressed a
desire to draw attention to the centrality of seals and seal hunting
in some rural and remote places in Canada, often with particular
attention to northern Indigenous Inuit peoples and communities.
Others sought to substantiate why they believe anti-sealing
campaigns have negatively impacted their households and com-
munities and/or to foreground what they see as contradictions in
anti-sealing imagery and discourse. In a play on the celebrity-
studded Oscars selfie, both types of posters often labelled their
tweets with the following ‘hashtag’: #sealfie.1 In turn, the term
sealfie and issues raised in #sealfie tweets were picked up and
reported upon in print, television, and online journalistic outlets.
Reporting generally took a balanced, and in some, supportive, tone
and almost always showed examples of photos tagged with #sealfie
or contained text quoted from posts. Many stories described the sig-
nificance of seals to people in rural and northern regions of Canada,
while some interviewed those attributed with initiating #sealfie,
1
The hashtag (#) is an organizational feature available to users of many social
media platforms, including Twitter. Twitter allows users to search for posts
containing the same hashtag and even publicizes hashtags that are in high use (i.e.,
‘trending’) at any given time. When people use hashtags in their posts, therefore, they
are seeking to publicize or connect their content or ideas to others.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.06.019
0016-7185/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
offering them opportunity to expand upon their goals and intentions
and/or to connect the hashtag specifically to DeGeneres and the
Oscar selfie.
By tracing the emergence of online posting after the 2014
Oscars, conducting discourse analysis on text and images in
#sealfies, and drawing from semi-structured interviews with four
people involved in posting and/or broader debate about sealing,
we will show that a handful of seal hunters and pro-seal hunt
activists seized DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie as an opportunity to draw
attention to existing conditions and concerns. From this perspec-
tive, the paper contributes a case where social media was used
to subvert celebrity culture in a way that publicized the local uses
and values of a contested resource. These findings are relevant to
social movements and new media scholarship within which the
arsenal of online tactics employed by activists is engaged
(Hutchins and Lester, 2006; Boykoff, 2009; Lester and Hutchins,
2009; Gleason, 2013; Rodgers and Scobie, 2015). In this literature,
social media is often heralded as one or more of the following: a
conduit for alternative or dissenting information; a space for the
exchange of views; and/or, a tool that activists can use to vie for
mainstream media attention.
Mirroring a key contention of this wider Nature 2.0 special
issue, our interest is in the possibilities that Web 2.0 platforms
can open for individuals and groups to shift imagery and cultural
narratives about humans and contested resources and environ-
ments (Cronon, 1996; Braun and Castree, 1998), and perhaps,
influence how they are understood over time. Informed by Gillian
Rose’s (2015) suggestions for cultural geographers who study dig-
ital objects, we will develop two key points that illustrate novel
contours of possibility. First, while important, we argue that the
televised Oscars broadcast or the star-studded selfie did not alone
set the scene for #sealfies and their circulation. Instead we show
that Ellen DeGeneres’ already well-established Twitter presence
and public persona were both crucial preconditions. Second, we
demonstrate that some posters challenged the authority of anti-
sealing campaigns and organizations and/or took advantage of
specific Web 2.0 functionalities to layer structural criticisms in
ways that took debate about sealing beyond engrained moral and
environmental binaries. Examples that we will briefly explore
include the layering of messages within single #sealfie tweets by
including other hashtags (e.g. #MMIW for ‘Murdered and Missing
Indigenous Women’) and linking reporting about seal hunting to
other current stories and reports (e.g. northern food insecurity
and the World Trade Organizations’ arbitration of a seal product
trade ban).
Our conclusion is that Web 2.0 not just enabled, but actually
shaped, the form and function of #sealfies and the journalistic
attention that the phenomenon received. While the spectacle and
massive television audience of the Academy Awards mattered,
Ellen’s public persona and Twitter following were crucial. More-
over, Web 2.0 functionalities were used in ways that illustrated
connections between the contested nature of seals and sealing in
Canada and broader structural inequalities and colonial legacies.
While debate about sealing in Canada has certainly not been
resolved, voices of Inuit peoples (and to a lesser extent, commercial
sealers from Newfoundland and Labrador) were amplified and
diverse human-seal relations were publicized. Possibilities and a
key challenge for the progressive potential of Nature 2.0 come to
light, as will be raised in our discussion and conclusions.
2. Seals, seal hunting, and anti-sealing campaigns
Harp seals (Pagophilus groenlandicus) are the main commer-
cially targeted seal species in Canada. Many of the harp seals that
live in Canadian waters spend summer in the Arctic Ocean and
115
migrate southwards in fall. In late February, females begin to birth
on pack ice that forms in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off of north-
ern Newfoundland and Labrador. Pups are born with white fur and
are weaned by about 12 days after birth. By 25 days after birth,
pups have moulted their white fur and a darker looking coat has
grown in (Livernois, 2010). When the ice begins to recede, usually
in May, harp seal packs head back north (Livernois, 2010). A
Federal Government report suggested that there were at least eight
million harp seals in Canadian waters in 2008, the highest estimate
in 60 years (DFO, 2011).
Seals have been hunted in Canada for international export since
at least the early 1800s, with the highest one-year harvest (740,000
seals) recorded in 1832 (DFO, 2011). Commercial hunting typically
happens in March and April because this is when pups are accessi-
ble to humans via pack ice and when their young coats have qual-
ities preferred in the marketplace (Livernois, 2010). Prior to World
War II, there was little to no government oversight of commercial
seal hunting in Canada, and over-exploitation led to population
decline (DFO, 2011; Dauvergne and Neville, 2011). Harp seal pop-
ulations increased during WWII because the hunt ceased during
that period, but decline began once again after the war concluded.
Figures in Dauvergne and Neville (2011) indicate that the average
number of seals harvested per year 1912–1970 varied between a
low of 159,000 and a high of 330,000.2
Before the late 1950s, ‘‘few outside of Eastern Canada had heard
of the seal hunt” (Dauvergne and Neville, 2011: 196). The first
widely broadcasted television footage of commercial seal hunting
in Canada occurred in 1964 (Livernois, 2010), when a documentary
movie showing a landsman skinning a seal that appeared to be
alive ‘‘reached a global audience” (Dauvergne and Neville, 2011:
196). In response to declining harp seal numbers, pressure from
anti-sealing organizations, and negative international press, the
Canadian Government introduced regulations to the harp seal hunt
in 1965. These included: mandatory licenses (though the total
number of licenses is not limited); time-limited harvest openings;
and, restrictions on hunting methods (including a ban on live skin-
ning and a requirement that clubs be large enough to kill seals
quickly). By 1970, some estimates suggested that the harp seal
population had sunk to a low of 1.5 million (Dauvergne and
Neville, 2011). In 1971, the Federal Government set a ‘Total Allow-
able Catch’ which placed a maximum limit on the number of seals
that could be hunted in a year from Canadian waters (Livernois,
2010; DFO, 2011).
Numerous anti-sealing campaigns were initiated between the
1960s and 1980s by organizations including Greenpeace and the
International Federation for Animal Welfare (IFAW). Using images,
interviews, and video footage of hunting, these campaigns explic-
itly sought to constitute seals as cute and helpless creatures in
the minds of North Americans and Europeans (Dale, 1996;
Dauvergne and Neville, 2011; Rodgers and Scobie, 2015). As
Lester (2006: 909) notes, this is because ‘‘[s]hared understandings
and meanings create cultural resonance on which the battle for
social change is fought”. In other words, close-up pictures of fluffy
white newborn seals so central to early campaigns were not neu-
tral (re)presentations, nor were they meant to be. Images of ‘‘hardy
fishermen bashing in the skulls of baby whitecoats with puppy-dog
eyes” (Dauvergne and Neville, 2011: 193) and interviews with
celebrity spokespeople adamantly condoning the hunt worked to
compartmentalize single seals, often of a particular age range, from
the wider socionatural networks within which they are entwined.
Public pressure to end commercial sealing built both within and
2
Dauvergne and Neville (2011) report average yearly harp seal harvests of:
159,000 between 1912 and 1940; 330,000 between 1951 and 1955; 300,000 between
1956 and 1960; 285,000 between 1961 and 1965; and, 280,000 between 1966 and
1970 (p. 196).
116 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
outside of Canada. The United States banned the import of seal
products in 1972, and in 1983, the European Commission banned
products derived from newborn ‘whitecoats’ (Dauvergne and
Neville, 2011; Rodgers and Scobie, 2015). This, as well as the fact
that British supermarket chain Tesco threatened to stop selling
all Canadian seafood products, influenced the Canadian Federal
Government’s 1987 decision to end the commercial hunt for pups
between 6 and 12 days old (Livernois, 2010). Between 1983 and
1995, approximately 51,000 harp seals were harvested per year
(Dauvergne and Neville, 2011). By the mid-1990s, the population
of harp seals in Canadian waters had rebounded to five million
and the Federal Government decided to increase subsidies to
encourage a renewed commercial hunt. Whitecoats remained off
limits, but pups of 2–12 weeks were permissible (Dauvergne and
Neville, 2011:194). In 2002, 300,000 seals were harvested, making
that year the largest hunt since the 1960s (Dauvergne and Neville,
2011). Then, in 2009, the European Union (EU) banned the import
of all seal products, a decision that is still being hotly contested by
the Canadian Federal Government (Wegge, 2013).
Anti-sealing campaigns and the trade bans continue to impact
people who hunt seals in Canada in several ways. Economically,
the bans have reduced or altogether eliminated demand for seal
products in some places, causing greater price volatility due to
the higher likelihood of saturation in remaining markets. In prac-
tice, this means that it is more difficult for hunters to find buyers
for seal products and to earn a profit from the sales that do occur
(Livernois, 2010). It has also been suggested that reduced markets
and price volatility incentivize sealers to hunt quickly during time-
limited openings, which can involve long hours and risk-taking on
the water and/or violating regulations meant to improve the ani-
mal welfare conditions of the hunt (Livernois, 2010). Socio-
culturally, seal hunters and their communities frequently argue
that decades of anti-sealing campaigns have painted an unfair
and paternalistic picture of this livelihood activity, and that the
campaigns and bans rest on value-laden and emotionally-based
judgements made by people and organizations in southern Canada,
the United States, and Europe (Rodgers and Scobie, 2015).
The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is where
most federally licensed commercial hunters live and where the
majority of harp seals harvested in Canadian waters are brought
ashore. It is also often painted as ground zero for sealing-related
conflict. However, it is crucial to appreciate the relationship that
Inuit peoples have with their territorial places and resources
(including seal), and that northern communities have also experi-
enced outfall from anti-sealing campaigns and bans. Collective
Inuit rights to govern, access, and harvest from territorial lands
and seas flow from their multi-generational use and occupation
of these spaces, and these rights were legally enshrined into the
Canadian Constitution in 1982. This fact, and effective lobbying
by an organization called ‘Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami’, positioned Inuit
hunters and communities such that they obtained technical
exemptions from the European bans of 1983 and 2009 (Rodgers
and Scobie, 2015).
Rodgers and Scobie (2015) offer an insightful overview of this
history, reminding of the intertwined cultural, nutritional, and eco-
nomic roles that seal hunting plays in Inuit households and com-
munities. Ringed seal (Phoca hispida) is used for food and to
make warm clothing for local use, gifting, and domestic sale.
Where possible, hunters will additionally sell pelts or pelt/leather
products into international markets. A 1996 study quoted in
Rodgers and Scobie (2015) concluded that ‘‘most Inuit families
[in the Arctic community of Ulukhaktok] were able to make a com-
fortable living from a combination of seal hunting, fox trapping,
and skin crafts manufacture” (Collings and Condon, 1996: 255–
256). However, even with an exemption from the EU bans, the
‘‘Inuit sealing industry collapsed with the entire industry” leaving
‘‘Inuit communities with few additional opportunities for
economic development” (Rodgers and Scobie, 2015: 75). Although
Inuit seal hunting for local food, trade, and clothing continues
today, the potential for hunters to recover hunting costs (e.g., fuel,
equipment) by selling additional pelts for international trade is
said to be limited. In 2015, the Government of Canada included a
$5.7 million line in the Federal Budget intended to establish
certification systems for Inuit-hunted seal products (facilitating
compliance with EU requirements) and to support business train-
ing and marketing efforts to develop improved international sales
for Inuit-hunted seal (DFO, 2015).
3. Mutable, multimedial, and mass: making sense of digital
nature(s) in the Web 2.0 era
As we have now seen, images that construct and reinforce cul-
tural narratives about seals as fluffy babies and seal hunting and
hunters as greedy and barbaric have circulated for several decades.
These images are not designed to communicate the intertwined
relationship between seal populations and other marine species,
the circumstances of the hunters, or the central role of seals and
seal hunting in Indigenous Inuit communities (see Rodgers and
Scobie, 2015 for some example campaign images). Rather, the goal
is to ‘‘convince people [especially North Americans and Europeans]
that some practices and choices are wrong, morally and environ-
mentally” (Dauvergne and Neville, 2011: 192, brackets ours).
Celebrity bodies and voices – e.g., Brigitte Bardot, and later, Pamela
Anderson – have helped to culturally popularize, and for some,
privilege, the anti-sealing standpoint.
For many years now, political ecologists have observed and crit-
ically commented on the cross scalar dynamics and power rela-
tions of conservation and development (Peluso, 1992; Bryant,
2000; Leach and Fairhead, 2000; Perreault, 2001). Bryant (2000),
for example, calls attention to the ‘‘rich politicized moral geogra-
phies integral to conservation debates”, describing conservation
as a ‘‘process of envisioning social relations, moral discourse and
socionatural place.” (p. 673). What Nature 2.0 asserts is that
today’s conservation and development debates often take place
within mediascapes that are more crowded, multi-platformed,
and virtually interfaced than ever before (Büscher, 2013, 2016).
While internet use has been prevalent in North America and Eur-
ope since the 1990s (‘Web 1.0’), ‘Web 2.0’ is a more recent phase
characterized by communication and information (co)production
on/through online platforms, especially social media (as described
by Büscher, 2014, see also Fuchs, 2008). Where Web 1.0 limited
people to the consumption of information posted by organizations
or individuals with the resources to build/host websites, Web 2.0 is
characterized in terms of the ways that people are able to use it to
(co)produce, modify, comment upon, and share digital information
and images.
Geographers and anthropologists are thus asking what Web 2.0
might mean for environmental understanding, action, and material
changes to land/seascapes (e.g., Büscher, 2013, 2016; Büscher and
Igoe, 2013; this special issue). Social movement and media scholars
