The Case for Community in Online Spaces: Taking Back Connection 1666934674, 9781666934670

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The Case for Community in Online Spaces

The Case for Community in Online Spaces Taking Back Connection Brooke Dunbar-Treadwell

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2024 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-66693-467-0 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-66693-469-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-66693-468-7 (ebook) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction

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Chapter 1: Defining Community



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Chapter 2: Revolutions, Innovation, and the Evolution of Community 15 Chapter 3: The Hyperpersonal and Connection



Chapter 4: Political Bunkers and Common Enemy Intimacy

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Chapter 5: Community as a Place for Authenticity and Belonging Chapter 6: The Case for Community in Online Spaces and Hope for the Future References Index

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71 85

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About the Author



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Acknowledgments

When I was five years old, my mother put me on a bus to send me off to my first day of kindergarten and then drove thirty minutes to attend her first day of college. With three young children at home, she didn’t want to walk away with regrets. Some of my earliest memories are of studying with her before bedtime while giggling with her over a pile of books filled with Emily Dickinson’s poetry (I could never not laugh at the part where the bird eats the angel worm) and being her audience as she prepared a speech for her public speaking class. I dedicate this book to her. My perseverance, love of learning, and belief that I can do anything—because she told me that I can—are all gifts from her. It’s only fitting that she was the first person who told me “you should write a book” and who dedicated countless hours to feedback, editing, and cheering me across the finish line. It was also her that inspired me to push through a PhD as a single mom because, like her, I never wanted to walk away with regrets. And, like me, my son spent his childhood learning alongside of me—about invitational rhetoric and how to build a persuasive argument (a little too well sometimes). I don’t know how his story will unfold but I know that it and mine was set in motion on that day all of those years ago when I nervously walked up those bus steps to kindergarten and she nervously walked into her college classroom. Thank you, Mama, for so many things. For being my cheering section. For loving me so fiercely that I believed I could do anything. And for having the faith to believe that your strong-willed girl would grow up to be a woman with something to say. To my dad, I owe just as much thanks. If Mom taught me how to love learning, you taught me how to listen and ask questions. Regardless of what mundane thing I was passionate about, you always wanted to learn more and made me feel like whatever I had to say was the most important thing in the world. You taught me that people feel valued when they feel seen. You’ve made me feel valued and seen my entire life. Thank you for being just as vii

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proud of me when I (badly) played that underwhelming season of middle school basketball as you were when I published my first book. I hope my son feels just as much love as I have my entire life. Thank you both for loving me so well. To my son, the joy that you put into the world is contagious and any time I have felt exhausted or overwhelmed while writing this book, you’ve made me laugh and reminded me why I do what I do. You are, and always have been, my “why.” I love who you are and I’m proud of you all the time. To my husband—and also maybe every other partner out there who loves a researcher and knows what it’s like to be lovingly annoyed when their partner has all of her best ideas as we are heading out the door and needs “just five more minutes” and who frequently drifts off into another world of research, ideas, and analysis (“researcher mode” as he likes to call it)—thank you for your patience with me. Having a partner who is excited to see me succeed is one of the joys of my life. I love you and I like you. So many people deserve my thanks. I want to thank some of my favorite Comm scholars, who kindly fielded my annoying questions at odd hours that started with “what was that theory again?” Katie Clarke and Chris Connelly, thank you for being partners in scholarship with me for the last eight years. Love you both. To Dr. Sarah McFarland who once told me that it was okay to disagree and that being a scholar is about having something to say. You pushed me to find my voice. To Dr. Heidi Blossom, who helped to foster my enthusiasm for communication and technology. To Dr. Stephen Perry and Dr. John Keeler, exactly the advisors I needed at various points in my PhD journey, who taught me how to be confident in my own expertise. Thank you to my grandfather-in-law, Mike, who shares my love of learning and was kind enough to read my book and offer his feedback way back when it was still full of rambling and grammatical errors. To Goose the cat, who doesn’t really deserve my thanks and needed to spend far less time sitting on my keyboard while I was trying to write this book, I guess I forgive you. To my big brothers, who never let me have a turn at Duck Hunt when I was a little, I love you anyway. To so many dear friends, family members, and colleagues who I don’t have enough space to name who have made me laugh, encouraged me, gave my son rides to practice, and held me up in about a thousand other ways: thank you. Abby Wambach1 once said, “I’ve never scored a goal in my life without getting a pass from someone else.” I am forever grateful for all of the amazing “someone else’s” in my life.

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NOTE 1. Wambach, Abby. 2019. Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game. New York: Celadon Books.

Introduction

When I tell people that I am a social media researcher, the response is usually the same: technology is bad. It’s ruining our ability to connect with each other, they tell me. “People just can’t build relationships like they used to,” they say. “Community is dead,” they say. I don’t know that I agree. I saw this the first time I took a hard look at anonymous social media, of all places. I found my niche in anonymous communication when my students introduced me to the anonymous social media app, YikYak. It was an app that allowed users to post anonymously, see geographically local posts, and upvote and downvote content that they liked or disliked. Its target audience was college campuses and it became both popular and notorious after accusations of bomb threats and online bullying. Some college administrators even banned it. It certainly wasn’t a new concept, but this one found just the right vehicle and audience to gain a following and saw a few years of popularity. I only became aware of its existence after a post there was misconstrued as a threat on our college campus and caused a delay to classes while administrators took the proper steps to ensure our safety. In the end, it was simply a miscommunication, but it prompted discussions about the ethics of social media in my communication course that I certainly couldn’t have planned better. During our discussion, some students criticized the app, sharing stories of friends who had been bullied there or rumors that had been spread through the platform. Others advocated for the value of it when discussing hot topics, specifically ones that were often seen as taboo or where they felt uncomfortable sharing their opinions. They chided their classmates for taking it and themselves too seriously. While there was no consensus by the time class ended, I wanted to learn more. I spent the next several weeks digging through pages upon pages of messages posted there and found myself fascinated by the picture of our community that it painted. It didn’t match the polished brochures of laughing students sitting in diverse groups on the quad. Instead, it was the good, the 1

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bad, and the ugly on full display. Posters there held nothing back. There were praises mixed with critiques of our community, policies, students, and administrators. And what surprised me the most is that mixed in the noise were thoughtful and self-reflective critiques. I knew to take it with reservations; while a lack of accountability often provides opportunities for vulnerability, it’s also a space with the perception of no rules and no consequences. It’s also impossible to verify anything shared there. I knew all of these things, so I entered into my research with a healthy amount of skepticism. But the deeper I dug, the more I found that something important was happening there. It was vulnerable, honest, and raw. I couldn’t help but think that maybe it’s what our community might look like if we had the chance to see people exactly as they are, for better or worse. I won’t deny that the bullying, racism, misogyny, and overall divisiveness that I expected to find there existed as well. What surprised me, however, was how much of the opposite I also found. A group of campus Veterans discussed their experiences serving overseas and how alone they felt in their classrooms sitting among students who had never experienced the horrors of war. LGBTQIA+ students discussed their fear of coming out in a conservative community and also, shared positive and supportive experiences that had helped them during their time at our university. The one that stood out to me the most was a poster who shared they were considering suicide. It was heartbreaking to read the helplessness in their posts, although it was no surprise to me that some of our students experienced this. What did surprise me were the responses from other posters. It caught my attention simply because of the sheer number of posters who responded with support, encouragement, and resources. Some offered to walk with the poster to counseling. Others shared their own experiences and encouraged the poster to seek help. Strangers showing up for strangers. It was the clearest case of community I had encountered in my years of teaching, in or out of the classroom. The app would eventually lose popularity a few months later as YikYak’s leadership made policy changes that required posters to provide usernames. The anonymity of the site had been its greatest selling point and without it, former “Yakkers” went elsewhere like college confessional boards or other anonymous websites like Reddit or 4Chan, which were also seeing an increase in popularity at the time. But I couldn’t forget what I had witnessed there. This was community. This was people being real, authentic, vulnerable, and kind of messy. They supported one another and had honest and hard conversations. This didn’t match what so many people tell me: that community is dead. It simply isn’t, but maybe it looks a little different than what any of us are expecting.

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I had trouble reconciling the belief that one was real “community” and the other wasn’t. We had evolved as a species from our earliest days of community and telling stories around the campfire, but we had gained a larger community, one that sometimes spread across oceans and allowed us to interact with people with drastically different experiences than ours to learn and grow from one another. I couldn’t call that “dead.” I spent the next six years trying to understand what I had found there, digging deeply into the recesses of the online abyss. I studied anonymous communities, social media, memes, political communities, and even comment sections. I walked away with many new ideas about community, for better or worse, but one thing stood out to me in my hours and hours of research: community isn’t dead. It’s alive and well but, admittedly, its form has certainly changed. I also learned that maybe we need a little bit of a reminder about how to find it and the right amount of encouragement to remember why we should. But it’s there and evidence suggests that we are desperately seeking it. I decided to write this book because I want to clear up the misconceptions that seem to be so prevalent: community doesn’t exist anymore, technology is dividing us, and we no longer know how to connect with other people. These things simply aren’t true and I’ve seen that over and over again in my research. Dialogue about the changing face of “community” in online spaces is needed. Is there work to be done? Absolutely. But I would argue that giving up on community is premature. The real challenge we face is convincing people to practice vulnerability and step out of their comfort zones to find that community. The challenge is convincing them that this is truly the only way to find the connection that we seek. Many years ago, we sat around campfires telling stories with our friends and neighbors. This was our community, and our community was our world. We needed them for safety, entertainment, to learn about ourselves. Many years later, we have countless tools at our disposal to supply us with these same things and community no longer comes to us. We must seek it and then do the hard work required to not only create that community, but also sustain it. The good news is that many people are doing it anyway, but it may not look like what we expected. I am here to defend that community that we call the internet. I acknowledge the obstacles to connection found there, but my years of research have given me hope that it still exists and is thriving. We can be part of it if we choose. I’m ready to make my case for connection in online spaces.

Chapter 1

Defining Community

Communication comes from the root word “communis” which means “communality” or “sharing.” Solidarity. Cooperation. Connection. I start here because it’s essential that we understand what it is that we mean when we say “community.” It’s not about buildings or committees or memberships. Those things can certainly lead to community, but they aren’t what makes a community a community. It’s about communication, connection, and people who choose one another. Sociologist and philosopher, Leo Lowenthal is quoted as saying “True communication entails a communion, a sharing of inner experience” (1967). It isn’t simply about sharing our world with other people, but rather sharing who we truly are and inviting others to do the same. It’s some of the most important work that we do. We spend an awful lot of time communicating but are we always connecting? That’s a harder question. I know connection exists in our world. I see it in some of the most beautiful and unexpected moments among both friends and strangers. I see it in my research of online spaces where people come together and communicate collective joy, hope, and commonality, sometimes without ever seeing one another’s face. Yet, I also look outside and see two neighbors who no longer speak to one another. Once horseshoe partners at the annual neighborhood picnic, they used to share a carpool and many days in the bleachers when their boys played little league together. Now they might acknowledge one another with a grunt and a nod if they are feeling particularly friendly that day. There was no falling out, at least not officially. But, at some point, they decided that their conflicting yard signs and social media posts meant that they simply had nothing in common anymore. This scenario could have described any number of people I know whose relationships are struggling for similar reasons. We so often allow division and misunderstanding to destroy our relationships. I often reference the early days of communication—those days of community and stories around 5

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the campfire—with such reverence because those were the days when we didn’t have the choice to run away from hard conversations. We had to sit down with each other and figure out how to get along. Our most basic needs depended on it. While that’s less true now, at least in the most fundamental sense, we still desperately need connection and belonging. But stories like these: division over politics, miscommunication, or even just our choice to avoid connection because we can do so more easily now—they serve as a reminder that a shift has taken place. What changed? Some would argue the internet. Although I would try my best to practice the type of openness and dialogue that I encourage in the pages of this book to genuinely hear the other person, I would also point to my years of research that suggest there are many places that we are connecting exceedingly well in online spaces. In some instances, I would even suggest that we are doing it better online. So, I might say, as kindly as possible, that maybe it’s not the internet’s fault. And if they disagreed—well, they are wrong. I didn’t say that openness and dialogue is always easy. If we are open to there being something bigger at play than the internet, there are a few factors we might consider that may have contributed to our changing approach to community. The first, I would argue, is the fact that we assume we don’t have work to do. Maybe being too familiar with the concept of communication is often what makes it so challenging for us to examine our own poor communication choices. We have done it a million times every day since the day we were born, for better or worse. It’s like telling someone that they may need to work on their breathing skills. And yet, so many of us have areas for growth when it comes to communication. Clinical psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Cohen cites communication as the number one cause for divorce in 2020, noting that on the surface these things can look like money problems or unfaithfulness but at the core, they are all rooted in a communication breakdown (Girdwain 2020). A 2019 study by employment engagement company, Peakon, found that the number one reason why people leave jobs is due to a lack of communication by their employer (Schwantes 2019). These studies aren’t incidental. Communication is hard, and one of the biggest factors that hinders our ability to grow is the belief that we don’t have work to do. Effective communication is a cornerstone for connection and the choice to do it effectively is an intentional one. We can’t simply trip and fall into meaningful relationships with those around us. Another important factor to consider is that we struggle with connection because, even though we crave it, doing the work to find it is often the harder choice in today’s world. Years of innovation have made us less reliant on

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one another. Books brought information into our homes that once only came from our friends and neighbors. Movies, music, television, video games, and a variety of other options come straight to our homes. We don’t need to find entertainment outside them. And then came the internet. If there was a remaining need that required our reliance on other people, the internet eliminated that too while providing a myriad of options that allow us to both disconnect and connect from the world around us. Slowly, community stopped being a requirement and became a choice. Community and connection are so inextricably linked that it’s impossible to have a conversation of one without the other. While most of us could settle on a definition of community, “connection” is a much harder concept to define. In the academic sense, one of my favorite explanations is by Granovetter (1973) as he explains his theory of strong ties and weak ties. While it was never intended to be a theory about the internet or even relationships, it addresses the meaning behind our connections and their impact. He explained: “the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie.” For a more straightforward definition of this, I like to lean more on Brené Brown’s definition. “I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship” (2010). Or, to address the online aspect of connection, she would suggest that the key component in connection is the ability to see the humanity in one another (2017). In 1974, psychologist Seymour Sarason offered his thoughts on community and how it serves as an essential need. He described community as “the feeling one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure” (157) and noted that one of the primary ways in which we self-identify and understand who we are is through our community membership. An interesting part of his work is that he also noted how the absence of community is “the key to the understanding of one’s society’s most pressing problems, the dark side of individualism, manifested in alienation, selfishness and despair.” We need to be part of a larger community and we struggle without it. I would also take it a step further to say that we struggle when we think we are engaging in it and really aren’t. While there are a lot of barriers to authentic connection that are created by online spaces, including this ability to convince ourselves that we are engaging in community in the first place, I almost wonder if part of the problem is that we may not understand why we feel so disconnected. There’s a helplessness that exists when we believe we are doing everything we can and are

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still falling short. I imagine it would be a lot easier if people understood what actual community looks like and why their efforts might not be working. McMillan & Chavis (1986) tried to offer this explanation, as they expanded on Sarason’s work to offer the four factors that contribute to a sense of community. Their explanation is held as foundational to most research in community done today. McMillan & Chavis suggest that there are four things that give us a sense of community: Membership: A feeling of belonging and identification by the group. Sharing goals. Cohesion. Influence: A sense of feeling like one matters and is making a difference. Fulfillment of Needs: The feeling that relationships are reciprocated and that needs are being mutually fulfilled. Emotional Connection: Shared history, common places, events, time together, and similar experiences; intimacy and emotional risk between members. These factors come together to define what psychologists have called “a sense of community.” What stands out to me about this list is that community requires some level of risk and investment. We have to do the work of being part of a community to reap the rewards of it. We certainly can’t develop shared history without continued communication. We can’t fulfill needs if we never ask what those needs are. We actually have to do the work of finding community without expecting it to come easily. In 2013, Rotman and Fei Wu made one of the first attempts at updating McMillan & Chavis’ work to address the unique needs and concerns of this “sense of community” in a virtual environment. They offered the following adaptations to the list of factors: Common Domain of Interest: Their version is very similar to McMillan & Chavis’ “membership”; however, those sharing community in online spaces are gathered around a common goal and feeling of membership in a particular community. The internet also makes finding others who share our interests much easier. Continuous Interaction: They found that ongoing communication and a rapport among members is important for a sense of connection online. It’s notable that in communities like Reddit, the interactions are more often with the community itself than individual members. In fact, in my research of Reddit, I’ve often found that users don’t seem to notice individual users very much at all. Instead, they interact with “the

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community” as a whole. Yet, this can still provide a sense of community to those who interact there. Emotional Support: Rotman and Fei Wu found that online connection required the “ability to sustain an emotionally supportive environment” (42). Notably, this one doesn’t look much different from McMillan & Chavis’ definition, although as noted by the author, in online spaces, support can look more like information sharing. The authors also note that the way these communities address conflict and boundaries are important to this feeling of having a supportive environment. Sometimes these can be clearly defined in the rules of that space and sometimes it’s the result of cultural norms. Shared History and Culture: Shared language and symbols are also part of defining these relationships by creating commonalities among users. Again, these also exist in face-to-face interactions; however, in online spaces, they may come about in a shorter timeframe. It is also more socially acceptable to “lurk” in online spaces to acclimate to a culture without joining in the conversation. Yet, this can still lead to a sense of community for some users. Virtually Constructed Identity: Identity in online spaces is often a topic that receives a lot of argument among scholars, even down to the definition. But in this system, identities, even anonymous and constructed ones, are essential to community. In these spaces, users can openly express ideas, possibly even more freely than they might in face-to-face interactions. While there are certainly drawbacks to that, which I will address later, it does leave space for exploration without adherence to socially constructed rules and roles that might be assigned in face-to-face settings. As I look at this list, I can’t help but come back to the word “common.” In a society that is experiencing so much hurt and disconnection, the internet can serve as a place for people to feel less alone, less detached, and like they are part of something. Or at least, it can do that. But again, it involves choice. One of the things that researchers in my field often wrestle with is whether this type of community is a healthy one, or is it “real?” Do people retreat to this type of community rather than risk the vulnerability of real-life interactions? And if they are utilizing these spaces rather than engaging in face-to-face interactions, is that really a problem to be solved? Or can they both be thriving and healthy types of communities? I’ve just asked quite a few questions without providing any real answers which is authentic to the dialogue that is taking place around this complex topic. The number of people who have studied this or have opinions about it is a rather long list and could be an anthology of its own. However, despite these differences, there are actually clear markers of community found in some of the most thriving online

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spaces that aren’t as abstract as we might think. I will highlight many of them in the chapters to come. It’s not lost on me that I am writing a book to argue for the presence of connection and community at a time in history that is being heralded by scholars as a time of “crisis of connection.” Way, Ali, Gilligan, and Noguera (2018) explain our current state as “stemming from growing alienation, social isolation, and fragmentation . . . The signs of this crisis of connection are everywhere, from decreasing levels of empathy and trust, to burgeoning cases of suicide, depression and loneliness.” I’m aware of the ironies of making a case for connection amidst this backdrop and against the backdrop of a global pandemic that has created even more hurdles to connection that are often paired with deep ideological divisions. Sometimes, it’s not pretty. The caveat, however, is that despite this, evidence shows that people are actively seeking community and realizing that isolation and disconnection aren’t how we were designed to exist. We were designed to need people and exist in connection with them. We just don’t always know how to do that. It’s especially challenging in a world of greater independence, gratification, and self-reliance. We no longer rely on these relationships for things like survival, education, and entertainment as we once did. But that doesn’t stop us from seeking it. Way, Ali, Gilligan, and Noguera’s findings that we are feeling disconnected doesn’t negate that we are a society actively seeking community, but rather it affirms the evidence that shows how we need it and were designed for it. These symptoms are what happens when finding connection requires us to make harder choices and do things that are sometimes uncomfortable. We struggle to make the harder choices because in our present society, we can often avoid them if we choose. That includes connection. For example, most of us could avoid human contact for days if we wanted. Almost any tangible need that I have can be delivered right to my door and even most of my meetings are now an email or done through a task management platform. While I would be wrong if I said there wasn’t some element of communication in these interactions, it’s a very different one from real live interactions like comforting a friend who is struggling or attending a meeting to collaborate with coworkers so we can brainstorm ideas. Instead, with a few clicks, I can say “I’m sorry for your loss” and click the “care” emoji, or I can send an email to inform an employee of their newest assignment. Making the deliberate choice to show up is even harder. Am I always wrong for choosing the easier path? No, probably not always. I can think of times when these innovations made my life much more efficient. The months of COVID and quarantines made me thankful for these resources so I could avoid contact with coworkers and students who were symptomatic without having to risk my family’s health. And some of those

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planning meetings really could be a simple email, allowing more time to rest and recharge, something I don’t do nearly enough and can have a positive impact on my mental health. So, I would argue that there is a time and place for choosing the most direct route instead of seeking connection. But the real problem is that we’ve cut out the need for these types of interactions so often that sometimes, we struggle with them when we encounter them, when we do need them. When we come across something challenging or uncomfortable, instead of facing it, we often “easy button” our way out of it, mostly because we can. Sometimes, we do this so often that we forget how to build connection entirely. I often hear other people my age say things like “I don’t know how to make friends.” And I can certainly relate to this. When my son was young and I was seeking other Mom friends in my community, the prospect of asking a new acquaintance to grab coffee or have a play date was a surprisingly scary one. In many cases, I simply didn’t. Instead, I would convince myself that scrolling through their social media feed and “liking” a few humorous or relatable posts and maybe even adding a comment here and there (“yes, I’m excited for fall too!”) meant I was still connecting with them. But, of course, it’s not the same. When I lost my brother-in-law to suicide, a handful of Facebook well wishes were appreciated, but meant little in comparison to a friend who sent a long thoughtful email to share that I was in her thoughts, asked me how I was doing, and then brought me dinner when it was clear that the answer was “not well.” It meant far less than the person who sat with me when I didn’t need to talk but just needed someone to sit in silence with me. We simply can’t develop that type of community if we are choosing safety, regardless of how much we want to believe that we are accomplishing the same goals. Yet, why would we take risks when we have the option of what’s safe and easy? I suspect the answer is that we usually don’t. But that doesn’t mean that our screens can’t create spaces for this type of connection and vulnerability as well. But it does require us to choose the harder path of real connection over a few “likes.” We live in a society where we can often avoid the majority of discomfort if we choose. We have options for numbing it or distracting ourselves out of feeling things that we don’t want to feel. As a result, we aren’t great at being uncomfortable. We surround ourselves with media that affirms what we already believe so we don’t have to wrestle with hard and opposing ideas. We sacrifice meaningful conversations full of mutual disclosure and moments of “me too” for a few “likes” and hope that it’s enough. We write off people with whom we disagree as “them” rather than having hard conversations to learn and grow from someone else’s experiences and perspectives. The problem, of course, is that this doesn’t come without a price. The vulnerability in those early uncomfortable early days of communication, the

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days of sharing our stories and truths, and as a result, growing closer and more connected—those are the moments where lifelong relationships are forged. We can’t skip from likes and “happy fall!” posts to lifelong friendships overnight. Relationships are built in those moments where we trust people with our story, and they trust us with theirs. It’s not a safe place, and if we are avoiding it because we have the choice to do so, we are missing that opportunity for connection and community. Aron & Aron (1996) suggest that relationships are actually made stronger by discourse and self-expression. Relationships grow by practicing authenticity and sharing our unique and even different perspectives. Yes, we actually grow closer to people through respectful conflict. This might come as a surprise to anyone who has witnessed the vitriol of a heated online argument or even participated in one. But as Aron & Aron note, having civil conversations with people with whom we disagree actually strengthens our relationships. The operative word here is “civil.” I often wonder if the choice for civil conversation was an easier one for our ancestors who knew that they were making the choice for community. They knew that it was absolutely essential for their survival. Without it, they would lose access to resources. They might lose the benefits of neighborly protection. They would lose their only access to entertainment and knowledge. It’s funny how much harder we fight for things when we believe that they are essential. Notably, community is also essential to our world today; it’s just easier to forget that. Being out of practice as we are, civil discourse seems like an even larger task, namely because we have so many opportunities to avoid it readily available to us. It involves having to wrestle with hard ideas and question ourselves when it’s simply easier to surround ourselves with people on our “team” who validate our ideas. Instead, we trade one-dimensional talking points and cheap shots about the other side in comment sections. We then tune out or “shut down” when we encounter people who challenge our ideas and instead, surround ourselves with people with whom we agree. But the reality is that when we demonize outgroups and choose division, we trade authentic relationships for the fake and unsatisfying relationships that are grounded only in sharing common enemies. It’s not real connection, but it can certainly create the illusion of it. It would be easier if we could recognize these things for what they are rather than convincing ourselves that we are participating in healthy communities, effective communication, and growing real connection when we aren’t. But the illusion that we are doing so may be even more problematic. Why isn’t this working? All of my social media friends appear to be leading exciting and happy lives. Why don’t I feel satisfied? Our hundreds of social media friends tell us we are fine. And we are constantly busy. So, of course

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we have connection, or so we believe. But the statistics shared by Way, Ali, Gilligan, and Noguera tell a different story. Depression, suicide, and loneliness are still at an all-time high and this lack of connection and community is certainly contributing to it. What’s notable is that it’s painfully obvious that we both need and want connection. It’s also notable that many of us seem to be struggling to find it. But it’s out there and waiting for us. In the following chapters, I will discuss the evolution of media and subsequently, community, what it looks like in our world today, and where we are headed if we choose it. We will also see evidence that we, as a society, are still desperately seeking spaces that provide community and that we aren’t satisfied when we choose to live without it. We may no longer sit around campfires telling stories, but community still exists in our world in entirely new ways, and they can be ones full of connection and growth if we choose.

