Reading Responses (Set 2)

5 out of 5

11/04/19 - Haters

Trevor's Axiom is not a scientifically discussed, peer-reviewed psychological concept– It's a joke from South Park, an adult satirical cartoon. However, the underlying concept of the growth of trollish behavior can be understood through South Park's "Trevor's Axiom". It essentially describes how online trollish behavior is able to metastasize exponentially from its origin as when others defend that which is being trolled, the defenders are then trolled and so on until a huge majority is dealing with the behavior, either defending or supporting it, leading everyone to partake in the negative behavior. This concept can be seen within the reading as Reagle references Jen McCreight's Blag Hag blog as trolling increased dramatically after she blocked the primary trolls, encouraging more trolls, and more defenders to take their place.

Trollish behavior has become incredibly common online, primarily due to the inherent anonymity that the internet provides. Anyone can be anyone or anything on the internet. You can generally say what you want online without facing the same repercussions that you would face if you were to exemplify trollish behavior in the real world. Reagle references Plato's story of Gyges which essentially ponders that if one was free from the ramifications of being identified, would they become corrupted? Several studies, such as Zimbardo's shock experiment, convey that individuals are more likely to do bad things when they are unable to recognize the one that they are hurting as a real person. Trollish behavior online is symptomatic of this phenomena as really every individual online is deindivuated in some way, leading to online individuals to not observe the same standards of their real life human interaction as online interactions don't necessarily feel like they're with living, diverse and emotional humans.

11/14/19 Shaped

“GO KILL YOURSELF … … oh wait lol.” That was a comment posted to a fourteen year old boy's social media after committing suicide due to incessant bullying because he was gay in 2011. The boy, Jamey from Buffalo, tried to use social media to encourage others to find supportive communities to bypass the rampant hate prevalent on the internet. Even though Jamey found some support and friendship online, the hate pervaded, leading to his suicide which led to even more hate, posthumously. In this instance, social media was able to both lift and immensely harm Jamey's self esteem. People can definitely be nice and supportive online but pockets of hate can run rampant and over power any well-wishers. Why do people subject themselves to that torment? In Reagle's article, Jamey's struggle is framed through the advice of Dan Savage and Terry Miller's advice that life gets better after highschool. Jamey died before highschool was over.

In highschool, there is an expectation of connectivity. Everyone should have Instagrams and Twitters and be active on-line. In my personal experience social media was far more reaching in highschool than in is in the years following graduation. People care about social status and to attain social status a following on social media is imperative. For someone like Jamey, social media was likely a norm of the highschool existence and also a place to seek companionship with others similar to him. There were also likely far more supporters than those spewing hate but hate hits far harder than praise to the detriment of all who have been bullied.

I think narcissism can be symptomatic of digital connectivity/social media but I would argue that, in cases like with Jamey, it was instead a place of potential refuge– a place where he could bond with individuals online whereas he might be unable to find a plethora of like-minded individuals who share in his struggles at his school. The internet can and is a place of community which can be greatly beneficial to some but quite harmful to others. I think social media and digital connectivity can exasperate narcissism in individuals who already exhibit that trait, but I don't believe that social media and digital connectivity are inherently responsible for narcissism in our age.

11/18/19 Collapsed Context

Can individuals be authentic online? Additionally is online authenticity predisposed or an exclusion from the norm of exaggerations and fabrications? I argue that individuals can be authentic online and that whether authenticity is predisposed is correlated to whether the specific site a user is on allows for anonymity. Marwick and boyd, in their essay, write, "We present ourselves differently based on who we are talking to and where the conversation takes place… The same goes for socializing online" (1). In real life, as Marwick and boyd note, every aspect of our life in which we interact with each other has different sets of nuanced rules, expectations and procedures, whether conscious on unconscious that one must follow if they want to abide "correctly" within that sphere. The internet is no different. When I'm on Facebook, I know who my audience is. For me, It's mostly friends from highschool and relatives. Additionally, my real identity is heavily linked to Facebook. My Facebook audience and the lack of anonymity it provides causes me to follow certain procedures when I post to Facebook. I never swear and never post offensive content because I wouldn't want that necessarily to be publicly associated with me. I tend to mostly share football scores or relevant news articles. This isn't me being inauthentic, it's just a different side of my persona tailored specifically for this site. In the real world, I love wearing athletic clothing but if I was to go to a formal event I would wear nicer clothes. It's not being unauthentic in my opinion, rather it is having an understanding of the norms within society as one attempts to satisfy its standards.

On Reddit, my online persona isn't publicly known by my friends and family. On Reddit, I mostly post scuba diving videos and occasionally will argue with some people on the internet and rarely even swear, which are things that I wouldn't do on Facebook but it isn't a complete departure from my authentic self. Twitter is particularly notorious for fostering inauthenticity online because it encompasses more potentially divisive audiences than Facebook or Reddit primarily through the phenomena of "context collapse". Context collapse occurs when a site like Twitter "flattens multiple audiences into one" (122). On Reddit, one can post to any number of different subreddits which allows a user to create messages that are specifically tailored to a multitude of different audiences. Facebook is also somewhat a context collapser but less impactful than Twitter because Facebook doesn't allow for the same divisive types of groups on Twitter (like NSFW content).

