DO YOU EVER NOTICE THAT

THE INTERNET VIBE HAS

CHANGED?
DO YOU EVER NOTICE THAT
THE INTERNET VIBE HAS CHANGED?

Why is everyone so angry online?

Where is this anger leading us to?

Cara, project 2 prospectus

ANGERTAINMENT
 Structure Overview
What
• Normal phenomenon
Observing Anger as …
• Angertainment
INTERNET ANGER

Why
• Distant + Anonymous • Engagement & Manipulation
Attributing Anger to … • Misinformation • Polarized Resistance
• Internet Culture • Authorities’ Social Control

Where • Cyberbully & Gossip bully

Understanding Anger as … • Xenophobia & Hatred
• Social Control

How
Solving Anger through… • To be discovered……
These emotions are so loud. Why?

Distant Others Misinformation Internet Culture

&
Anonymous Self Misunderstanding “more conflicts
more likes”

Social Media Polarized

Engagement Authorities’
Resistance to
& Social Control
Manipulation “grey areas”
Social Media Engagement & Manipulation

Dive deeper… the mechanism of irritation

Dive deeper… the mechanism of irritation

ECHO CHAMBER:
Only likes and agreements
are visible

Image [6], Echo Chamber illustrations

https://theswaddle.com/social-media-echo-chamber-effect/
 Dive deeper… the mechanism of irritation

SOCIAL MEDIA PRISM:

Filtering everything into
smaller different categories

Image [7], Glass Prism

https://www.britannica.com/science/color
Social media aggravates polarization
Social media aggravates polarization
Social media aggravates people to deny “grey areas”

→ Go extreme ( finding a pure color)

→ Build a community with same colors

→ Hate every different color

→ Fail to accept the intermediate colors

Social Media Polarized
Engagement
Resistance to
&
Manipulation “grey areas”
Extremes Resist Complication

Image [9], J.K. Rowling Twitter post, 09/29/2022 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/157551227

Image [8], Aespa Twitter post, 10/06/2022 https://twitter.com/aespa_official/status/ s=46&t=1nz4_btlYR6qQniMjWY4Ig
1578158829266563073?s=46&t=1nz4_btlYR6qQniMjWY4Ig
Image [10], @callmenapkins, 09/16/2020 https://twitter.com/callmenapkins/status/1306394601
 Structure Overview
What
• Normal phenomenon
Observing Anger as …
• Angertainment
INTERNET ANGER

Why
• Distant + Anonymous • Engagement & Manipulation
Attributing Anger to … • Misinformation • Polarized Resistance
• Internet Culture • Authorities’ Social Control

Where • Cyberbully & Gossip bully

Understanding Anger as … • Xenophobia & Hatred
• Social Control

How
Solving Anger through… • To be discovered……
Consequences ——Where are we going?

Cyberbully & Gossip bully

People leave aggressive comments; lit the controversy

Xenophobia
People hate different others; intensify the conflicts

Social Control
Gossip Bully is actually a form of social control, as well as Xenophobia
 Structure Overview
What
• Normal phenomenon
Observing Anger as …
• Angertainment
INTERNET ANGER

Why
• Distant + Anonymous • Engagement & Manipulation
Attributing Anger to … • Misinformation • Polarized Resistance
• Internet Culture • Authorities’ Social Control

Where • Cyberbully & Gossip bully

Understanding Anger as … • Xenophobia & Hatred
• Social Control

How
Solving Anger through… • To be discovered……
Structure Overview

Why • Engagement & Manipulation

• Polarized Resistance
Attributing Anger to …
• Authorities’ Social Control

Where • Cyberbully & Gossip bully

Understanding Anger as … • Xenophobia & Hatred

• Social Control
Social Control is
both a cause and a consequence

The authorities apply the social control to irritate others to…

distract people from caring about the focus

Cyberbully, Gossip bully, and Xenophobia can alway lit the anger, thus can…
Social Control is
both a cause and a consequence

Anger and
Social control
bully makes it
deliberately
a good fit for
irritates people
social control
We need to know that social media/internet
didn’t invent polarization.

It has already existed for years and years.

Anger and xenophobia as a form of

social control has already existed for
years and years, too.

Image [11], Silence = Death Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence%3DDeath_Project
 AIDS
&
HOMOPHOBIA

Image [11], Silence = Death Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence%3DDeath_Project
The Last Puzzle ……
Any solutions?
Can we break them down?
Future research directions?

Internet
Distan Anonym
Culture

ce ous

Authorities Business’s
Misinform Social engageme
ation control nt”

Works Cited
Xanthopoulos, Alicia Preston. “Preston Xanthopoulos: Nothing Entertaining about 'Angertainment.' It's
Destructive.” Portsmouth Herald, Portsmouth Herald, 2 Oct. 2022, https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/
opinion/columns/2022/10/02/preston-xanthopoulos-nothing-entertaining-angertainment/8127359001/. 

Christine C. Kieffer Ph.D. ABPP (2013) Rumors And Gossip As Forms Of Bullying: Sticks And Stones?,
Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 33:2, 90-104, DOI: 10.1080/07351690.2013.764697

Saifuddin Ahmed, Vivian Hsueh Hua Chen, Arul Indrasen Chib, Xenophobia in the Time of a Pandemic: Social Media
Use, Stereotypes, and Prejudice against Immigrants during the COVID-19 Crisis, International Journal of Public
Opinion Research, Volume 33, Issue 3, Autumn 2021, Pages 637–653, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edab014

Bail, Christopher. Breaking the Social Media Prism : How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2021. Print.

Sheldon, Pavica, Philipp A. Rauschnabel, and James M. Honeycutt. The Dark Side of Social Media : Psychological,
Managerial, and Societal Perspectives. London ;: Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier, 2019. Print.

Shapiro, Ari, et al. “How the Polarizing Effect of Social Media Is Speeding Up.” NPR, NPR, 9 Sept. 2022, https://
www.npr.org/2022/09/09/1121295499/facebook-twitter-youtube-instagram-tiktok-social-media. 
List of images used
Image[1-5] resources: screenshots of the headlines in Google News.

Image [6], Echo Chamber illustrations https://theswaddle.com/social-media-echo-chamber-effect/ Saifuddin

Image [7], Glass Prism https://www.britannica.com/science/color

Image [8], Aespa Twitter post, 10/06/2022 https://twitter.com/aespa_official/status/1578158829266563073?

s=46&t=1nz4_btlYR6qQniMjWY4Ig

Image [9], J.K. Rowling Twitter post, 09/29/2022 https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1575512277872250890?

s=46&t=1nz4_btlYR6qQniMjWY4Ig

Image [10], @callmenapkins, 09/16/2020 https://twitter.com/callmenapkins/status/1306394601821880320?

s=46&t=1nz4_btlYR6qQniMjWY4Ig

Image [11], Silence = Death Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence%3DDeath_Project