Chapter 2

Revolutions, Innovation, and the Evolution of Community

Our earliest days of communication as a species were spent sharing stories and handing down culture from generation to generation as we worked together, played together, and evolved together. While we will probably never recreate that same experience, evidence suggests that we are certainly trying. Current technology allows us to create our own version of sitting around the campfire telling stories like our ancestors did so many years ago. It allows us to create our own community, but it’s a community that doesn’t look the same as its earlier incarnations. Before we get to those, let’s take a walk down memory lane and discuss what those earlier incarnations looked like and how we got to where we are today. I agree with media scholars who claim that human consciousness has changed as a result of evolving media and disincentivized connection. The evidence of this is irrefutable; however, I would disagree that we are no longer actively seeking connection with others. There is a long history of innovation providing new options, driven by consumer need and desire, that suggest we are trying to overcome these feelings of disconnection. It appears that our trends and innovations seem to be pointed towards trying to “return” to where we began. It seems we want something more. PRE-LITERARY SOCIETY, STORYTELLING, AND INNOVATION To understand how we utilize digital communication, we need to step back in time. Quite a bit back in time, actually, to the advent of communication. According to Irving Fang, the earliest days of communication can be referred to as the “pre-literary to literary” era of communication (1997). We typically attribute this era to everything before the eighth century BC. It was the 15

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days before written language when communication was symbolic or spoken. Maryanne Wolf, in Proust and the Squid (2008) explains that humans were not originally programed for written language; however, they simply had so much to say that language simply evolved. This is a trend that we will see throughout history when it comes to innovation, as well. Innovations come into existence out of a need for them. It’s hard for me to imagine a time without language. I’m a lover of language and the satisfaction of finding that perfect word to express an idea is empowering. It’s a world that seems so foreign to us, yet society existed without these things and culture was entirely dependent on community. Communities were essential for survival. “Instacart” looked more like a run through the woods with other community members to find game that would be prepared together for a meal. “Google search” looked like long meaningful conversations with friends, neighbors, and family members and knowledge being handed down from one generation to the next. The “home security system” involved villages coming together to provide protection for one another. It was a much smaller society than what we know today, but even so, it would have been hard to live a life detached from it and survive. It’s important to note that language did not happen overnight. Nonverbal communication and symbols existed from the earliest days of humanity and remained part of the vocabulary for quite some time (and seemed to have reemerged as a popular method of communication today). The need to express ourselves and tell our stories in more pronounced ways simply became too great, and we developed a way to accomplish that goal. While it’s difficult for scholars to pinpoint the exact moment when language began, we do know that it evolved over a long period of time, likely millions of years. This will become important later as we compare it to the short amount of time our brains had to adapt to more recent changes in technology and communication. If we are still struggling to catch up, it’s for a good reason: we haven’t had a lot of time to do it. I want to draw your attention to something important here: if there was a need, something came along to fill it. This trend began in our earliest days as a society and is something that is still prevalent today, although that innovation now moves at a much faster rate. It’s why the discussion of community is such an important one. The common belief is that we are moving away from connectedness and community but yet, so many factors suggest otherwise, including the innovations that have been born in response to the demand for it. If innovation is the result of what we desire and need, we desire and need more community. Let’s jump way ahead on our timeline to the advent of media where we begin to see these trends emerge. The progression of innovation illustrated the need for greater independence and less reliance on one another. It would be

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hard to deny the popular talking points that these innovations pulled people away from our communities; however, these innovations benefited society in important ways as well. Let’s talk about books, for example. As the phenetic alphabet emerged, so did papyrus, because people not only had things to say, but wanted a place to say it and ways to share it with others. As a result, one of the earliest of these innovations was literacy and print which, I think we can all agree, brings value to the world. Any era that led to the invention of Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, and anything written by Brené Brown feels like an important one. Of course, Anne Shirley, Dobby the House Elf, and The Gifts of Imperfection were not the only benefits to came from the rise of language and print. Long before the invention of books, stories were handed down from generation to generation and these stories and the rituals that surrounded them defined the culture. But suddenly, we had mediums to document these stories, something new and notable both for accuracy and accountability. One of my favorite examples of this is the story of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Concerns about the abuse of political power from the early Church led to a rebellion by monk, Martin Luther, with open criticisms about exploitive and misleading practices. Average people had no access to the Bible and had to rely on religious leaders for “truth.” Believing that “truth” was being miscommunicated in exploitive ways made Martin Luther eager to find ways to put the power back in the hands of the people. The battle was won by books. Martin Luther gave individual citizens access to the Bible, which forced accountability on the Church. Books gave people power, and in this case, direct access to their most sacred text. Consider the power of deeds, contracts, and records. If I sold you my land for two goats and a sheep, but a year later, I started farming the land again and claimed that no trade was made, there would be very little way to prove my claim. Before we had the ability to document things, these types of disagreements were often won by the sword. But the civilizing power of the written word meant that we were able to document things and with it came a new level of accountability. It certainly changed the game. There’s a lot of reason for us not to take too harsh of a stance against innovation. There are many places in history where innovation made things easier, more convenient, and even more safe. The problem is that they also usually come at a cost, and in many cases, that cost was community. The written word is a great example of this. With books, people could record histories, educate, and share knowledge but this meant that nights around the campfire handing down knowledge and culture became less essential for survival. The printing press amplified this by making books even more available to average citizens and not just the elite. Over time, it made the masses rely less on one another.

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If there had to be a “starting line” for consumerism in our modern world, this is where many point to its inception. Money began to drive progress in ways that it had never done before. When people discovered that there was money to be made, the market was immediately filled with those trying to make it. Elihu Katz and Jay Blumler are credited with uses and gratifications theory that emerged in the 1970s and has been expanded upon by many scholars in the years since. It addressed this very idea. While there are quite a few components to this theory that address how we use media, one of the notable ones to this discussion is that media comes as a result of our need for it. If there is a need to be filled, someone will inevitably create the media to fill it (1974). I think this is important to point out in the sense that media is often accused of prying people away from their communities as if people have always been powerless to stop it. On the contrary, media came into existence because we needed it to exist. How have we responded to that in light of our communities and connection with other people? Those were our own choices. Historically, as needs came to light, innovators responded with a rush to fill them, not necessarily out of some altruistic wish for the good of society but often, for the innovator’s own financial gain. But to approach this with only criticism would be completely unfair; without the motivation to create, we would still be decades behind on many of the inventions that are so important to our lives today. It’s a double-edged sword but it would be negligent to discuss a rapidly changing media landscape without addressing it, for better or worse. The years that followed brought the mass media revolution with the invention of things like the telephone, modern advertising, libraries, televisions, and the typewriter. Each of these inventions seemed to bring people further and further from interpersonal face to face communication and with it, further from community. People didn’t need to gather together to share information or be entertained. Humans began to communicate in entirely new ways and, as a result, human consciousness also evolved, much like the first time our consciousness evolved to adapt to language. This is important. We don’t just use media. It changes us. Evidence suggests that our consciousness is still evolving to adapt to the needs of online communication, which shares some characteristics of these earlier innovations but also some entirely of its own. For example, scholars are currently deep in research about how the distraction and multitasking that often comes with being constantly surrounded by information is changing our brains. Scholars are studying the impact of this information overload, which I will discuss more in future chapters. What about information literacy? Never before have we had so many obstacles to determining “truth” and encountering so many conflicting messages at one time. And then there are the

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challenges of the information gaps we must address when we communicate with people on the other side of the screen. These things certainly impact our communication, and moreover, impact us. Looking at the millions of years that humans had to adapt to language versus a century to adapt to innovations in media, or even half a century to adapt to the internet, is something that feels important in the discussion about how we engage with media. We are still wired to live in small villages and sit around campfires listening to stories; our brains simply haven’t had the chance to catch up. The experience of today’s communicator is something entirely different than the world has ever seen. We are surrounded by an entire globe of knowledge, news, and culture and if it feels overwhelming, that’s not at all surprising. But before we get to that, let’s take a minute and talk about another factor that led to innovation and impacted our sense of community: entertainment. The entertainment revolution was a time in history where the masses flocked to movie theatres, listened to their radios, and even news became a source of entertainment. While an entertainment-minded culture had begun, these inventions alone were not necessarily isolating. People were still attending movies together, families still sat together in front of the radios and televisions to consume and discuss favorite programs, and telephone calls still allowed people to connect. However, it is notable that these inventions offered other options to consumers rather than relying only on their face-to-face communities. Entertainment alone didn’t disconnect people but gave them more options to do so if they chose. It seems that the choice of whether to engage in community is a theme that we keep returning to in this book. However, if Fang’s revolutions have an arc, as evidence would suggest that they do, the communication toolshed that followed serves as the top of the arc. People now had “tools” to help them with their everyday tasks. As the internet was introduced, alongside email, video games, home televisions, home mail delivery, among other innovations, the key element was the “home.” People were doing these things from their homes more than ever before. It was the point of greatest distance from the “sitting around the campfire” type communities seen in early cultures. For the first time, humans truly didn’t need each other. Mark Poster, author of new media theory (1995) found that contemporary media consumers were seeking an individualized experience. They wanted media that was tailored to their needs and as a means of self-actualization and self-exploration. While Poster wrote this during the era of the communication toolshed and before the internet took over society, it would become more relevant during the next era. “Individualism” would become a common thread of this experience. With the emphasis on the individual, people stopped needing one another, or so they thought.

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In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam talks about social capital, which he describes as “connections among individuals” (2001). More specifically, he talks about the decline of this connection with less people joining social groups in the United States since the early 1900s. He claimed that people are less involved because they are not required to leave their home to fulfill the needs that once required community. The news is delivered to their door. They can read books alone. They don’t need political rallies to learn about candidates. It’s impossible to argue with his claims. But I would also argue that his claims are premature, and innovation was still taking place. Almost all the things he addressed can now be found online and are even improved in many ways through connection with others in these spaces. What he does well, however, is point out the double-edged sword that comes with innovation. It brought us good things but also, disincentivized connection. However, as the weight of this disconnect became apparent and we recognized this loss of connection, innovation changed yet again to address it. If innovation reflects the needs and desires of the consumers, this fact alone gives me a lot of hope. Likewise, when the internet came onto the scene, its creators were responding to our need for it. I would argue, these needs show evidence of a society desperately seeking connection and community. THE RISE OF NEW MEDIA AND NEW CHALLENGES FOR CONNECTION If ever there was an argument for a society seeking community, the quick pivot from machines designed for word and information processing to email, chat rooms, and social media, is one of the most prevalent. This is exactly what happened when the internet entered the scene. The challenge, however, is that these mediums and ones like them could only provide community as far as its users were willing to effectively participate in it. And if anything, it created entirely new barriers to connection we had never even considered. It’s hard to convince people that they aren’t experiencing community when social media provides a false sense of security that we already are. Sure, we are communicating, but it isn’t that simple. These new platforms provided the opportunity for community, but it also required much more of its users than a few “likes.” But let’s take a step back and talk about how we even arrived at spaces designed for likes and upvotes. The first computers, in the traditional sense that we now know them, came on to the scene in the early 1980s, although the computational machines that

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paved the way for modern computers had existed since the 1940s. At that point in time, the idea of being connected to other people through computers was a thing of science fiction movies and dystopian novels, but it didn’t take long for it to become a reality. In a quick pivot from these word processing and computational machines, early adopters of the internet quickly found their way to chatrooms and online message boards. There was something new and exciting about being able to connect with people outside of their own communities. They could talk about their interests, make new friends, and even seek new partners as internet dating emerged almost as soon as the internet did. During a series of interviews that I conducted in 2016 where I sought to gain a deeper understanding of what fuels the desire to seek community online, one of my research participants shared the differences that he noticed during a recent move to Washington, DC, versus one that happened years earlier and prior to his discovery of online communities. In his most recent move, he could connect with other residents online who offered him advice and provided a sense of community in a new place. They told him which routes were ideal for travel, directed him to neighborhood hotspots, and shared opportunities for networking. He even met his future rugby team as a result of an online discussion. This experience was a drastically different one from many years earlier when he had moved to a more rural area of the country and these online communities were less prevalent. Particularly as a gay man, he found that living in an area of the country where meeting others like him was challenging, he had very few opportunities for connection. He credited online forums for the community he found there with a much smoother transition in his later move to Washington, DC. While I love stories like his, one of the hardest parts about studying connection in digital spaces is the struggle to identify whether online connection is taking the place of connections that might have otherwise taken place anyway in face-to-face interactions. Do they simply have a new look, or are they providing spaces for connections that may have never taken place at all if it weren’t for the online world? I want to make it clear that I disagree that one is clearly better than the other and that, while I know some might disagree, I don’t necessarily believe that our friend would have had a better experience if he had not had this benefit and been forced to join in-person social clubs to make connections. Yet, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that we do sometimes use the online world to avoid hard conversations and interactions. But, in his case, I think it’s likely that he would have been lonelier without it. He had the opportunity to navigate a large city to find relationships with people who shared his interests, arguably a much harder task without a robust online world bringing it directly to us.

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While his experience is antidotal, I’ve always believed that the internet creates new spaces for connection and even opportunities for people who might struggle with face-to-face ones for a variety of reasons. While that’s a hypothesis based on the evidence of my research, it’s a hard one to prove for a variety of reasons, the largest one being that we can’t really say what we would have done without the internet. Who we would have been. What choices we would have made. The mediums didn’t simply change, we changed with them. And, I would argue, so did connection. Chat and instant messaging were some of the earliest of these types of “connectors.” Online connection has always been primarily user-led and content-based, meaning that users are usually more concerned with the actual communication rather than the platforms themselves. It was also during this time that email became widespread. It began as communication within organizations, but it didn’t take long for it to become a standard mode of communication. Email was one of the first mediums that raised questions about things like etiquette and timeliness in our online world. They were part letter and part electronic communication and given this, it was the first time we began to raise the question of immediacy in our media usage. Text messaging would quickly take this question to the next level. Personal paging devices became popular in the 1980s, although it may surprise many to know that they had been available to police departments long before that with some of the earliest incarnations having been first used in the 1950s; however, they began to spread to the masses in the late 1980s. The first text message was sent in December 1992 by software engineer Neil Papworth, reading “Merry Christmas.” But it was almost eight years later until text messages became a standard method of communication. It was also during this time that researchers took their first serious look at the impact of space and time on how we communicate. Digital platforms both changed the conversation and didn’t at the same time. They allowed people time to “sit with” messages and process them, allowing for slower response times. But even these changes came with an evolving set of rules. How long was too long? Or in the case of those wrestling with new relationships and navigating availability: how fast is too fast? When was it okay to call or text someone? On the other side of it came an entirely new curse and gift: we were always available. Many felt that this change tethered us to our devices and, in turn, wondered about the expectations for being “on call” to offer immediate replies. These were questions that would be introduced during this time period, and unfortunately, are still without definitive answers today. To add to this complicated mix, in 2010, web browsing via cell phones became available to the masses. In other words, we had the entire world in the palm of our hand.

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While the ability to connect with people so quickly was a new feature, it also created a new challenge: disinhibition. Suler (2004) coined the phrase the “disinhibition effect” in 2004 noting that an online world often comes with less acknowledgment of the “humanness” of the person on the other side of the communication and as a result, makes us more uninhibited in our choices. Suler recognized several key aspects of hyperpersonal behavior that leads to this disinhibition that changed how we communicate. First, he found that people utilize the perception of more invisibility to try things they otherwise would fear, partially because they are able to disassociate themselves from it. It feels less “real.” As a result, some use online spaces to try new things or even pretend to be someone they are not. Or a user might share things they might not share in face-to-face interactions because of the illusion of less consequences. It comes with the perception that things have less permanence, and a user can opt to leave an uncomfortable space or delete the content if they regret something that they wrote. While this perception may not be entirely accurate as things said and done online do have a considerable level of permanence, the perception of this allows users to step out of their comfort zone, sometimes in more healthy ways than others. Suler also described what he called the “dissociative imagination,” that exists in online spaces. This concept means that we often fill in the blanks of what we don’t know to create imaginary “characters” of the people we connect with, often attributing character traits based on what we already know or possibly what we need. Like everything in the online world, there is good and bad to this. For example, without being able to see someone, it can allow equal status for all users as they are removed from social status, stigma, and positions of authority. This removal of social constructs can allow users to explore ideas and connect with people in different and maybe, more authentic, ways. They can discuss taboo topics that might otherwise be more challenging in face-to-face interactions. By and large, dissociative imagination alone isn’t a problem. It’s actually pretty natural and allows us to picture and tailor our messages to fit our needs. In fact, the real problem comes when we dehumanize, or when we fill in the blanks in a way that disconnects us with the humanity of those whom we communicate with and communicate about. That’s when the real trouble begins, and I will discuss this more in chapter 4. Another change to communication and community because of these new mediums was the fact that our communication was suddenly “forever.” I realize that only a few paragraphs ago, I told you that people often see things said online as less permanent, which may actually be part of the problem. It certainly gives that perception. While this had always been a facet of written communication, the advent of online communication suddenly had the

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masses considering their own digital footprint and the consequences of online choices which travel much more quickly and are much harder to erase. Celebrities found themselves in the spotlight after messages or photos from years earlier surfaced. College acceptances were rescinded after irresponsible choices on social media. Likewise, people discovered that viral content could travel quickly, and brought about the emergence of online influencers, which came with its own benefits and drawbacks. On one hand, anyone could now be part of the conversation. On the other hand, it was much harder to hide mistakes and bad behavior when it would reach so many so quickly. These mediums seemed to come out of nowhere and impacted our lives and culture in entirely new ways. We went from the invention of the telephone to having that phone fit in our pocket while holding an entire world of knowledge and connection in just a little over a century. It’s only fair to assume that it impacted the way that we live and connect with one another. SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF CONNECTION Any college student of the early 2000s will tell you that AOL Instant Messenger defined the early 2000s college scene. AIM, as it came to be known, was a free instant messaging software that built on the popularity of early America Online internet service. With a paid subscription, America Online users had opportunities to create a profile, utilize chatrooms across a variety of topics, and to engage with other users using a chat feature. Seeing its popularity, AOL decided to expand their offerings to create a free chat service that was available to those outside of their own userbase as well. It was a savvy move as AOL instant messenger quickly became part of the social landscape. Traditional text messaging was something that was fairly new at the time, although in the early 2000s, very few phones had keyboards. Instead, text messages had to be sent by tapping keys enough times to select the correct letter or relying on the accuracy of predictive text. Now, this feels tedious, but at the time, the technology was fresh and exciting, and moreover, the most connection the majority of us had experienced in a device of its kind. But it did make AIM a good alternative for back-and-forth digital dialogue. It should be noted that the fading popularity of AIM coincided with the addition of keyboards to more cellular phones at a more affordable price point. But this is the way of media: trends come and go. When a social media platform has staying power, it’s more of an outlier, making spaces like Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit important areas of study; we will discuss them later in this chapter for this very reason.

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AOL Instant Messenger is important because it would pave the way for social media by creating a need for this type of networking before social media existed. Although it would take a few years for social media to gain popularity, the first officially designated social media platform came in 1997 in the form of Andrew Weinrich’s SixDegrees which allowed users to post a profile to connect with people through their mutual connections. While it was limited in its offerings, the focus on shared connection was an important idea. It proved that people were looking for social connections and were moving towards online spaces to find them. In 2003, MySpace’s “Tom” Anderson, who would eventually become popular as everyone’s first friend on MySpace, migrated the Friendster social networking platform to form MySpace. It was a place where users could post pictures, share music, blogs, and post comments to one another. It was also the first opportunity to dabble in HTML for many in the millennial generation as people could individualize their MySpace page if they knew where to find the right code. I vividly recall the hours of work I put into customizing my MySpace page to load to Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” complete with an array of pink flashing stars, one of the easier items to code. I also remember the challenges of navigating the rules that accompanied this new space. I wrestled with the social rules surrounding who to choose as my “top eight friends” to display on my page and also, when it was no longer taboo to send a friend request to someone I had just met. These silly anecdotes of my life as an early 2000s college student speak to something that was happening in the background of all of this change: an online world moving at such a rapid pace that everyone was trying to keep up. Social norms were rewritten. Relationships were redefined. And almost as soon as one caught up with these new norms, entirely new ones had been written. But no discussion of the history of social media would be complete without a discussion of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, the platform that somehow rose to the top and managed to stay there for well over a decade. This may not feel momentous, but in the world of technology and innovation, this type of dominance is a difficult feat. It began as the online FaceMash, a website that offered a comparison of photos of Harvard University students taken from the university lookbook. It allowed the user to designate who was “hotter,” parodying the then popular “Hot or Not” website. Its creators closed FaceMash after complaints from Harvard University administration and the threat of expulsion for its inventors. It relaunched later as “the Facebook” and later just “Facebook.” It began as an offering only for Harvard University students, where Zuckerberg and fellow inventors, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes attended at the time. However, it

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quickly spread. Early versions of Facebook were available to a limited number of college campuses and a student email address linking them to their university was a requirement; however, the platform opened to the public within a few short years. Businesses soon followed until it became an almost-required social capital. A term that is often used for this concept in sociology is “critical mass” which means that something becomes an engrained part of our society and is considered “self-sustaining” (Granovetter 1978). It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when Facebook achieved that milestone, suggesting that it had staying power, but by 2010, it was rare to see a company website that didn’t include a Facebook link alongside other contact information. Another surprising facet of Facebook, or rather an unlikely twist to Zuckerberg’s intended yearbook-like website, was that it became a news source and outlet for political idea-sharing. It didn’t begin that way. In fact, early status updates were often fairly superficial, even to the point of drudgery, providing narration of the details of one’s day for many. The fact that the planned “book of faces” evolved to create a more community-centered experience and a place for idea sharing illustrates that people were actively seeking that type of community. Arguably, instead of community, the political side of Facebook may have created barriers to it through the spreading of disinformation and politically divisive rhetoric, but that would come later. Twitter joined the conversation a few years after Facebook’s inception in 2006 and emerged as an unlikely rival to Facebook who had not yet changed their focus to the image-friendly format that we know today. At the time, Facebook relied heavily on status updates. This made Twitter’s 140-character format relatable, and also extremely popular, in part thanks to their introduction of the hashtag. Previously known as the telephone pound sign, the hashtag was used to designate and search for posts around similar topics or events. It created a sense of connection to the larger world outside of one’s own friend group. The hashtag would quickly spread to other mediums. Other popular social media outlets would come to the forefront in the years that followed including Instagram, which would later be purchased by Facebook. Snapchat, which offered the illusion of privacy with images and videos quickly disappearing, and TikTok with its short and catchy video format. These mediums seemed to take prominence in the late 2010s and early 2020s as people sought spaces to fill entirely new needs like privacy and a more life-like experience. Notably, platforms like Facebook and Instagram quickly responded by providing spaces for similarly formatted content. Social media giants consistently found themselves in a battle for relevancy and the ones that survived were usually the ones who gave the users what they wanted.