On Twitter, one's posts can be seen by any of their followers which impacts the authenticity one is able to exude. Because Twitter is both public and homogenous towards one's audience individuals can have their audience inhibited as a result. However, I believe that authenticity exists not as polarities where one is either authentic or not. Instead authenticity exists on a spectrum. Certain social media sites, like Twitter, may see lower authenticity than sites like Reddit but lower authenticity doesn't mean that someone isn't being authentic at all.

11/25/19 Bemused

Reddit allows for its users to search for content via 6 ways: Best, Hot, New, Top, Controversial and Rising. Reddit's default is to view in Hot mode, which presents the user with posts that are highly upvoted and have seen a multitude of engagement, primarily through comments. The problem with viewing Reddit in Hot however is that the discussion on that post is typically dead before it becomes elevated to be seen by the vast majority of Reddit users. Frequently, I'll view in Hot because I'll see content that is generally of a higher quality, but when I try and engage in the post I'll often receive no response to my comment, or even a single up (or down) vote. The top comments on these posts were all made 3+ hours ago and people have moved on. Reddit feeds are an ephemeral place and the interaction with a post only lasts for a finite amount of time. Users with massive amounts of Reddit Karma attain that because they likely spend the majority of their time browsing in New, enabling them to contribute to posts before their rise. Having a comment on Reddit that gets a lot of Karma feels pretty good because it shows that random strangers on the internet either agree with what you're writing, or at least find it funny or intriguing. Additionally, a good comment on Reddit could actually benefit its writers in more ways than just increasing their fake score. Other users can give Gold as a reward for a comment which comes with certain perks like removing Reddit's ads and enabling the user to have access to r/lounge, a subreddit that is exclusively available to those who have earned Gold.

I received Gold once on Reddit and I'm surprised to say that it actually made my day. I don't remember what my comment was, but it only received around 10 upvotes which almost meant more to me since whoever gave me gold must have appreciated what I said when not many others either saw it or agreed. I ventured into r/Lounge and it was a rather interesting subreddit. Many of the threads were just people basking in the somewhat exclusivity of it all. A few threads played out like a text based RPG simulator, akin to LamdaMoo where Redditors would essentially role play that they were actually in an exclusive lounge and would pretend to drink whiskey and play cards etc. In line with the chapter's title, this was rather bemusing to me. I can understand why people comment on Reddit posts and the draw of imaginary points in that they allow for validation of one's opinions. However, pretending one is in an exclusive club, physically, for being rewarded for an internet comment may be slightly bewildering. Although this behavior may be odd, as well as comment culture in general, the people in r/Lounge were very cordial, representing a significant departure from a myriad of other subreddits and other social media sites where comments are prevalent. My gold has long since expired but I am eager to re-visit the community and see if it has changed in any way. I will just need to have some Redditor validate my comment with Gold so I can get back in.

12/03/19 Pushback

Online communication does not have to be awful. Reagle's chapter, "Conclusion, "Commenterrible"" details the prevalence of horrible comments in that they are created in a way to elicit Family Feud style reactions. This manner of commenting is especially seen within Reddit. On this post from a week ago, a woman is holding a falcon on her arm which starts rousing. Before I even look at the comments of the video, I note that the woman looks like Arwen, an elf, (played by Liv Tyler) from the Lord of the Rings and I thus expect that to be one of the top comments. I click to see the comments and immediately many of the high level and children comments are about her looking like an elf. "Guessing" what the comments are going to be on a certain post makes me feel like I'm part of the zeitgeist of the internet. I never realized that it felt like Family Feud, but that is really how it is– users compete to make references that are in-line with the dominant ideology. On Reddit, Lord of the Rings references are near-ubiquitous so it makes sense that many Reddit users viewing that post share similar perceptions. Are these comments horrible? I wouldn't necessarily say so– they're not original but they are not mean spirited.

There are awful comments online (in the form of trollish and toxic behavior) which makes me realize that I actually somewhat like the Family Feud game of guessing what the comments are going to be before clicking on the link. Per the reading prompt, I don't think online communication is awful. The basis of online communication is about communicating online with others. I participate regularly on the r/scuba subreddit and I have great conversations with people. When I decide to comment on r/all, I will sometimes argue with people that make the experience of online communication bad. Users should attempt to stay away from the message boards or other online communities where they personally are not enthused by online communication. Depending on the definition ascribed to "online communication", I do think it is possible to mostly opt-out of it. If methods of online communication like texting and emails, which are necessary for today's workforce are not included within the definition of online communication, I believe that individuals can opt-out. Social media isn't mandated by the state, people can delete their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit at any time, or forgo going on them. Cutting out social and online media is entirely feasible today and something more and more individuals are doing as they realize that certain aspects of digital communication are more of a chore, or worse, painful, than being enthusing. At that point, it makes far more sense to cut those aspects out or at least limit time on them.