WRIT 2500: WRITE A CASE STUDY THAT INVESTIGATES A CURRENT ONLINE COMMUNITY, AND HOW IT IS RESPONDING TO THE MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION IT IS CREATED IN.

June, 2023

It is no secret that man thrives in communities. First, it was an animalistic instinct. Anyone with the different hunting tools than you became an automatic addition to your “community”. Later, tired he started settling and forming tribes. Religion, gender, countries, states, cities, neighborhoods followed. But he still wasn’t satisfied. Man is ever evolving and so are his communities. And in a bid to revolutionize the world by connecting everyone and everything, he paved ways for millions of other, smaller communities all over the world. Geography and physical presence no bar. Thus came about the phenomenon of creating communities online, communicating and sharing with people whose personalities may not be necessarily in line with yours, but a huge, perhaps defining aspect might be. Say you identify as a pre-school teacher, single mom, Liverpool fan-anything at all-an online community will connect you to people who identify with or associate to the same.
Online communities that I find particularly interesting are accounts or social media handles that stand for something that they associate with. Most commonly found on Twitter, they label their personalities as something that is incredibly cliché and attract followers on that merit. It could be anything, ranging from “basic white girl” to “broke college student”. What entices me most about these accounts is how they create labels and brand names for themselves, how they attract followers through meagre relatability. Perhaps the most annoying and infuriating one that I have come across is “Meninist” and how something that is so socially unacceptable and morally shaky can go on to became something so widely, well, accepted and followed.
To further explore this, I looked up the most followed “Meninst” account on Twitter and was positively appalled. This man who talks about how he is only against “what feminism has become”, openly mocks women, has over a million followers, sells #Meninist T-shirts in black and gold and has generally created a brand for himself more than anything else-which is rather intriguing. It’s interesting to see how little actual relatability it takes for someone to make something a label they greatly associate with-especially if there is a multitude of people who associate with the same thing. That is the power of communities-it makes you feel like you belong more than anything else, and your association with it is generally directly proportional to its power and size. If only a small number of people proudly said that they think men are superior and that women shouldn’t be granted equality, meninist, would maybe not even have existed. There is however, pride in power and power in size. Responsiveness and strength increases with the number of followers. More the number of people, more the association value. It is partly the reason why an online community thrives. It only takes a little relatability for you to associate with it, and greater it’s power and appeal, greater will be a person’s involvement. This is a very definitive relationship that Twitter seems to have with its users. Time and again, Twitter has faced backlash for its controversial disposition. Weather it’s the president calling a rapper a “jackass”, or a man advocating hate and dispelling what women have been working for since the inception of evolutionary society. Twitter is a security blanket, in the sense that you can say whatever you want and the worst that could happen is a hateful reply, perhaps lost amongst thousands of likes. That’s how the message is informed, by anonymity and the security of a computer screen and 140 characters.
We can asses rather clearly that the page clearly perpetuates hate for anyone who doesn’t fit the box of a stereotypical person. If you’re vegan, you’re hated. If you’re advocating women’s right, you’re hated. It’s the typical response to something that is alien to us, something that doesn’t affect us. It is a page that hates or “trolls” people based on their dietary preference, gender and many other trivial reasons and if you’re not either of the things, you automatically belong.  What surprises me most is however, is the response. It’s very easy to hide behind a screen and type hateful things, another reason why this is so popular. People seldom bring up “that one tweet” that really disappointed them in person and as long as you’re on your bed alone, hiding behind your laptop, who cares what you post and what you are actually thinking? You could do whatever you like, say whatever you like, follow and support whomever you please.
Which is I guess another appeal of joining an online community. No one is going to know if you secretly are part of a Hello Kitty fandom if it’s online and your username is prettygirlinpink9897 right? Twitter gives you a safety blanket. Anonymity is its biggest affordance. And the response to online communities, especially those that allow you to express, yet hide, associate, yet disregard in public is hence rather complex. Its affordances are the methods of response since they are tailored so much to the medium itself. Oscar Wilde once said, “Man is least himself when he is his own person, give him a mask and he will tell you the truth”, which I think directly speaks to the anonymity factor of the medium and why expressing explicitly on twitter is so popular. That is why Twitter controversies are such a big thing. Google top ten Twitter controversies and even highly educated, supposedly sophisticated men engage in what can only be described as distasteful.
Twitter as a medium, hence affords you a new identity, which in turn shapes your message.