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The battle for the king of video hosting was won even prior to the inception of TikTok by YouTube. Also part of the mid-2000s social media boom, YouTube began in 2005 with its first video “Me at the Zoo” (2005) featuring cofounder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. It spread quickly and the website was purchased by Google in 2006. Notably, YouTube is one of the platforms that has changed the least since the early days of social media. While “liking” and live streaming options have been added, in addition to other paid features, YouTube has stayed rooted in its identity: video hosting. What did change, however, is the prevalence of influencers and opportunities to make money from content, which speaks to its relevance. Concerns about oversharing, self-image, and even safety heavily dominated the discussion of social media analysis from its onset. In the world of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, users could create their own brand of celebrity with themselves at the center of their online universe. People could interact with them and validate their posts. Many argued that social media created a space for less authenticity because people often depict only the best versions of themselves. Staged photos. Filters. Offering a “highlight reel” type of experience. These are hard claims to disprove; however, there is also evidence that we want to be seen exactly as who we are. And as usual, the innovations that rise to the top often illustrate what we want and need. The mid 2010s also brought about the popularity of anonymous media. I’ve already mentioned YikYak, but other websites like Reddit, Tumblr, and 4Chan also saw growth during this time. Although heavily scrutinized for the perceived lack of restriction that accompanies anonymity, the rise of these spaces suggests a need that wasn’t being filled elsewhere: people sought places that felt less performative and where they could be themselves. 4Chan was founded in 2003 by Christopher Poole who went by the alias “moot” in the earliest days of 4Chan. His identity was revealed in 2008. This fact is an illustration of the level of secrecy embedded into the culture of 4Chan that the website’s owner, a teenager at the time the website was created, could go undetected for five years. 4Chan requires no registration, making posts completely anonymous. Reddit is often considered to be the more sanitized version of 4Chan, established in 2005 by college roommates Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman. Where 4Chan operates primarily out of public view but with occasional appearances in national news, and rarely for positive reasons, Reddit has more of a public appeal. Political candidates and celebrities have participated in Reddit’s popular “Ask Me Anything” forums. Where celebrities and companies often try to disassociate themselves with 4Chan, many have seen the benefit of participating in Reddit discussions to generate consumer appeal for their brands. Reddit is popular for its anonymous self-help and advice forums where users can disclose their doubts, concerns, and struggles despite the taboo nature of them. Tumblr, created in

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2007, serves similar purposes, although Tumblr’s blog-like format creates more of an individualized experience for users with their interaction being on their own “page” appealing to a younger audience until it lost popularity in the late 2010s. In 2020, BeReal also offered users another alternative to the polished and filtered experience of traditional social media. It’s goal: to be the antisocial media. The app encourages users to stop using filters and to show their life exactly as it is. BeReal sends users a daily notification at a randomized time throughout the day. All users have two minutes to open BeReal and post a photo of whatever they are doing. Photos are taken through both the front and back camera of their phone, so not only does the photo show what the user personally looks like at the time, but also where they are located. Also notable: you can only see everyone else’s photos if you agree to “play the game” and post your daily photo in time. If one fails to post, they must wait until the next day for another opportunity to post and participate. It’s a community centered experience centered around the perception of “realness.” It’s an interesting social experiment that acknowledges that people are tired of polished and staged content found on other social media platforms that seem to depict the best of people’s lives. Without filters or time to curate their photo, others see them exactly as they are. The surging popularity of this app at the time of this publication suggests that maybe people truly are seeking more authenticity. The emergence of media to fill them often illustrates our needs and desires; however, these mediums make an impact on us as well. Scholar Marshall McLuhan addressed this idea in his work. He was known for the phrase “the medium is the message” (1988) which means that the medium is often the more meaningful part of communication, but it also suggests something much deeper: communication mediums actually shape us and change the way we think. McLuhan offers the following explanation, “All media are extensions of some human faculty—psychic or physical. . . . Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act—the way we perceive the world. When these things change, men change.” In other words, these mediums exist because we had a need for them, but they are also changing us. For instance, in 2023, we might utilize shared phrases, imagery, pop culture references, or hyperbole to communicate our ideas rather than fully explaining them, mimicking the snappy one-liner format of Twitter and Facebook status updates. As an example, I often hear my students state “I am dead” about something they find particularly funny (or, as my thirteen-year-old son shared, his friends might send a skeleton emoji to communicate the same thing). Similarly, the need to say more using less space has also led to the popularity of memes. Using a familiar story or image to communicate a

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complex or nuanced idea saves the communicator time in assuming shared understanding for all or part of their message. As a result of social media, people have developed a universal language of speaking in shorter but more exaggerated ways to communicate ideas that might have once required more explanation. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that this can also leave less room for nuance and more room for misunderstanding. Memes can easily become sucker punches of political ideals rather than dialogue. But they can also be a place where people make one another laugh in wholesome uplifting ways. As usual, there is space for both connection and disconnection. If there is one characteristic that seems to unify the social media platforms with the most staying power, it is the ability to adapt to meet the needs of the consumer. Mediums like Facebook and Twitter had leadership who were able to respond to consumer desires in hopes that, rather than reestablishing themselves on a new medium, consumers would choose to stay if their current mediums would meet their needs. Spaces like Instagram, originally designed primarily for photo sharing, expanded their offerings to include more places to share thoughts and ideas and also incorporated the use of hashtags. Likewise, Facebook added videos to respond to rival, TikTok. I could keep going. Consider the juxtaposition between Facebook and the anonymous YikYak, which I mentioned in the first chapter. YikYak’s immense popularity faded when they ignored the core component of their app that had led people to them to begin with: anonymity. After several high-profile incidents of bullying and bomb threats, they attempted to require an email address for registration in order to add accountability. It took only days before many of their users went elsewhere, no longer feeling as if their anonymity was protected. Notably, they removed this requirement after a few short months; however, it took years to regain any traction and rebuild their audience. Whether they can sustainably do so remains to be seen at the time of this publication. These types of battles often define social media history at a point in time where consumers hold the power. Today’s media consumers are a generation of skeptics who can’t be won over by catchy ads or unwarranted advertising claims; they want results. If their needs aren’t being met, there are plenty of other options and they aren’t afraid to explore them. For the first time, the conversation is less about convincing consumers what they want than it is listening to consumers and learning what they want and providing it for them. What’s notable is that the internet only became part of our society in the late 1970s/early 1980s and only made its way into the households of average citizens in the 1990s. But over the span of the last thirty years, the internet went from being a novelty to something that could fit in our pocket and is an important—and arguably, essential—part of our daily lives. It’s even more

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notable when you compare it to many of the other revolutions in media which took hundreds and sometimes even thousands of years. With each revolution, humanity had time to adapt and evolve; however, with such a fast pace of media evolution over the last two hundred years, we are still struggling to catch up. This has made a considerable impact on how we connect with one another. While this has been a very surface-level walk through media history, and an often discouraging one at that, it’s hard to miss that we are at an unprecedented place in history. Looking at this timeline makes it apparent how quickly the last 100 years of innovations have progressed. Yet, I would argue that people are actively seeking to return to the era of “sitting around the campfire telling stories” that once existed. We seek technology that allows for teleconferencing, recognizing the importance of nonverbal and face to face communication. We have moved to 3D technology in our cinema, seeking a more authentic viewing experience. Our social media trends, however inauthentic it may sometimes feel in its power to connect, suggests that people recognize the need for human interaction and authenticity. The individualized nature of media has allowed people to seek and find other people who share their ideas and interests. While DVR moved us away from water cooler discussions about favorite TV shows that aired the night before, internet discussion boards allow fans to connect over Netflix episodes from across the globe. Whether we recognize it or not, we are attempting to recreate those early eras in the closest way we can, but this time, using technology.

Chapter 3

The Hyperpersonal and Connection

Technology researcher Sherry Turkle once said that we are “seeking connection in disconnected ways” (Turkle 2011). I’ve never heard a better summary of what I’ve found in my years of research. The problem is not that we don’t want connection. Evidence suggests that we are a society that is desperately seeking connection, but unfortunately, we don’t always know where to find it. And even when we do, we aren’t always motivated to do the work to find and sustain that connection. This is amplified by the fact that social media can allow us to convince ourselves that we are already doing so. It’s quite the catch 22. In this chapter, I want to explain the psychological processes that are at play in this unique mix: how we utilize these online spaces to find connection and why they can also be a barrier to it if we aren’t careful. If we can understand why we make the choices that we do, it is my hope and belief that we will choose more wisely in the future. OUR HYPERPERSONAL WORLD Joseph Walther (1996) introduced the idea of the “hyperpersonal” as part of his work in computer mediated communication. Walther recognized that there are times when less interpersonal or socioemotional communication in a face-to-face format is actually beneficial to our relationships. While he acknowledged the conflicting ideas about how the lack of visual cues impact communication and the oft-repeated claim that our online world is less connected and inferior, he argued that it was actually both more connected and disconnected all at the same time. In response, he coined the term “hyperpersonal.” 31

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Walther felt that the disconnect between users can offer challenges to authentic connection, as many have agreed; however, he also found that over time, and as users adapt to the unique mediums, they can find meaningful connection. Essentially, his research suggested that if we aren’t connecting with other human beings, the mediums aren’t the core of the problem. While he acknowledged that there is some type of natural disconnect from the humanity of other users that can take place in digitized formats, it is only an insurmountable barrier to connection if we let it become one. Technology has also changed quite a bit since Walther first introduced this idea. Today, we have even more options to find connection and authenticity in our online world. These innovations would point to a society that sees the challenges presented by digital communication and is seeking ways to address that. Let’s go back to our definition of connection from chapter 1 for a moment. Granovetter (1973) found four key components that characterized connection in relationships: investment of time, emotional intensity, intimacy/mutual confiding, and reciprocity. Given this list, it seems that Granovetter believed that real connection requires investment and discomfort. Walther’s work would suggest that, by this definition, connection is certainly possible in a hyperpersonal setting. Walther explained that hyperpersonal communication also consists of four main parts that speak to how we interact differently in hyperpersonal spaces. They are: the way that we fill in the missing information, greater selection of when and how we communicate, the impact of disinhibition, and changes in how we view the “other” in online spaces. First, he acknowledged that sometimes online spaces can create gaps in our knowledge in a way that face-to-face communication might not. We can’t always see or hear those with whom we communicate, depending on the medium. He was interested in how we fill in those gaps, believing that we often start with an idealized view of our online interactions without the ability to immediately validate our perceptions. This is very similar to Suler’s (2004) “dissociative imagination” that suggests we tend to fill in the gaps with our own knowledge. He took it a step further and believed that often idealize the missing information to fit our own needs and narratives. Per his findings, this could be a positive or negative thing depending on the individual and what it is that they need. For example, I could assume that my boss’s succinct email thanking me for a recent presentation means that she liked the presentation since she took the time to acknowledge it. However, a more pessimistic person might assume that her short one-line email is passive-aggressive if that validated their preexisting belief. Essentially, Walther felt that we bring a lot of our own “stuff” to online interactions primarily because we have to provide information that we don’t

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know and we usually do so in a way that validates what we want to believe. This means that we need to be aware of what we are bring to interactions and check our own interpretations. When I do research of anonymous online communities, I often differentiate between latent and semantic findings and weigh them accordingly. What do I know for sure and what do I think I know based on contextual clues and inferences? While all research requires some level of interpretation, the online world has some extra considerations—both our own biases and the fact that people aren’t always entirely truthful online. Hyperpersonal communication requires this type of interpretation of us more often than face-to-face communication where we have far more clues available to us to interpret meaning. We have access to more context, nonverbal communication, and it’s much easier to ask for clarification when we have an immediate audience with the communicator to do so. It’s certainly not perfect but it does require less interpretation from us. Time and space are another paradox and, also, a surprisingly important part of the conversation when it comes to understanding the hyperpersonal world, which is the second point made by Walther. They play an important role in our choices about connection. Walther advocated for time and space as a benefit of the hyperpersonal as it can help us overcome geographical barriers; we can communicate with someone regardless of proximity to them. We can send communication quickly rather than waiting days for mail or until we see someone in person, even from across the globe. We also have the benefit of choosing when and how we receive our messages. How often we check our email. How often we respond to our email. When we “mute” our messages. We can set boundaries if we want. He also pointed out that we can create an idealized view of ourselves because we have the time and capacity to do so. I don’t think Walther could have predicted the easy access to things like Instagram filters that would exist in the year 2023; however, even prior to this innovation, having added time to carefully craft a response rather than having to respond immediately was a benefit. Now, influencers can edit, not just messages, but also photos and videos with the click of a button to make sure they project the image that they want. Online spaces give us the opportunity to present narratives in our own way when we choose in most cases. I probably don’t have to persuade anyone that this type of idealized storytelling about ourselves can be harmful. Photoshopped images and the impression of storybook lives have heavily contributed to feelings of discontent for many. Struggles with body image, eating disorders, and just general life dissatisfaction as a result of social media are clearly a problem. While on the surface we may recognize that we are seeing carefully curated and often

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filtered moments of someone’s life, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t impact our perception of it and of ourselves. But there are benefits. Where humans often walk into face-to-face interactions with preconceived notions based on a variety of factors—nonverbal communication, past experiences, stereotypes, etc.—removing those can create a space where people walk in with a clean slate. In The Second Media Age, Poster (1995) explains, “the internet creates a place where people connect with strangers without much of the social baggage that divides and alienates” (71). In some cases, our interactions take place without certain knowledge of gender, race, socioeconomic status, among other things. This can also add to the authenticity of these spaces because we aren’t blinded by the same prejudgements that often hinder connection. I want to point out that again that this is a choice. For every positive example I have given, I could easily offer an example where someone chose the opposite: someone who hastily sent a message, someone who made snap judgments, someone who used the opportunity to carefully craft their words to manipulate instead of choosing connection. What this speaks to is that the problem with the internet is less an internet problem than it is a human problem that requires a choice. Walther addressed this in his third point. Given the disinhibition that often comes with namelessness and facelessness, or even just a general sense of distance from other users across digital spaces, people may disclose more. They are able to disconnect from the humanity of the “faceless other.” While disinhibition can lead to cruelty, bullying, and online trolling, it can also lead to personal self-exploration. We are sometimes able to share more honestly and vulnerably because we worry less about how our messages will be perceived. The consequences may feel less dire. The most surprising thing I have found in my years of research was this: despite being anonymous, some of the subreddits (or individual forums) found on the Reddit website are easily among the most connected spaces I’ve encountered online. Yet, there are also subreddits I’ve encountered that are easily the most cruel and disconnected. I have seen communities filled with vitriol, hate, and dehumanization. Only moments later, I’ve encountered others full of support, advice, and people saying “me too.” This paradox is one of the things that led me to study it. In the more connected spaces that I encountered there, users appeared to utilize the website to be part of something, to share and process their own experiences, and discuss their interests with others. My research of Reddit suggests that these spaces fit the traditional definitions of connection and community that we’ve discussed, giving people the same benefits that they find in face-to-face communities.

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It was one of the things that first drew me to the space. During my early days of research, I repeatedly found examples from Reddit’s history of the entire community coming together to offer emotional and sometimes even financial support to other users, people whom they had never met. In July 2013, Reddit users joined together to provide pizza for Hazel Hammersley, a two-year-old with cancer. During a news broadcast, family and friends jokingly posted a sign in her hospital window that stated, “SEND PIZZA.” When the photo made its way to Reddit, users provided so many pizzas that the hospital eventually had to refuse them. Reddit Co-Founder, Alexis Ohanian recognized the impact made by Reddit’s users: Today a million plus people saw that thread and some number of them participated and the rest were opened up to the fact that a bunch of random people on the Internet were willing to send pizza to a bunch of random kids going through chemo. And they probably felt a little better about humanity after that. (Nicks 2013)

Similarly, in 2010, Reddit users gave Kathleen Edward, a 7-year-old girl with Huntington’s Disease, a shopping spree in a toy store. In 2011, Reddit collectively donated over $150,000 to Doctors Without Borders (Li 2011). These examples are not outliers and are simply part of the culture of Reddit. How people address the other-ness of fellow Redditors is unique and speaks to their identification as a community. This idea of the hyperpersonal “other” is also addressed in Walther’s (1996) work. Walther suggested that given the hyperpersonal aspect of communication in online spaces, users experience a disconnect created by cyberspace, but also a connection to the “other” with whom they interact as a result of shared identity. This shared identity is something that I’ve seen in my research of Reddit. While users might believe that they are participating in interpersonal communication, in reality, anonymous spaces are often more intrapersonal in nature. People go there to process their own experiences and ideas and the “other” exists to engage with those experiences and ideas. But despite this, there is something essential taking place there that creates community in a very clear and visible way and this is an important part of it. I can speak to how many people I have interviewed who have shared with me the community and support that Reddit has brought them: advice about how to complete tasks, freedom to share difficult parts of their childhood without judgment, and even just people with whom to discuss the things that matter most to them. I have a lot of questions about Reddit that I will continue to explore; however, I can confidently say that what I see there is community. I often leave my research of online spaces believing that these communities might be who we are when we think no one is looking; while I won’t pretend

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it’s a perfect space, it’s still the one that gives me the most hope for the future of connection. If we’ve already learned that we fill in the blanks of what we don’t know in online spaces with narratives that fit our own needs, this suggests something important. We have the capacity to fill these gaps in a positive way if we choose; the hyperpersonal, even anonymity, doesn’t have to be a barrier to that. But again, I need to point out that this is a deliberate choice. While an online user may still engage in interactions with other humans, there are a lot of elements about the hyperpersonal that change the way we communicate. We can do so for self-designed purposes and in the way that we choose. We get to choose how and when we engage. And more importantly, we get to choose our own spaces, something we often can’t do in real life. While there is a danger in creating our own echo chambers when we only choose spaces that validate us and tell us what we want to hear, it also allows us the ability to set boundaries. We get to decide with whom we interact and how we will do so. There are plenty of benefits and drawbacks to this but like everything else when it comes to online communication, the medium isn’t responsible for those choices: we are. WHAT IS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? I want to spend some time talking about Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger 1962) which is a surprisingly important piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding our online behavior. I might argue that it is the most important piece. The theory of cognitive dissonance includes many parts but I’m primarily going to focus on the part that addresses how we process information that makes us uncomfortable. Festinger found that humans are psychologically uncomfortable with information that feels contrary to what they already believe to be true. As a result, when someone encounters something that challenges a preexisting belief, they mentally attempt to alleviate the discomfort that they encounter. This all seems simple on the surface. People don’t like to be uncomfortable. Of course, they do things to become less uncomfortable. For example, if I realized that sitting cross-legged on my chair was the reason why my leg felt uncomfortable, I would move. Pretty simple. But when it comes to beliefs and knowledge, it looks a little bit different: we alleviate the discomfort by diffusing, explaining, or numbing the new information. While we can accept the new information and change our perspective, it’s a long road to get there,

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we certainly don’t start there, and many of us successfully avoid doing so even if it means clinging to inaccurate perspectives. Adoption of new ideas is usually only the outcome if and when nothing else has worked. I think admitting that we are psychologically programmed to do this is important. I’ve often heard friends critiquing those on the other side of the political aisle for “what-about-ism” or explaining away glaring evidence. If we are honest with ourselves, we would recognize that we all do this to some degree. Acknowledging that we all start here is helpful both as we check our own biases and as we engage with one another on challenging topics. One of the ways that we might alleviate the discomfort of nuanced or challenging ideas is to reframe our thinking to justify a particular idea or behavior. For example, the author of the theory gives the example of smoking. There is a considerable amount of evidence that smoking is not a particularly healthy habit and that it can lead to lung cancer. But despite this well-known information, a sizable percentage of the population does it anyway. In the face of this knowledge, a smoker might say something like “well, it’s not that bad. There are worse habits.” Or they might compare themselves to someone who smokes two packs per day when they only smoke one. If it sounds like mental gymnastics, that’s probably a fair description. Another way that Festinger suggests people diffuse this discomfort is by numbing or refusing to address it. If having to encounter contrary political beliefs makes us uncomfortable, it might explain why we utilize “shutting down” techniques or why we might follow social media pages that validate what we already think so we never have to encounter opposing views at all. It can provide us with the explanations we seek from “our side” for things that challenge us and make us uncomfortable rather than wrestling with them. This can also sometimes come coupled with the validation of our communities in the form of likes, upvotes, or other affirming comments. It helps us avoid this discomfort should we start to doubt ourselves. To add another layer of context to this theory is the understanding that we actually do this more when we see a particular issue as important or central to our worldview. For example, if I found out that the maker of a brand of gum that I occasionally buy was accused of something illegal, I might simply buy a different brand the next time I wanted to buy gum. But what if a mentor or leader that I respected who had been instrumental in my life was accused of something illegal? My response might not be that simple. First, I might wrestle with whether it had been proven true. And if so, I might ask myself “well is it really that bad?” or even suggest that they had probably been set up. Or I might even counter with some basic “what-about-ism” and say, “well it’s not nearly as bad as what a different person did.” I would like to think that in the end, I would decide to hold that person accountable for their actions if the accusations were proven to be true, but if I’m being honest with myself,

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it probably wouldn’t be the first stop on my journey through processing the challenging information. This is actually completely normal and the more work we do to recognize this in ourselves, the more likely we are to wrestle with and arrive at the correct place when faced with ideas that challenge us. In the recent HBO documentary, The Vow, about the alleged NXIVM cult, former member and filmmaker Mark Vicente shared how he practiced this type of dissonance when his wife first presented him with her doubts about the group. His wife, actress Bonnie Piesse, was also a member at the time and began to present her list of concerns over the course of several weeks after she herself had left. Each time, he asked her not to talk about it. He later stated that he felt uncomfortable because there was so much merit to her claims. Yet, he had invested years of his life, in addition to a considerable amount of money, into the group. He had produced documentaries touting NXIVM’s value to the world. If he chose to leave, it didn’t just mean that these decisions were wrong, but also had serious implications for everything that happened next including his career. Instead, he clung to his belief in the goodness of the group. He avoided the discomfort of wrestling with her concerns by shutting her down. While he did eventually choose to leave, it involved learning more information from other sources he trusted and a pile of evidence that was finally too weighty for him to ignore. Not everyone arrives there. Dissonance doesn’t make us less critical thinkers like we might expect. It’s the natural response that occurs when we encounter information that conflicts with our previous knowledge and worldview. The possibility that what we believe might be wrong is simply hard for us to process and that becomes more true the higher the stakes. Rather than risk finding out that we are wrong, we often do our best to avoid doing so, even if we don’t recognize that we are doing it at the time. While we may have the ability to practice self-reflection and question whether we are engaging in dissonance, that doesn’t change the fact that we are psychologically programmed to do this. So why do I share this in a discussion of online community? First, our dissonance often factors heavily into our choice to participate in certain communities and not participate in others. While Aron & Aron’s (1996) work tells us that we need to engage with people who don’t think like us to facilitate connection, that’s not really our natural inclination. In fact, doing so is the harder choice. We usually shy away from communities that challenge us and gravitate towards those that validate us without really understanding why we do so. And we have more ability to do it now than ever before thanks to the vast number of options available to us online. We can surround ourselves with people and media that matches what we already

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believe fairly easily. We can effectively avoid wrestling with difficult ideas altogether if we want. But I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s not a bad thing to engage with likeminded people. As I shared earlier, connection is forged in intimacy and moments of “me too” so the idea that we can share our beliefs, experiences, and stories with others is a positive thing. It only becomes a problem when we create an echo chamber where we fail to engage with outside ideas. In the next chapter, I will share some factors that make this even more complex, including misinformation and sensationalism. But in summary: it’s very easy to not engage with outside ideas because we don’t really have to do that anymore. And given the choice to wrestle with conflicting ideas or not, we are psychologically programmed to avoid them. CONFIRMATION BIAS I would be remiss to discuss cognitive dissonance without addressing confirmation bias as well. If cognitive dissonance is the “why” that explains how we deal with information that challenges us, confirmation bias is a large part of “how.” I think most people could offer a surface level explanation of confirmation bias if pressed. Sure, we seek confirmation for the things we already believe. But I think if the majority of us understood how prevalent this is, we would probably spend a little bit more time questioning our own beliefs. Our brain’s ability to reframe and ignore information that doesn’t match our perspectives probably stretches further than we know. Confirmation bias was a term first introduced in 1960, when a psychologist named Peter Wason (1960) conducted a series of experiments, entitled the “2-4-6 Problem.” In his experiment, he gave test subjects the task of figuring out a predetermined rule by testing sequences of three numbers. But first, they were asked to create a hypothesis of what they believed the rule would be based only on the knowledge that “2-4-6” correctly fit the rule. The rule was a fairly simple one; it was “any ascending sequence,” although most test subjects hypothesized something much more complex. They were then given the task of figuring out the rule by producing sets of three numbers for which the experimenter would answer whether it met the rule or not. They could continue to produce sequences and receive feedback for as long as they desired. There were two interesting findings: first, many of his test subjects got the problem wrong because they only produced sequences that were in line with their original hypothesis. For example, someone who hypothesized that the rule was “all even numbers” might submit 10, 12, 14 rather than 10, 11,

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12. Despite no certainty about their hypothesis, test subjects subconsciously sought to validate it. The other key finding of his research was that part of the reason why so many test subjects got the problem wrong was that many of them stopped producing sequences almost immediately after deciding they had the right answer. Rather than continuing to test it or trying to produce examples that didn’t fit the pattern, they submitted their final answer right away. It was almost as if they wanted to avoid information that might contradict their answer. From this, he coined the term “confirmation bias” meaning that as we process information, we start with our preexisting beliefs rather than a blank slate. Our natural inclination is to recall or observe in a way that validates what we already believe to be true. As much as we like to believe otherwise, we can’t help but bring our own biases to things. While there are factors that can influence how tightly we hold to our original belief, that’s not the case for most of us. Just like cognitive dissonance, this is still a fairly normal process, and we all do this to some degree. Let me start with this: all of our experiences are shaped by something called “schema” or “schemata.” Think of these as scripts or foundational knowledge of something. It’s how our brain goes on autopilot; we have a starting point that saves us a lot of the mental energy of starting from scratch when we encounter something new. Many of these are formed from early childhood and the further into adulthood we progress, the harder it is to change them. These aren’t inherently bad. They help us organize the things that we know and give us a starting point to interpret new information. Since they are shaped by our own experiences and culture, they may not match someone else’s schema of the same idea. For example, as a child, if someone had said the word “professor,” I would have pictured a serious elderly man in a tweed coat. However, my son, who has grown up with a professor for a mother, would hear the same word and would most likely picture me: someone who prefers laughter over seriousness unless a situation calls for it, prefers bright colors over tweed, and is also not a man. Neither schema is wrong. If we recognize that they aren’t always accurate, nor do they offer a full picture of reality, there’s no real issue with an inaccurate starting point. They are made to be shaped; however, the real issue occurs when we cling to these schemata so closely that they impact our actions and perceptions. Let’s say for a moment that a student whose schema of “professor” more closely matched the man in the tweed coat was a student in my classroom. If, as a result of this schema and their own confirmation bias, they subconsciously gave me less credibility than my male colleagues without even realizing they were doing it, that might be a problem. I might see this in small ways rather than overt ones, like assuming my lack of knowledge about something or

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being called “Mrs.” rather than “Dr.” when the student doesn’t do the same for their male professors. These are all examples that I have personally experienced. I recognize that most of the time, these come from well-intentioned students who most likely don’t even notice that they are doing it and I see instances like these as a great opportunity for invitational conversations. Yet, there is evidence that it does impact their experience and mine. Several studies in recent years have found that these biases have led to harsher critiques of women in student evaluations (Eaton et al. 2019). While we certainly can’t hack into their brains to know exactly what their personal schema of a professor looks like or the amount of flexibility they were willing to offer when they encountered someone who didn’t match it, it does raise some interesting questions. How much do our preconceived notions impact our expectations? The theory of confirmation bias suggests that it’s quite a bit. Researchers call one of the traits needed to overcome this type of bias “cognitive flexibility.” First defined in 1962 by WA Scott, cognitive flexibility is “the readiness with which the person’s concept system changes selectively in response to appropriate environmental stimuli” (405). In other words, when we are presented with information that should change our perspectives, how likely are we to actually change them or hold tight to our beliefs? Researchers have spent years trying to understand the factors that lead to our ability to do this effectively, with many suggesting that these traits are developed in childhood and heavily impacted by our family systems. Others have suggested there are links to emotional intelligence or even IQ in general. In a study done by Sarah and Jack Gorman, they found that people actually receive a dopamine rush from confirmation that they are right (Gorman and Gorman 2016). It seems that we aren’t just programmed to confirm the things we believe; we may even be rewarded for it. I would take this even further to point out that our society reinforces this by disincentivizing the opposite. Consider the way that our society often prioritizes bravado and confidence in our perspectives over someone admitting they have had a change of heart. It feels like a perfect storm; we are programmed to validate our preexisting beliefs, we feel a sense of reward when those preexisting ideas are validated, and there are often negative consequences when we admit that we are wrong or uncertain. It certainly makes sense that we hold tight to what we believe whether there is merit to it or not. This is an important conversation about how we communicate and connect in our online world and why being open to new ideas isn’t really the natural posture for most of us. When confirmation of our ideas is so easy to find in spaces where we can easily surround ourselves with others who think like us while ignoring those who don’t, confirmation bias is the easier choice more now than ever. It makes the choice to be open and curious the harder one.