offer perspective on the variety, possibilities, and limitations of
tactics taken by NGOs and other activists (Hutchins and Lester,
2006; Boykoff, 2009; Lester and Hutchins, 2009; Rodgers and
Scobie, 2015). Here, Web 2.0 platforms are heralded as a conduit
for alternative or dissenting information, a space for the exchange
of (often polarized) views, and/or a tool that activists can use to vie
for mainstream media attention. However, Web 2.0 also needs to
be studied for the ways that it facilitates the creation of ‘‘new vir-
tual forms and manifestations of nature” that ‘‘intersect with mate-
rial natures in complex new ways” (Büscher, 2013: 1). Our broad
interest is in the myriad ways that Web 2.0 may be at work in
 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
the (re)shaping of imagery and discourses about (socio)nature, and
in turn, in how entities and issues are understood and acted on
over time. For example, we have already studied popular digital
discourses and imagery about certified ‘sustainable seafood’, find-
ing that diverse mediations of fish, oceans, and people produce a
coherent set of cultural instructions that: (a) are populated by
non-traditional celebrity ‘types’ (e.g., scientists, chefs, reality tv
fishermen); (b) ask people to think of fish as food (rather than a
natural resource); and, (c) foreground individualized and/or
market-based approaches as central to solving fisheries decline
(Silver and Hawkins, 2014).
Where Silver and Hawkins (2014) showed how diverse digital
mediations of fish, oceans, and people produce a narrative consti-
tuted of tropes and prescriptions characteristic of neoliberal envi-
ronmental governance (Heynen et al., 2007), the case we examine
here speaks squarely to the reality that culture is also a ‘‘site of
struggle” and that imagery and discourse are frequently used to
express and draw attention to the ‘‘contradictions of political and
economic life” (Jackson, 2010: 148). As we will show, the emer-
gence of #sealfie is characterized by a cultural politics wherein
posters seemed motivated to speak back against engrained narra-
tives about baby seals and barbaric sealers, and in some cases, to
explicitly call into question the authority of individuals and organi-
zations that advocate an end to commercial sealing in Canada.
Because the #sealfie phenomenon was picked up and reported in
journalistic media, broader national and international attention
was drawn to their concerns and challenges. Therefore, a key ana-
lytical task in this case, and one for Nature 2.0 scholars more
broadly, rests in making sense of multiple images produced by
individuals and organizations with varying motivations, amounts
of money, degrees of fame and influence, and whose are sometimes
dispersed spatially and temporally.
First, Ellen DeGeneres snapped a celebrity-filled selfie with a
Samsung mobile phone while hosting the international television
broadcast of the 2014 Academy Awards. She immediately posted
the picture to Twitter, and within days, it was the most retweeted
image ever. This act was clearly performative and in line with what
Igoe (2010) writes about as a ‘global economy of appearances’
wherein images are ‘‘not merely representations of late capitalist
realities, they are an indispensable part of those realities”
(p. 376). Ellen’s foray into the audience that night was almost cer-
tainly premeditated, and speculation circulates that Samsung paid,
and perhaps, carefully planned for precisely the sort of publicity
that resulted (e.g., see: Vranica, 2014). With the subsequent emer-
gence and circulation of hundreds of #sealfies, lines between
image producer, intent, and desired audience blurred even further,
and maybe became altogether irrelevant. For example, could Ellen
have predicted the Oscars selfie would be a flashpoint? Were
#sealfies aimed more towards journalists or the Twitter-using
public? If so, (how) does this matter? It is in situations such as this
that the ‘‘close-reading of stable cultural objects [e.g., Ellen’s orig-
inal selfie or even single #sealfies] is ill-equipped” (Rose, 2015: 7)
to address the fact that once reproduction ‘‘goes digital, that object
both dissolves and disperses” (Rose, 2015).
Rose’s (2015) insights for cultural geographers studying digital
worlds and the cultural productions that flow through them help
us to think about the emergence and possible implications of
#sealfie. Methodologically, close readings of specific artefacts from
a single producer or site have been the norm in cultural geography
(Jackson, 1989; e.g., Cant and Morris, 2007). In the Web 2.0 era,
however, Rose argues that many cultural objects are at least par-
tially digital and thus not stable but ‘‘mutable, multimedial, and
mass” (2015: 3). With mutable, Rose conjures the changeability,
creative possibility, and interactive discussion that digital
mediations and Web 2.0 make feasible and fast: ‘‘[h]uman
meaning-making, and the software and hardware through which
117
it is expressed,” [. . .] ‘‘interact to create an inherently unstable,
changing cultural object” (Rose, 2015: 5). Rose’s next observation
is that digital culture and objects are often mediated simultane-
ously through multiple technologies (e.g., television, mobile
phone) and platforms (e.g., Twitter feed, e-reader), and can physi-
cally materialize in many different forms (e.g., billboards, newspa-
pers, t-shirts, tattoos). This is what she means by multimedial.
Finally, with one hundred hours of video uploaded to YouTube
every minute and 350 million pictures posted daily to Facebook,
Rose (2015) observes that the volume of images, texts, videos,
etc., posted and circulating is truly massive.
Following a longer line of literature in environmental history
(e.g., Cronon, 1996), human-environment geography (e.g., Braun
and Castree, 1998), and political ecology (e.g., Peluso, 1992;
Bryant, 2000), we are motivated to understand how the mutability,
multimediality, and mass-ness of Web 2.0 shape the ways that dif-
ferent groups intervene in debate, and perhaps, shift imagery and
cultural narratives about contested resources and environments.
Two important points will be revealed through our analysis. First,
#sealfies are indicative of how complex and rapidly unfolding
intersections between the politics of nature and celebrity culture
can be in the Web 2.0 realm. Second, the case illustrates how some
are using Web 2.0 to challenge the authority of powerful groups
and actors and how specific functionalities can be used to open
up debates long grounded in moral and environmental binaries.
As we will return to discuss, these two key points reveal some pos-
sibilities and a key challenge for the progressive potential of Nature
2.0.
4. Research methods
As Canadian citizens we knew before beginning this research
that seals and sealing were internationally contested and we
understood both pro- and anti-sealing standpoints in general
terms.3 We first learned about the sealfie phenomenon in March
2014 through news reports. Shortly thereafter, we decided to infor-
mally follow #sealfie on Twitter and track journalistic reporting
about the phenomenon. In May 2014 we decided to systematically
research the Ellen selfie and the emergence and possible implica-
tions of #sealfie. We stopped tracking #sealfie and searching for
new tweets in October 2014 (though we have occasionally moni-
tored the hashtag since then).
Our research followed several methodological steps. First, we
manually searched, screen captured, and saved 130 tweets tagged
with #sealfie and saved journalistic reporting about sealfie that we
encountered (20 in total). The key limitation here is that Twitter
does not return all tweets that contain a particular hashtag when
one conducts a manual search. Therefore, we have not collected
every single #sealfie post. Nonetheless, many tweets that we did
save repeated ideas and themes; this suggests that we have cap-
tured at least some of the most popular and persistent. During this
step we also read academic and popular literature covering the his-
tory of seal hunting and analysis of the impact that media coverage
has had on it.
Next, using information from tweets, journalistic reporting, and
academic and popular literature, we built and triangulated a
timeline of seal hunting in Canada and hunt-related debates that
spanned approximately 1950 to present. Some parts of this
timeline have already been described in Section 2 (i.e., early
commercial sealing to 2009). Of course, our timeline was partic-
3
Neither author has ever been involved in any pro- or anti-sealing advocacy, nor
have we lived or researched in the Northern Territories or Newfoundland and
Labrador. Silver does, however, research marine resource management and contested
oceans governance in the Canadian province of British Columbia (e.g., Silver, 2013,
2014).
118 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
ularly populated with points between March 2014 and October
2014; many of these will be illuminated and expanded upon ahead
in sections five and six. The timeline also reminded that sometimes
#sealfie tweets were not simply single posts on a social media
platform, but rather interventions in part of a longer and larger dia-
logue (often heated) among various organizations, hunters, and
activists. It was obvious that some, but by no means all, posters
had longer-standing involvement in publicly advocating one side
or the other of this issue. This motivated our interest in key infor-
mant interviews and informed our planning for them (more in the
next paragraph).
The next step we took was to conduct a discourse analysis of the
#sealfie tweets we gathered using open coding (Cope, 2010). This
analysis helped us to understand the range of what was said in
tweets and gain a sense for what messages posters sought to con-
vey. We then did a second pass of coding to categorize common
ways that posters depicted the roles and values of seals and seal
hunting, local livelihood opportunities, their communities and cul-
ture, and anti-sealing organizations and campaigns. Findings from
the discourse analysis form the basis for section six. Finally, during
Winter 2015, we conducted four semi-structured interviews with
key informants involved in posting and/or reporting on #sealfie
tweets. When planning the interviews, we made a list of posters
referred to or retweeted frequently by others and/or people who
appeared to have professional roles related to sealing and/or pro-
or anti-sealing advocacy in some way. We reached out to eleven
individuals to request their participation, and four agreed. These
key informants, included: (i) Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, an Inuit film-
maker and activist; (ii) Leila Beaudoin, a journalist; (iii) Informant
C, a long-time campaign leader; and (iv) Informant D, a social
media professional.4 Through semi-structured telephone interviews
we asked informants about the utility of social media to communi-
cate important messages about seals and seal hunting, and to reflect
on the #sealfie phenomenon and their Twitter interventions into it.
We have considered their insights throughout our analysis, and
integrate some specific quotations from interview transcripts into
section five.
5. From selfie to #sealfie
In this section we show that the 2014 Oscars television broad-
cast and Ellen’s star-studded selfie were significant, but not exclu-
sive, preconditions for the emergence and circulation of #sealfies.
We contend that Ellen DeGeneres’ well-established Twitter
presence and publicly crafted/shared persona were central to the
emergence of #sealfie, the spike in online posting and tweets that
ensued, and the journalistic attention the phenomenon received.
To substantiate this point, we first offer a sense for Ellen’s public
persona and how it is partially tied to animal welfare advocacy
and organizations. After this, we narrate a timeline that begins
with the 2014 Oscars and follows the emergence and circulation
of #sealfie.
Ellen DeGeneres is a household name in North America and her
Twitter account (@TheEllenShow) has one of the largest followings
in the world.5 Her weekday talkshow ‘‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show”
and advertising endorsements (including American Express and
Cover Girl) speak to her charisma and marketability (Skerski, 2007:
p. 364). Skerski (2007) argues that Ellen’s public persona has been
4
All informants were given the opportunity to review their interview transcripts
and to request deletions from the record. Two informants (Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and
Leila Beaudoin) requested that, in lieu of a pseudonym, their full names and
professions be used in the article.
5
In early 2016 TwitterCounter.com listed her account as the 8th most popular with
approximately 53.5 million individual followers (see current listings at: http://
twittercounter.com/pages/100).
intentionally ‘domesticated’ over the 15 years or so, suggesting that
this was necessary for her transition from openly gay comedian and
evening sitcom actor to daytime network television host and celeb-
rity interviewer. For example, DeGeneres has taken on various movie
and advertising roles that suggest awareness ‘‘of the new audience
she has tapped into with children [i.e., her role in animated movie
‘‘Finding Nemo”] and their parents” (Skerski, 2007: p. 376). Ellen’s
animal rights advocacy is a part of this publicly developed and
shared persona. She frequently speaks about and shows pictures of
animals on her show, while passages in her published autobiogra-
phies openly align with animal welfare causes. In one of her books,
‘‘My Point. . . And I Do Have One”, she writes:
‘‘[i]f you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal
who hasn’t done anything? They should use prisoners who have
been convicted of murder or rape instead. So, rather than seeing
if perfume irritates a bunny rabbit’s eyes, they should throw it
in Charles Manson’s eyes and ask him if it hurts”.
[DeGeneres, 1996]
In Spring 2011, a page that advocated against seal hunting in
Canada appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show website (posted
under ‘Ellen’s Picks’). The page features an image of a single seal
pup with brown spotted fur and contains text describing the hunt
as ‘‘one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals
allowed by any government” (DeGeneres, 2011). It also has a link
that takes users directly to an anti-seal hunt donation page for
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
On March 2, 2014, Ellen hosted the Oscars ceremony. About half
way into the live television broadcast, she walked into the front
rows of the audience and took a selfie with other A-list celebrities
(Fig. 1). She then posted the picture to her Twitter account. Before
the broadcast was finished, the selfie had been shared over two
million times, setting a new record for Twitter and even crashing
the site briefly (Addley, 2014). Samsung, a sponsor of the Oscars
and manufacturer of the phone DeGeneres used to take the photo,
quickly announced a pledge to donate $1 for each retweet of the
selfie photo to a charity of DeGeneres’ choosing. On March 3rd,
2014 Samsung made a $3 million donation, of which Ellen assigned
half to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and half to the Humane Society
of the United States (HSUS).
The selfie, and the seemingly impromptu television moment in
which it was taken, received wide attention in social and journal-
istic media. Initially, discussion and coverage was positive and
focused on DeGeneres breaking the Twitter record and Samsung’s
generosity and marketing ingenuity (Smith, 2014; Wagstaff,
2014). Before long, however, criticisms connecting Ellen, the HSUS
donation, and anti-sealing campaigns emerged in Canadian media.
Outwardly, these connections and the traction criticisms gained
seemed curious because HSUS had publicized its plans to use the
Samsung donation towards unrelated programs on pets, shelters
and animal rescue (Kanter, 2014) and because DeGeneres did not
make any seal hunt related statements concurrent with the dona-
tion. Informant D observed, ‘‘social media just took a turn” [. . .]
‘‘you know it was one of those things”.
According to our timeline, the first voices connecting the Ellen
and the Samsung donation were those of Newfoundlanders inter-
viewed in journalistic pieces. In an online article from the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation (CBC, 2014a), a Newfoundland sealer
named Bob Byrne called for Canadian television networks to
boycott the Ellen DeGeneres show claiming he was ‘‘sick of false
information on the seal hunt being relayed by celebrities”. Another
journalist, Leila Beaudoin, then tweeted the CBC piece at DeGen-
eres’ twitter account, saying: ‘‘[Bryne] hunts seals to make a living
which @TheEllenShow is crunching with the worth of a selfie”
(@LeilaBeaudoin, March 13, 2014). At roughly the same time, New-
 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123 119

