My Facebook community

This article offers an autoethnographic account of the ways in which users of local Facebook groups in a U.S. suburb use the spaces to form community and personal identities. Through a reflection on my experiences of using local suburban Facebook groups, the article makes the argument that Facebook fails to offer a needed space for public discourse. However, it does provide a lens through which the negotiation and performance of a middle-class identity can be affirmed and contested. Through a reflection on the author’s experiences using local Facebook groups over a period of three years, the article aims to better understand how this platform fulfills this role in a suburban New Jersey community.