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INFORMATION OVERLOAD “Information overload” is one of those buzzwords that we are probably somewhat tired of hearing. I will admit that it feels like a simplistic problem on the surface, namely because we have at least some level of autonomy over how much or little media we consume at any given time. The simple solution that I often hear is usually “great . . . consume less media,” but it’s a little bit more complex than that and a much larger problem than most of us understand. I want to start here: we as a species were never designed to exist on a global scale and process this much information. Or at least our brains haven’t evolved to that type of consciousness yet. We were not meant to feel the hurt and pain of an entire globe. We weren’t meant to process information at such a rapid pace. And from an evolutionary standpoint, we are still learning how to do it. If it all feels too big, that’s because it is. We weren’t designed to be so incredibly stimulated all the time. A 2017 study (Kumar et al. 2017) found that a fast-paced and imposing amount of information has a negative impact on the brain and “may contribute to fatigue, sleep disturbances, headache, reduced work efficiency, psychological disturbances and neurological problems including, but not limited to, irritation, anxiety, obsessive-compulsion, indecisiveness, impulsivity, loss of working memory, and similar neurocognitive ailments.” And that’s only part of the problem. McGill University neuroscientist Daniel Levitin shares in The Organized Mind: “Our brains evolved to focus on one thing at a time” (2015). What we are asking them to do now is something entirely different and arguably, it isn’t going well. The feelings of hopelessness that are commonplace in our society are unfortunately, no coincidence. The world simply feels too big for us to handle, and we are left feeling powerless, alone, and overwhelmed. For many, “numbing” has become our response to it in a variety of ways. As explained earlier, Festinger’s (1962) theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that human beings are psychologically uncomfortable with information that feels contrary to what they already believe to be true. As a result, people attempt to alleviate the discomfort by diffusing, explaining, or numbing that information. While I discussed earlier how this often happens when it comes to conflicting ideas, it also happens when we are feeling overloaded and overstimulated. Let’s say that Jamie is scrolling through her social media newsfeed and finds herself overloaded with stories about death, war, disease, and injustice. Jamie believes she is a good and caring person, but she also feels overwhelmed as she can’t possibly fix any of these problems on her own. She feels uncomfortable and is struggling to know what to do with the information.

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As a result of her dissonance, Jamie first attempts to explain and justify her nonresponse to the bad things in the world. First, she convinces herself that things really aren’t that bad. “I mean . . . things seem pretty peaceful outside of my door. I think this is probably just exaggerated” she thinks. And, she decides, “I’m not going to think about them because they don’t impact my life.” She fights a hard battle with her brain to work through this discomfort because in reality, there is very little she can do about most of these problems, or at least at that particular moment. Her discomfort of feeling helpless and doing nothing when she knows she is a caring person leads her to mental gymnastics, emotionally exhausting mental gymnastics at that, to feel better about her inaction. Regardless of which path she chooses, in the end, she numbs away these feelings of discomfort, not because she’s a terrible or unfeeling person but because she must do this. Charles Figley (1995), a trauma researcher, coined the term “compassion fatigue.” He explained it as: “caring people experience pain as a direct result of their exposure to another’s traumatic material.” While Figley’s research focused primarily on healthcare professionals, his research has further implications that give some insight into how we process our world and the constant flow of bad news. Many of us simply choose not to do so because we feel that we have no other choice. The challenge, however, is that selective numbing isn’t as easy as we would like to believe. We can’t train our brains to shut out the hurt and pain of the world and then believe that we are going to be fully equipped to handle it when hurt and pain enters our own lives. Apathy is often a response to the hopelessness we feel to the large problems of the world that seem so prevalent. It’s how we can continue to walk through a world that often feels angry and overwhelming. But unfortunately, apathy and empathy aren’t a light switch. An apathetic response to the world’s problems, even as a coping mechanism, often means that we also lose valuable chances to learn empathy and feel connection with others despite our best intentions. The other side of this problem is that somehow, despite our easy access to as much information we could possibly need with the click of a mouse, information literacy is a serious problem in our culture. Disinformation and sensationalized news dominate our airwaves and sifting through it to find truth sometimes feels like a full-time job. Years ago, if you had asked scholars what would happen if we had all the information in the world available at our fingertips, they probably would have assumed we would be the most knowledgeable generation ever to live. We would be a world of scholars and thinkers. Yet, in many ways, the opposite is true. We have so much information at our disposal and encounter so many conflicting messages that we have no idea what to do with it all.

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But this isn’t entirely our fault. The concept of information literacy in online spaces is only a recent discussion and subsequently, has only recently become part of curriculum in schools. Some still aren’t addressing it at all. Even my colleagues in higher education struggle with the momentous task of helping students assess and understand the information that they process and the sources that they use to support their ideas. We’re doing the work, however imperfectly. But that doesn’t mean we have it figured out nor has everyone had access to education on information literacy. Consider for a moment that the majority of those eligible to vote in the 2020 election never once took an information literacy course in school. Additionally, many of them never wrote a paper that involved internet research. Naturally, sifting through the messages by which they are surrounded to determine “truth” when everyone’s versions seem so drastically different must be a challenging task. It certainly is for me, despite years of research on the topic. As Director of Writing at my university, I’m often asked by other faculty members how we can overcome the information literacy challenges we face in today’s world. They want a spreadsheet or a guide to give to their students; however, the problem has never been a lack of resources or checklists, but rather students who have been raised in a culture of information overload that is paired with distrust and division. All the guides in the world aren’t going to simplify the complexity of trying to sift through all of that information. And to add to this mix, thanks to confirmation bias, our first step is often to find someone to validate what we already believe and then stop looking there. I understand why my colleagues are struggling. I’m sure you are wondering why I’m talking about information overload in a discussion of community. It’s because there are quite a few other ways that information overload is creating challenges to connection. First, despite spending significantly more time in online spaces, more is required of us to sift through the barrage of information that is coming our way. Because of this, we spend less time in meaningful connection and more time trying to get to the core of which interactions are most meaningful and necessary to us. That can also mean that we miss interactions because with less time, we are required to be more deliberate about choices. For example, a 2020 study by Forbes (Hyken 2020) found that a whopping 65% of emails are ignored. While most would agree that this is a breach of etiquette, if we’ve even decided on a standard email etiquette, evidence suggests that we still do it. There are a lot of possible reasons for this but at the forefront is most likely that we simply have so many of them. We miss things or prioritize others for the sake of our time. A cost of information overload is that we simply can’t

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engage with everything that comes our way and we have gotten used to prioritizing some and ignoring others. Another reason why that information overload is important to this conversation is that distractions can make our interactions less meaningful. Less connected. While we have access to every space imaginable to engage with people about every possible topic, that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are giving those interactions the meaningful attention that they deserve. McMillan & Chavis (1986) noted that importance of feeling like we matter to those with whom we interact to feel a sense of connection. That’s hard to do when someone isn’t focused on us or when we can’t focus on them, as is often the case when we multitask or are spread too thin and can’t focus on just that interaction. To summarize: we encounter a lot of information every single day. We are put in the unique position of making hard judgment calls about who is telling the truth, how to exist in community, and how to deal with the constant stream of information coming our way. We weren’t really made for this, and it holds that we are still learning how to do it while still fostering connection with one another. INVITATIONAL RHETORIC Finally, I want to end my foundational discussion of the psychology of online spaces with Invitational Rhetoric (Foss and Griffin 1995), a term that you will see again, primarily because understanding what “connected” discourse looks like can be helpful in understanding some of the things that lead to disconnected discourse. Invitational rhetoric and the psychology of how we change our minds is helpful if you want to understand why our current discourse is failing us so badly. We do have alternatives from the division that permeates our culture, but like everything else when it comes to community in online spaces, it requires the deliberate choice to choose connection, humanity, and ultimately, people. Foss and Griffin’s theory is rooted in the belief that we often spend too much time arguing, too much time focused on being “right,” and too much time focused on changing people’s minds that we are losing sight of our relationships and as a result, we are often unsuccessful in all these things. Instead, they theorized, we could see each person as valuable and instead of changing their mind at all costs, make the goal of that interaction not to change their mind but to build connection with that person by developing a relationship rooted in listening and mutual understanding. What’s fascinating is that, in doing this, we stand the best chance of changing someone’s mind.

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Foss and Griffin saw persuasion in its traditional sense as a form of control or manipulation and suggested that often, when we try to force our will on people, we devalue that person as a human. We show that we don’t trust them to draw their own conclusions. That impacts both how our appeal is received, as well as our relationship with them. A cornerstone of their theory that rings true to my own research and experience is that when we don’t feel heard, we aren’t open to change. We usually stop listening because we don’t feel like the other person understands our perspectives and therefore, couldn’t possibly persuade us. Essentially: why should I listen to them when they aren’t listening to me? The result is unsuccessful all around. Instead, they proposed this theory, finding that the most change doesn’t take place through coercion, “shutting down” techniques, and manipulation, but through an invitation into someone’s world to understand them as a person and, as a result, understand their perspectives. Likewise, we invite them into our world. That’s where we see the human experience in the issues and learn about the nuance of them. We see how they impact real people. It means valuing people over being right. I’m aware that a theory that says that we change minds when we stop trying to change minds sounds a little odd (or as one of my former doctoral colleagues put it “a little kumbaya”) and its critics have suggested the same thing, but there is a lot of evidence to back it, both in Foss and Griffin’s research and outside of it. It accounts for the fact that people do not change their mind when they don’t feel seen and heard. It’s why one-dimensional talking points and memes aren’t effective methods of persuasion. They might earn upvotes and likes from people who already agree with us, but they rarely impact anyone who doesn’t already agree. Instead, they make people feel unheard and misunderstood rather than open to change. In all my years of research, I have yet to encounter a single person who has changed their mind because someone on the internet told them that they were stupid. If you want to convince someone and help them to see things a new way, you have to start by listening. A core of this theory is something they called “self-determination.” It involves the belief that each person and their experiences have value. It suggests that each person should be given the autonomy to make their own choices. Moreover, it offers respect for those choices insofar as they do not infringe on the rights, safety, or choices of others. Let me unpack this. It looks like this: two people disagree about something important. Instead of talking over and past one another, and instead of arguing, and instead of trying to coerce one another into thinking like they do, instead, they sit down together. Here, they share their stories and perspectives. The goal is to understand one another, not win. And they trust that, when presented with each

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other’s story, why they feel the way that they do, and the evidence that helped them reach their conclusion, the other person will form their own conclusion. They both feel comfortable to do so with mutual respect, honesty, and an open mind. Even if they still disagree, they understand one another better and can live in disagreement in a healthy way that sustains their relationship instead of destroys it. Or, in learning more about something, maybe someone does change their mind or even just experiences a small shift in perspective, but it was a choice versus being manipulated or coerced into doing so. I think about this in my own marriage and how much better we communicate when my husband and I practice this type of rhetoric with one another. For example, if I come home after a long day, cranky, tired, and hungry, and I see that he forgot to take out the trash, my impulse might be to eye roll and offer a sarcastic response. I would guess it would go something like this: “I see you didn’t have time to take out the trash again. I guess I will do it. It’s not like I didn’t have a long day and have plenty of things on my plate too. But it’s fine. I can do your job and mine.” (Just a wild guess, and probably not based on something I’ve actually said. Definitely not.) An interaction like that leads to lots of misunderstanding and resentment. But, instead, when we sit down and share our perspectives and both show up open to what the other person has to say, the results are much different. In this same instance, I would probably share my frustration but also acknowledge that one day of missed trash from someone who takes his responsibilities to our family seriously is probably not detrimental. I would be honest and acknowledge that what’s really happening is that I am feeling overwhelmed, like there is just so much to do. And he would probably acknowledge that he feels like he’s carrying a lot of weight, both personally and professionally, and it’s hard for him to ask for help. In the end, we would both probably walk away stronger, understanding one another better, and both open to changing our behavior because we value one another and have prioritized our relationship over being right. Aron & Aron’s (1996) research suggests that we would also grow closer together through these interactions. When I am making sarcastic comments and intent on being right (or self-righteous, in this case, as I’ve certainly missed plenty of things myself), I don’t allow space for that. In the end, by approaching the conversation in an invitational way, I can walk away understanding my partner better and we both experience a shift in perspective that would not have happened if we were both insistent on being right. But it starts by valuing the person and our relationship with them. This might explain why our political discourse isn’t really working. I saw this in a study I completed about the memes of the take-a-knee protests that were prevalent in the NFL during the 2016 and 2017 seasons. I focused on the rhetoric behind memes shared during the height of discussion

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and how they were being utilized. What stood out to me the most was that nobody really seemed to be listening to one another. The narrative of the memes couldn’t have been more mismatched. One side claimed that those kneeling had no respect for the flag, soldiers, and America, while the other side claimed those who disagreed with the kneeling had no respect for Black lives and had no concern for the lives that had recently been lost in incidents of police violence against Black citizens. While maybe there were people on either side of the issue that agreed with these extremes, the majority of people didn’t really agree with either of these perspectives and fell somewhere in the middle. I’ve never seen an instance of two groups talking past one another so blatantly. And I don’t think it was unintentional. It’s much easier to argue against a point that no one made. It’s “low hanging fruit” as the saying goes. But having to sit in the nuance of real issues and real lives is much harder. The commitment to misunderstanding one another made talking points and perceived “winning” much easier in this instance. If each side had been able to sit down in a safe and open environment to voice their actual concerns and listen to one another, it may have changed the conversation entirely. They may not have left with minds changed. But they most likely would have been able to find much more common ground and common goals. They might have understood the core issues that mattered to the other side instead of the ones that they had ascribed to them. So why is invitational rhetoric a successful method of rhetorical dialogue? Let’s go back to our discussion of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1962) and the things that stand in the way of change. When you consider our natural inclination to resist when faced with new information, you can see why Foss and Griffin’s theory may have merit. However, we don’t feel uncomfortable when no one is pressuring us to change. We have the privilege of simply listening and learning. As a result, we feel heard, accepted, and connected. If there is truth in what’s being shared that appeals to us, we are far more open to it when we feel heard ourselves. Otherwise, we would most likely not hear it at all. I should add that invitational rhetoric includes two important pieces that must be present for this method to work, and they are absolutely essential. One is that both people are committed to allowing space for invitational dialogue. The conditions for such an environment, as suggested by Foss and Griffin, include safety (physical and emotional), value being given to all participants through the active listening and respect shown by the listener, and freedom for those involved in the interaction. “Freedom” means things like feeling like each person has the freedom to decide how to interpret the information without pressure. It also includes autonomy over themselves in choosing to be there and participate in the interaction. They agree to show up, listen, and treat the other’s perspectives with value.

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The other piece of invitational rhetoric that must be present is the willingness to disclose one’s perspectives in an authentic way. When manipulation and coercion are taking place, it simply doesn’t work. Foss and Griffin emphasize the importance of “meeting of another’s uniqueness” (24). Invitational rhetoric stresses the humanity and importance of the being of each person and that “the ideas and feelings they share with the rhetor will be received with respect and care” (p. 28). It’s essential to treat that person and their ideas as important and valuable, even in disagreement. The authors noted that “what makes it unique in the theory of invitational rhetoric is a willingness on the part of rhetors to dialogue rather than debate and to forgo efforts to change others” (436). It’s ironic then, that in doing this, we have our greatest chance of actually changing the minds of others since they are now open to change. But we have to let go of that control first. Invitational rhetoric “assumes the form of an offering, an opening, or an availability and not an insistence” (16) and sees that exchange of knowledge as something to be treated with respect and dignity. It requires that we focus on the humanity of the other and that we honor their story and journey: invitational rhetors acknowledge that human beings always are being imposed on simply through the processes of perception, they do not believe they have the right to claim that their experiences or their perspectives are superior to those of their audience members. They do not seek to impose on or violate their individual integrity. (18)

Foss and Griffin theorized if we could show people that we value and respect them and their ideas and that they personally matter more to us than changing their minds, only then will they be open to change. Connection. Foss and Griffin recognized that connection was the thing missing from our efforts. I think this theory speaks more to what isn’t working. Our rhetorical sucker-punches and “shutting down” taunts filled with arrogance, superiority, and insults aren’t actually changing anyone’s mind about anything. It simply divides us further into our camps of people who think like us, which is dangerous for a lot of reasons, many that I detail in the next chapter. If our “crisis of connection” exists despite the fact that we can interact with people who think like us in every corner of the internet from all over the world, there’s obviously something missing. This lack of invitational dialogue is part of it. We need healthy conflict. We need to disagree. Conflict is one of the strongest building blocks towards sustainable relationships. But we are surrounded by examples of division and dehumanization instead of healthy dialogue, and as a result, many of us simply haven’t learned how to handle conflict in a healthy way. Instead, when we encounter the discomfort of opposing ideas,

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we run back to our “team” for validation and to help ease our discomfort. Or we diffuse our discomfort by throwing punches. What if instead, we learned how to say “tell me more” and “can you explain why you think that?” And then, what if we had the courage to just sit and listen? What if we came to the table with someone who doesn’t look like us, vote like us, and think like us and said, “tell me your story”? It’s certainly the harder choice because it’s uncomfortable. It forces us to consider the real humans behind the issues that are much easier to feel strongly about when we don’t have to look into the eyes of the people whom they impact. It takes a lot of bravery. But not doing so is tearing us apart. I appreciate Foss and Griffin’s theory, although there is some sense of utopia in believing that we can strongly disagree in ways that are not only respectful but that makes our relationships stronger, but research suggests that this is possible if we choose it. I appreciate it because it makes it clear why many of our current methods of persuasion aren’t working. We are capable of far better in a lot of ways. This discussion of the psychology and theory behind our choices hardly scratches the surface of the mental processes that are taking place when we engage online but they will inform our discussions and offer us foundational knowledge about why we do what we do. Why do we choose connection, and how can we do it better?

Chapter 4

Political Bunkers and Common Enemy Intimacy

Several years ago, I was invited to join a research project studying a unique part of the history of the United States, the early American lyceum system (Fletcher et al. 2020). In the mid-1800s, the American lyceums were clubs where town members, often at the price of a membership fee, could come to learn about and debate important issues of their time. Some of the meetings addressed local politics with discussions about town policy and settling debates among town members, but they also didn’t shy away from more provocative topics like women’s suffrage, state’s rights, and emancipation. It’s hard to believe that a club designed entirely to facilitate debate over pressing issues like these could exist without bringing a considerable amount of conflict with it, but on the contrary, historical accounts suggest that the discussions were fairly civil. In most instances, stringent rules even forbade members from exhibiting rude and aggressive behavior, and it appears that members took this seriously. And this was despite the fact that lyceums appeared to be fairly progressive in their offerings, allowing women to attend (although they weren’t granted membership) and having guest speakers like Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony share their perspectives in a historical time period where they had very little political power. After a quick scroll through my social media feed, the idea that people could debate pressing issues, disagree with their neighbors, and then go back to being a friendly and prosperous community is surprising. But it doesn’t seem quite as shocking when you consider that they were motivated by a need that is just as important but, arguably, less valued today: community. They recognized that their friends and neighbors were essential to their prosperity, survival, and well-being and were willing to work to maintain relationships, even in disagreement. The problem is that our community is just as essential to our prosperity, survival, and well-being today as it was back then. The difference is that we 51

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can much more easily deceive ourselves into thinking otherwise. The illusion that we don’t need one another has made us significantly less willing to put our differences aside and work for it. This is even more true now than it has ever been because it may actually require more of us today than it did then. First and foremost, it requires us to prioritize the need for community. It also requires us to overcome our natural instincts and lean into the discomfort of opposing ideas when we have a ready-made path to avoid doing so. SENSATIONALISM AND THE POLITICAL DIVIDE IN AMERICAN NEWS It’s challenging to pinpoint the exact moment that the categorization of people by political ideologies began. Most likely, we have been on this trajectory since the early 1990s when cable news networks blurred the line between entertainment and news with hours of depositions about stained blue dresses by White House interns, televised chases in white Ford Broncos by sports celebrities, and athletes fighting for Olympic gold after taking a crowbar to the knee. Monica Lewinsky, OJ Simpson, and Tonya Harding didn’t create this blurred line, but their stories served as a tipping point and fuel to the newly birthed cable networks that were struggling to remain relevant when news became less enticing to the American public. On June 17, 1994, Domino’s Pizza reported record sales (Smith 2014). It’s no coincidence that it was the same night that ninety-five million people tuned in to watch OJ Simpson’s infamous chase as he attempted to evade capture by a convoy of police in his white Ford Bronco. People were so engrossed in the story that they didn’t want to leave their televisions. From the early 1990s with the Gulf War to around-the-clock coverage of Clinton impeachment hearings, the entire decade was marked by major news events that would change history. Cable news networks saw a surge in popularity like never before. However, as these events faded and consumers went back to their daily lives, cable news networks realized that they had a problem: consumers didn’t need them anymore. So out of a need to retain their viewers, sensationalism entered the scene. In the years that followed, even minor news events were sold to consumers as essential viewing, often through fearmongering. They were often told the “other side” was voting for policies that would destroy the nation. Decisions and events that had been taking place for decades were now repackaged and sold as urgent or even historic. News was touted as “must-know” information. The media needed their viewers to be angry, afraid, and worried so that they would come back for more. But the result was angry, afraid, and worried voters changing American politics.

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Shock jock political commentary became part of the political landscape in the mid 1990s with political analyst celebrities like Rush Limbaugh dominating the airwaves. They relied on ratings for income just like their cable news counterparts and as a result, utilized this same type of sensationalism to drive ratings. Civility, it seemed, was no longer popular. And why should it be? The world was on the verge of collapse—or so consumers were told. Nicknames like “feminazi,” a favorite of Limbaugh’s, were the new normal in political circles. “Shutting down” tactics became fashionable. While Rush Limbaugh was one of the earliest of this era of large personalities in political media, the Democratic party countered with their own Air America Radio in 2004, although it lacked the popularity of Limbaugh’s show. The Democratic party also seemed to gain foothold with a nighttime television presence. Hosts like Jon Stewart emerged and the historically popular Saturday Night Live slowly moved away from a neutral standpoint to lean more towards the left as they continued their long-held tradition of mocking major political figures. None of these things emerge as a “ground zero” for the normalization of divisive political dialogue but all seemed to contribute to a perfect storm of media culture that tested the boundaries of ethics and civility more with each new generation. People felt angry, unheard, and misunderstood by the one-liner jokes and taunts from the other side. Finding “their people” who thought like them and understood them seemed to be an easy answer. Cable news networks like Fox News and CNN found that courting viewers of a particular side of the aisle was better for their ratings, and simultaneously, a population looking for a cohort of the similarly minded began to sort themselves into political factions. The designation of “our people” seemed to exist everywhere. As an elementary school student in the early 1990s, I vividly recall having a conversation with a classmate whose parents shared similar political views to mine. Armed with only the knowledge of what we heard in our homes, we both shared that we weren’t going to see a particular movie because of the political affiliation of the actor who played the main character. It didn’t matter to us that it was a children’s movie with no political themes at all. As we understood the world, there were people “like us” and people “like them” and we knew that we shouldn’t associate with people “like them” even before we understood why. This anecdote speaks to a lot of things, first and foremost that the division ran so deeply that I, as a child, recognized it, already demonizing people on the “other side” without any idea what they actually believed but simply knew that I wasn’t supposed to like them. The other is that I wasn’t alone. A considerable number of the current generations Y and Z also grew up in this environment and with these influences and are likely still impacted by them

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today. Whether they still agree with the perspectives handed down to them in their childhood, the mindset of division was planted from an early age. It’s hard to point to this factor alone for our current divided political climate, but it would be impossible to deny it as a likely contributing factor. But there were other things going on at the same time. For instance, the emergence of social media a few short years later added fuel to the fire. While it is often credited with creating the political divide, that’s not really a fair accusation. That divide already existed; however, social media simply gave it a new platform and with it, greater opportunities to misunderstand one another. It also began to blur the lines of “truth” as we will discuss later in this chapter. Given what we know about cognitive dissonance, it makes sense that a social media experience where users could surround themselves with people who think like them, who confirm their deepest fears, and where they could also avoid uncomfortable contrary opinions would be a draw for users. The ripples of this sensationalism weren’t relegated to impacting TV ratings, but also impacted decision-makers as well. With news outlets amplifying small decisions or even decisions that had been largely bipartisan for decades, political staff members now found themselves fielding emails, calls, and social media messages from constituents demanding an explanation and pushing lawmakers to take a stance against the other side if they wanted their vote. Sensationalist narratives made the issues appear to be more pressing and more dangerous than ever before and therefore, compromise was seen as weakness rather than good politics as it once had been. Too much was at stake, or so they were told, whether it was truly the case or not. It made it significantly more difficult to enact bipartisan legislation or to find common ground as lawmakers recognized the need to court voters of future elections, whether they agreed with the stance they were being asked to take or not. A great example of this is the United States debt ceiling. Since 1960, the debt ceiling has been raised seventy-eight separate times. The charge to do so has been divided fairly evenly under leadership from both parties. However, in 2013, for the first time, raising the debt ceiling became a partisan issue that resulted in a temporary government shutdown that lasted for sixteen days with both sides refusing to budge. If you had asked supporters of either party at the time, they both would have told you that the other side was to blame for refusing to compromise. Threats of the same have been part of negotiations many times in the years that followed in similar discussions about raising the debt ceiling. With the media shining a spotlight on it and portraying it as an important issue—and even an issue that could result in the collapse of an economy—pundits were forced to appeal to their constituents and give them what they wanted. They had to show that they would not compromise. Many politicians found themselves in the unique position of having to change their platforms to take a harder stance across a variety of issues.