Fig. 1. Oscar Selfie. By: Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow), Posted to Twitter March 2, 2014.

foundland artist Rodney Mercer created a portrait of DeGeneres

out of seal fur (Fig. 2), explaining in another CBC piece that he
was ‘‘using her medium [the selfie] back at her and kind of putting
a new face on the seal hunt” (CBC, 2014b). Again, Beaudoin
retweeted the news story on Twitter with the phrase ‘‘Artist uses
#seal fur to create portrait of @TheEllenShow #Sealfie #newfound-
land”. This tweet was the first time ‘#sealfie’ appeared in our data.
In her interview, Beaudoin reflected that, at this early stage, there
did not seem to be much distinction being made in online com-
ments between commercial/subsistence hunting and the New-
foundland and Labrador/northern hunts: ‘‘it’s interesting to think
how the sealfie hashtag sort of helps to bring people together
[. . .] because it’s a hashtag and kind of short”. But, she reflected,
the brevity that Twitter’s 140 character maximum/tweet imposes
can ‘‘also lead to confusion.”
On March 23rd, 2014 an Inuk teenager from Nunavut posted a
seven-minute video to video sharing website YouTube entitled
‘‘Dear Ellen”. In this video, Killaq Enuaraq-Strauss spoke directly
into the camera and explained that while she was a fan of Ellen
and her show, DeGeneres did not have the full picture on seal
hunting. Enuaraq-Strauss said that she sought to offer perspective
to those who oppose the hunt by sharing about how seal sustains
families through warm clothes, food, and livelihood opportunities.
Soon after Enuaraq-Strauss’ video was released, Alethea Arnaquq-
Baril posted a letter on DeGeneres’ Facebook page. In this note
she asked DeGeneres to read the article about Mercer’s seal fur
Fig. 2. ‘Ellen’ mixed media seal (fur & leather). By: Rodney Mercer
portrait and to watch the video made by Enuaraq-Strauss. She (@Rodney_Mercer), Posted to Twitter March 13, 2014.
directed attention to an idea posted to Twitter on March 26th,
2014 by Inuit musician and activist Williamson Bathory to: ‘‘make
a #sealfie to stick it to animal rights activists who don’t know the we were waiting for an opportunity for something like that
consequences of their words.” Arnaquq-Baril explained: ‘‘post a [something high profile] and keeping an eye out, and when
picture of yourself wearing sealskin and send it to [DeGeneres] the selfie came along, one of my friends coined the term ‘‘seal-
by Twitter with the hashtag #sealfie in reference to her famous fie” and we were like, ‘‘Ha! That’s it!” And we’d been thinking
and heavily retweeted #selfie.” about what we could do, something like this, for the last couple
In sum, while seal-related criticisms after the Samsung dona- of years, and finally had the opportunity.
tion initially seemed curious, our timeline and interviews reveal
Arnaquq-Baril continued that, in addition the volume of #seal-
that a handful of geographically dispersed seal hunters and other
fie tweets that followed and the journalistic attention that the phe-
pro-seal hunt advocates saw and seized DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie
nomenon got,6 another positive outcome was that other celebrities
as an opportunity to draw attention to conditions in their commu-
may well pause before making anti-sealing statements in the future:
nities and to concerns that they had about anti-sealing campaigns
and standpoints. In her interview, Arnaquq-Baril described discus-
sion among some friends and colleagues in the days and weeks 6
Examples include pieces from national and international outlets: The Canadian
after the 2014 Oscars:
Broadcasting Corporation; Global News; The Globe and Mail; Huffington Post;
Aljazeera America; The Daily Mail Online; The Guardian Online; and, Vice.com.
120 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123

She [Ellen] made no comment. However, I wonder, and only

time will tell, but I think celebrities mainly don’t want to be
painted as, you know— nobody wants to be seen as somebody
who hates animals, or murders animals, or whatever. But also,
nobody wants to be seen as somebody who oppresses poor,
indigenous people [. . .] I’m hoping that, over time, we can scare
people away from being spokespeople on this issue (brackets
ours).

Through these reflections we start to see how the animal

advocacy element of Ellen’s public persona was an important
pre-condition to the emergence of #sealfie and contributed to per-
ceptions of its successes.
It is certainly true that the spectacle and massive television
viewership of the Oscars mattered. However, had a different celeb-
rity host taken the selfie, our research suggests that pro-hunt advo-
cates and Inuit activists may not have seen the same potential.
Moreover, Ellen’s large pre-existing Twitter presence additionally
primed the scene: with tens of millions of followers, the Oscar
selfie was retweeted quickly and widely in a way that may not
have been catalyzed by another person (especially someone with
fewer Twitter followers). As we will see next, when #sealfie began
gathering steam on Twitter, many posters raised the important
roles and values of seal and some challenged the moral authority
of anti-sealing organizations and campaigns with their words
and images. However, criticisms also circulated that east coast/-
commercial and Inuit/traditional hunts were being conflated Fig. 3. Sealskin mittens. By: Tamalik (@ikajuqtuq), Posted to Twitter April
17, 2014.
intentionally.

