Independent Research Project - Controversial Humour and the Online Community

SOC 250 Everyday Interaction 

Assessment 4: Independent Research Project 

Danielle Merlino 3883073

'Controversial Humour and the Online Community'

The emergence of the internet and online communities is a very interesting topic in the study of everyday interactions as the traditional face-to-face signals are not available. Miller (1995, p2) argues that “as the technology develops, more range of expressive resources become available. Also, as the culture of electronic communication develops, people will construct expressive resources out of whatever facilities are available.” Social media sites such as Facebook allow users to express themselves in diverse ways and the possibility of remaining anonymous means that people can say anything they like without the consequences that a face-to-face interaction might entail. As Morrisey (2010, p76) recognises, “this breaking-down of inhibitions can ... result in negative consequences such as the rejection of the norms of civil society that could lead to harassment, flaming and hate speech”. In order to explore the way in which online interactions work to reveal aspects of the self and interaction with others this paper will look at the Facebook page '[Controversial Humor] Cancer is funny cause people die'.

'[Controversial Humor] Cancer is funny cause people die' was started in November 2011, and although it has been reported to Facebook authorities as it does not break any laws or violate Facebook policies it has not been shut down. On this page people would post offensive comments, jokes, photographs, comics and memes about Cancer patients and their loved ones. The page has sparked outrage and debate both on Facebook and through other media sources. Some members of the public have responded to the page by creating counter-pages such as 'Cancer is NOT funny cause people die' and by also writing to members on the original page. This report will focus on a particular comment thread started by Beau N Ell Ruttimann on 5th September 2012 in response to the page itself.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 1 shows the beginning of this interaction with 'Beau N Ell Ruttimann' (Beau) indicating that this page is offensive and should never have been created, and then requesting the administrators to remove the page. Through this comment it can be seen that Beau has recognised that what is considered socially acceptable has been breached. This can be compared to the sociological idea of the 'Code'- a set of unwritten social rules which will govern interactions in a particular setting (Wieder, 1974, p144). In writing “how f***ing dare you joke around about s**t like this! Does it even cross your sick little brain that victims of cancer and family members see this?” Beau seems to be indicating that there is a socially accepted understanding that people do not joke about this topic.

According to Erving Goffman's arguments on presentation of the self, “one of the things people need to do during interaction with others is present themselves as an acceptable person: one who is entitled to certain kinds of consideration, who has certain kinds of expertise, who is morally relatively unblemished, and so on” (Miller, 1995, p1). In Screenshot 1 Beau identifies himself as victim of cancer in that his father had recently died from the disease. In doing so Beau presents a version of himself that has authority to talk about this topic due to first hand experience.

In response to Beau's comment, immediately 'Irene Moffett' offers sympathy, however 'Randall Boggs', 'Good Ol' Jeb' and 'Dog' respond with dismissive and offensive comments, some of which can be seen as trolling or 'flaming' - a situation which will be discussed further on. What is interesting to note is that these three people appear to be using fake names and profile pictures. Good Ol' Jeb is clearly not a real name, and the same applies for Dog (who also uses a picture of a dog for their profile picture). Even though Randall Boggs at first glance may appear to be a real name, when one looks at their profile picture it is actually an image of the Monsters Inc (movie) villain who also goes by the name Randall. Hugh Miller (1995, p3) argues that “it is easy to make a fool of yourself on the Web; there is little to stop you doing it, but doing it will cause you little pain.” On the internet, as can be seen in this example, the self can remain totally anonymous, but even if some parts of the self are revealed, the computer screen offers protection.

As there is much less accountability on the internet, people are able to express their feelings without taking into perspective the feelings of others. Goffman (1971) argues that people 'perform' certain roles in everyday life and that they will adjust their performance to suit the audience, time and place, cultivating the personality which is most appropriate. Goffman (1971, p32) uses the analogy of stages to show how performances change from the perhaps more formal, socially acceptable 'frontstage' to the more relaxed, personal 'backstage'. Ross (2007, p316) argues that sometimes “the distinction between frontstage and backstage interaction is not entirely obvious... [and] it is difficult to establish what kind of region is being accessed when an actor's performance is delivered blindly to millions of potential readers.” As can be seen through the 'Cancer is funny...' page, this can become problematic on the internet because “the decontextualised nature of the computer” means that someone may choose to disregard the fact that something is considered socially unacceptable in what is normally the frontstage and instead express what has been lurking in the backstage of many individuals (Brooks et al, 'Flaming').

Screenshot 2

In Screenshot 2 Randall and Good Ol' Jeb continue to insult Beau with comments such as “Go play with your dad. Oh whoops, sorry.” This leads to a longer comment by Beau where the extensive use of expletives can been seen to indicate an increase in his anger and frustration. As Jay and Janschewitz (2008, p267) indicate “the main purpose of swearing is to express emotions... [and] swear words are well suited to express emotion as their primary meanings are connotative.” Through using words such as “f***” and “c***” Beau is able to show these people how upset he is becoming, and perhaps hopes this will encourage them to stop. However the responses following this comment only seem to become more offensive, and it could be argued that Beau's use of expletives have been viewed “as loss of control” (Jay and Janschetwitz, 2008, p271). This argument can be noted particularly in 'Amy Mason's' following comment “Ah there it is. You are now most definitely no better than anyone here. Well done.”