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Even if they weren’t fully in agreement, the alternative was lost votes if they failed to appeal to the newfound fears of their voters. If they didn’t, their constituents would vote for someone who would, and there are plenty of people willing to say whatever is needed to win the votes. As a result of this perfect storm, political messages slowly took a turn towards an “us versus them” narrative that seemed to appeal to voters being handed messages of the “other side” as a dangerous adversary and a world on the verge of collapse if they are left in charge. While social media didn’t create the problem, there is a case to be made that social media made division the easier choice. First, social media removed some of the human element from communication. This is another point made by Suler’s (2004) “disinhibition effect.” The further we move from having to encounter the humanity of someone, the easier it is to treat them as if they are not human at all. It creates “disinhibition” and often leads to behavior that would be taboo in face-to-face communication. It makes the temptation to escalate conflict to taunts and one-dimensional punchlines even greater. The second is the ability to tailor our communication choices to only engage with others who share our preexisting beliefs. For instance, a user can choose to only follow and “like” communities and groups that match their own views, thus effectively avoiding viewpoints that challenge their own. In the previous chapter, we learned about cognitive dissonance and confirmation which illustrate how we don’t like to be uncomfortable; wrestling with contradictory viewpoints is simply that: uncomfortable. As Festinger (1962) explained, we are biologically inclined to avoid the discomfort we feel when we encounter conflicting ideas; social media allowed us to avoid it entirely if we chose to do so. Given this, it certainly makes sense why we turn to this; it’s simply easier. While on the surface, this might feel harmless, avoiding information that challenges us is unhealthy for a variety of reasons. First, Aron and Aron’s research (1996) notes that relationships are forged by healthy and respectful disagreements. A large downside to creating our own echo chamber is denying ourselves opportunities to create meaningful connection. We actually need to encounter conflict in healthy ways to build relationships. Second is that in surrounding ourselves with information that validates what we already think, often sensationalized to generate viewership and clicks, we often find ourselves in a culture of groupthink (Janis 1982). Groupthink is a term that predates a lot of the media news sensationalism but its applicability across a variety of mediums and in a variety of instances makes it important for discussion. Irving Janis first coined this term, meaning that we often choose group cohesion even when we aren’t fully in alignment, in order to maintain conformity in a group. Unfortunately, truth is often that cost. We know that healthy conflict is absolutely essential to building

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healthy relationships, but it’s also absolutely essential to maximum output of a group. The benefit of utilizing groups is that members combine a variety of strengths, experiences, and perspectives to produce the best ideas and output. This is why groups with strong communication skills who are able to openly share ideas often produce the best output. Given that, I’m sure it’s not shocking to learn that groupthink doesn’t actually breed connection, but rather the illusion of it. Groupthink feels like something that would be obvious and apparent to us when we are doing it because it often happens at the subconscious level. Confirmation bias is a part of how we do that. We look for the clues that help us validate our decisions to convince ourselves that our choices are the correct ones. We know from our discussion of cognitive dissonance that we are actually somewhat preprogrammed to do this. I previously mentioned the HBO documentary, The Vow (2020‌‌‌‌) that highlights the alleged cult, NXVIM through the eyes of several people who left. The phrases “groupthink” and “confirmation bias” often sprang to mind when those interviewed about their experience shared how they overlooked the evidence that was in front of them. Some even admitted to having doubts at various points but shared that, looking back, their fear of losing their community made them minimize their concerns. I talked about cognitive dissonance and just how much mental work we are willing to do to explain away hard truths that we encounter, specifically when they conflict with deeply held beliefs. In the case of many of those interviewed in the documentary, their investment in the group was high. Many had rearranged their lives, finances, and livelihood with NXIVM at the center. Many had recruited others to do the same. Being wrong didn’t have small implications. When it comes to cognitive dissonance, the lower the stakes, the more likely we are to entertain conflicting ideas when that discomfort begins. But it’s actually the larger ones where we need to wrestle with that discomfort rather than run from it because it has the biggest implications if we are wrong. We need to have discussions with people who don’t think like we do and have healthy conflict to build community. The greatest markers of a healthy group or organization is the openness to dissenting ideas and their willingness to engage in healthy conflict. If you belong to a group that sees new perspectives as a threat or problem, consider this your warning that something may be wrong. Groupthink is one of the ways that we create our own echo chambers as a means of self-protection. It’s a way to avoid having to wrestle with conflicting ideas. We can find people and information that will give us exactly what we need to alleviate our discomfort when we hear something that challenges us. It helps us validate that we are right. It’s much easier to surround ourselves with this and avoid discomfort altogether rather than wrestle with challenging ideas; it’s why a lot of people choose it.

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“But wait,” you might be thinking. Clearly people interact with people that don’t think like them. We’ve all witnessed the heated social media arguments and divisive comment sections full of cruelty and sucker punches. They’re certainly common, and they don’t feel much like connection. I don’t disagree. But this seems like a great place to point out the difference between what it looks like when we engage in dialogue versus when we only communicate to be heard. I would struggle to argue that communication isn’t taking place, but I would argue that we aren’t communicating what we believe we are. I might even add that we aren’t communicating for the reasons we think we are. Dialogue involves listening, engagement, and openness to the ideas of the other person. If we aren’t doing those things, our discussion might make us feel better but it’s pretty fruitless beyond that. I want to say this again: we rarely convince anyone when we throw punches. When we resort to name-calling and cruelty, we might get “likes” from our side but we aren’t actually changing anyone’s mind. More importantly, we are hindering our ability to build connection, not only with the people with whom we disagree, but with people on “our side” as well, something I will discuss more later in this chapter. I remain fascinated by how intertwined these two things truly are. We have to humanize, hear, and respect someone in order to change their mind. But in seeking to know and understand them, we begin the process of creating community with them which makes it even harder to dehumanize them. It feels cyclical but often makes me wonder if that’s by design. We weren’t meant to be disconnected from one another. Sensationalism and the divided spaces provided by the internet can make it easier to hide from discomfort, but as a result, also connection. It gives us that “low hanging fruit” to validate our perspectives rather than finding out what our friends and neighbors really believe. It gives us a place to hide if we are afraid to wrestle with what we may find, instead of being brave enough to actually ask and find out. Brené Brown says “people are hard to hate close up; move in” (Brown 2017) and I’ve often wondered if that’s exactly the thing that keeps us from doing it. When we go to the extreme of a worldview that is contingent on hating people who think differently from us, learning that maybe we don’t hate them at all is probably the harder thing. My years of research in anonymous online spaces have led me to several important findings, but the most notable is a clear difference between spaces where connection is present versus those where it is not. The key factor that seems to show up in spaces where connection is happening, no matter what medium I study, is vulnerability. People say things like “me too” and build community around shared experiences, listening, and investing in one another. Some of the most beautiful communities I’ve found on the internet follow this pattern as users find a sense of belonging, sometimes even

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among strangers. But what I’ve also found is that absolutely nothing creates a barrier to community faster than a community built on hate and division. Unfortunately, in many places, politics have created spaces built on just that, full of misunderstanding, division, and cruelty. Outrage and anger are often the easier way to deal with information that challenges our beliefs, and this accounts for a lot of the disconnection that we are seeing in our online world. But it’s one part of a much larger puzzle. Let’s talk about some of the other barriers that stand in the way of connection: how “truth” can be a blurry line that causes us to see the world differently from those with whom we want to connect. SENSATIONALISM, CONTROVERSY, AND FAKE NEWS We talked about sensationalism earlier in this chapter but what makes sensationalism even more challenging is the blurry line between “truth” and “reality.” What if I told you that if you live in the United States, you can legally lie as long as you aren’t on a witness stand, don’t slander anyone in a way that impacts their livelihood, or is done “for personal enrichment”? In reality, this is a fairly accurate representation of current laws that protect your right to lie, at least according to the United States Supreme Court as decided across several cases, the most recent coming in May 2020 in Kelly vs the United States, better known as “Bridgegate.” What might be even more surprising is that the decision was unanimous. The case involved the Port Authority of New Jersey and then Governor Chris Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Bridget Kelly. The Christie administration asked the Port Authority to shut down several lanes of traffic near the military base Fort Lee. In court, the prosecution presented the case that the shutdown and subsequent traffic issues were in retaliation against the Mayor of Fort Lee over a lack of endorsement for Christie; however, the story shared with the Port Authority was that lanes were shut down in support of a traffic study. While the Supreme Court called it an abuse of power, they also agreed that truth shouldn’t be regulated in this way except under certain conditions. In this case, they cited that it hadn’t been proven that the Christie administration was using a lie to obtain property of some type, so it was not punishable by law. This might seem like an odd choice, namely as a unanimous opinion, something we rarely see in our divided political world. But this choice speaks to something much larger. The Justices recognized the danger in legislating truth, especially in the cases of subjective truth. There is no way to accomplish this goal without putting the determination of “truth” at the mercy of

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whomever is in power. It’s a scary prospect and this is also why the Justices made the choice to avoid it. In the wrong hands, making any one person or administration the ultimate arbiter of “truth” could easily lead to an abuse of power or something akin to Orwell’s 1984 where “truth” is mandated by government. While it was the correct choice, unfortunately, that leaves us in a precarious space. Not only can someone say almost anything they choose, but sometimes bending the truth is the more profitable choice since sensationalized headlines and claims keep users coming back for more. Not only is there very little consequence for disinformation, there are actually quite a few incentives to it. There are, of course, exceptions to this. But not many. Alex Jones is one of these exceptions. Known to many as a conspiracy theorist, Jones owns the popular website, InfoWars, where one of his greatest talking points surrounds the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that led to the death of twenty students and six staff members. On his website and podcast, Jones often shares his belief that the shooting was a hoax, propagated to push stricter gun control laws. He claims that the parents and children involved were actors and his fans would often share “sightings” of them or discuss evidence to support this claim. Many of his fans latched on to the theory and the result was harassment and death threats to the still grieving parents of Sandy Hook’s victims. In 2019, the families joined forces, launching a defamation lawsuit that delivered a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs with damages in the millions. On the stand, Jones admitted that he no longer believed his theory; however, only days later he pivoted, telling podcast listeners that that these lawsuits were just another conspiracy designed to keep them from investigating the truth. “Their mission is to shut me up and take me off the air and they say I’m the lead elephant . . . they take me out, they think they’re going to take you out” (Wendling 2022). How can someone say something on the witness stand one day and say otherwise a week later? Simple: there’s nothing stopping them from doing so. Except maybe their willingness to pay if a court case doesn’t land in their favor. In this case, the court ruled that the sensationalism resulted in harm to the families creating undue stress and having a negative impact on their lives and mental health. Even then, after suggesting that he didn’t believe the conspiracy himself, Jones didn’t change his messaging. And it probably was the more profitable plan. Quite simply: sensationalism sells. A similar controversy that asked this question but had an opposite outcome surrounded podcast host, Joe Rogan. Rogan’s podcast, named The Joe Rogan Experience fell under scrutiny in 2020 and again in 2022 for perceived misinformation surrounding COVID-19 and the purported use of racial slurs in previous episodes. While the two seemed like separate discussions, they both became part of the 2022 controversy, with calls for Spotify, who had

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exclusive rights to his podcast, to remove him from their platform. Some artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from Spotify in protest and claimed that they would withhold it until his content was removed. While Spotify retained Rogan, they also quietly removed some of the controversial episodes. During the height of the controversy, debates surged about 1st Amendment rights with regards to podcasting, a platform so new and unique that regulations surrounding it were still an area of much debate, one that is still ongoing today. Central to this discussion is the fact that Spotify is a privately owned company and while the 1st Amendment protects free speech, it doesn’t regulate what a private company must allow on their platform. Even this is an oversimplification of much more nuanced and complex arguments. Another of the hotly debated topics surrounding free speech and podcasting is in the question of liability. If Rogan’s podcast found themselves on the receiving end of a wrongful death lawsuit as a result of COVID-19 claims, is Rogan himself liable or is Spotify? And moreover, when platforms like Spotify, or even Facebook, are so commonly used and arguably, hold some level of monopoly, should free speech be protected? These are some of the challenges that come with mediums that evolve faster than conversations around the laws and ethics surrounding them can. And there still aren’t any definitive answers. Notably, this question about liability was also at the center of the 2012 debates over Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), an interesting case study in online connection itself. SOPA and PIPA were two laws proposed in the United States that centered around liability and user-generated content. If passed, it would allow the United States government broad discretion with their ability to shut down websites that might break copyright infringement laws. While the legislation was intended to stop illegal content from spreading via the internet, the concern was that the laws were too open-ended and did not protect websites from being shut down based on content posted by unique users who were acting individually. It centered primarily around pirated content, but the implications were much more far-reaching; many were concerned about the precedent that might be set with giving the government this kind of power over the internet. In 2012, several popular websites including Reddit, Wikipedia, Mozilla, Flickr, and Google joined together to show their opposition to the legislation. Instead of the usual offerings, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on January 18, 2012, Redditors were greeted with the following message upon visiting Reddit. com: “Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like Reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action.” Others posted similar messages. Meanwhile, co-founder

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Alexis Ohanian testified in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Vafeiadis 2012). The protesting websites encouraged users to contact their lawmakers, a task that many users would complete. In response, lawmakers responded positively to the protests. Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was one of the first to change his stance and withdraw support. Rubio posted to his Facebook, “Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences” (2012). A response from an alleged Rubio staff member made its way to Reddit, although it was never verified, but suggested that Rubio changed his vote after hearing the concerns brought forward in their protests (ultramadscienti 2012). Others followed suit as the two bills lost support and were eventually taken off the table. The collective internet had spoken. Notably, the debate is still ongoing with several more pieces of still undecided legislation asking similar questions. People like Alex Jones and Joe Rogan drive ratings by being the loudest and addressing some of the greatest fears of their listeners, something that isn’t unique to them or even their side of the aisle. But if that fear drives users to dangerous choices, at some point, we have to decide who shoulders the blame for that when it goes too far. What does this have to do with connection, you ask? Simply this: our current laws make it easy, and even profitable, to create division and disconnection. Not only are media outlets not currently liable for the price of disconnection, they stand to profit off of it and often lose their share of the “pie” if they don’t. If it feels like we are constantly sifting through the piles of media available to us to determine truth, that’s probably a fair assumption. The deck is certainly stacked against us. “Fake news” is a difficult term to explain, primarily because it seems that everyone has a different definition and a different designation of who is responsible for it. Regardless of one’s definition, misleading media has certainly contributed to the problem. If we are looking for someone to confirm our beliefs, no matter how outlandish and unsupported they might be, we are probably going to find it. Whether what we find is true or not is inconsequential. Given that, we almost always have the ability to climb into our own echo chambers and surround ourselves with validation, free from having to wrestle with contrary ideas while getting our upvotes and “likes.” It feels like a pretty safe place. But we also need to be honest with ourselves about what we are missing when we live in those echo chambers. When we choose not to interrogate the messages we hear, we also have to live with the fact that we might be part of the problem of disinformation and we might be misleading people regarding the things that matter.

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Let me give an example. In an October 2022 episode, the aforementioned podcast host, Joe Rogan shared on his podcast that “a friend’s wife” worked in a school where litterboxes had been installed in girls’ bathrooms to accommodate students who identified as “furries” (Rogan 2022). The story spread like wildfire; however, despite many permutations of this rumor, there seemed to be no one able to come forward with the name of an actual school. Instead, it became fuel for arguments about indoctrination and concern about the acceptance of gender fluidity. It served as a talking point in “slippery slope” arguments about the acceptance of calling students by their chosen pronoun among other concerns about “wokeness” in schools. As of November 2022, at least twenty Republican leaders have mentioned the litterbox rumor as a justification for policy changes (McCormick Hibbert 2022). That’s a fairly impressive number for a rumor that no one seems to be able to substantiate. Rogan came forward in November 2022 to share that what he said may have been misleading, stating, “I fed into that and let me—I should probably clarify that a bit” noting that the “friend’s wife” he spoke of doesn’t work at the school anymore and, “I don’t think they actually did it,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like there was any proof that they actually put the litter box in there” (Rogan, Episode 209, 2022). However, the damage was done. In our world of sensationalism, information doesn’t need to be true in order for it to become an important talking point. Discussion gets traded back and forth, validated and revalidated, until it becomes accepted as “truth.” These are all examples of confirmation bias and what happens when talking points are easier than the truth and what happens when we don’t engage with outside opinions. It’s much easier for us to hear what we want to hear. To someone who may already have fears about indoctrination in schools, the confirmation that their concerns are valid is helpful for easing the discomfort of dissonance. And let’s be fair, to many generations, conversations about gender and LGBTQIA+ issues are fairly new ones, so there is often a level of discomfort that runs even deeper, even beyond dissonance. Finding an extreme example like this one provides an easy answer to a hard question. It’s much more simple than having to wrestle with the nuance of complex issues. The cost, however, is truth. We owe it to each other to try our absolute best to find out what is true, especially before we put that information out into the world to persuade others. But that would involve all of us having the courage to interrogate messages that make us uncomfortable and forgoing our easy answers. In other words, we have some work to do. There may not be easy answers, but next I’m going to share why we need to continue to ask the questions. Our relationships may be at stake.

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SENSATIONALISM AND THE FALSE CONNECTION OF COMMON ENEMY INTIMACY What is the cost of this sensationalism and misinformation? Simply: connection. In 2019, I conducted a study in which I compared the language and culture of the spaces identified by other Reddit users as “toxic” or problematic to the spaces where users felt a deep sense of support and connection. Reddit is a unique space, grounded in anonymity and individual communities focused around specific interest areas. It’s a space that can create opportunities for connection and support just as easily as it can create toxicity, division, and cruelty. In my years of research there, I have become increasingly baffled by the fact that the same space could create such drastically different experiences. I had to know what I was looking at and what really separated the two. Over several years of study that included in-depth content analysis across a variety of subreddits and comparisons to spaces outside of Reddit, I found surprising results. First, I found that the spaces where users felt support and community were dominated by vulnerability, storytelling, and humanizing one another. These spaces were full of “I” statements and claims of “me too” as users noted their shared experiences, and likewise, shared humanity. I found support groups, strangers buying one another gifts on the internet, and even an entire community centered around supplying life tips to people who had grown up in abusive homes and had limited guidance during their childhood. These spaces provide beautiful moments of connection. I don’t think this finding was that shocking. Everything I’ve learned about relationships, even online ones, tells me that the connection is forged in these moments where we feel most seen and heard. But my second finding was the one that did surprise me. I found that in the spaces that were identified as being “toxic” or were known for bullying and cruel behaviors, the human element was missing almost completely. Some part of this is what I expected to find. We are at our most cruel and hurtful when we strip the human element from other people, call them names, treat them as if their lives aren’t valuable. This made sense to me, and I probably could have hypothesized that I would see dehumanization of outgroups before I even started my research. However, the part that surprised me the most was that this wasn’t the only place where dehumanization was taking place in these communities. This is what I found: not only did users dehumanize perceived enemies outside of their group, but in spaces forged out of hate and cruelty, users also seem to have removed the human element from one another. There was something missing in these relationships.

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Were they cruel to one another? No, not usually. The insults and slurs were usually just aimed at mutually agreed upon “enemies,” but it stood out to me that they also didn’t show signs of recognizing the humanity in one another either. What I mean by this is that unlike the supportive communities, these users often referred to the subreddit as an entity such as “it” or “Reddit” versus speaking to people as individuals or referring to anyone directly. The “me too” stories that existed in more connected spaces were often missing or when shared, had little user engagement. While I won’t claim that I didn’t see this in other places on Reddit, unique to these subreddits is that the vulnerability wasn’t there. There weren’t many instances of people sharing their own experiences and stories. In fact, most of the dialogue was about people they hated. And if someone were to offer a different perspective from the commonly held beliefs of the group, even as a longstanding member of the community, other community members were quick to turn on them and aim their taunts and cruelty at them, immediately categorizing them as an outsider. They were missing the humanity in not just those they hated, but also one another. This didn’t fit the basic standards for a “sense of community” (McMillan and Chavis 1986). There was no emotional connection, shared history and experiences, no mutual disclosure, no vulnerability. The primary topic of conversation was people they hated and was dominated by insults, and sometimes even threats, towards them. This spiral of dehumanization is alarming for several reasons. Brené Brown’s discussion of “common enemy intimacy” in her 2017 book Braving the Wilderness highlights the danger in forming relationships around shared enemies. She calls it “counterfeit connection” and notes that the lack of vulnerability in these relationships that has been replaced with shared hatred creates a barrier to connection that often disguises itself as real community. The problem is that spaces like these certainly appear to be a community, both from the outside and for those who exist in them. It can offer temporary satisfaction to those seeking real connection but ultimately, leaves people feeling empty and needing more. The result is similar to a drug addiction in the sense that the user will seek more “temporary fixes” and more heightened ones. For example, a user who might have joined a specific space to complain about certain political figures and ideologies may heighten to a call for death threats or even militant actions over time as subconsciously, they find these battle cries only temporarily fulfilling. They go in search of their next “fix” often in the form of creating new content or even acting on their feelings in dangerous ways. I saw these trends in my research of Reddit. While the space is anonymous, user history is visible to other users. Given this, when I studied some of the more divisive communities, my curiosity led me to view some of the user

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profiles I encountered there. I wanted to understand the trajectory of someone who was wishing death on a major political figure. How does one arrive at this dark place? I had to know. I won’t say that I could draw any definitive conclusions with only a glimpse at their user history, but I did find several interesting things. First, as I suspected, these users often began by engaging in civil, or at least semicivil, conversation. I could often see the escalation of their behavior and dehumanization in the progression of their posts. The second was that I could see how these users changed their messaging to assimilate to the cultural norms of the subreddits where they posted. For example, someone who might wish death on a political figure in a subreddit where that was a social norm, might utilize a completely different tone and language in a post, made the same day, talking about a favorite television show elsewhere. I think there’s something notable about this part specifically because it suggests that groupthink is part of the equation. The escalation of behavior suggests to me that they are seeking their next “fix” after finding the connection unsatisfying and failing to fulfill their need for community. I will qualify that it’s impossible to tell the root cause of this. Are they assimilating to the cultural norms of the spaces? Or is their behavior naturally escalating via a need for something more? It’s not really a conclusion I can draw without much more data like knowing more about them and what other factors may have influenced this behavior. But it was a trend that I consistently saw and it feels meaningful. My years of research on the topic has led me to believe that this type of escalation occurs when one seeks community through relationships built on shared hatred and doesn’t find community at all. The need becomes greater and, as a result, the user seeks new ways to fill it. But what happens when these behaviors escalate beyond online spaces? It’s certainly happening more and more. In 2017, at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, a life was lost as a result of this heightened anger. The event was believed to have originated on Reddit’s r/The_Donald subreddit. Once primarily for political discussion about then President Donald Trump, the subreddit was also said to have ties to white supremacy groups within the user base. It was one of several reasons why the subreddit was eventually shut down. The Charlottesville rally was promoted on their subreddit in the weeks preceding it and would make national news when James Alex Fields, a frequent poster on the subreddit, was arrested for the murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer. She was there protesting the rally when he ran her over with his car while injuring others. In the days that followed, subreddit administrators sought to distance themselves from Fields, but they could do little to hide their previous promotion of the event (Feinberg 2017).