6. What did #sealfies say?

One of the most frequent messages that emerged from our
discourse analysis was that seals are integral to human survival
in cold climates and remote places. In posts where this was empha-
sized, pictures of seal meat and/or clothing made from seals were
often included (Fig. 3). Clothing was praised for its warmth, dura-
bility, craftspersonship, and beauty. Seal meat was held up for its
taste, nutritional value, availability, and cost effectiveness. One
poster said: ‘‘from just one locally-harvested seal, a soup kitchen
meal that served over 60 people! There were second helpings!
@TheEllenShow #sealfie” (@Qayuqtuvik, March 28, 2014).7
Although slightly less often, some posters pointed out that all parts
of harvested seals were used. Words like ‘nothing goes to waste’ and
‘sustainable’ were used frequently.
A second frequently communicated message in our collection of
tweets was that Inuit seal hunting is ethical and humane. One of
the most retweeted #sealfies is a picture of Alethea Arnaquq-
Baril standing in a seal fur coat with accompanying text that read:
‘‘@TheEllenShow I am an Inuit seal meat eater, and my fur is
ethical, humane #sealfie vs. #selfie” (Fig. 4). Emphasis was often
placed on the respect that Inuit have for seal. For example, a #seal-
fie post with a picture of a child is captioned: ‘‘This girl loves and
respects nature and knows that meat & fur come from dead ani-
mals. #sealfie @TheEllenShow” (@Naaja_N, March 27, 2014).
Another poster shared a scanned picture of a man talking and
showing two children hunted birds and wrote: ‘‘#sealfie Uqsuralik
said we should teach our children not to abuse animals. They
should treat an animal with respect” (@_kootsa, April 29, 2014).
7
While there are some ethical questions about quoting online content (see Morrow
et al., 2015), all of the #sealfie posts used in this paper are public and visible through
simple Internet searches (even to those without a Twitter account). Because posters
likely intended for their #sealfies to be seen and shared we have opted to include the
Twitter handles [names] of posters we quote, although we note that these handles are
not necessarily related to the real names or identities of posters. The posts we quote
have not been revised to eliminate slang, short forms and/or errors in spelling or
grammar.
A handful of tweets blurred the line between humans and animals.
Tanya Tagaq, a well-known Inuit throat singer, posted: ‘‘We ARE
the food. Circle of life. Nunavut is awesome! I’m proud of our
ancestors #unity #sealfie” (@tagaq, April 22, 2014).
The ‘Northern survival’ and ‘ethics of the Inuit hunt’ themes
were most predominant in our collection of #sealfie tweets. This
finding resonates with Rodgers and Scobie (2015) who argued that
the #sealfie case demonstrates well the potential for communities
to use social media to ‘‘control the content of information that is
about them” (p. 71) and ‘‘to assert their own identity” (Rodgers
and Scobie, 2015). However, our analysis also showed that some
posters sought to directly challenge the authority of individuals
and organizations that advocate an end to commercial sealing.
These #sealfies focused almost exclusively on communicating con-
tradictions and economic implications of anti-sealing campaigns
and organizations. Some used Web 2.0 functionalities to highlight
perceived interconnectivities between seals and other lived reali-
ties in northern communities.
The most frequent point was that the mass production and con-
sumption of meat, leather, and other clothing is the norm in North
America and Europe. One poster wrote: ‘‘#sealfie hastag reminder
how many folks displaced from nature, most ppl eat meat/wear
leather daily but think killing an animal is obscene” (@FancyBeba-
mikawe, March 26, 2014). Another said: ‘‘slaughtering billions of
cows and pigs who are born into slavery let’s eliminate that first
#beforyoujudge #sealfie” (@averywin, April 16, 2016). Questioning
the labour conditions under which The Ellen DeGeneres Show mer-
chandise is produced, another said: ‘‘@TheEllenShow your swag is
probably made in a sweatshop how are you any better? #sealfie”
(@thecreepyking, March 28, 2016). Some posters used Web 2.0
functionalities to highlight perceived interconnectivities between
seals and other structural inequalities and lived colonial realities
in northern communities. There were multiple instances of two
strategies in particular. First, through layering messages with mul-
tiple hashtags: ‘‘Neocolonial violence takes many shapes. Hands
Off R babies/Hands Off R Traditional Food Sources/Hands Off R
 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
Fig. 4. One of the earliest and most retweeted #sealfies. By: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (@Alethea_Aggiuq), Posted to Twitter March 26, 2014.
Woman! #FNCFNEA #Sealfie #MMIW” (@ArielSmithFilm, April 18,
2014).8 Second, by using the ‘@’ function to contact large and pow-
erful actors and entities (such as the World Trade Organization) and
connect them virtually into the debate: ‘‘60% of Inuit preschoolers
have gone a day w/out eating. Inuit have right to subsistence &
traditional way of life. #sealhunt #sealfie @WTO” (@danisgoulet,
April 8, 2014).9 The dual role of seal in rural and remote food security
was raised by many of these posters: it can be harvested and con-
sumed locally and/or sold for money that is in turn used to purchase
household groceries and supplies. Some posters linked directly to an
academic report that found Inuit peoples in Nunavut experience the
highest food insecurity of any Indigenous group in a developed coun-
try (CCA, 2014; also released in March 2014).
Responses to #sealfies that raised contradictions, structural
inequalities, and/or lived colonial realities varied from inquisitive,
to defensive, to critical. One post on twitter charged: ‘‘#Sealfie
campaign aims to confuse commercial hunt w small amount sub-
sistence and commercial hunting done by Inuit. Don’t buy into this
lie!” (@CanadaGross, April 17, 2014). Similarly, though somewhat
more subtly, a spokesperson for the Canadian Arm of the HSUS sta-
ted in an interview undertaken to clarify her organization’s stance
on Inuit hunting: ‘‘[c]ommercial sealing advocates have long
attempted to blur the lines between their globally condemned
industry and the socially accepted Inuit subsistence hunt” whereas
‘‘Inuit hunters kill seals primarily for meat” (CBC, 2014c). These
sentiments help to contextualize a handful of #sealfies that argued
subsistence and commercial hunting cannot be separated because
‘ethical hunting’ is a set of practices rather than a trait somehow
inherent only to Inuit peoples and/or because, despite exemption
8
Note: #FNCFNEA and #MMIW are hashtags that refer to two controversial issues
interpreted by many as structural manifestations of colonialism. The first is an
acronym for the ‘First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act’, a failed and
highly criticized Federal draft bill regarding control, funding, and guidelines for the
schooling of Indigenous children. The second is an acronym for ‘Missing and
Murdered Indigenous Women’, a crisis in Canada wherein Indigenous women go
missing and/or are murdered at much higher rates than non-Indigenous women.
9
Note: @WTO is the Twitter account for the World Trade Organization. Since the
2009 EU ban, the Government of Canada had been pursuing the WTO appeals process
to have it overturned. However, in May 2014, the WTO announced it would uphold
the EU ban. By including ‘@WTO’ in a tweet, this poster ensures that the manager of
the @WTO Twitter account receives a notification of the tweet (it does not appear on
@WTO’s timeline, however). What this tactic also does is alert other readers that the
poster sees a connection between the topic(s) of their tweet (e.g., food insecurity) and
@WTO.
121
from the seal product bans for Inuit hunters, price volatility affects
income potential and food security at the household level. For
example, one poster said ‘‘Can @HumaneSociety just come out that
they don’t support #inuit advancing further into fur market?
Subsistence isn’t enough #sealfie” (@JessicaPenney_, April 10,
2014). Another said, ‘‘Banning the seal hunt destroys the market.
Marketable goods are important when milk is $15 a carton.
#sealfie” (@GarethMandin, April 15, 2014). Arnaquq-Baril tweeted:
‘‘If Inuit can hunt seals humanely, others can too. We’re not mag-
ical fairies. #sealfie” (@Alethea_Aggiuq, April 16, 2016).
7. Discussion: some prospects and a key challenge
This paper has examined a recent iteration of debate about seal
hunting in Canada wherein the politics of nature and celebrity cul-
ture intersected in an unanticipated way. In the weeks and months
after Ellen Degeneres’ widely re-tweeted 2014 Oscar selfie, people
posted personal photos and first-hand accounts of seals/hunting to
Twitter. Some also sought to call the moral authority of anti-
sealing organizations into question and substantiate the negative
implications that they believe anti-sealing campaigns have had
on their livelihoods and communities. Critical responses that
accused posters of conflating separate issues also emerged.
While contestation regarding seal hunting in this country has a
long history, #sealfies happened in a crowded mediascape. Specif-
ically, the internet is widely available and, through Web 2.0 plat-
forms, users consume and (co)produce text, images, and video.
Following literature in environmental history (e.g., Cronon,
1996), human-environment geography (e.g., Braun and Castree,
1998), and political ecology (e.g., Peluso, 1992; Bryant, 2000), we
argue that Web 2.0 not just enables, but actually shapes, the ways
that different groups might express cultural politics and intervene
in environmental debate today. Interesting possibilities to shift
narratives exist, and in turn, different institutional and regulatory
arrangements and alternative human-environment relations may
be rendered visible. Rose’s (2015) insights regarding mutability,
multimediality, and mass-ness helped us to think about this in
the context of #sealfie, and to identify two key points that demon-
strate novel contours of possibility to be taken from this case.
First, #sealfies are indicative of how complex and rapidly
unfolding intersections between the politics of nature and celeb-
rity culture in the Web 2.0 realm can be. Like Barnes (2014), who
122 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
argues that celebrity chefs ‘‘mediate our relationship to food” (p.
1), this case reinforces that celebrities also take on the role of ‘‘talk-
ing labels” (p. 2) for animal welfare and environmental issues.
Quite intentionally, many build their public personas to align with
particular causes and seek to educate the general public on what
ought to be done to address them (Brockington, 2009; Goodman,
2013; Mostafanezhad, 2013). To do this they mediate information
and instructions across multiple platforms (multimediality), and
often encourage their fans to help causes ‘go viral’ (mass-ness).
This is true for Ellen and her animal rights alignment, and as we
see it, the #sealfie case demonstrates particularly well the progres-
sive potential in mutability: although Ellen made no statement
about seal hunting in Canada during or after the Oscars broadcast,
the connection was made very quickly in offline discussion among
friends and colleagues and in online posting and reporting.
One novel contour of possibility revealed here is that while
expressions of cultural politics through digital natures often
involve active and intentional work by one or more ‘talking label’
celebrities (Brockington, 2009; Mostafanezhad, 2013; Barnes,
2014), this does not always have to be so. In Ellen we see the celeb-
rity activist’s unsteady embodiment of ‘‘market and social respon-
sibility side-by-side” (Goodman, 2013: 75). To remain culturally
relevant and commercially marketable, DeGeneres shares a public
persona partially tied to animal welfare, a fact that mattered and
was exploited by geographically dispersed seal hunters, pro-hunt
advocates, and Inuit activists. We read this as a manifestation of
the tension that Goodman (2013) describes as the celebrity acti-
vist’s need to ‘‘shed their (commodified) skins as consummate
commodities to instead present to audiences their ordinary per-
sonhood as caring individuals willing and able to do something
about suffering, environmental damage, and human rights abuses”
(p. 75).
This leads to the second key point: the case illustrates that Web
2.0 platforms were used to challenge the authority of organizations
and individuals who advocate and end to commercial sealing in
Canada. Our analysis showed that #sealfie posts tell stories ranging
from northern survival, to the ethics of hunting, to contradictions,
structural inequalities, and lived colonial realities. Single posts
were, of course, structured or limited to some degree by Twitter’s
140 character/post rule. However, some posters employed specific
Web 2.0 functionalities (‘#’ and ‘@’) to layer in socionatural com-
plexity and/or to tie seals and sealing to broader structural
inequalities and colonial realities experienced in many rural and
remote communities. These functionalities shaped how posters
wishing to make critical points might do so, and we saw examples
of sophisticated commentary on interrelationships among com-
mercial seal hunting and food insecurity, murdered and missing
Indigenous women, and/or the oversight of international trade.
Taken together, we argue that #sealfies drew attention to and
opened up debate about seals long grounded in moral and environ-
mental binaries (also see: Rodgers and Scobie, 2015). Multimedial-
ity, mutability, and mass-ness were all at play in this because
posters made their cases through art pieces, photos, digitally
altered images and video, by linking to journalistic media and aca-
demic reports, and by using functionalities only available/workable
online. However, our timeline also makes clear that the emergence
of #sealfie, the domestic and international attention that the phe-
nomenon received, and perhaps, its staying power over months
rather than days, rested a great deal on supportive attention from
traditional journalistic media technologies and outlets. We raise
this because many people who have Twitter accounts use them
infrequently and/or as a secondary news source, and many more
do not have Twitter accounts at all. This is important to remember
because, without attention from journalists and journalistic out-
lets, #sealfies and the issues posters raised could well have
remained visible only to others on Twitter who were using or
happened across the hashtag. This reality represents a significant
challenge to those who might seek to subvert celebrity culture