Screenshot 3

In Screenshot 3 'Jonathan Diala' enters the thread with a very violent comment which can be identified as trolling. Li (2010) defines a troll as “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community ... with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response”. While there is still little sociological research completed on the topic of trolling, Li (2010) looks into the origins of it. He suggests that the Internet “is generally not a good place for social control” because while it does have some formal control mechanisms such as 'banlists', it “lacks informal ones, which ... are usually more effective” (Li, 2010). As mentioned above, trolling was also used by 'Randall', 'Good Ol' Jeb' and 'Dog' is Screenshot 1. It is interesting to note that while Jonathan's post is more violent, it receives less reaction than the other three 'trolls' comments. This may be due to the fact that Beau has already reacted to the other comments and is arguing with them.

Beau then responds to the entire thread with a clearly set out comment which reiterates his point that the page is offensive but also moves on to say “You all think your so clever and smart by being 'keyboard warriors' and youre not, youre just showing the world how f***ing sick and twisted cold hearted you are.” This comment raises two interesting notions, the first being him actually acknowledging that this is perhaps the 'true' version of these individuals' selves, and what would be considered the 'backstage' is being brought forward. He also uses insults against the members of this page which can be seen as him implementing a method called 'flaming'. Brooks, Heyman and Pyon argue that flaming is the Internet's “way of regulating itself.” The way it works is that if someone writes something very unacceptable on a public forum, others will point this out in an insulting way, They will “flame others who violate group norms” (Brooks et al, 'Flaming'). Beau is attempting to regulate their behaviour by continuously pointing out that it is wrong, however in this situation it does not appear to be working. In Screenshot 4 'Sara Boren' also attempts to use flaming by labelling the group members as “sad individuals.”

Screenshot 4

In Screenshot 4 'Antonio Michael Salvatore Casamassa' (Antonio) joins the thread and in disapproving of the page comments on the reasons why it may have been created in an amused and sarcastic tone. In fact, over the entire Facebook page there are several comments which try to find some reason for the admin creating such a page and the members contributing to it. This practice appears to relate to ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel's work on social order.

Garfinkel found that in order to research how social order is made it would be best to start with a framework of stable features and see what can be done to make trouble (Heritage, 1984, p78). This was achieved through his famous breaching experiments. In these experiments Garfinkel and his students would break the normal rules of a situation and wished to create a senseless situation (Heritage, 1984, p78). However the interesting result of these experiments was that often the subjects would attempt to add meaning to the experimenter's actions so that it could be understood as a legally possible event (Heritage, 1984, p81).

On the 'Cancer is funny ...' page, what is considered socially acceptable has been breached and Antonio provides some interesting suggestions as to why. These include: the admin having a low IQ, a huge void in their life, and a mental illness. What is interesting to note is that Antonio, having attributed meaning to creator's actions, does not appear extremely upset and seems to suggest that others should just ignore the page. However unlike Antonio, Beau does not attribute meaning to their actions and becomes increasingly upset by the comments on the thread. This observation is reminiscent of Garfinkel's work where he found that during a breaching experiment “senselessness and disturbance was increased if the subject attempted to normalize the discrepancy while retaining an unaltered view of the 'rules of the game'” (Heritage, 1984, p79).

As can be seen from this report, a single comment thread in an online community can provide sociologists with a vast array of information on how everyday interactions play out on the Internet. The Internet provides many news ways for interaction to occur, and while this has obvious benefits, as discussed above it also opens opportunities for more deviance from societal norms due to the possibility to remove your 'self' from your actions and comments. Miller (1995, p1-2) indicates that in face-to-face encounters there is an increased mutual understanding of the framework that leads the people to the encounter, and “this depth and richness is perhaps not apparent in electronic interaction.” As online communities continue to grow they show social order, and self presentation being achieved in interesting ways. However as Miller (1995, p7) argues “a full appreciation of this has to wait until we have an implicit understanding of the 'frames' that can be applied to communication on the Web, so we know how to interpret what people say about themselves in the context of 'what is going on' when they say these things.”

References

Brooks, E, Heyman, N and Pyon, J, 'Social Interaction on the Internet: An Application of Erving Goffman's Sociological Theories', McMaster University, accessed 9 September 2012, http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/soc4j3/stuweb/cyber9/flmg.htm

'[Controversial Humor] Cancer is funny cause people die' Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Controversial-Humor-Cancer-is-funny-cause-people- die/174140266010061*

* I have provided the link to the Facebook page above however unfortunately the actual comment thread analysed in this report appears to have been removed by the site administrators.

Dery, Mark (1993) 'Flame Wars'. 

Goffman, E (1967) 'The nature of deference and demeanor' Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-

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Heritage, John. 1984. 'The Morality of Cognition' in Garfinkel and

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Li, S (2010) 'A Sociological Perspective on Internet Trolling', A Reasoner's Miscellany, 10th December, accessed 30th October 2012, http://nargaque.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/a-sociological- perspective-on-internet-trolling/

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