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I recently listened to a podcast featuring someone who was there who belonged to one of these white supremacy groups at the time. “Samantha Freedom” goes by an alias to protect herself, as someone who has become a whistleblower since leaving the “alt-right” movement. The “alt-right” is a name often given to the politically right-wing extremist groups known for opposing racial and gender equality. It’s a term that has a lot of definitions, depending on whom you ask. Samantha often defines it by her time in Evropa, a white nationalist group where she was the top female leader for a period of time. On “A Little Bit Culty” podcast, she shared that the Unite the Right rally and the death of Heather Heyer was a moment of realization that her situation was escalating and that her “community” wasn’t a safe or healthy one. She had come to the group with her then-boyfriend in search of community and stayed, despite questions and concerns about the dogma of the group, because they made her feel important. She was well-liked, she claims, primarily because there weren’t many female members, and part of her job involved working to recruit more and she was good at her job. She noted in her interview that, looking back, she feels that the relationships weren’t authentic but were based on mutual hate. “I think people miss that a lot of being in these groups is not about the politics or the racism. It’s about the human connection in it. You all have a common enemy . . . you know, mainstream media, and diversity was an enemy and that’s everywhere. So, it was very easy to get close to people in a way you’ve never felt before.” But she soon found out that this sense of community wasn’t the authentic one she had believed it would be. She detailed the in-fighting and willingness to “climb over” one another to get to the top. She also recognized that these relationships would end if she left. In this interview, she talked about her spiral into the white nationalist belief system, which in the beginning, was mostly to appease her boyfriend. With his hateful rhetoric constantly surrounding her, and her desire to please him, she began to see “evidence” that validated his claims. For example, when she drove by a billboard aimed at encouraging Black fathers, it was one of the first moments where she wondered if his claims had merit because, like he said, where were the billboards encouraging white fathers? Looking back, she could see the role of confirmation bias in how she was looking for support for his claims. She spent the months and weeks that followed watching YouTube videos and building online connections with others in Evropa. The group depicted themselves as innocuous to the point where people often asked if they were a hiking club rather than an extremist group. As a result, it felt innocent at first, but in a short period of time, she found herself deeply entrenched in their world and rhetoric. The promotions and praise coupled with fear of being publicly outed as member of a white supremist group to

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those outside of it kept her from acknowledging the obvious red flags. “You just don’t question the doctrine. You just go in and I’m like, sure, I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll sing the song and I’ll do the dance.” The cracks in her thinking began to form as she noted inconsistencies in their doctrine, like how the group claimed they didn’t believe in violence while also praising those who used violence to achieve their ends. Yet she wasn’t quite ready to leave, so she convinced herself to overlook it. There were too many things holding her there. She noted that she had very few remaining relationships because of her involvement in the group and felt like she had nowhere to go. “The ship was sinking but there was no way out.” Heather Heyer’s death was the wakeup call that she finally needed to see the group for what it was and have the courage to leave (2021). “Samantha Freedom’s” story is one that ended with her recognizing the dangerous rhetoric that surrounded her, but for many people, this isn’t the case. While this is an extreme example and most people don’t drive into a crowd to murder their perceived “enemy,” the lack of real genuine community while believing otherwise can create a sense of isolation even among the least militant. It’s simply unfulfilling. Paired with groupthink (Janis 1982) where fears are being validated, these common-enemy-based communities often push people further into division. There are plenty of other factors at play, of course, like someone’s personal upbringing and what types of community they have outside of their chosen online spaces. But ultimately, a community fueled simply by hating specific outgroups can be a dangerous place. Beau James is a pro wrestler who developed, with his friend Dan Harnsberger, the character “The Progressive Liberal” as the villain in their matches, recognizing the primarily conservative crowd to which they catered. They introduced the character in 2016 in a silly and hyperbolic way, with the character shouting catchphrases like “we’re coming for your guns” while sporting Hillary Clinton–themed shorts. In the early days, the character was often greeted with boos or even sometimes cheers, but ultimately it was all in good fun. In 2022, Harnsberger and James did an interview with CNN where they shared how things had changed over the last five years. In recent days, Harnsburger, who portrays the character, has been greeted with actual violence including punches thrown by audience members and even a chair being thrown at him. Harnsberger noted the change he experienced from the early days when it was a lighthearted game to now, when people are full of anger and genuinely looking for an outlet for their “built-up energy” (Reeve 2022). While these are extreme examples, isolating ourselves into ideological “groups” has far-reaching repercussions that we may not even see at the time. The lesson here is that avoiding discomfort may seem like a natural response to it, but it doesn’t come without a hefty price tag. Our social media world makes it easy to isolate ourselves from things we don’t want to hear, but it

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comes at the cost of connection. The challenge is acknowledging that there is a better path when it’s so easy to avoid doing so while convincing ourselves that what we are doing is going to fulfill us. I’m encouraged by the stories where this exact thing is happening. TRANSCENDING THE POLITICAL BUNKERS: CHOOSING CONNECTION In 2016, I conducted a series of interviews asking Reddit users how they utilize the anonymous community. I received a variety of answers that ranged from people connecting with others on the “Raised by Narcissists” subreddit to process their childhood experiences to utilizing niche communities to solve problems that are unique to their career field. The answers that stood out the most were people who shared how the space allowed them to understand people who don’t share their beliefs. One user told me that he would often visit subreddits from the other side of the political aisle just to lurk because he found that a lot of his friends shared similar perspectives to him; without anyone to ask, he wanted to understand the other side and thought this was a great way to do it. He noted that a lot of the conversations may have shown extreme versions of views on that issue, yet he found it helpful in considering things he hadn’t before. Notably, there are entire subreddits dedicated to this type of discussion including r/asktrumpsupporters and r/askaliberal whose entire goal it is to have honest and real dialogue with people who think differently. It stands out to me that the same cognitive dissonance that makes it difficult to respond with an open mind when challenged might be the exact thing that drives people to these anonymous spaces. It’s a safe option to ask questions that might challenge one’s thinking in an invitational environment. Not only is it anonymous, but it may feel safer because those involved have already agreed to practice dialogue rather than judgment and division. It’s exactly the type of space that Foss & Griffin (1995) suggest creates openness to new ideas. The largest difference between stories like these and the ones above is the presence of humanization. It’s often surprising to me that I often see more instances of humanization when studying anonymous communities than I do anywhere else. If you had asked me before I began my research if this would be the case, I probably would have hypothesized that it wouldn’t. How do you humanize people when you have no idea who they are? But I have also considered that maybe the decision is less about other people and more about our own willingness to let down our guard. Is it possible that, in anonymity, we feel like we have permission to be vulnerable and open? I’ve often wondered

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if anonymity can be something that allows us to transcend the dissonance that makes us hold tight to our beliefs if we let it. We can say things like “I don’t know” or “I want to learn more” without fear of judgment by our peers or what we will find out if we let ourselves listen. I wonder what would happen if we did that all the time? There’s something important happening in anonymous online spaces that has kept me engrossed in research on the topic for years. With that said, my favorite story of the internet bridging the divide between worldviews comes in the form of one person’s experience on Twitter that wasn’t anonymous at all. In fact, a lot of it took place in the public eye. In her 2019 memoir, Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, Megan Phelps-Roper shared how Twitter dialogue changed her life. Phelps-Roper was a child of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, known for their “God hates fags” signs and picketing military funerals. A grandchild of founder Fred Phelps, Megan grew up working for her family and deeply entrenched in their doctrine; she never questioned her family’s views for most of her life. In her famous TED Talk and book, she shares the depth of the indoctrination that kept her anchored in these views from early childhood, no matter how often she was challenged in them. She firmly believed that everyone outside of her church was the enemy. In a prime example of groupthink, even asking questions about their beliefs was viewed as sinful. Speaking out in any way meant giving up her family, her home, and everything she had known and those that had previously done so were spoken about as traitors. She learned quickly that the cost of dissention was high. The fact that Megan held tightly to these views for so long them isn’t surprising. Despite this, after some time spent soul searching and asking hard questions, Megan left in 2012 with her sister Grace. The thing that made Megan reconsider her family’s hateful rhetoric came via Twitter, of all places. In her memoir, she shares how strangers on Twitter who treated her with kindness and took the time to both listen and challenge her in a respectful way made her question the validity of her family’s hate-filled doctrine. It’s a fantastic example of the type of invitational rhetoric I mentioned in the last chapter. Megan was forced to humanize them when they engaged her in conversation and showed that they cared what she thought. No taunting. No insults hurled back and forth. For the first time, people were interested in her as a person. It made her more open to listen to them as well. Although it did take some time. One of the most memorable scenes in her memoir includes Megan holding a sign that reads “your Rabbi is a whore” while she and her family protested outside of a Jewish festival. Meanwhile, she and one of her new Twitter friends, a Jewish man who was an attendee at the festival, chatted and exchanged the desserts they had brought for one another. These were some of

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the same people who provided a home for her when she and her sister left the church and with it, their family and all they had ever known. Moments like these feel so surreal in a culture where division and cruelty seem to be common practice, but they really aren’t. It’s simply that the loudest voices are the divisive ones. In reality, we need to wrestle with ideas that seem scary to us whether we have this safety net or not. We can’t simply run away from challenging ideas and demonize those with whom we disagree. The impact on our relationships and community is too high of a cost to pay. I’m often asked if I believe that it’s possible to return to the days of civil debate in lyceum-like spaces with friends and neighbors. My answer is a tentative “maybe.” It’s certainly possible but it will involve us making the choice to prioritize community. The good news is that there are people who are already doing it. Community is present in many online spaces, but they may not be the voices we hear when the anger and hatred seem to be so much louder. Listen for these voices and let them lead us.

Chapter 5

Community as a Place for Authenticity and Belonging

Chad (not his real name) was a sophomore Pre-Med major when I first met him in 2015 as a student in one of my classes. He was an athlete and a highly motivated student who was open about his discomfort in social situations. After a few months in my course, I noticed that he was always the first to volunteer his ideas or even to participate in silly role-playing activities to illustrate communication concepts. So, his claim surprised me as he seemed perfectly at ease and even confident around his classmates. When I shared this observation with him one day, he shook his head. “No. I would spend all day every day in my room alone if I could. But I can’t.” Chad was also the person to first introduce me to Reddit. He shared that the anonymous online social platform and the communities that he found there were where he spent a lot of his time. The anonymous format was a comfortable fit for someone who struggled with face-to-face social interaction. This is why his next statement surprised me: “I think it makes me more confident in real life. I feel connected to people there and that carries over to real life.” These people described by Chad didn’t know one another’s names. Never continued a conversation outside of Reddit. And they had no way to validate the truth of anything that anyone shared. But yet, somehow it was a place where he felt a sense of belonging and the people in his community, random people on the other side of the internet, mattered to him—even if not individually. In my years of research about the topic of online spaces, I’ve had a lot of conversations just like this one. The word “community” seems to be a reoccurring theme. What stands out to me and has from the first time that I encountered it, is that what I saw didn’t seem to match what most of us see as a “community.” Yet, if the people who engaged in these spaces and felt a sense of belonging and connection, then I needed to find out why. I was quick to judge, but by the end of my research, these communities were the places 71

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that gave me the most hope. There is absolutely connection taking place online by every definition I’ve given. People supporting one another. People listening to one another. People giving one another a sense of belonging. We could learn a lot from online spaces. I’ve been honest about the good and bad. I could have painted a very rose-colored picture of our online culture; however, despite my continuing optimism in our online future, even I know it wouldn’t have been a very realistic representation. Division and cruelty exist and are causing harm to our society. But there’s something I want to bring to your attention: for every one of these disconnected spaces, there is a real person behind it making real choices. And for every one of those spaces, there are a lot of others where someone made the opposite choice: to see people, to choose humanization, and to create a sense of community. I want to focus on those people and those spaces. In this chapter, I will share how the internet is being used to build relationships and help people—like our friend, Chad—find belonging, and grow communities in very real and beautiful ways. In the sections that follow, I’m going to break down some of the aspects of the hyperpersonal world that can make connection stronger and better if we choose it. EXPANDING THE BORDERS OF OUR COMMUNITY One of the benefits of existing in an online world is that our world is more “flat,” an idea brought forth by Thomas Friedman (2005). He didn’t mean in shape, but rather in how our communities have expanded beyond the small villages in which we once lived. He called this “globalization 3.0.” One of those factors that he felt led to this globalization was the advent of Netscape, one of the earliest internet browsers. He touted its connecting power to bring people together across the globe. Now people from a variety of places, perspectives, and experiences would be able to share and participate in communities with one another. While this is certainly more prevalent now than it was in 1995 when Netscape was first introduced, it took some time before the internet became an engrained part of our daily lives. Even as we started to utilize it more, for many, it still wasn’t the place where they actively sought community. But the number of people who were willing to give it a try grew when the world “shut down” in March 2020 amidst a global COVID pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. The idea of “community” in a globalized world was put to a unique test. Would we stay connected to one another without face-to-face interactions? In March 2020, we had no choice but to find out.

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Most businesses and gathering places shut down completely and schools, churches, and social groups found themselves at the mercy of Zoom. People turned to social media to stay connected to the outside world. It taught us an interesting lesson: community is a choice. Maybe the internet wasn’t the thing keeping us from community. In fact, maybe it could be a fantastic vehicle for it. As an educator, in only days, I had to figure out how to pivot a face-to-face classroom to an online format. I was surrounded by buzzwords like “flexibility” and “engagement” and where I was tasked with both ushering students through an uncertain time (while also being pretty uncertain myself) and ensuring that they felt a sense of investment in our classroom community. I’m surprised by the number of fond memories I have from this time. I recall spending the first ten minutes of class meeting my students’ pets via Zoom with a special appearance by my own cat, Goose. There was a student who came to office hours just to chat because she had strained family relationships and didn’t have much contact with other people. The lockdowns left her feeling isolated and our chats during office hours made her feel less alone. We didn’t talk about anything important, but she told me on the last day of class how much it had meant to her. Another memory that stands out to me was when students rallied to support a classmates’ father whose restaurant was struggling due to the lockdowns; they began ordering there and also spread the word to their friends and family via social media. I also marveled at the creativity of my students who adapted their group projects to an engaging video format after our previous plan was no longer an option. It’s a long list of good memories for a time that was so difficult for our world, namely because of people who chose to encourage and uplift one another, despite the limited face-to-face contact. In those early days when we acknowledged our collective struggle, we seemed open to the idea of community. If only it had stayed that way. Rising political tensions, coupled with anger and uncertainty, made this time of harmony short-lived. But what stood out to me was that when we actively chose it and when we recognized the value in other people, we were able to connect with and support one another using the technology that we had. One of my favorite examples of community and connection during the height of the COVID pandemic came from my husband. An intensive care nurse at the time, the realities of COVID were felt almost immediately for he and his colleagues. He was faced with the uncertainty of a new disease for which there seemed to be few consistent answers, scared families and patients, and being surrounded by the loss of life almost daily. It took a toll on him, and he certainly wasn’t alone. I felt helpless to know how to support him when my experience looked so much different. My biggest challenges included navigating new, but familiar,

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modalities in my classroom, supporting stressed and uncertain students, and helping my then 4th grader adapt to at-home learning while mourning the loss of his beloved lacrosse season. My concerns were much less pressing than his. To say I was fortunate was an understatement given the impact of the Pandemic on those around me. While I did go to the internet for suggestions and support of the students in my classroom and was grateful for the community of fellow educators and their expertise, this was nothing compared to the way that my husband utilized online spaces. For me, it was a wealth of information. For him, it was a lifeline. Nursing is already a hard profession. Carrying the weight of so much responsibility for the lives of other human beings takes a toll. My husband already followed several podcasts and online groups where he and other nurses shared their experiences with others who would understand, something that we, his family, certainly couldn’t do. I was thankful he had these communities of people who did. But the Pandemic took this type of support network to another level. Stories shared of lives lost, vents, laments, and suggestions were all a necessary part of survival. They needed one another because nobody else was going to understand. He had the benefit of finding community with people all over the world who were experiencing the same things. He learned from others on Reddit that baby monitors were a great way to communicate from inside a contained Covid-positive patient’s room. He learned techniques and language for gently addressing scared families who were hurting and angry that they weren’t permitted to see their loved ones, dictated by policies outside of his control. And, probably most helpful to him, he vented and shared his own uncertainty, hurt, and exhaustion with a situation that felt hopeless. He wasn’t alone. In a 2021 study by Jong, Liang, and Yang, researchers considered how medical professionals relied more on one another than any official or government-provided resources during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resources shared among medical professionals were integral in creating information channels and support networks where none existed (Jong, Liang and Yang 2021). Like us, their families may not have fully understood what they were experiencing, but medical professionals had an entire community of others who did. The internet made this possible. While the internet can be a barrier to community if we let it, it can also be a place that offers us something unique and important. During these COVID lockdowns, people could still attend church, continue their education, and stay connected to their friends and family. It was a hard pivot for a lot of us, but it proved to us that community is still community regardless of how we get there. There are other ways that we utilize this “flatter” world to connect.

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During the postponed 2020 Olympics in the Summer of 2021, gymnastics fans across the globe commented on a trend that stood out because of the contrast to previous Olympic games: international friendships between gymnasts. While gymnasts had always met a few times per year at international competitions, they rarely had substantial relationships. But this time, something was different: the competitors were clearly friends. 2021 World Champion Angelina Melnikova of Russia seemed to know everyone on the floor and was often seen cheering for her international counterparts. Jessica and Jennifer Gadirova, twin sisters from Great Britain competing in their first Olympics, spent their time taking photos for Instagram of their own favorite gymnasts while expanding on relationships already built online. Their excitement was contagious. It was an entirely new mood. Gymnastics had come a long way from the days of icy interactions, cold war style promotional pieces, and athletes who spent the time in between competition chilling one another with their icy glares. The internet made this possible. Another example of this “globalization 3.0” is how the internet brought connection to spaces that were once a much more individualized and less connected experience. For example, television, so often accused of creating barriers to connection, can actually be an even more connected experience when you have access to an entire world of people with whom to share the experience. In 2021, Disney released the highly anticipated Wandavision, the first television show from the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise. It centered around the not-yet-named Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff, who was last seen in the Avengers movies, an orphan who had recently lost her twin brother Pietro in a battle with supervillain Ultron and later, her partner, the android Vision, in a battle with another supervillain, Thanos. In other words, when we last saw Wanda, she wasn’t in a great place. So it was surprising to viewers when the series opened onto a whimsical black and white 1950s style comedy featuring both Wanda and the newly deceased, Vision, who it appeared was alive and well. The first episode introduced their suburban home in the happy upbeat town of Westview, New Jersey, surrounded by their quirky neighbors with the plot carried along by quippy dialogue. Ingredients flew through the air as Wanda prepared to host Vision’s boss for dinner and the couple joked about how Vision didn’t eat food, complete with a standard television laugh track. It was a far cry from anything we had previously seen of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But, as the plot progressed, it became clear that something was amiss. There seemed to be memory gaps for the two main characters as Wanda and Vision failed to remember large parts of their story, including how they arrived in Westview or why they appeared to be in a television show. And things quickly turned

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creepy, as during dinner, Vision’s boss began to ask too many questions and suddenly found himself choking on a piece of steak. To add to the suspense, only moments later, the characters seemed to have forgotten the incident entirely. The episode ended with the camera panning out to a separate room where it appeared that someone was watching everything we just witnessed from a television screen. The first episode left Marvel devotees and casual fans alike asking a lot of questions. What was happening in Westview? Who was the person observing them? Was Vision still alive? With Disney’s choice to release one episode per week, fans took to the internet to ask questions, discuss clues, and attempted to uncover the mysteries in the series. Fans of the comic books were quick to chime in with a discussion of the House of M comic series, featuring a similar storyline about the same cast of characters, and to speculate about possibilities for the series. Weeks were spent devoted to making a case for a future appearance of Mephisto, an alter-ego of the Devil that appears in several of the Marvel comic books. Fans argued that Marvel was foreshadowing the reveal of Mephisto as the villain of the show, as several allusions to the Devil appeared throughout the series. When (*spoiler alert*) he did not turn out to be the villain after months of speculating, “Mephisto, confirmed” became an ongoing joke among Redditors in Marvel subreddits noting instances where fans latch on to a theory and seem intent on proving it. Wanda and her story progressed while leaving a trail of clues about what was really taking place. Likewise, fans built their own community around solving the mystery. Does the story of a fictional witch and superhero—or supervillain, depending on whom you ask—Wanda Maximoff really change the world in any meaningful way? No. I would argue it doesn’t. But people were simply having fun together. They were connected. It stood out to me that Wandavision aired after a notably volatile election season and only a week after the January 6, 2021, insurrection where protestors stormed the United States Capital in protest. COVID was still surging. And political tension was everywhere. But I noticed that in the communities where Wandavision sleuthing was taking place, despite the volatile time period in which the show was launched, very few people seemed to be talking about politics. Very few people were debating the results of the 2020 election. Very few people were arguing over COVID. Instead, they were building online relationships bonding over a Marvel show. One of the benefits of this wider reach is that we also have more opportunities to meet people, share interests, and be reminded that we aren’t alone. That certainly feels connecting to me.

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THE SHARED HUMAN EXPERIENCE One of the first things that stood out to me in my research of online communities is how many people were utilizing online spaces in lieu of support networks. The second was that they seemed to be surprisingly effective. In some cases, they were arguably even more effective than their in-person counterparts. For one of my studies, I decided to see how people were utilizing online spaces to discuss topics that are sometimes considered taboo. Over the series of six months, I visited several online eating disorder support forums across a variety of online mediums. It felt like an odd place to go for eating disorder support but to my surprise, these spaces were full of some of the most supportive dialogue around the subject that I’ve read anywhere. Users expressed how online spaces helped them fully admit the reality of their situation. Sentiments like “I am ashamed to tell my family that I purged again” and “I’m really struggling with the temptation right now” were common. Responses often followed with variations of “me too” or offering support, coupled with suggestions that worked for them. I wasn’t entirely surprised that other posters often encouraged those posting there to get help, but I was more surprised to find how many later shared that they did because of this advice. It seemed that despite the fact that disordered eating is often a topic often surrounded by shame and taboo, having a space to share their experiences allowed them a safe and judgement-free place to be honest about their struggles. Park, Conway, & Chen (2018) performed a similar rhetorical analysis of several mental health communities like the eating disorder support spaces that I studied. They found that those who utilized these anonymous online support communities often did find long-term solutions. This made more sense to me after a series of research projects I completed where I looked specifically at online social support networks used for things like former trafficking victims, overcoming childhood trauma, and even for those considering suicide. There seemed to be something about the online world that afforded users a freedom that they didn’t feel in all of their face-to-face interactions. The key component that stood out to me was the prevalence of what appeared to be authenticity and vulnerability. It’s not shocking to me that the “me too” movement found its footing online. The #metoo hashtag began with activist Tarana Burke in 2006, although it took some time before it would gain traction. Celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Alyssa Milano would later share their experience with sexual harassment and sexual assault to start a tidal wave of women doing likewise via social media. This led to several high-profile sexual assault and

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harassment cases involving celebrities like Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, and Kevin Spacey, among many others (Sossi 2022). Sexual violence and harassment often stays under the radar because of the shame and uncertainty that surround them. People who experience them often feel that they are alone and misunderstood. Hashtag activism counters this by drawing attention to the number of people who have experienced something similar and putting language to the experience. I often think of a quote by author Brené Brown when I consider how movements like #metoo create a sense of collectivism around taboo and sometimes “shameful” topics for those who have experienced them: If you put shame in a petri dish and cover it with judgment, silence, and secrecy, you’ve created the perfect environment for shame to grow until it makes its way into every corner and crevice of your life. If, on the other hand, you put shame in a petri dish and douse it with empathy, shame loses its power and begins to wither. Empathy creates a hostile environment for shame—an environment it can’t survive in, because shame needs you to believe you’re alone, and it’s just you. (Brown 2018)

In short, there is power in speaking our story. There is even more power in collective empathy and recognizing that we aren’t alone. It sure feels like community to me. In 2004, Frank Warren began a community mail art project that turned in to a worldwide phenomenon. He asked users to mail postcards directly to his Maryland home revealing their secrets. He then chose ten anonymous secrets to post to his blog every Sunday. The fact that it became a worldwide phenomenon is something that probably even Warren himself couldn’t have predicted. Yet, his project has only gained popularity with the number of secrets sent to Warren in the tens of thousands. In recent years, Warren has teamed up with suicide hotlines and created a speaking tour to visit colleges across the nation to discuss mental health and suicide in response to the many secrets he receives about those who feel desperate and struggle to seek help. In addition to several books, the website has spawned two apps, one unsuccessful and later, Whisper, an app for posting secrets, which is still in use. In 2017, the Smithsonian featured an exhibit of Warren’s postcards. It seems that his experiment went well. On his website, people share their deepest secrets ranging from confessions about infidelity to childhood trauma. When asked about which were the most popular secrets he received, Warren shared that the first was “I pee in the shower” but the second: “I see this secret every time I go to my mailbox. I always see it expressed a different way . . . It’s basically a story about trying to find that one person who you can tell all your secrets to. There’s that

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common thread, that search for intimacy, that search for the one person we can be our whole and true selves with” (Schaffer 2014). For many, PostSecret itself is that community. The online community surrounding PostSecret has steadily grown since its inception in 2004, pointing to a need for connection and an outlet for somewhere where people can be their authentic selves and share even the darkest parts. “Collegefessions” and similar confession-sharing websites, often driven by social media, also saw a time of popularity in the 2000s. Most were localized to specific colleges or towns and allowed users to spill their deepest secrets anonymously. Reddit’s “Confession Bear” would later join this trend, although Reddit was still in its earliest stages of popularity. It was a subreddit intended to be humorous where users could post anonymous confessions as a meme using the “Confession Bear” as a backdrop. It was part of a larger trend of “advice animals” that would grow in popularity circa 2012. While some were lighthearted, others focused on things like rape, death, racism, among other challenging topics. One poster used the Confession Bear meme to admit to murder. Confession Bear would go on to have his own Twitter handle and other celebrated notoriety. However, despite their popularity, these types of websites were notorious for cyberbullying (Vickery 2014). These illustrate one of the most contradictory phenomena that I’ve found in my years of research: some of the most connected online spaces I’ve encountered are anonymous ones. They are also some of the worst for bullying and cruelty. If ever there was evidence that at the core of whether community exists is our own willingness to choose it, this is it. If the argument is that we aren’t relying on one another, and we aren’t sharing our lives and stories with each other anymore because of the internet, I would argue that this isn’t true at all. We are just doing it differently. And we are doing it in ways that we may not have done at all without the benefit of the internet. In my research, I also found spaces where people seemed to be exploring their own story. Being removed from their face-to-face communities can create a freedom that empowers them to stop worrying about social stigmas, judgment, and the perception of consequences. While removing the perception of consequences can be a recipe for disaster, it can also allow people to practice authenticity in important ways. Bessière, Seay, and Kiesler (2007) completed a study of the game World of Warcraft which is a great example of this phenomenon. They found that players often created personas that reflected their own idealized self. They shared, “despite the many rules, constraints, and difficulties of the game world, its anonymity and fantasy frees players from the yoke of their real-life history and social situation, allowing them to be more like the person they wish they were” (534). Their study found that users were actually able to increase their