(or other dominant norms/tropes) in the future. Powerful media
actors, institutions, and economies clearly still matter to the issues
and voices that do and do not get picked up and circulated in
journalistic media (Hutchins and Lester, 2006; Boykoff, 2011;
Lester and Hutchins, 2009, 2012; Silver and Hawkins, 2014).
8. Conclusion: considering the digital dimensions of
‘environmental politics after nature’
This paper has demonstrated how complex and rapidly unfold-
ing intersections between the politics of nature and celebrity via
Web 2.0 can be. It has also revealed how groups of people can
use Web 2.0 to exploit contradictions and tensions within celebrity
culture and mainstream environmentalism in ways that open up
debates grounded in longstanding binaries. Yet, debate about seals
and sealing in Canada is far from resolved. While some organiza-
tions have dropped the issue from their list of formal campaigns
over the last several years (e.g., Greenpeace Canada), and others
have built nuance into their campaigns by saying that commercial
sealers should be bought out of their licenses and Inuit hunting
rights should not be impacted (e.g., HSUS), there is no indication
that advocacy against commercial sealing in Canada will cease.
The US and European trade bans rest squarely in place, and if they
were to be lifted, new rounds of argument would no doubt emerge.
Moreover, while the Canadian Government did budget financial
provisions to develop a seal product certification program and
improve market opportunities for Inuit hunters (DFO, 2015), it
remains to be seen what opportunities and practices this might
translate into on the ice and what might result for those who live
in rural and remote households.
All of this, and the criticism that separate issues (i.e., New-
foundland/northern and commercial/Inuit) were being intention-
ally conflated by #sealfie posters, point to a question recently
posed by Mansfield et al. (2015): ‘‘what do environmental politics
look like after nature?” This question stems from their contention
that although ‘‘scholars have convincingly demonstrated the ubiq-
uity and complexity of social natures” [. . .] ‘‘relatively little atten-
tion has been paid to understanding the politics internal to these
social natures” (Mansfield et al., 2015: 285). This is a fertile ques-
tion and one with digital dimensions in urgent need of examina-
tion. If, as is true in the #sealfie case, environmental politics are
less about the maintenance of ‘pristine nature’, and more about
groups of people disagreeing over priority ‘‘needs, visions, and
actions” (Mansfield et al., 2015), what can we say about Web 2.0
– not just as a tool, but as a structural factor at play in who gets
to participate in debates, whose preferences advance, and how?
A few concluding thoughts and directions for Nature 2.0 arise.
First, it will be important that Nature 2.0 scholars continue to refer
to and learn from literature in political ecology. The very point that
‘environmental conflict’ is actually the power-laden negotiation of
different socionatural actors and preferences emerges from this lit-
erature, and is empirically grounded in research from across the
Global South and North. It is necessary to remember that highly
mediated and online debates reflect the lived experiences and per-
spectives of people in place (as Büscher, 2016 details). Therefore,
multi-sited and multi-species approaches – that further integrate
online spaces and interactions – offer both political ecologists
and Nature 2.0 scholars a great deal to think about empirically
and theoretically (Brosius and Campbell, 2010; Igoe et al., 2010;
Suarez and Corson, 2013). Second, because celebrity-fronted
conservation and development continue to proliferate, cross-
fertilization among scholars of Nature 2.0 and celebrity/spectacu-
lar environmentalisms should continue. Cracks in the celebrity
 R. Hawkins, J.J. Silver / Geoforum 79 (2017) 114–123
activist’s façade are often first noticed and circulated online, and
this creates interesting potential to interrogate what roles specta-
cle and celebrity do and do not play in reinforcing/destabilizing
particular socionatures. Finally, and more in terms of compelling
project topics, we see interesting developments in the marketing
and use of ‘green’ mobile apps, the changing political-economies
and content of cable television programming regarding nature,
and the ‘celebritization’ of environmental science and scientists.
In each of these three, there is lots of room to explore mutability,
multimediality, and mass-ness, and to ask about their interactions
and implications.
References
Addley, E., 2014. Ellen’s Oscar selfie most retweeted ever – and more of us are
taking them March 7, 2014. The Guardian <http://www.theguardian.
com/media/2014/mar/07/oscars-selfie-most-retweeted-ever>.
Barnes, C., 2014. Mediating good food and moments of possibility with Jamie Oliver:
problematising celebrity chefs as talking labels. Geoforum (ahead of print).
Boykoff, M.T., 2009. We speak for the trees: media reporting on the environment.
Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 34, 431–457.
Boykoff, M.T., 2011. Who Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting
on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
Braun, B., Castree, N. (Eds.), 1998. Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millennium.
Routledge.
Brockington, D., 2009. Celebrity and the Environment. Zed Books.
Brosius, J.P., Campbell, L.M., 2010. Collaborative event ethnography: conservation
and development trade-offs at the fourth world conservation congress. Conserv.
Soc. 8 (4), 245.
Bryant, R.L., 2000. Politicized moral geographies: debating biodiversity
conservation and ancestral domain in the Philippines. Political Geogr. 19 (6),
673–705.
Büscher, B., 2013. Nature 2.0. Geoforum 44, 1–3.
Büscher, B., 2014. Nature 2.0: exploring and theorizing the links between new
media and nature conservation. New Media Soc., 1–18
Büscher, B., 2016. Reassessing fortress conservation? New media and the politics of
distinction in Kruger National Park. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 106 (1), 114–129.
Büscher, B., Igoe, J., 2013. ‘Prosuming’conservation? Web 2.0, nature and the
intensification of value-producing labour in late capitalism. J. Consumer Culture
13 (3), 283–305.
Cant, S.G., Morris, N.J., 2007. Geographies of art and the environment. Social
Cultural Geogr. 7 (6), 857–861.
CBC, 2014a. Sealer boycotting Ellen DeGeneres show over Oscars selfie
March 13, 2014 <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/
sealer-boycotting-ellen-degeneres-show-over-oscars-selfie-1.2571169>.
CBC, 2014b. Ellen DeGeneres recast in sealskin in artist’s protest March 25, 2014
<http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/ellen-degeneres-
recast-in-sealskin-in-artist-s-protest-1.2585401>.
CBC, 2014c. Humane Society says it doesn’t oppose Inuit seal hunt: Donation to
group by Ellen DeGeneres sparked #sealfie social media campaign April 8, 2014
<http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/humane-society-says-it-doesn-t-
oppose-inuit-seal-hunt-1.2603306>.
Collings, P., Condon, R.G., 1996. Blood on the ice: status, self-esteem, and ritual
injury among Inuit hockey players. Human Organ. 55 (3), 253–262.
Cope, M., 2010. Coding Transcripts and Diaries Ch. 27. In: Clifford, N., French, S.,
Valentine, G. (Eds.), Key Methods in Geography. SAGE.
Cronon, W. (Ed.), 1996. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature.
WW Norton & Company.
Council of Canadian Academies, 2014. Aboriginal Food Security in Northern Canada:
An Assessment of the State of Knowledge: Expert Panel on the State of
Knowledge of Food Security in Northern Canada <http://www.scienceadvice.ca/
uploads/eng/assessments%20and%20publications%20and%20news%20releases/
food%20security/foodsecurity_fullreportEN.pdf>.
Dale, S., 1996. McLuhan’s children: the Greenpeace message and the media.
Between the Lines.
Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2011. Updated status of northwest
Atlantic Harp Seals (Pagophius groenlandicus) Canadian Science Advisory
Secretariat Science Advisory Report 2011/50 <http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/
Library/344350.pdf>.
Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2015. Frequently Asked Questions
about the Seal Harvest <http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/seal-phoque/faq-
eng.htm>.
Dauvergne, P., Neville, K.J., 2011. Mindbombs of right and wrong: cycles of
contention in the activist campaign to stop Canada’s seal hunt. Environ. Politics
20 (2), 192–209.
DeGeneres, E., 1996. My Point. . . And I Do Have One. Bantam Books, New York NY
(Chapter 14).
123
DeGeneres, E., 2011. Stop Seal Hunting in Canada Now. The Ellen Show <http://
www.ellentv.com/2011/04/06/stop-seal-hunting-in-canada-now/>.
Enuaraq-Strauss, K., 2014. Dear Ellen You Tube Video. March 23, 2014 <https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRPEz57_l_M>.
Fuchs, R., 2008. Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age.
Routledge, New York.
Gleason, B., 2013. #Occupy Wall Street: exploring informal learning about a social
movement on Twitter. Am. Behav. Sci. 57 (7), 966–982.
Goodman, M., 2013. Celebritus politicus, neo-liberal sustainabilities and the
terrains of care. In: Fridell, G., Konings, M. (Eds.), Age of Icons: Exploring
Philanthrocapitalism in the Contemporary World. University of Toronto Press.
Heynen, N., McCarthy, J., Prudham, S., Robbins, P. (Eds.), 2007. Neoliberal
Environments: False Promises and Unnatural Consequences. Routledge.
Hutchins, B., Lester, L., 2006. Environmental protest and tap-dancing with the
media in the information age. Media Cult. Soc. 28 (3), 433–451.
Igoe, J., 2010. The spectacle of nature in the global economy of appearances:
anthropological engagements with the spectacular mediations of transnational
conservation. Critique Anthropol. 30 (4), 375–397.
Igoe, J., Neves, K., Brockington, D., 2010. A spectacular eco-tour around the historic
bloc: theorising the convergence of biodiversity conservation and capitalist
expansion. Antipode 42 (3), 486–512.
Jackson, P., 1989. Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography. Unwin
Hyman.
Jackson, P., 2010. Food stories: consumption in an age of anxiety. Cultural Geogr. 17
(2), 147–165.
Kanter, B., 2014. ‘‘Ellen’s Oscar selfie raises $1.5 million for Humane Society”. Beth’s
Blog: How non-profits can use social media. <http://www.bethkanter.org/ellen-
hsus/>.
Leach, M., Fairhead, J., 2000. Fashioned forest pasts, occluded histories?
International environmental analysis in West African locales. Develop. Change
31 (1), 35–59.
Lester, L., 2006. Lost in the wilderness? Celebrity, protest and the news. J. Stud. 7 (6),
907–921.
Lester, E.A., Hutchins, B., 2009. Power games: environmental protest, news media
and the internet. Media Cult. Soc. 31 (4), 579–595.
Lester, L., Hutchins, B., 2012. The power of the unseen: environmental conflict, the
media and invisibility. Media Cult. Soc. 34 (7), 847–863.
Livernois, J., 2010. The economics of ending Canada’s commercial harp seal hunt.
Mar. Policy 34 (1), 42–53.
Mansfield, B., Biermann, C., McSweeney, K., Law, J., Gallemore, C., Horner, L.,
Munroe, D.K., 2015. Environmental politics after nature: conflicting
socioecological futures. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 105 (2), 284–293.
Morrow, O., Hawkins, R., Kern, L., 2015. Feminist research in online spaces. Gender
Place Culture 22 (4), 526–543.
Mostafanezhad, M., 2013. ‘Getting in Touch with your Inner Angelina’: celebrity
humanitarianism and the cultural politics of gendered generosity in volunteer
tourism. Third World Quart. 34 (3), 485–499.
Peluso, N.L., 1992. Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in
Java. Univ of California Press.
Perreault, T., 2001. Developing identities: indigenous mobilization, rural
livelihoods, and resource access in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Cultural Geogr. 8
(4), 381–413.
Rodgers, K., Scobie, W., 2015. Sealfies, seals and celebs: expressions of Inuit
resilience in the Twitter era. Interface: J. Social Movem. 7 (1), 70–97.
Rose, G., 2015. Rethinking the geographies of cultural ‘objects’ through digital
technologies: interface, network and friction. Progr. Human Geogr.
Silver, J.J., 2013. Neoliberalizing coastal space and subjects: On shellfish aquaculture
projections, interventions and outcomes in British Columbia, Canada. J. Rural
Stud. 32, 430–438.
Silver, J.J., 2014. From fishing to farming: Shellfish aquaculture expansion and the
complexities of ocean space on Canada’s west coast. Appl. Geogr. 54, 110–117.
Silver, J.J., Hawkins, R., 2014. I’m not trying to save fish, I’m trying to save dinner:
Media, celebrity and sustainable seafood as a solution to environmental limits.
Geoforum. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.09.005.
Skerski, J., 2007. From prime-time to daytime: the domestication of Ellen
Degeneres. Commun. Critical/Cultural Stud. 4 (4), 363–381.
Smith, C.L., 2014. Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie beats Obama retweet record on
Twitter The Guardian. March 3, 2014 <http://www.theguardian.com/film/
2014/mar/03/ellen-degeneres-selfie-retweet-obama>.
Suarez, D., Corson, C., 2013. Seizing center stage: ecosystem services, live, at the
convention on biological diversity. Human Geogr. 15 (1), 64–79.
Vranica, S., 2014. ‘‘Behind the Preplanned Oscar Selfie: Samsung’s Ad Strategy”. The
Wall Street J. March 3, 2014. <http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/
SB1000142405270230458500 4579417533278962674?mg=reno64wsj&url=
http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB1000 14240527023045850045
79417533278962674.html>.
Wagstaff, K., 2014. Ellen’s Oscar Selfie: Worth $1 Billion? NBC News April 9, 2014
<http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/ellens-oscar-selfie-worth-1-
billion-n75821>.
Wegge, N., 2013. Politics between science, law and sentiments: explaining the
European Union’s ban on trade in seal products. Environ. Politics 22 (2), 255–
273.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
she had cause to complain, she would accuse the child of
ingratitude.
“She is a little ingrate, a little viper, that stings me after I have
warmed her. And to think of what I’ve done for her, and the worry
and anxiety I’ve suffered! After all, I’m poorly paid, and get but little
for all my studying and planning. She’s a little upstart, a little
aristocrat, who will trample on me some day. Well, it’s what one gets
in this world for doing a good deed. If I’d turned her and her mother
out to die in the street, I’d been thought more of than I am now, and
perhaps I’d been as well off.”
 CHAPTER XIII
ONE OF THE NOBILITY

