Margaux Kelly
Being onlinecan provide a sense of solace and community in the face of offline discrimination. For many, especially the marginalized, the internet is their “third place.” The concept of the “third place” refers to a special place that harbors community and facilitates broader interaction outside of the home (the “first place”) and work (the “second place”). In this way, social media can be a virtual third place for people who are marginalized in society because it allows them to expand their interactions over time and space to connect with others who have similar identities or interests. Social media has helped the marginalized form virtual communities that have, in turn, widely influenced online culture.
An article that talks about marginalized communities online is Apryl Williams’ “On Thursdays we watch Scandal: Communal viewing and Black Twitter,” which contextualizes Black Twitter as a community. Williams analyzes the tweets of several thousand users who are part of Black Twitter and then follows up with in-person interviews. She argues that Black Twitter uses Twitter for class portrayal, identity formation, resistance, meaningful discourse, refuge, and challenging outsider perceptions of Blackness. She claims that although Twitter was not created for Black people, they have adopted and appropriated the platform to the point where Twitter is dominated by Black users and saturated in Black community. Twitter’s Black community carved out a distinct space to unapologetically be themselves in a way they may not be able to in their physical community, creating their own virtual community. By analyzing Black Twitter’s communal viewing of the show Scandal, Williams exhibits the social cohesion of the online Black community.
A strength of Williams’ article was the in-person interviews, where she asked people about their thoughts on Black Twitter. One interview invited a discussion about the use of the n-word, which is an example of some of the coded language that Black Twitter uses to maintain the social boundaries of their community. Another example of coded language is African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is a variety of English that is natively spoken by the Black community. However, AAVE has begun to be appropriated by non-Black people because of its widespread use on the internet. Specifically, there has been debate whether certain phrases or words are AAVE or Gen Z slang, which is the vocabulary of the first generation that grew up on the internet. The mainstream online use of AAVE shows that the Black community’s influence on social media cannot be denied.
Another article that tackles the presence of marginalized communities on social media is Benjamin Haber’s “Queer Facebook? Digital sociality and queer theory,” which investigates queer influence on Facebook’s platform. However, I think a shortcoming of this article was the lack of discussion about how queer people use social media, rather than only discussing the queerness of Facebook’s digital architecture. Haber argues that although Facebook is not seen as particularly queer, core queer ideas of social life and connection have been embedded into the technical structure of the site. The queer notion of the importance of non-familial community is the basis of Facebook’s platform; it crosses space by connecting us with people who are outside of our immediate physical community and crosses time by allowing us to interact with others whenever we want. Social media provides access to larger communities outside of the nuclear family, which has affected the nature of community and identity. Marginalized people can be part of their respective communities on a larger scale and can have a means to explore their identities. Haber further argues that queerness is essential to Facebook’s business model, as the queer desire for witness, display, and disclosure in public is seen in the way that people post online, whether that be updates about their lives or speaking on issues that matter to them. Even though queerness seems to make up the backbone of Facebook and other social media sites, these platforms are not usually thought to be queer.
Reading these two articles together highlights something interesting about the presence and influence of different marginalized communities on social media. Both Black and queer people were early adopters of social media for its ability to build broader communities, and thus, their influence can be seen in the way that social media exists today. Not only are marginalized people behind the way that social media functions, but Black people and queer people are the most common users and continue to influence social media in the way they use the platforms. For example, Black Twitter’s weekly co-viewing of Scandal reflects a popular use of Twitter to communally watch shows and comment on them. Black social media has even changed the way that people speak on social media by popularizing the use of AAVE in the mainstream, with people who are not part of the Black community adopting AAVE phrases or words. Similarly, words or phrases created by the queer community have become popularized and are now widely used. Social media provides a place for marginalized people to explore and establish their identities, while also exposing those identities to the public for the possibility of appropriation.
These articles imply that the marginalized culture informs and influences the dominant culture in online spaces. Marginalized groups like the Black and queer communities are the foundation and often the trendsetters of social media, and the dominant culture seems to follow in their footsteps. This seems to be true in other avenues of life, such as music, fashion, pop culture, and politics. It is important to recognize that the cultures of the marginalized are the foundation of our modern society because their influence is often denied, appropriated, or ignored. Therefore, I think that people who are interested in the influence of marginalized communities on not just social media, but on culture as a whole, may want to read these articles.