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sense of self-worth through the game and engaging in fantasy play as their character. Over time, they began to take on more of the characteristics of their idealized self that they portrayed. They utilized fantasy to help them become the things that they wanted to be. One of the questions that this leads me to is whether we become those things because of the role-playing or whether the role-playing allows us to explore parts of ourselves that were already there? I’m not sure there are easy answers to that one. Suler’s (2004) theory contests that the hyperpersonal frees users from societal constraints; one could argue that the true self becomes more apparent without these constraints and the perceived consequences of our choices. We have more room for self-discovery, for better or for worse. But there’s also evidence that we are impacted by things like groupthink or other pressure to conform to these spaces. It’s very possible that both are true. Miller (2016) offered insights into online “coming out” forums in light of Suler’s disinhibition effect. The forum acts as a place where the LGBTQIA+ community can connect with others and ask questions of those who have had similar experiences, albeit anonymously. For many LGBTQIA+ people, coming out is a difficult experience. There is often fear of rejection, homelessness, and safety. The author recognized the importance of disinhibition as users are able to engage in self-exploration in relative safety. Some might “role-play” as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community while working up the courage to admit to themselves that this is their reality. Others might already identify as LGBTQIA+ but aren’t ready to come out to family and friends. Instead, they have a place to ask hard questions to find out how others navigated their experiences before finding the courage to do so themselves. A benefit of online community is that it can allow spaces for minority expression where less or none might exist in face-to-face interactions. Armstrong, Thomas, and Smith (2017) studied anonymous discussions of the Black Lives Matter movement on the previously mentioned anonymous Yik Yak app. If you’ll recall, Yik Yak was the geographically centered anonymous app that fell under scrutiny by many college administrators across the country. While Yik Yak is often saddled with a bad reputation, their research actually found that it was helpful for the purpose of engaging in dialogue surrounding the BLM movement. That’s not to say that hate speech didn’t exist there as well, although not necessarily any more than in other types of communication. However, they found that the anonymous communication there served as a starting point for dialogue about racial tensions that existed on their college campus. It allowed students and administrators to address these questions and concerns in a meaningful way. There was value in seeing what was produced by the student body when they were allowed to speak freely

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without fearing consequences whether that be from their peers, school administrators, or otherwise. As a result, they were able to see areas for improvement and where conversations were needed to help students understand one another better. While the interactions that take place in online communities can lack some of the authenticity of face-to-face interactions, that’s not always the case. They can offer people a place to feel like they are participating in something bigger than themselves if they choose. The shared human experience allows people to connect and experience moments of “me too” and feel as if they are less unseen, unheard, and less alone. In online spaces, we get to be human together. A SENSE OF CONNECTION The most challenging part about writing this chapter is that as I’m making my case for the connection that I’ve seen over and over in my years of research, there are so many examples that I don’t have room to include. I want to share the story of how in fall 2022, in my local amusement park season pass-holders group, we collectively celebrated a member who committed to and successfully rode the Great Bear rollercoaster at Hersheypark 1,000 times. He exited his last ride to a cheering crowd of friends who knew each other entirely through their interactions online and even more friends via livestream provided by a member of the group. It was watched by over 300 live viewers and many more in the days that followed. After a summer of sharing tips about where to find the best burgers in the park, complaints about teenagers cutting in line, “heads-up” warnings about especially long lines, and just overall enthusiasm for our beloved park, the group gathered to experience collective joy for our new friend. His accomplishment will likely never show up in any record book, but I will never forget the collective joy of seeing the large crowd of people gathered to greet him at the bottom of the ramp while he jumped up and down to their cheers. Community. I want to share the story of the lacrosse Dad who I met at a clinic my son attended. As we sat in boredom waiting for our children to finish their session, he told me about how he moved his Taekwondo studios online during COVID, giving lessons to restless kids from a makeshift studio in his basement. He felt that it was important to keep them occupied and active during COVID. He shared with me that while teaching Taekwondo is his livelihood and keeping his business alive was important to him, he saw his own children struggling and restless and wanted to do something. It’s what inspired him to include breakout rooms in his lessons to allow space for much needed social interactions and give his students opportunities to build relationships with one

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another in the midst of a global lockdown. In this case, connection came in the form of Taekwondo in front of a bedsheet backdrop ordered from Amazon and with his teenage son running the camera on the other side of their small basement. Community. I want to share the story of the newly divorced mom who came to a makeup forum on Reddit asking for help and makeup tips. She posted a picture of herself and timidly shared that she hadn’t felt like herself in a long time. She wanted to feel confident again, she said. She explained that she felt nervous and overwhelmed, and even a little bit embarrassed to visit her local cosmetics store to ask questions. She asked the group for tips regarding how she could improve her technique; however, in the comments, she found both advice for how to get a smoother foundation look and encouragement and reminders that she isn’t alone. Community. I want to share the story of a Harrisburg community Facebook page created by a local man who wanted a way to provide information among neighbors. A community effort, the page is full of traffic updates, discussion of problems in the city, and a surprisingly civil sharing of diverse perspectives. What stood out to me upon my first visit there was that the page’s members were so committed to maintaining community. I quickly saw that while sharing differing perspectives is always welcome, attacking people was not. Any skirmish that might cross the line would subside quickly with reminders from other community members, usually followed by the offender’s quick apologies. It became one of my favorite places on the internet despite living quite a bit outside of the city myself and rarely seeing any information that pertained to me. There was a genuine sense of connection. During big moments like prom and graduation, parents would proudly post photos of their children for their community to celebrate with them. People would mourn with one another over a community member’s loss. And I’ve never seen a community rally in search of missing children like this one. My favorite story from this page is when a man posted a video of his neighbor’s son running up and down the street, while explaining that he was training to be a boxer. The boy was about twelve years old, and the neighbor added a picture of his makeshift boxing equipment in the backyard. As a punching bag, the boy used an old piece of fence tied to a tree, on which he had recently injured his hand. From the background of the photo, it was clear that this was not a family who could afford expensive equipment or a boxing club membership. No explanation was needed. The poster put a call out to the community asking if anyone had any unwanted equipment that they could donate so he could safely train. What followed were posts upon posts of offers for donations, despite Harrisburg city not being a particularly wealthy community. Some offered their own equipment, or tagged others they knew who might be able to provide some. Others with connections to local boxing

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clubs were able to find options for scholarships for him. They showed up for a twelve-year-old boy without ever knowing his name. This is, unquestionably, community. Stories like these are why I refuse to give up on the internet. There are many online spaces that are bringing people together in beautiful ways, we just have to choose to see them. I see this everywhere I turn. Relationships that are built online, sustained online, and are making the world a better place. In several instances, I’ve mentioned that the trajectory of media has led scholars to argue that we have moved further away from connection. As I have shared, while maybe that’s true for some of us, some of us have found more community and spaces to overcome the barriers to connection that we often encounter and we’ve found them online. The “arc” that I discussed shows that we are seeking new ways to return to our days of storytelling and small community. If video games pulled us away from relationships, collective streaming services like Twitch gave us the chance to share those video games with friends and strangers alike. If books pulled us away from meeting with friends to share stories, online spaces gave us a community to discuss those books with others who present a variety of diverse perspectives. If our televisions kept us from social interactions, Twitter gave us a place to share our feelings, predictions, and excitement about them. If social media moved us away from authenticity, apps like BeReal gave us incentive to be true to who we are. I could keep going. But what I want to point out is that it’s clear from the list I’ve offered that we keep choosing community. And we have to continue to do so. By McMillan and Chavis’s (1986) standards, the online world truly can provide us with a “sense of community” if we choose it. If you’ll recall, their criteria for achieving a sense of community included: a feeling of belonging and identification by the group, a sense of feeling like one matters and is making a difference, the feeling that relationships are reciprocated and that needs are being mutually fulfilled, and finally an emotional connection of shared history, experiences, time spent together, and vulnerability. For many people, the online world is providing exactly these things and even sometimes in ways that they couldn’t achieve in face-to-face interactions. When I was at a stay-at-home mom, I often felt alone and disconnected. While I attended mom groups and had friends, I rarely felt a sense of community. I felt like I had to present my best self and show that I knew what I was doing when actually, I spent my days doubting myself and feeling insecure about every decision. Looking back, I’m confident that many of my

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friends felt the same way but were afraid to admit it, just like I was. But the online world was where I found community. Other moms admitting fears and doubts, sharing suggestions, and reminding one another that it might be hard, but we were all doing the best we could and our kids were going to be okay. I couldn’t tell you what a single mom that I met there is doing today but I can tell you that my community was real. I felt seen, heard, and understood. We were vulnerable and honest in a way that I struggled to do anywhere else at the time. I felt connection. As I write this, despite all of my doubts, my son is now a thriving thirteen-year-old full of confidence, kindness, and a little more stubbornness than I would prefer but I know it’s going to take him far in life. I certainly can’t say that this support network is the only factor that got him to where he is today, but I can tell you it certainly helped me to trust myself to be a better mother. I struggle when I hear other scholars discount these communities as bad or lesser because I know the impact that strangers had in my life. We were a community and I’m a better person for having been a part of it. These types of communities exist all around us. It’s easy to forget that when we see the negativity, but behind every negative or positive interaction is a choice. Do we choose community and all the good that it brings? Do we choose to encourage, lift people up, build relationships, grow together, and learn from one another? It’s up to us.

Chapter 6

The Case for Community in Online Spaces and Hope for the Future

My case for community in online spaces is not just a case that community still exists but it’s also my plea. I spent the previous five chapters offering the groundwork to understand our online world and how sometimes, it doesn’t really foster the kind of community that we seek. My hope is that those of us who seek the instant gratification of counterfeit connection, the safety of avoiding real vulnerability, and the temptation to follow the crowd instead of doing something better amidst a divided world will take a step back and realize what it’s really costing us. I had every intention of writing this final chapter full of citations and mounds upon mounds evidence and research to make my case; however, as I read everything that I’ve shared up until this point, it feels too important to hand you something full of academic jargon. I want to speak to you human-to-human. My plea is this: don’t give up on us. There’s too much evidence that we need one another and are truly seeking community, but a lot of us just don’t fully understand how and where to find it. There are too many places where beautiful things are happening online. Too many places where people are showing up for each other. And so much evidence of vibrant and flourishing communities. But behind every one of these communities is a choice to take the path that isn’t the easier route. I am asking you to take that path and choose to fight for a future full of kindness, hope, and where we can see our fellow humans as someone of value rather than an enemy. We can do this, but it starts with each of us making that choice not once, but every day. And having the courage to be introspective about our own choices. More importantly, it requires that when we choose a path that breeds division rather than connection, that we have the courage to admit it and commit to doing better next time. The next generation is watching us and that 85

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makes it all the more essential we get it right. We need to admit that growth needs to happen, and it needs to start with us. We know what it looks and feels like to live in community with one another. There is no feeling in the world like connection. We are at our best as humans when we feel seen, known, and appreciated. When we feel like we belong. It’s a feeling worth fighting for. But if you are anything like me, you also look around at some of the hate and vitriol and think it feels out of reach. Doing the hard work to be part of a cultural shift often feels like a pointless and difficult task and like the mountain is too large to climb. But I remind myself daily that while it may feel easier right now, the most difficult thing would be to lose our community. We can’t keep choosing what feels like the easier route only to be shocked when it doesn’t fulfill us. The void that we are trying to fill isn’t an instant gratification one and trying to fill it that way will never work. We need to do the hard work of being uncomfortable, being vulnerable, and embracing the people around us as valuable and important. Our humanity depends on it. I’ve offered you discussion rooted in science, research, and theory, but my favorite questions regarding my research come not when I have the opportunity to explain how we got here, but when I’m asked about where we are going. There is nothing that I love more than when I’m asked about what we can do better. In my years of research, I’ve found several key trends that highlight what it looks like to exist in community and connection with one another. In this chapter, I want to share these findings with you and offer a few key pieces of advice for how we can both seek spaces that foster connection and, also create those spaces ourselves. IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE #1: SEE THE HUMANITY IN OTHER PEOPLE I am asking you to get uncomfortable. I realize this is a big ask because when faced with the choice of discomfort or ease, we are usually going to choose what feels like the easier path. But unfortunately, when it comes to community, the “easy” path is a temporary fix. We need our community, and in the end, the discomfort of living without it is greater than the discomfort of vulnerability. The first way we need to get uncomfortable is by stepping out of our comfort zone and choosing real connection with other human beings. This means acknowledging the humanity of each person whom we encounter, in person or online. Our interactions matter. Suler’s (2004) work tells us that there is a level of disinhibition that occurs when we communicate through a screen or

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whatever virtual device we choose, which means that there has to be a level of intentionality in choosing humanity when we engage in online spaces. For most of us, this is easier in spaces where connection is already taking place. When we have those “me too” moments where someone shares our story, it’s much easier to remember that the person on the other side of the internet is another human being. They feel so much more like us. It’s a little bit harder when engaging with people with whom we disagree. Last semester, in my Magazine Writing class, I had a student who had come to our university from a conservative home. I could tell from our conversations that she seemed to be wrestling with her own political leanings and trying to find her own perspectives in the jumble of ideas surrounding her. For a feature article assignment for my course, she decided to attend and profile a talk by an author and local political figure addressing poverty and racism in our community. Her willingness to attend the event stood out to me because she was willing to be open; she wanted to listen and learn about things she didn’t know. Given everything I have already told you about how we encounter ideas that challenge us, this is a much braver posture than most of us acknowledge. Her intention was to write a profile of the event, but the end result was something entirely different. What she produced was a very personal walk through the evening as a perceived outsider that I found to be one of the most powerful pieces of writing that has come through my classroom. She detailed how she spent the first half of the event feeling surprised by how much she agreed with the speakers and how much they had in common. As a result, some of the perspectives and stories made her consider things she hadn’t before. It put a human face to some of the complexity of poverty, a topic she hadn’t experienced herself and, as a result, felt that she couldn’t fully understand. But she wanted to. Her writing was full of vivid detail and reflection that made me feel both like I was attending the event and also, inside of her mind. But then, the piece took an abrupt turn. In response to an audience question, the speakers began referring to the “red hat wearers” (referencing the “Make America Great Again” hats popularized by Donald Trump) and making cruel and belittling comments about them. She noted how the language abruptly turned to an “us vs. them” narrative. While she didn’t necessarily align with the “red hat wearers” herself, she struggled with their cruel comments as her parents had voted for Trump, and she was still trying to determine her own side of the aisle. Although she never said a word during her time there, for the first time that evening, she felt like she wasn’t welcome. Instead, she felt closed and defensive. Her article was a phenomenal piece of writing that captured something important. Dehumanization is a barrier to connection. In this case, it was also a missed

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opportunity to share a new perspective with someone who had been open to hearing it. Although it happened in a large group setting versus online in this instance, what stands out to me about this student’s experience is that she showed up open and ready to learn. The views on poverty being shared weren’t traditionally conservative ones, yet she was very open to learning when the discussion was about those issues. When it turned to attacks on groups surrounding those issues rather than the issues themselves, she stopped listening. I think it’s a challenging discussion because, as I scroll through this political figure’s Twitter feed, I see plenty of people who would proudly identify as “red hat wearers” posting similarly dehumanizing content aimed at him. And, likewise, I see dehumanizing content posted by his supporters as responses to those comments. Moreover, many would argue that the original “red hat wearer” Trump himself spewed his share of dehumanizing comments. So maybe some of my readers think that this justifies it, but I am willing to take a hard stance that it doesn’t. Not only is it a cycle that needs to be broken, but it is also a cycle that isn’t working. Cruelty, common-enemy intimacy, dehumanization—they are all short-term solutions that don’t satisfy our need for connection. We are capable of better. I sometimes wonder how many times I have missed an opportunity for dialogue because I made someone feel unseen or unheard, just like this student. Did I make a sarcastic comment about people on the other side of the aisle without recognizing that present company might have been included in that group? Did I post something that oversimplified a complex issue and made someone feel like their perspectives were misunderstood? Despite my best efforts, I’m guessing I have. It’s easy to slide into these habits when they seem to be all around us, but this isn’t the better way. These were lost chances for missed discussion about hard topics. Lost chances for me to learn something new. And given the findings of Aron and Aron’s (1996) work that shows our relationships are made stronger by conversations that challenge us, lost chances for connection. I want to be someone who sees the human story behind every person I encounter, online or in face-to-face interactions. Even if what they say makes me uncomfortable—maybe, especially if what they say makes me uncomfortable. I want to resist the temptation to see someone as a “them,” and instead see them as someone with value and worth and who didn’t arrive at their perspectives without a lot of experiences first. Those perspectives are worth trying to understand. I can staunchly disagree with what someone says, and even how they say it, and still see the importance and value in them as a person; that’s a change we desperately need to make in our world. I think it feels simpler when we explain it in a political context since we don’t have to look far to see these examples, but I would guess that beyond

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that, most of us don’t think we practice dehumanization. It’s a word that packs a lot of baggage and history. We often use that phrase when talking about the propaganda that slowly led to the anti-Jewish sentiments in Nazi Germany. We talk about it in terms of atrocities committed against slaves. It’s a word that comes with baggage, so I understand the temptation to write it off as something that we don’t do. But unfortunately, that’s not the case for most of us, even those of us who are well-intentioned. And more importantly, these examples are exactly why it’s so important that we have this conversation. Neuroscientists Gale Murrow and Richard Murrow presented a case for the way that that the brain responds to dehumanization that makes this conversation even more important. Their research led them to believe that dehumanizing language actually leads to a reduced sense of empathy; we may see those we dislike as less human and less worthy of our concern. They noted that this probably happens without us realizing it: If implicit dehumanization of a target social group dampens the response of neural empathic pain mechanisms to that group, this could help shed light on the long anecdotal and historical relation between dehumanization and the catastrophic human rights abuses, such as torture and genocide, that have stubbornly persisted, along with implicit biases, across time and legal culture. It could also shed light upon the insidiously unconscious nature of social prejudice and the impact of dehumanizing hate speech and current legal fictions of “personhood” in enabling it. (Murrow and Murrow 2015)

I think it’s notable that Murrow and Murrow agree that the majority of us don’t really see our taunts as being particularly harmful, but the impact is probably more damaging than we realize. So maybe you aren’t someone who spends your time online posting taunts about the other side of the aisle, but let me give an example that might feel a little bit closer to home: when was the last time you heard someone talk cruelly about a celebrity? Did you find yourself shocked when someone said, of a controversial celebrity, “ugh, he/she is such trash”? I know I have heard comments like these and moved on with my day without a lot of concern; but I was wrong. Dehumanization and cruelty, even when aimed at people who seem so far removed from us, still impact lives, ours included. Dehumanization is a spiral that shapes our thinking and can do so in dangerous ways if we let it. In the summer of 2021, gymnast Sunisa Lee won the Olympic all-around gold medal. While the gymnastics community may have known her name, she never dominated the spotlight prior to her win in the way Simone Biles had for the previous decade. Simone was the expected winner and still holds the record as the winningest gymnast in history. However, during the

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competition, mental health concerns caused Biles to remove herself from competition for her own safety. Instead, it was eighteen-year-old Sunisa Lee who stole the spotlight and walked away with a well-deserved gold medal. Her life changed overnight. She went from being an elite gymnast with a small fanbase who was on her way to Auburn University in the fall to being the center of attention. Suddenly, she was a household name. This included endorsement deals and a stint on Dancing with the Stars just months after her win. Security was needed at her home NCAA meets at Auburn University to keep her safe from overzealous fans. In September 2021, Sunisa Lee shared with the Huffington Post how much she struggled with the vitriol online, some of which even came at the hands of her own Hmong community when she began to date a black man, USC Football Player, Jaylin Smith. “I guess I just realized that people will always have an opinion on what you do, and I think I just let it get to me,” she shared (Dicker 2022). Why is that we think we get a say in the lives of celebrities? Why is it so easy to forget that real human beings might be reading the unkind things that we say about them? When we strip the humanity from other people, even in ways that feel innocent at the time, it not only changes how we see them but it also changes us. The escalation that occurs as a result of dehumanization is a considerable factor in how someone might move from simply holding a particular political ideology to wishing death on political figures who oppose one’s ideas. And apparently these aren’t always just threats. Senator Susan Collins had a window smashed in her home. Representative Pramila Jayapal had someone show up in her home with a semiautomatic handgun, brandishing it while yelling threats. Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, was hospitalized after being attacked with a hammer in their home. And all of these were just in 2022. More importantly, it’s only a snapshot of the normalized threats of violence that have caused lawmakers to increase security measures out of concern for their own safety (Lai, Broadwater, and Hulse 2022). We’re heading down a dangerous path that has already led to division, hate, and violence and there is every indication that more of the same is in our future if something doesn’t change. When we create habits of dehumanization, it changes how we view others and makes it easier for us to justify any cruel thing that we do or say. And it’s a dangerous spiral. The biggest change needed is for us to see one another as humans. Not as “Conservatives or Liberals” or “celebrities or normal people” or “us and them” or any other designation that might divide us. As humans. Living breathing people. Imperfect people. People who have fears, doubts,

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questions, histories, faults, strengths, beauty, joy, sadness, and a host of other things that make us human. The distance created by the digital world makes this a much bigger task. However, as I illustrated in the last chapter, it’s certainly not an impossible one. Invitational rhetoric (Foss and Griffin 1995) works because it starts from a place of mutual respect and viewing the other person and their opinions as worthy, important, and valuable. Staying grounded in this is essential not just for the sake of our relationships, but for the sake of humanity. We will never convince anyone to change their perspective if they don’t feel heard and understood. Let me repeat that in case it was unclear: we will never convince anyone to change their perspective if they don’t feel heard and understood. What this means is that cruel taunts, “shutting down” tactics, name calling, and one-dimensional sucker punch memes are not changing anyone’s mind. It means that repeating talking points that overlook the argument of those on the other side are not changing anyone’s mind. Fighting hate with hate only serves to further divide and furthermore, it isn’t effective. Do you know what changes minds? Respect. Dignity. Understanding. And empathy. One of the things that stands out to me most about Megan Phelps-Roper’s story is that she spent her life being told everyone outside of Westboro Baptist was the enemy and when those same people started fights with her family or posted hateful things online in response to Westboro, this was confirmed for her. She had no reason to question it because she wasn’t seeing anything that made her doubt what she was told. Did people have a right to be hurt and angry? Absolutely. But it’s notable to me that Megan first began to reconsider her hateful rhetoric when someone treated her with grace and kindness. It was the first time that she had the opportunity to see people she had always hated, not as “them,” but as fellow humans. It stands out to me what happens when we acknowledge the humanity in others and start by believing that people are good, even if their actions make us question their goodness. And to treat people as if they are both valuable and worthy of redemption in the face of mistakes. When people exist on the other side of the internet, it’s easy to forget that they are human. We can detach from their stories, hearts, and humanity. I am asking you to make the choice not to do that. We leave space for connection when we can remember those things that do connect us and make us all human and when we can assume the best of one another.

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IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE #2: PRACTICE OPENNESS AND VULNERABILITY One of the trends I’ve found in the last few years of teaching public speaking to undergrads is that my students consistently push back on the idea of counterarguments. I’ve used evidence and psychology to explain, in no uncertain terms, that you will never change someone’s mind when you don’t start by listening. If you want to convince someone to reconsider their perspective, you first have to show them that you understand theirs. But it doesn’t seem to matter how I shape this, a sizable number of my students reject this. They have been taught that saying “the other side has a good point” is the same as admitting defeat. I understand why they feel this way. Our political climate prioritizes confidence and bravado over compromise and vulnerability. Imagine if someone standing on the stage at a presidential debate opted to spend their time agreeing with their opponent and pointing out their commonalities. Or if they simply said, “I don’t know. I have a lot of listening to do before I can form an opinion about that” I can’t imagine they would get a lot of votes. We don’t prioritize these things and candidates who echo sentiments like these are often accused of being wishy washy or told that they lack confidence. But yet, this type of openness is an essential piece to connection. This requires of us, the ability to carefully consider and question rather than leaning into the voices that validate what we already believe. It requires a lot of confidence and willingness to trust ourselves to process ideas without the help of our favorite news networks and other people on “our side” guiding us. It also involves having the self-reflection to know when we need to actively seek out people with whom we disagree to try to understand them. It involves listening, which might be the hardest of the things I’ve listed here. It often baffles me that in the countless writing and public speaking courses I have taught, most students have never had a course or even a lesson in effective listening. The irony is that this is how we spend the majority of our time. Experts estimate that we spend, on average, a 45% of our time listening. This is a sizable number compared to the 30% of our time that we spend speaking, the 16% we spend reading, and the 9% we spend writing (Adler 2017). Schools devote a considerable amount of time to teaching these other skills with writing courses, public speaking opportunities, and being taught reading skills from students’ first day in a classroom. And yet, very few schools devote time to teaching students how to listen. And those that do, typically do so sparingly. This might explain why we aren’t very good at it as a society.