O N the next block, above little Gex’s fruit stall, was a small
cottage set close to the sidewalk, with two narrow windows
covered with batten shutters that no one remembered to have ever
seen opened. On one side was a high green fence, in which was a
small door, and above this fence some flowering trees were visible.
A pink crape-myrtle shed its transparent petals on the sidewalk
below. A white oleander and a Cape jasmine made the air fragrant,
while a “Gold of Ophir” rose, entwined with a beautiful “Reine
Henriette,” crept along the top of the fence, and hung in riotous
profusion above the heads of the passers.
Every day, in rain or shine, when Lady Jane visited little Gex, she
continued her walk to the green fence, and stood looking wistfully at
the clustering roses that bloomed securely beyond the reach of
pilfering fingers, vainly wishing that some of them would fall at her
feet, or that the gate might accidentally open, so that she could get a
peep within.
And Lady Jane was not more curious than most of the older
residents of Good Children Street. For many years it had been the
desire of the neighborhood to see what was going on behind that
impenetrable green fence. Those who were lucky enough to get a
glimpse, when the gate was opened for a moment to take the nickel
of milk, or loaf of bread, saw a beautiful little garden, carefully tended
and filled with exquisite flowers; but Lady Jane was never fortunate
enough to be present on one of those rare occasions, as they always
happened very early, and when her little yellow head was resting on
its pillow; but sometimes, while she lingered on the sidewalk, near
the gate, or under the tightly closed shutters, she would hear the
melodious song of a bird, or the tinkling, liquid sound of an ancient
piano, thin and clear as a trickling rivulet, and with it she would hear
sometimes a high, sweet, tremulous voice singing an aria from some
old-fashioned opera. Lady Jane didn’t know that it was an old-
fashioned opera, but she thought it very odd and beautiful, all the
same; and she loved to linger and listen to the correct but feeble
rendering of certain passages that touched her deeply: for the child
had an inborn love of music and one of the most exquisite little
voices ever heard.
Pepsie used to close her eyes in silent ecstasy when Lady Jane
sang the few simple airs and lullabies she had learned from her
mother, and when her tender little voice warbled

“Sleep, baby, sleep,

The white moon is the shepherdess,
The little stars the sheep,”

Pepsie would cover her face, and cry silently. No one ever heard her
sing but Pepsie. She was very shy about it, and if even Tite Souris
came into the room she would stop instantly.
Therefore, little Gex was very much surprised one day, when he
went out on the banquette, to see his small favorite before the closed
shutters with Tony in her arms, his long legs almost touching the
sidewalk, so carelessly was he held, while his enraptured little
mistress was standing with her serious eyes fixed steadily on the
window, her face pale and illumined with a sort of spiritual light, her
lips parted, and a ripple of the purest, sweetest, most liquid melody
issuing from between them that Gex had ever heard, even in those
old days when he used to haunt the French Opera.
He softly drew near to listen; she was keeping perfect time with
the tinkling piano and the faded voice of the singer within who with
many a quaver and break was singing a beautiful old French song;
and the bird-like voice of the child went up and down, in and out
through the difficult passages with wonderful passion and precision.
Gex slipped away silently, and stole almost guiltily into his little
den. He had discovered one of the child’s secret pleasures, as well
as one of her rare gifts, and he felt that he had no right to possess
such wonderful knowledge.
 “Ma foi!” he thought, wiping way a fugitive tear, for the music had
awakened slumbering memories, “some one ought to know of that
voice. I wish Mam’selle d’Hautreve wasn’t so unapproachable; I’d
speak to her, and perhaps she’d teach the child.”
Presently Lady Jane entered, carrying Tony languidly; she said
good-morning as politely as usual, and smiled her charming smile,
but she seemed preoccupied, and unusually serious. With a tired
sigh she dropped Tony on the floor, and climbed up to her chair,
where she sat for some time in deep thought. At length she said in
an intensely earnest voice: “Oh, Mr. Gex, I wish I could get inside
that gate some way. I wish I could see who it is that sings.”
“Vhy, my leetle lady, it’s Mam’selle Diane vhat sings so fine.”
“Who is Mam’selle Diane?”
“Mam’selle Diane is the daughter of Madame d’Hautreve vhat live
all alone in the leetle shut-up house. Madame and Mam’selle Diane,
they are noblesse, of the nobility. Vell, you don’t know vhat is that.
Attendez, I vill try to make you understand.”
“Is it rich?” asked Lady Jane, anxious to help simplify the situation.
“Oh no, no, they are vairy, vairy poor; noblesse is vhat you’re born
vith.”
“Like the spine in the back,” suggested Lady Jane eagerly. “Pepsie
says you’re born with that.”
“No, it’s not that,” and Gex smiled a grim, puzzled smile, and
pushing his spectacles on the top of his head, he wiped his forehead
thoughtfully. “You’ve heard of the king, my leetle lady, now haven’t
you.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” returned Lady Jane brightly.
“They wear crowns and sit on thrones, and Pepsie says there is a
king of the carnival, King Rex.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Gex, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, “and
the king is vay up high over everybody, and all the peoples must
honor the king. Vell, the noblesse is something like the king, my
leetle lady, only not quite so high up. Vell, Mam’selle’s grandpère vas
a noble. One of the French noblesse. Does my leetle lady
understand?”
“I think I do,” returned Lady Jane doubtfully. “Does she sit on a
throne and wear a crown?”
“Oh, no, no, no, they are poor, vairy poor,” said Gex humbly, “and
then, my leetle lady must know that the comte is naiver so high up as
the king, and then they have lost all their money and are poor, vairy
poor. Once, long ago, they vas rich, oh, vairy rich, and they had one
big, grand house, and the carriage, and the fine horses, and many,
many servant; now there’s only them two vhat lives all alone in the
leetle house. The grandpère, and the père, all are dead long ago,
and Madame d’Hautreve and Mam’selle Diane only are left to live in
the leetle house, shut up behind that high fence, alone, alvay alone.
And, my leetle lady, no one remembers them, I don’t believe, for it is
ten year I’ve been right in this Rue des Bons Enfants, and I naiver
have seen no one entair that gate, and no one comes out of it vairy
often. Mam’selle Diane must clean her banquette in the dark of the
night, for I’ve naiver seen her do it. I’ve vatched, but I have seen her,
naiver. Sometime, when it is vairy early, Mam’selle Diane comes to
my leetle shop for one dime of orange for Madam d’Hautreve, she is
vairy old and so poor. Ah, but she is one of the noblesse, the
genuine French noblesse, and Mam’selle Diane is so polite vhen she
come to my leetle shop.”
“If I should go there early, very early,” asked Lady Jane with
increasing interest, “and wait there all day, don’t you think I might
see her come out? You might, my leetle lady, and you might not.
About once in the month, Mam’selle Diane comes out all in the black
dress and veil, and one little black basket on her arm, and she goes
up toward Rue Royale. Vhen she goes out the basket it is heavy,
vhen she comes back it is light.”
“What does she carry in it, Mr. Gex?” asked Lady Jane, her eyes
large and her voice awe-stricken over the mysterious contents of the
basket.
 “Ah, I know not, my leetle lady. It is one mystery,” returned Gex
solemnly. “Mam’selle is so proud and so shut up that no one can’t
find out anything. Poor lady, and vhen does she do her market, and
vhat do they eat, for all I evair see her buy is one nickel of bread,
and one nickel of milk.”
“But she’s got flowers and birds, and she plays on the piano and
sings,” said Lady Jane reflectively. “Perhaps she isn’t hungry and
doesn’t want anything to eat.”
“That may be so, my leetle lady,” replied Gex with smiling
approval, “I naiver thought of it, but it may be so—it may be so.
Perhaps the noblesse don’t have the big appetite, and don’t want so
much to eat as the common people.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot, Mr. Gex, Pepsie wants a nickel of cabbage,”
and Lady Jane suddenly returned to earth and earthly things did her
errand, took her lagniappe, and went away.
 CHAPTER XIV
LADY JANE VISITS THE D’HAUTREVES

O NE morning Lady Jane was rewarded for her patient waiting; as

usual, she was lingering on the sidewalk near the green fence,
when she heard the key turn in the lock, and suddenly the door
opened, and an elderly lady, very tall and thin, with a mild, pale face,
appeared and beckoned her to approach.
For a moment Lady Jane felt shy, and drew back, fearing that she
had been a little rude in haunting the place so persistently; besides,
to her knowledge, she had never before stood in the presence of
“genuine French nobility,” and the pale, solemn looking woman, who,
in spite of her rusty gown, had an air of distinction, rather awed her.
However, her good breeding soon got the better of her timidity, and
she went forward with a charming smile.
“Would you like to come in, my dear, and look at my flowers?” said
the lady, opening the gate a little wider for Lady Jane to enter.
“Yes, thank you,” and Lady Jane smiled and flushed with pleasure
when she caught a glimpse of the beautiful vista beyond the dark
figure. “May I bring Tony in, too?”
“Certainly, I want to see him very much, but I want to see you
more,” and she laid her hand caressingly on the beautiful head of the
child. “I’ve been watching you for some time.”
“Have you? Why, how did you see me?” and Lady Jane dimpled
with smiles.
“Oh, through a little chink in my fence; I see more than any one
would think,” replied the lady smiling.
“And you saw me waiting and waiting; oh, why didn’t you ask me
in before? I’ve wanted to come in so much, and did you know I’d
been here singing with you?”
 “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Are you Mam’selle Diane?”
“Yes, I am Mam’selle Diane; and what is your name?”
“I’m called Lady Jane.”
“Lady Jane,—Lady? Why, do you know that you have a title of
nobility?”
“But I’m not one of the nobility. It’s my name, just Lady Jane. Papa
always called me Lady Jane. I didn’t know what nobility was, and Mr.
Gex told me that you were one. Now I’ll never forget what it is, but
I’m not one.”
“You’re a very sweet little girl, all the same,” said Mam’selle Diane,
a smile breaking over her grave face. “Come in, I want to show you
and your bird to mama.”
Lady Jane followed her guide across a small, spotless side gallery
into a tiny room of immaculate cleanliness, where, sitting in an easy-
chair near a high bed, was an old, old lady, the oldest person Lady
Jane had ever seen, with hair as white as snow, combed back from a
delicate, shrunken face and covered with a little black silk cap.
“Mama, this is the little girl with the bird of whom I’ve been telling
you,” said Mam’selle Diane, leading her forward. “And, Lady Jane,
this is my mother, Madame d’Hautreve.”
The old lady shook hands with the child and patted her head
caressingly; then she asked, in a weak, quavering voice, if the bird
wasn’t too heavy for the little girl to carry.
“Oh, no, Madame,” replied Lady Jane, brightly. “Tony’s large, he
grows very fast, but he isn’t heavy, he’s all feathers, he’s very light;
would you like to take him?”
“Oh, no, no, my dear, oh no,” said the old lady, drawing back
timidly. “I shouldn’t like to touch it, but I should like to see it walk. I
suppose it’s a crane, isn’t it?”
“He’s a blue heron, and he’s not a common bird,” replied Lady
Jane, repeating her little formula, readily and politely.
 “I see that it’s different from a crane,” said Mam’selle Diane,
looking at Tony critically, who, now that his mistress had put him
down, stood on one leg very much humped up, and making, on the
whole, rather an ungainly figure.
“Tony always will do that before strangers,” observed Lady Jane
apologetically. “When I want him to walk about and show his
feathers, he just draws himself up and stands on one leg.”
“However, he is very pretty and very odd. Don’t you think I might
succeed in copying him?” And Mam’selle Diane turned an anxious
glance on her mother.
“I don’t know, my dear,” quavered the old lady, “his legs are so
long that they would break easily if they were made of sealing-wax.”

LADY JANE IS PRESENTED TO MADAME D’HAUTREVE

“I think I could use a wire with the sealing-wax,” said Mam’selle

Diane, thoughtfully regarding Tony’s leg. “You see there would be
only one.”
 “I know, my dear, but the wool; you’ve got no wool the color of his
feathers.”
“Madame Jourdain would send for it.”
“But, Diane, think of the risk; if you shouldn’t succeed, you’d waste
the wool, and you do the ducks so well, really, my dear, I think you’d
better be satisfied with the ducks and the canaries.”
“Mama, it would be something new, something original. I’m tired of
ducks and canaries.”
“Well, my dear, I sha’n’t oppose you, if you think you can succeed,
but it’s a great risk to start out with an entirely new model, and you
can’t use the wool for the ducks if you should fail; you must think of
that, my dear, whether you can afford to lose the wool, if you fail.”
While this conversation was going on between Mam’selle Diane
and her mother, Lady Jane’s bright eyes were taking in the contents
of the little room. It was very simply furnished, the floor was bare,
and the walls were destitute of adornment, save over the small
fireplace, where hung a fine portrait of a very handsome man
dressed in a rich court dress of the time of Louis XIV. This elegant
courtier was Mam’selle Diane’s grandfather, the Count d’Hautreve,
and under this really fine work of art, on the small mantelpiece, was
some of the handicraft of his impoverished granddaughter, which
fascinated Lady Jane to such a degree that she had neither eyes nor
ears for anything else.
The center of the small shelf was ornamented with a tree made of
a variety of shades of green wool over a wire frame, and apparently
hopping about among the foliage, on little sealing-wax legs, with
black bead eyes and sealing-wax bills, were a number of little wool
birds of every color under the sun, while at each end of the mantel
were similar little trees, one loaded with soft yellow canaries, the
other with little fluffy white things of a species to puzzle an
ornithologist. Lady Jane thought they were adorable, and her fingers
almost ached to caress them.
“Oh, how pretty they are!” she sighed, at length, quite overcome
with admiration; “how soft and yellow! Why, they are like real live
birds, and they’re ever so much prettier than Tony,” she added,
glancing ruefully at her homely pet; “but then they can’t hop and fly
and come when you call them.”
Madame d’Hautreve and Mam’selle Diane witnessed her delight
with much satisfaction. It seemed a tardy, but genuine, recognition of
genius.
“There, you see, my dear, that I was right, I’ve always said it,”
quavered the old lady. “I’ve always said that your birds were
wonderful, and the child sees it; children tell the truth, they are
sincere in their praise, and when they discover merit, they
acknowledge it simply and truthfully. I’ve always said that all you
needed to give you a reputation was recognition,—I’ve always said
it, if you remember; but show her the ducks, my dear, show her the
ducks. I think, if possible, that they are more natural than the others.”
Mam’selle Diane’s sad, grave face lighted up a little as she led the
child to a table near the side window, which was covered with pieces
of colored flannel, sticks of sealing-wax, and bunches of soft yellow
wool. In this table was a drawer which she drew out carefully, and
there on little scalloped flannel mats of various colors sat a number
of small yellow downy ducklings.
“Oh, oh!” exclaimed Lady Jane, not able to find other words at the
moment to express her wonder and delight.
“Would you like to hold one?” asked Mam’selle Diane, taking one
out.
Lady Jane held out her pink palm, and rapturously smoothed down
its little woolly back with her soft fingers. “Oh, how pretty, how
pretty!” she repeated in a half-suppressed tone.
“Yes, I think they are rather pretty,” said Mam’selle Diane modestly,
“but then they are so useful.”
“What are they for?” asked Lady Jane in surprise; she could not
think they were made for any other purpose than for ornament.
“They are pen-wipers, my dear. You see, the pen is wiped with the
little cloth mat they are sitting on.”
 Yes, they were pen-wipers; Mademoiselle Diane d’Hautreve,
granddaughter of the Count d’Hautreve, made little woolen ducklings
for pen-wipers, and sold them quite secretly to Madame Jourdain, on
the Rue Royale, in order to have bread for her aged mother and
herself.
Lady Jane unknowingly had solved the financial mystery
connected with the d’Hautreve ladies, and at the same time she had
made another valuable friend for herself.
 CHAPTER XV
LADY JANE FINDS A MUSIC-TEACHER