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But we can’t have community in a vacuum. We have to engage with other people and their stories and experiences. We have to be willing to explore the unknown. Sometimes that means going against the grain and maybe having to disagree with the people who we thought were “our group.” But we need to train ourselves to ask hard questions and interrogate ideas. Unfortunately, this involves discomfort. There’s no way around it. So how do we practice openness? I have a few thoughts. First, we have to overcome our belief that we are already doing it. We have to be honest with ourselves. Are we being vulnerable and seeking connection or are we clicking “like” and expecting relationships to find us? Are we practicing confirmation bias or are we actively interrogating the information we encounter? Are we engaging with people who don’t think like us and have different life experiences than we do or are we giving in to the temptation to diffuse our discomfort by seeking validation of our own beliefs and experiences? And when we believe that we have connection, are we honest with ourselves about what that looks like? The counterfeit connection that often comes from groups built on groupthink and common-enemy intimacy is one of the things that scares me the most about our current political climate. So many good people I know have fallen prey to these types of groups because it feels so good to be part of something with people who think like us. I have watched friends seek more and more validation from these shaky relationships that require cruelty and conformity instead of connection. I think we really need to take a hard look at the foundation of our own groups and relationships to ensure that the connection we have and seek is built on something real and that we aren’t connecting over mutual hate or groupthink. I will take this a step further to say that real and genuine community will never require a complete adherence or agreement in order to maintain membership of that community. The similarities between cult behavior and communities forged on mutual hate stand out to me, specifically in political circles. One of the most prominent overlapping factors is how people cling to communities like these and view them as an extension of their identity. While there are elements of coercion and manipulation in how people first arrive and become interested in a cult, the greater factors for why they stay all point to a sense of control and desire for acceptance and community (Curtis 2016). That feels familiar, doesn’t it? If you fear that you will lose your community for not being in agreement, it’s not a community. Communities are about people and relationships. If we find ourselves in a position where we are afraid to dig deeper, afraid to ask hard questions, if we are afraid that the truth might cost us our community, then maybe that’s exactly why we need to ask those questions.

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Additionally, we have to risk the discomfort of admitting when we’re wrong. I’m actually convinced that it’s harder to admit to ourselves when we’re wrong than it is to admit it to other people. There’s something uniquely unsettling about having to question ourselves and our own judgement. It forces us to ask “if I was wrong about this, then what else?” But there’s an enormous freedom in this question as well. This took me a lifetime to learn. I would rather live authentically and say “I was wrong about that but now that I know better, I’m going to do better” than waste more precious time being wrong. Sometimes being wrong means that I hurt a lot of people with my choices and if I had the courage to dig deep and ask hard questions, even knowing I might not be ready for the answers, I could have saved those relationships, uplifted those people, and built something beautiful instead. I think I would rather risk being wrong. Being open and vulnerable is hard. But it’s a worthwhile undertaking, primarily because of the beautiful vibrant communities that are formed when we share our truth and find our people who accept us for who we are. Which is why we also have to be open in another way: authenticity. We all desire to be seen exactly as we are, but our desire for that doesn’t make it an easy thing to do. Yet, it’s one of the most prevalent aspects of existing in a community: acceptance of one another. When we have the courage to share our truth and be on the receiving end as others do the same, we get to be part of thriving communities where we grow together, grieve together, and share joy together. “Collective assembly” as defined by Gabriel, Valenti, Naragon-Galeny, and Young (2017) explains our need for belonging among a larger group than ourselves. Their study suggested that “that there is something unique and important about the propensity to feel connected to large, generally anonymous groups of people” (p. 1359). In their research, they found that overall people felt less loneliness and more sense of connection, when they feel like they are part of something, even in online and anonymous spaces. This looks a lot like some of the definitions of community that we addressed earlier. We want to believe that we fit into our world. They explained that people were seeking “synchronicity of behavior with others.” Per their research, this type of validation of one’s behavior as part of a greater social culture is an important part of our fundamental needs. We want to be part of something and feel that we matter. The challenge is that we can’t find these “me too” moments without practicing vulnerability and being able to share ourselves and our stories with the world. I love that sometimes our online world, so often accused of being a space for disconnection, is one of the spaces where that’s almost easier. As I shared in the previous chapter, sometimes it allows us the freedom to explore our authentic selves where we feel like the stakes are lower. The added

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benefit of this is the creation of community. Something about sharing experiences with another person makes it hard to hate them. Openness in online spaces looks like a lot of things. It means having the courage to interrogate our own choices and maybe question our “side” when it’s a little bit uncomfortable. It can mean engaging with someone who thinks differently than we do and asking questions about what they believe and then listening, really listening, even if it’s uncomfortable. It can mean moving beyond a few “likes” to have meaningful conversations and engage in real community that requires a little bit more vulnerability of us. It can mean allowing ourselves to be genuinely seen and not just in the best version of ourselves but letting people know us for who we truly are. One of the greatest mysteries of the internet, in my estimation, is why, when we have an endless internet of humanity available to us, so many of us still choose to use the internet primarily to tell people why they are wrong. We have an entire world of stories, ideas, and experiences sitting in our pocket if we only choose to listen to them. The choice not to be curious feels like the more surprising one. I first heard the quote “be curious, not judgmental” from Apple TV’s namesake character, Ted Lasso (Sudeikis, Lawrence and Hunt 2020), although it is said to have originated with Walt Whitman. Ted, the title character, is an American football coach from the United States who has recently moved across the pond to coach a Premier League soccer team in Richmond, England. He finds himself in a disagreement with the club’s former owner, Rupert, that the gentlemen decide to settle over a game of darts. After defeating him, Ted notes that Rupert was wrong in his assumption that Ted wasn’t good at darts; however, if he had only asked, he would have learned that Ted spent his childhood playing darts in pubs with his father. An important part of building community is being a student of other people, and it often strikes me as odd that this isn’t the choice the majority of us make. I think it comes down to fear. In a speech given at Cornell College, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shared the following: “I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other” (King 1958). At the core of what Ted, Walt, and Dr. King share is that we need to work to overcome our own dissonance. Confirmation bias ensures that we feel uncomfortable with new ideas and as a result, we become afraid of what we don’t know. Afraid that we are wrong. Afraid of what we will find. And in turn, our mind tells us that learning something new about someone or something may be a threat. Dissonance seems to be at the core of so many of our obstacles to connection. Fear of discomfort is the downfall of a lot of things.

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But what if we instead approached people and ideas with a healthy curiosity? What if we feared missing out on relationships and having informed perspectives much more than we fear being uncomfortable? What if we gave ourselves permission to say things like “I was wrong” and were willing to let go of the control that we think we have of our world? I think we would find that we are far better for it. When we belittle the things that matter to people in a way that makes them feel unseen, where we prioritize “winning” over truth, we sacrifice our connection with them. On the contrary, when we practice curiosity and participate in meaningful dialogue, we build spaces where relationships can flourish. We can bridge these divisions by giving people space to tell us their story. Our curiosity opens doors that all of the talking points in the world can’t. I’ve talked about invitational rhetoric at several points in this book but invitational rhetoric can only work if we genuinely respect and care about the other person, and they genuinely respect and care about us. What the authors of this theory seem to understand is that these methods work because when you step into someone’s world and story, you can’t help but be changed by them. We may not walk away agreeing on everything, but we can walk away having left our mark on one another and understanding each other a little bit better. Invitational rhetoric works because it forces us to see one another as valuable, important, and needed. It makes us a community. IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE #3: CHOOSE COMMUNITY My last piece of advice might be the most important: community is a choice. I’m asking you to choose it. I’ve tried to equip you with every piece of knowledge in my arsenal to explain why we make the choices we do and why we need community despite the fact that it is rarely the easiest choice. But understanding why we make the choices that do and doing the hard work to choose it are two different things. I understand that sometimes it’s harder to do this when it feels so fruitless. I may have shown you spaces where connection is happening, but I’ve also shown you places where it isn’t. I know the weight of those spaces well and they are often the loudest voices. Sometimes it feels like a fruitless battle. But it matters. It truly matters. The example we set when we choose to humanize, to be kind, and to exist in spaces with other people who need us just as much as we need them is world-changing. It starts with us. While it’s true that we no longer spend our days around the campfire handing down our stories and culture from person to person, our “campfire” expands across continents and allows us to connect with an entire globe of

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people. We get to grow and learn in entirely new ways and our world is bigger than it’s ever been. It would be unfortunate to waste it. We don’t just have the responsibility of seeing and hearing other people if we expect to be part of the conversation, we get the privilege of learning and growing from those around us. When I hear the dialogue that community no longer exists, there is some part of me that understands how someone might think that. There is a lot of cruelty, hatred, and anger. And I’m not sure these things aren’t the easier choice. Yet, I’ve had the privilege of being a scholar of online spaces throughout my career and I want to invite you all into this beautiful world that I’ve encountered. When I see strangers showing up for one another, encouraging one another, sharing their stories with one another, I feel hope. During my first encounter with YikYak so many years ago, I knew I was seeing something unique. This internet that I had been told to fear was facilitating beautiful moments of connection in ways that at least matched the face-to-face world, if not surpassed it. This wasn’t what I was told I would find there. There was a juxtaposition in the encouragement and kindness to the cruelty and divisiveness; it felt important at the time but it would take several more years of research for me to uncover what it was that I saw there. Did the internet make division easier because we had more outlets, more groupthink, more places to hide? Sure. I can’t argue with that. But I think it did the same for connection. We had more outlets, more people like us, and more places where we could feel safe to practice authenticity. It was never the internet. It was always us. And we always had a choice. I have been changed by my years of research on this topic, both participating myself and standing as an outsider. There were so many difficult moments, studying some of the cruelest depths of the internet and watching people spiral into dehumanizing and cruel behavior. But there were so many more beautiful ones. I saw people find their voice, uplift others, and build connection. These people made an important choice: community. I want to encourage you to do the same. If we’ve been led to believe that we don’t need community, that’s not the case. We were designed for community living and to need one another; sometimes it feels otherwise because the most temporarily satisfying route is often to choose otherwise. I’m asking you to choose something bigger and better and significantly more fulfilling: one another. Friends, don’t give up. Keep seeking connection. Keep seeing one another and choosing one another. We need community. We need one another.

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Index

accountability, 2, 17, 29 alt-right movement, 66 America Online (AOL), 24 Anderson, Tom, 25 anonymity: disinhibition effect and, 34; humanization and, 68–69; rise of sites offering, 27; taboo topics and, 77; using to overcome cognitive dissonance, 68; “World of Warcraft” and, 79; Yik Yak and, 1–2, 29 AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), 24–25 apathy, 43 authenticity: growing relationships through, 12; human desire for, 30; importance of, 94–95; invitational rhetoric and, 49; removal of prejudgments and, 34; removing consequences and, 79; social media and, 27, 28; taboo topics and, 77 beliefs: challenges to, 58–59; cognitive dissonance and, 36–37; holding onto, 40–41, 56, 61; personal, seeking validation of, 36, 38–39, 55, 56, 61; sharing, 38–39; understanding differences in, 68–69. See also cognitive dissonance; common enemy intimacy; confirmation bias; groupthink; knowledge

belonging, sense of: contributing to sense of community, 8, 57–58, 83, 86, 94; examples of, 72–76; Reddit and, 71–72 BeReal, 28, 83 bias, 32–33, 34, 41. See also confirmation bias; schema/ schemata, personal Bible, 17 Biles, Simone, 89–90 Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, 80–81 body image, social media and, 33–34 books, 7, 17, 20, 83 boundaries, setting, 9, 33, 36 “Bowling Alone” (Putnam, 2001), 20 brain, human: adapting to technology, 16, 18–19; confirmation bias and, 39; impact of over-stimulation on, 42; response to dehumanization, 89; schema and, 40–41 Braving the Wilderness (Brown, 2017), 64 Bridgegate, 58 bullying, online. See cyberbullying Burke, Tarana, 77–78 celebrities, dehumanization of, 89–90 chat rooms, 20, 21, 22, 24 105

106

Index

choices: communication and, 6–7, 34, 36; community and, 9, 72, 83, 85–86, 96–97; connections and, 10, 68–70, 86; digital footprint and, 23–24; in disagreements, 50; division and, 45 Christie, Chris, 58 civil discourse, avoidance of, 12 civility: in the American lyceum, 51, 70; in current politics, 53; in disagreements, 12; when sharing diverse perspectives, 82; in the written word, 17 cognitive dissonance: groupthink and, 56; invitational rhetoric and, 48; overcoming, 95–96; politics and, 54, 55; theory of, 36–39, 42; using anonymous spaces to overcome, 68. See also beliefs; confirmation bias cognitive flexibility, 41 collective assembly, 94 Collegefessions website, 79 Collins, Susan, 90 comfort zone, 3, 23, 86 common domain of interest, 8 common enemy intimacy, 64, 66, 93. See also hate communication: adapting to changes in, 19; choices in, 6–7, 34, 36; defined, 5; with goal of self-validation, 57; hyperpersonal, 23, 31–36, 72–76; impact of social media on, 28–29; mediums in, 28–29; nonverbal, 16, 33; before technology, 5–6. See also online communication community: choices in, 9, 72, 83, 85–86, 96–97; civil conversations and, 12; connection and, 7; COVID-19 and, 72–76; defining, 3, 7; examples in online spaces, 81–84; Facebook’s evolution to, 26; historical need for, 16, 51–52; importance of, 97; natural inclinations and, 38; in online spaces, 3, 57–58, 71–72, 94, 97; Reddit and, 8–9, 63–64, 71; rise of social

media and, 20; sense of, 8–9, 83, 86, 97; small, returning to, 83; through different mediums, 72–76; Yik Yak and, 2; compassion fatigue, 43 computers, development of, 20–21 confirmation bias: examples of, 62; groupthink and, 56; politics and, 55; Samantha Freedom story and, 66; theory of, 39–41, 95. See also beliefs; bias; cognitive dissonance; ideas conflict, 9, 12, 49–50, 55–56. See also disagreements, healthy connections: attempting to forge through common hatred, 64, 66, 93; balancing types of, 10–11; choices in, 10, 68–70, 86; components of, 32; considering the crisis of, 10; counterfeit, 64, 85, 93; defined, 5, 7; dehumanization as a barrier to, 87–88; depression and, 10, 13; disincentivized, 15, 20; emotional, 8, 83; examples of in online spaces, 81–84; hatred as a barrier to, 64; human desire for, 30; life events and, 10–11; linked to community, 7; by listening, 57, 88, 91, 92; new media and challenges from, 20–24; online spaces and, 21–22; sensationalism and misinformation and, 63–68; through different mediums, 72–76; user-led, 22 consciousness. See human consciousness consumerism, technology and, 18 continuous interaction, community and, 8–9 controversies, media and, 58–62 conversations: anonymity as a starting point for, 80–81; approaching in an invitational way, 47–48; avoiding through online spaces, 11, 95; civility and, 12; complex topics and, 62; online spaces and, 2, 21–22, 24, 71; pre-social media, 16; stronger

Index

relationships through, 88–89; time and space and, 33. See also invitational rhetoric; listening counterarguments, 92 counterfeit connection, 64, 85, 93 COVID-19, 59–60, 72–76 critical mass, 26 cult behavior, 93 culture: community and, 9, 16; entertainment-minded, 19; information literacy and, 43; of online spaces, 27, 35, 63, 72; presocial media, 15; rise of social media and, 19, 24; storytelling and, 17, 96–97 cyberbullying, 1, 29, 34, 63, 79 death threats, 59, 64–65, 90 debt ceiling, sensationalism over, 54 dehumanization: as a barrier to connection, 87–88; of celebrities, 89–90; online communication and, 23, 63–64; physical harm due to, 90; reducing sense of empathy, 89 depression, lack of connection and, 10, 13 dialogue. See discussion digital footprint, consequences in, 23–24 digital spaces. See online spaces disagreements, healthy, 49–50, 55. See also conflict discomfort: challenges to preexisting beliefs and, 36–37, 42–43, 48–50, 55–57, 67–68; complex topics and, 62; human tendency to avoid, 11, 86; importance of risking, 93–95; real connection and, 32 disconnection, feelings of: attempts to overcome, 15, 20, 32, 83–84; understanding reasons behind, 7–8, 10, 58 discourse, 12, 45 discussion. See communication; conversations

107

disinformation, 59, 61–62. See also fake news; information; misinformation disinhibition effect, 22–23, 34, 55, 80, 86–87 dissociative imagination, 23, 32 dissonance. See cognitive dissonance divisions, social, 5–6, 52–58, 61 Doctors Without Borders, Reddit donation to, 35 documents, power of, 17 eating disorders, social media and, 33–34 echo chamber. See under beliefs Edward, Kathleen, Reddit donation to, 35 email, 20, 22, 44 emotional connections, 8, 83 emotional support, sense of community and, 9 empathy, 10, 43, 78, 89 enemies. See common enemy intimacy entertainment, innovations in, 19 Evropa, 66–67 Facebook, 25–26, 28–29, 82 FaceMash, 25 face-to-face interactions, 9, 21–22, 23, 33 fake news, 58–62. See also disinformation fear: cognitive dissonance feeding into, 54; confirmation bias and, 62; creating hate, 95; disassociation and, 23; of discomfort, 95–96; groupthink and, 67; of losing community for disagreeing, 93–94 fearmongering, 52–53, 61 feelings. See emotional connections; valued, feeling Fields, James Alex, 65 filters, social media, 27, 28, 33 1st Amendment rights, 60 Flickr, PIPA/SOPA legislation opposition by, 60–61

108

Index

4Chan, 27 friendships, making/establishing, 11. See also relationships Friendster, 25 Gadirova, Jennifer and Jessica, 75 Google, 27, 60–61 groupthink, 55–56, 65, 67, 69, 93. See also beliefs; ideas Hammersley, Hazel, Reddit donation to, 35 Harnsberger, Dan, 67 hashtags, 26, 29, 77–78 hate: as a barrier to community, 58, 63–64, 86; compared to cult behavior, 93; humanization and, 57, 90–91, 95. See also common enemy intimacy hate speech, 80, 89 heard, feeling. See valued, feeling helplessness, feelings of, 7–8, 42–43 Heyer, Heather, 65 history, shared, 8, 9, 83. See also human experience, shared home, emphasis on, 19, 20 “Hot or Not” website, 25 House of M comic series, 76 Huffman, Steve, 27 Hughes, Chris, 25 human consciousness, changes to, 15, 18, 42 human experience, shared, 77–81, 83. See also history, shared humanization/humanizing: in anonymous communities, 68–69; choosing, 72, 96; in dialogue, 57; importance of, 86–91; Phelps-Roper example of, 69–70; Reddit and, 63 hyperpersonal communication, 23, 31–36, 72–76 ideas: changes in communication of, 28–29; exploring after social construct removal, 23, 35; new,

cognitive dissonance and, 36–37, 42; openly expressing, 9, 56, 92; reactions to opposing, 12, 38–39, 48, 55, 70, 90; respecting other, 49–50, 57, 96; seeking validation of, 41, 61. See also confirmation bias; groupthink; information; knowledge identification by the group, 83 identity, 9, 35 individualism, media and, 19 influence, in feeling a sense of community, 8 influencers, social media, 24, 27, 33 information: becoming talking points, 62; challenging, response to, 36–41, 48–50, 55–56, 58; Facebook community pages for, 82; gaps in, 19, 23, 32; online channels of, 74; sharing, 9. See also disinformation; ideas; misinformation information literacy, 18–19, 43–44 information overload, 18, 42–45 InfoWars, 59 innovation, 6–7, 10, 15–20, 27, 30. See also inventions Instagram, 26, 27, 29 instant messaging, rise of, 22, 24 interactions, face-to-face. See face-toface interactions internet, 6, 7, 24, 29–30, 72 interpersonal/intrapersonal communication, 35 inventions. See innovation invitational rhetoric, 45–50, 91, 96. See also conversations isolation, COVID and, 73 James, Beau, 67 Jayapal, Pramila, 90 The Joe Rogan Experience, 59–60 Jones, Alex, 59 Karim, Jawed, 27 Kelly, Bridget, 58

Index

Kelly v. the United States (May 2020), 58 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 95 knowledge: books and, 17; filling gaps in, 19, 23, 32; handed down verbally, 16; informational rhetoric and, 49; shaped by schema, 40–41; technology and, 24. See also beliefs; ideas language, evolution of, 16 language, used in online spaces, 63 Lee, Sunisa, 89–90 LGBTQIA+ community online spaces, 2, 62, 80 liability, freedom of speech and, 60 likemindedness. See confirmation bias listening, importance of, 57, 88, 91, 92. See also conversations “A Little Bit Culty” podcast, 66 loneliness, 10, 13 Luther, Martin, 17 lyceums, 51 McCollum, Andrew, 25 “Me at the Zoo” (2005), 26–27 media, 18, 19, 20–24, 28–29. See also social media Melnikova, Angelina, 75 memes, 29, 46, 47–48 “me too” moments. See vulnerability Me Too movement, 77–78 misinformation, 59–60, 63. See also disinformation; information misunderstandings, 5–6, 29 Moskovitz, Dustin, 25 Mozilla, PIPA/SOPA legislation opposition by, 60–61 MySpace, 25 needs, fulfillment of: authenticity and, 28; basic, 6; in feeling a sense of community, 8, 83; technological advances and, 18–20, 26, 28–29 Netscape, 72

109

new media theory (1995), 19 news, rise of sensationalism in, 52–53 nonverbal communication, 16, 33 numbing, 36, 37, 42, 43 NXIVM cult, 38, 56 Ohanian, Alexis, 27, 35, 61 online communication: changing consciousness and, 18; compared to face-to-face, 33; dehumanization and, 23, 63–64; digital footprint and, 23; permanency in, 23–24; removal of bias and stereotypes during, 34. See also communication online spaces: advantages of connections in, 21–22; community in, 3, 57–58, 71–72, 97; openness and, 95; rise of, 20–21 openness in sharing, 92–96 The Organized Mind (Levitin, 2015), 42 oversharing, concerns about, 27 paging devices, rise of, 22 pandemic, crisis of connection and, 10 Papworth, Neil, 22 Pelosi, Nancy and Paul, threats to, 90 Phelps, Fred, 69–70 Phelps-Roper, Megan, 69–70, 91 Piesse, Bonnie, 38 politics: alt-right and, 66; categorization of people by, 52; climate of and listening, 92; cognitive dissonance and, 37; communities forged on mutual hate in, 93; divisions and, 52–58; Facebook and, 26; invitational rhetoric and, 47–48; memes and, 29 Poole, Christopher, 27 Port Authority of New Jersey, 58 PostSecret app, 79 pre-literary society, 15–16 “The Progressive Liberal,” 67 PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), 60 “Proust and the Squid” (Wolf, 2008), 16

110

Index

racial slurs, 59–60 racism, 66 Reddit: college confession subreddits, 79; community in, 8–9, 63–64, 71; disinhibition effect and, 34–36; escalation of dehumanizing behavior in user history, 65; language and culture comparison, 63–65; PIPA/ SOPA legislation opposition, 60–61; rise of, 27 relationships, making/establishing, 7, 11–12, 32 Rogan, Joe, 59–60, 62 role-playing games, authenticity and, 79–80 Rubio, Marco, 61 safety, social media and, 27 “Samantha Freedom” story, 66–67 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 59 Saverin, Eduardo, 25 schema/schemata, personal, 40–41. See also bias The Second Media Age (Poster, 1995), 34 seen, feeling. See valued, feeling self-actualization, media and, 19 self-determination, 46–47. See also valued, feeling self-discovery, role-playing and, 80 self-exploration, media and, 19, 34 self-image, 27 self-sustaining part of society, social media as, 26 sensationalism, 52–53, 58–62, 63 sense of belonging. See belonging, sense of sense of community. See community sexual violence/harassment, 78 shared history. See history, shared shared human experience. See human experience, shared sharing, disinhibition effect and, 34 SixDegrees (Weinrich), 25

Smith, Jaylin, 90 Snapchat, 26 social constructs, removal of online, 23 social media, 20–24, 54, 55. See also media; technological advances social norms, 25 Spotify, 59–60 status updates, 26 stereotypes, online communication removal of, 34 Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), 60 storytelling, 15–20, 63, 83 subreddit. See Reddit suicide, 2, 10, 11, 13 taboo topics, anonymity and, 77 talking points, 46, 62, 91 technological advances, 20–21, 32. See also social media Ted Lasso (Apple TV), 95 text messaging, rise of, 22, 24 TikTok, 26, 27, 29 time and space, hyperpersonal world and, 22, 33 tools. See innovation trolling, disinhibition effect and, 34 trust, crisis of connection and, 10 truth, 58–59 Tumblr, 27 Twitch, 83 Twitter, 26, 28–29, 69–70, 83 2-4-6 Problem, 39–40 Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church (Phelps-Roper, 2017), 69–70 unheard, feeling. See valued, feeling Unite the Right rally, 65 uses and gratifications theory, 18 valued, feeling, 7, 45–49, 73, 83, 85, 88. See also self-determination Vanguard America rally, 65, 66–67 veterans, Yik Yak and, 2 Vicente, Mark, 38

Index

viral content, 24 virtually constructed identity, 9 The Vow (HBO, 2020), 38, 56 vulnerability: accountability and, 2; anonymity and, 68–69; disinhibition effect and, 34; “me too” moments, 34, 39, 57, 63, 87, 94–95; online communities and, 3, 9, 57–58; practicing, 92–96; Reddit and, 63; sense of community and, 83; taboo topics and, 77 Wandavision (2021), 75–76 Warren, Frank, 78–79

Weinrich, Andrew, 25 Westboro Baptist Church, 69, 91 Whisper app, 78–79 white supremacy groups, 66–67 Wikipedia, PIPA/SOPA legislation opposition by, 60–61 World of Warcraft study, 79–80 Yik Yak, 1–2, 27, 80–81, 97 YouTube, 26–27 Zoom, 73 Zuckerberg, Mark, 25

111

About the Author

Dr. Brooke Dunbar-Treadwell is a Senior Lecturer of English at Messiah University where she also serves as the Director of Writing. Additionally, she serves as Director of Communication and Marketing at Peace Promise, a nonprofit organization supporting women victimized by trafficking and sexual exploitation. Her years of research in online social communities focuses primarily on anonymous social media and digital rhetoric. Her publications include a series of articles regarding the early Naperville Lyceum, a juxtaposition to our current online political rhetoric “Religious and Moral Impact of the Naperville Lyceum,” “Educating and Debating Social and Political Issues in the Naperville Lyceum,” and a book chapter that offers an analysis of the rhetoric of memes, “The Memes of Take-a-Knee: A Case Study of Power Structures in Social Media Use.” Her work has also been presented at numerous regional and national conferences.

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