O N the occasion of Lady Jane’s first visit to the d’Hautreve ladies,

she had been so interested in Mam’selle Diane’s works of art
that she had paid no attention whatever to the piano and the flowers.
But on the second visit, while Tony was posing as a model (for
suddenly he had developed great perfection in that capacity), she
critically examined the ancient instrument.
Presently she asked a little timidly, “Is that what you make music
on when you sing, Mam’selle Diane?”
Mam’selle Diane nodded an affirmative. She was very busy
modeling Tony’s leg in sealing-wax.
“Is it a piano?”
“Yes, my dear, it’s a piano. Did you never see one before?”
“Oh yes, and I’ve played on one. Mama used to let me play on
hers; but it was large, very large, and not like this.”
“Where was that?” asked Mam’selle Diane, while a swift glance
passed between her and her mother.
“Oh, that was on the ranch, before we came away.”
“Then you lived on a ranch. Where was it, my dear?”
“I don’t know,” and Lady Jane looked puzzled. “It was just the
ranch. It was in the country, and there were fields and fields, and a
great many horses, and sheep, and lambs—dear little lambs!”
“Then the lady you live with is not your mama,” said Mam’selle
Diane casually, while she twisted the sealing-wax into the shape of
the foot.
 “Oh, no, she’s my Tante Pauline. My mama has gone away, but
Pepsie says she’s sure to come back before Christmas; and it’s not
very long now till Christmas.” The little face grew radiant with
expectation.
“And you like music?” said Mam’selle Diane, with a sigh; she saw
how it was, and she pitied the motherless darling from the bottom of
her tender heart.
“Didn’t you ever hear me sing when I used to stand close to the
window?” Lady Jane leaned across Mam’selle Diane’s table, and
looked at her with a winsome smile. “I sang as loud as I could, so
you’d hear me; I thought, perhaps, you’d let me in.”
“Dear little thing!” returned Mam’selle Diane, caressingly. Then she
turned and spoke in French to her mother: “You know, mama, I
wanted to ask her in before, but you thought she might meddle with
my wools and annoy me; but she’s not troublesome at all. I wish I
could teach her music when I have time.”
Lady Jane glanced from one to the other gravely and anxiously.
“I’m learning French,” she said; “Pepsie’s teaching me, and when I
learn it you can always talk to me in French. I know some words
now.”
Mam’selle Diane smiled. “I was telling mama that I should like to
teach you music. Would you like to learn?”
“What, to play on the piano?” and the child’s eyes glistened with
delight.
“Yes, to play and sing, both.”
“I can sing now,” with a little, shy, wistful smile.
“Well then, sing for us while I finish Tony’s leg, and afterward I will
sing for you.”
“Shall I sing, ‘Sleep, baby, sleep’?”
“Yes, anything you like.”
Lady Jane lifted her little face, flushed like a flower, but still serious
and anxious, and broke into a ripple of melody so clear, so sweet,
and so delicately modulated, that Mam’selle Diane clasped her
hands in ecstasy. She forgot her bunch of wool, the difficulty of
Tony’s breast-feathers, the impossible sealing-wax leg, and sat
listening enchanted; while the old lady closed her eyes and swayed
back and forth, keeping time with the dreamy rhythm of the lullaby.
“Why, my dear, you have the voice of an angel!” exclaimed
Mam’selle Diane, when the child finished. “I must teach you. You
must be taught. Mama, she must be taught. It would be wicked to
allow such a voice to go uncultivated!”
“And what can cultivation do that nature hasn’t done?” asked the
old lady querulously. “Sometimes, I think too much cultivation ruins a
voice. Think of yours, Diane; think of what it was before all that
drilling and training; think of what it was that night you sang at
Madame La Baronne’s, when your cousin from France, the Marquis
d’Hautreve, said he had never listened to such a voice!”
“It was the youth in it, mama, the youth; I was only sixteen,” and
Mam’selle Diane sighed over the memory of those days.
“It was before all the freshness was cultivated out of it. You never
sang so well afterward.”
“I never was as young, mama, and I never had such an audience
again. You know I went back to the convent; and when I came out
things had changed, and I was older, and—I had changed. I think the
change was in me.”
Here a tear stole from the faded eyes that had looked on such
triumphs.
“It is true, my dear, you never had such an opportunity again. Your
cousin went back to France—and—and—there were no more fêtes
after those days, and there was no one left to recognize your talent.
Perhaps it was as much the lack of recognition as anything else.
Yes, I say, as I always have said, that it’s recognition you need to
make you famous. It’s the same with your birds as with your singing.
It’s recognition you need.”
“And perhaps it’s wealth too, mama,” said Mam’selle Diane gently.
“One is forgotten when one is poor. Why, we have been as good as
dead and buried these twenty years. I believe there’s no one left who
remembers us.”
“No, no, my child; it’s not that,” cried the old lady sharply. “We are
always d’Hautreves. It was our own choice to give up society; and
we live so far away, it is inconvenient,—so few of our old friends
keep carriages now; and besides, we have no day to receive. It was
a mistake giving up our reception-day; since then people haven’t
visited us.”
“I was thinking, mama,” said Mam’selle Diane timidly, “that if I did
as well with my ducks next year as I have this, we might have a ‘day’
again. We might send cards, and let our old friends know that we are
still alive.”
“We might, we might,” said the old lady, brightening visibly. “We
are always d’Hautreves”; then her face fell suddenly. “But, Diane, my
dear, we haven’t either of us a silk dress, and it would never do for
us to receive in anything but silk.”
“That’s true, mama. I never thought of that. We may not be able to
have a ‘day,’ after all,” and Mam’selle Diane bent her head
dejectedly over her sealing-wax and wool.
While these reminiscences were exchanged by the mother and
daughter, Lady Jane, whose singing had called them forth, slipped
out into the small garden, where, amid a profusion of bloom and
fragrance, she was now listening to the warbling of a canary whose
cage hung among the branches of a Maréchal Niel rose. It was the
bird whose melody had enraptured her, while she was yet without
the paradise, and it was the effigy of that same bird that she had
seen on Mam’selle Diane’s green woolen trees. He was a bright, jolly
little fellow, and he sang as if he were wound up and never would run
down.
Lady Jane listened to him delightedly while she inspected the beds
of flowers. It was a little place, but contained a great variety of plants,
and each was carefully trained and trimmed; and under all the
seedlings were laid little sheets of white paper on which some seeds
had already fallen.
 Lady Jane eyed the papers curiously. She did not know that these
tiny black seeds added yearly a few dollars to the d’Hautreve
revenues, and, at the same time, furnished the thrifty gardener with
all she needed for her own use. But whose hands pruned and
trained, dug and watered? Were they the hands of the myth of a
servant who came so early before madame was out of her bed—for
the old aristocrat loved to sleep late—to clean the gallery and
banquette and do other odd jobs unbecoming a d’Hautreve?
Yes, the very same; and Mam’selle Diane was not an early riser
because of sleeplessness, nor was it age that made her slender
hands so hard and brown.
 CHAPTER XVI
PEPSIE IS JEALOUS

W HEN Mam’selle Diane joined Lady Jane in the garden, she had
gained her mother’s consent to give the child a music lesson
once a week. The old lady had been querulous and difficult; she had
discussed and objected, but finally Mam’selle Diane had overcome
her prejudices.
“You don’t know what kind of people her relatives are,” the old lady
said, complainingly, “and if we once open our doors to the child the
aunt may try to crowd in. We don’t want to make any new
acquaintances. There’s one satisfaction we still have, that, although
we are poor, very poor, we are always d’Hautreves, and we always
have been exclusive, and I hope we always shall be. As soon as we
allow those people to break down the barrier between us, they will
rush in on us, and, in a little while, they will forget who we are.”
“Never fear, mama; if the aunt is as well bred as the child, she will
not annoy us. If we wish to know her, we shall probably have to
make the first advances, for, judging by the child, they are not
common people. I have never seen so gentle and polite a little girl.
I’m sure she’ll be no trouble.”
“I don’t know about that. Children are natural gossips, and she is
very intelligent for her age. She will notice everything, and the secret
of your birds will get out.”
“Well, mama dear, if you feel that she will be an intrusion upon our
privacy, I won’t insist; but I should so like to have her, just for two
hours, say, once a week. It would give me a new interest; it would
renew my youth to hear her angelic little voice sometimes.”
“Oh, I suppose you must have your way, Diane, as you always do.
Young people nowadays have no respect for the prejudices of age.
We must yield all our traditions and habits to their new-fashioned
ideas, or else we are severe and tyrannical.”
“Oh, mama, dear mama, I’m sure you’re a little, just a little, unkind
now,” said Mam’selle Diane, soothingly. “I’ll give it up at once if you
really wish it; but I don’t think you do. I’m sure the child will interest
you; besides, I’m getting on so well with the bird—you wouldn’t have
me give up my model, would you?”
“Certainly not, my dear. If you need her, let her come. At least you
can try for a while, and if you find her troublesome, and the lessons a
task, you can stop them when you like.”
When this not very gracious consent was obtained, Mam’selle
Diane hastened to tell Lady Jane that, if her aunt approved, she
could come to her every Saturday, from one to three, when she
would teach her the piano, as well as singing; and that after the
lesson, if she liked to remain awhile in the garden with the birds and
flowers, she was at liberty to do so.
Lady Jane fairly flew to tell Pepsie the good news; but, much to
her surprise, her merry and practical friend burst into tears and hid
her face on the table among the pecan shells.
“Why, Pepsie—dear, dear Pepsie, what ails you?” cried Lady
Jane, in an agony of terror, “tell me what ails you?” and, dropping
Tony, she laid her little face among the shells and cried too.
“I’m—I’m—jealous,” said Pepsie, looking up after a while, and
rubbing her eyes furiously. “I’m a fool, I know, but I can’t help it; I
don’t want her to have you. I don’t want you to go there. Those fine,
proud people will teach you to look down on us. We’re poor, my
mother sells pralines, and the people that live behind that green
fence are too proud and fine to notice any one in this street. They’ve
lived here ever since I was born, and no one’s seen them, because
they’ve kept to themselves always; and now, when I’ve just got you
to love, they want to take you away, they want to teach you to—
despise—us!” and Pepsie stumbled over the unusual word in her
passionate vehemence, while she still cried and rubbed angrily.
 “But don’t cry, Pepsie,” entreated Lady Jane. “I don’t love
Mam’selle Diane as well as I love you. It’s the music, the singing. Oh,
Pepsie, dear, dear Pepsie, let me learn music, and I’ll be good and
love you dearly!”
“No,—no, you won’t, you won’t care any more for me,” insisted
Pepsie, the little demon of jealousy raging to such a degree that she
was quite ready to be unjust, as well as unreasonable.
“Are you cross at me, Pepsie?” and Lady Jane crept almost across
the table to cling tearfully to her friend’s neck. “Don’t be cross, and I
won’t go to Mam’selle Diane. I won’t learn music, and, Pepsie, dear,
I’ll—I’ll—give you Tony!”
This was the extreme of renunciation, and it touched the generous
heart of the girl to the very quick. “You dear little angel!” she cried
with a sudden revulsion of feeling, clasping and kissing the child
passionately. “You’re as sweet and good as you can be, and I’m
wicked and selfish! Yes, wicked and selfish. It’s for your good, and
I’m trying to keep you away. You ought to hate me for being so
mean.”
At this moment Tite Souris entered, and, seeing the traces of tears
on her mistress’s cheeks, broke out in stern, reproachful tones.
“Miss Lady, what’s you be’n a-doin’ to my Miss Peps’? You done
made her cry. I see how she’s be’n a-gwine on. You jes’ look out, or
her ma’ll git a’ter you, ef yer makes dat po’ crooked gal cry dat a-
way.”
“Hush, Tite,” cried Pepsie, “you needn’t blame Miss Lady. It was
my fault. I was wicked and selfish, I didn’t want her to go to
Mam’selle Diane. I was jealous, that’s all.”
“Pepsie cried because she thought I wouldn’t love her,” put in Lady
Jane, in an explanatory tone, quite ignoring Tite’s burst of loyalty.
“Mam’selle Diane is nobility—French nobility—and Pepsie thought
I’d be proud, and love Mam’selle best,—didn’t you, Pepsie?”
“Now, jes’ hear dat chile,” cried Tite, scornfully. “If dey is nobil’ty,
dey is po’ white trash. Shore’s I live, dat tall lean one wat look lak a
graveyard figger, she git outen her bed ’fore sun-up, an’ brick her